Little Victories Are The Fountain of Youth

I know I am old, and I know that I am so far behind when it comes to technology that, if I look at my hands really hard, they take on the appearance of dinosaur claws.

So when I sally forth into the world of electronics beyond my four-year-old laptops and my crappy Century-link internet connection, and I actually slay that dragon, I feel pretty damn good.  I feel a little bit less like the relic I am.

A couple of days ago, I ventured into the world of the iPad.  The only other Apple product I have ever owned is my itty-bitty iPod Shuffle.  And I distinctly remember going through the tortures of the damned trying to get that thing to actually accept music and then play it back to me.  I got the hang of it eventually, but the experience served to make me more than a little reluctant  to climb out the Bill Gates window and try my hand at anything too far outside of it.

And yet, here I am...clicking out a blog entry on my iPad with its bluetooth keyboard.  This successful foray into "new" technology so emboldened me that, this afternoon, I tried my hand at installing a wireless router.  

Oh, yes...the thing comes with a dvd that supposedly gives step-by-step instructions that any idiot can follow.  However, I--not being your run-of-the-mill idiot--could not make sense of the instructions past about step 3.  In the end, what worked for me was to stare at and study the three pieces of equipment I had before me--router, modem and computer tower--and the two wires that were somehow supposed to magically make them speak to each other, and proceed to connect them together in every WRONG combination possible.  Why something didn't flame out, freeze up or reach out and slap me upside the head, I have no idea.

Finally, I arrived at the last possible combination--the last thing I could conceivably try (short of putting the whole assembly in a brown bag, swinging it over my head and screaming like a chicken...) before the dreaded call to the guy who cheerfully says, "Hello, my name is Bob," but you know you're really talking to Rajeed and American English is not his first language...  I have SO been to that hell, and would do just about anything not to go there again.

Wonder of wonders, that last combination proved to be the magic assembly that made the components speak to each other in a language the gods of the ether could understand.  And, presto chango! I have wi-fi internet at my sister's house in Eugene.

Once again...

Victory is mine!