What A Week!
I spent two days at mothers trying to get her hooked up to dsl. We got her on att/sbc and I swear when att gets involved there is bound to be trouble.
Mom still thought she was on gbr, great barrier reef, because she hadn't gotten a bill. She didn't remember that gbr had handed us off to peoplepc which is the armpit server of the world and she only paid once a year. She didn't remember me going over and spending the day putting on peoplepc and showing her where everything was. It was taking her hours to get on and then she couldn't navigate very well. I was thinking it was more her age but then got to thinking it was taking her so long just to get hooked up she just lost interest. She uses the internet for games and email and she would chat with family members some. So I decided if I got her on dsl it might spark her interest again. She will soon be 83 and has lost interest in most things but the tv.
This is the good part. I walk in over there and great grandma is watching MTV! She is a hoot!
So I went in and got busy. Before I could get things hooked up I discovered the only phone jack she has is in the hall. Her house was built in the early 50's and my dad, bless him as he got older, before he passed away, had a tendency to do these amusing little rig jobs with phone jacks and extension cords. So things had to be rearranged to accomodate the dsl cords. When I got to shoving big giant furniture around I discovered dust has become her best friend. We usually go straight to the kitchen so I hadn't noticed that she hadn't been cleaning. She has always been very clean, not neat, but clean. I understand this because dust is quickly becoming my best friend. I discovered if I don't wear my glasses, I don't see it. But she had dust bunnies that had become giant attack bunnies so we had to do the dusting thing.
That took awhile and then I discovered that if you have an older computer...say anything less than...an xp, that the cord you plug into your computer port won't fit. Now what is wrong with att/sbc? Most people I know have older computers. They give you all these rebates and a pretty good deal but by the time you have signed up and go get the things you need to hook everything up you have spent a fortune.
So that called for a car ride to Best Buy to get a new port which entailed getting out in this heat and fighting traffic. By this time I had spent most of the day cleaning and moving things. Moms doesn't move much and gets cold so I was sweating like a pig, with hot flashes because she turns the air off in the am and usually keeps it set on 85. I finally asked her to turn down the air and she is always good to go get a sweater or blanket and comply. I decided to wait until the next day and go straight to get the port she needed.
Best Buy is the closest, where I can get any help at all. I gave up on Circuit City. But that is another story. MrP refuses to go to Best Buy because they asked him if he wanted a free magazine at checkout and he said yes. So they signed him up for a subscription that took him a month to get out of. He was livid. Silly man, no one gets anything for free. He thought free actually meant free. He had them all on the carpet. The assist. manager, manager, and for awhile they stopped doing that. Then the other day I noticed they started again. I told MrP I knew where he could get a free magazine. lol
Oggie had to do this getting a port thing, so she said it was a blue box and described it, said it was easy to put in. So I went and got the port that said it was good for Windows ME, which is what moms has and was in a blue box.
I went back fighting idiot drivers who pause at stop signs and stop at yield signs or don't stop or pause at all. Got the tower apart and got my screwdriver. Moms brought me the whole drawerful. Got it in and one of the lights wasn't green. My hookup at home was totally different and her dsl is different. So I never noticed the light at the very bottom that wasn't green at all. But I couldn't get the disk to load or the computer to recognize the hardware. But that doesn't stop me. NO NO NO. I tried to set up everything manually.
All the while continuing to dust things. Finally I got on with her dial up and got an online tech. HA!!!! Did I ever tell you what a laugh that was? Took me forty minutes to get the verbage box up, get a tech, get the hardware and computer identified only for him to tell me he couldn't help me! WHAAAA? But at least I did get a number.
All I wanted to know is if the light should be yellow or green. I took another 4o minutes with a phone tech after "pressing button hell", with her getting the name on the acct. the number, blah blah blah just to find out if the light is supposed to be green or yellow. GREEN, it's supposed to be GREEN dammit! I said that is all I wanted to know, I must have the WRONG PORT! This is when I discovered there was a third light that had to be green as well.
Oggie said blue box...ahhhhh there is more than one blue box. You know women go by colors of boxes. It wasn't until after this I thought to ask what brand it was.
I went back to Best Buy, fighting the idiot drivers looking for school supplies and zig zagging through two sets of road construction to exchange ports. I had the DX, I needed the Linksys which doesn't say it is ME compatible on the front. You have to read the back of the box where the fine print is. Does that strike you as strange? It doesn't say one word about being ME compatible on the front? So with my new little other blue box in hand I get back in the car which by this time of day has become a tinderbox of 220 degrees inside in a matter of 20 minutes. I am meltiiiiing. I felt like the wicked witch of the west and probably looked like her.
I get back, take the tower cover off again, exchange ports and get the CD driver to read the disk for the port manually, and then for att/sbc, again manually. Oh, no, I see another part to replace in my future. The CD is making strange noises. Moms said it always sounded like that. How would she know? She still had the disk for peoplepc from a year ago sitting in there. I set it up last year and told her to take it out when it had fully downloaded. Oops!
Guess what? At 7:30 pm-Houston We Have Lift Off!!!! Insert lots of cheering here. She said, I don't know why but I am really tired. I think I will wait until tomorrow to get online. Hahahahahahaha!
She has this itch on her arms and the doc and I think it is nerves. It gets worse when the "Cat Lady", from across the street comes to her house to visit. I ran out and made her go, just to get out of the house, to get her a bite to eat. By the time we got home she was itching all over. I guess it isn't just the "Cat Lady" that makes her nervous. My job here is done.
We went out of town this week too to check on one of the out of town jobs. It was literally 105 in the shade. Forecast for the next seven days. 105 105 105 105 105 105 105
