Technologically Challenged

who would have thought it?

What's the deal? Here I am, a technologist, a strategist, a great problem solver. But today and recently, I have run into a string of weird happenings with technology and my gadgets. You know, the normal gadgets that everyone has: palm, cell phone, dvd/vcr, computers, printers, stereo. But here's my problem. First my stereo quit working only when the cd player is playing. The speakers work all the rest of the time, but when the cd player is playing, no sound comes out. So, I will have to trace the problem there.

A short time back, our desktop computer just quit working. My son used to download music back in the "Napster" Days, I swear someone put some sort of worm or something on our machine, because as soon as we deleted all of the downloads and the program, the computer started working and stablized. The only issue that I'm having now is getting it to see the Internet. I didn't have too much luck last week, but then went down and it was connected. I downloaded the anti-virus, firewall, spam software offered by my cable company and I logged into my email. Everything worked no problems, then on reboot, no Internet, wouldn't recognize that it was connected. So, I wasted time working on it again. I'll have to check it out tomorrow, but it is VERY frustrating.

I woke up this morning to do a little work and check that my team had some assets that were due from a client today. I logged on and couldn't get on the internet on that laptop! AAAAAAUUUUGGHH! I know it's something with the ipconfig, I checked and there was not an IP address. So, I decided to even try our dial up service for work and I couldn't even log into on a dial up. UNREAL!! No matter what I did, nothing. So I actually had to go into the office tonight to log in, synch my email and come home and read it. Tomorrow, I will go into the office and have those guys fix it before the long break.

Then just before I was going to leave today, I was talking on my cell phone. It was working just fine all day long, then all of a sudden no one could hear me talking. But I didn't have it on mute. Then a little later, I was talking to my daughter and when I hung up, it totally weirded out and gave an error: DOWNLOADING MODE, then after it tried that, the next error it gave was: SRCHDRV__C. That's when I knew that it was DEAD!! All my phone numbers gone, all my history. Yikes! The good thing was that they were out of the Samsung model that I had and upgraded me for $12! Now I have a camera/video phone for the same cost - so that's very cool!

It's just very strange that it would all happen at once. It makes me feel TECHNOLOGICALLY CHALLENGED, even frustrated, but fortunate that at least it's all fixable. Just not by me!

Oh yeah, remember a couple of months back when I told you about a friend of mine who got pulled over? Well, she called today to let me know that her attorney is really hopeful. They go to court tomorrow, will take an expert witness that will testify that they had no reason to pull her over. Then the tape showed that there was nothing obviously wrong with her, she pulled over nicely, didn't swerve, didn't topple when she got out of the car. And the office didn't administer the field sobriety test correctly. Well, I will be seeing her tomorrow after court, so I'll update the saga. I just wish that it would have never happened, as I know she is, but everything happens for a reason, hopefully the reason was to teach all of us a lesson. Well, lesson learned, and I would love for her to get off or at least lowered charges. I'll let you know tomorrow!!

With Christmas only a few days away, I had to get my shopping done, or at least almost done today. So, I went shopping with the kids today - we had a great time out together. Shopping for some of our friends, for each other, picking out the PERFECT gift for everyone. Tomorrow, I have to get a few more things, and then I get to wrap more presents!! It will be fun and I have a few good ideas out there to still pick up. I have spent the usual amount, I think. About a week's pay. I think that's really good considering it covers 2 birthdays and 18 or so people (just the family is 10!). And the gifts are pretty nice. I hope everyone likes what they get. We also adopted a family, the kids wanted clothes, so we bought some nice clothes for them - all boys. The mom wanted some nice cologne, so we got her Tommy Girl. I hope that se will like it. It's just so great to give!!

Well, Merry Christmas almost!! I'll finish shopping tomorrow, get the ham for dinner and get everything all set up for our party on Friday night! Rainman's birthday and Christmas eve!! I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS!!