A series of fortunate events

One of the real horrorshows in life is arriving home after an extended trip and finding something
you might depend on has failed somehow while you were gone. This one isn't as bad as an extended power outage leaving everything in your freezer melted and all your fish who depended on aeration dead, but almost as irritating.

After a couple of days at the East Pole and twice over a seven-mile trail in muddy water over my boot tops and endless deep puddles, some more than 100 feet long, I arrived home exhausted, muddy, hungry and tired. I managed to get the wet stuff into the house and leftover foods into the refrigerator, my muddy clothing right down to the socks into the washer and then flopped on the bed without even a shower.

I just wanted to relax and recuperate for a while and I turned on the computer to see what I had missed while I was gone. My wi fi didn't work. Every attempt to connect with something came up "you are not connected to the internet." All the signals were right, the proper lights on the modem, the green light on the router and the indicator on the computer showing it was connected, but nothing would load. I turned off and turned on, unplugged and replugged, went through preferences, and diagnostics but through it all nothing would get the computer to give me access to facebook, let alone my financial accounts.

So I just shut it off and laid there for a bit watching nothing I cared about on television, after all, Netflix had two new seasons of Shameless ready for me and I couldn't get at them.

In time my wandering mind hit on a solution and there began an incredible chain of technological and mechanical successes of almost unbelievable proportions.

First, there was the ethernet connection I could make directly from the modem to the computer. Bingo Bango, helllllloooo Shameless. I also noticed the connection ran considerably faster and with less lag between keyboard input and results. Online and ready to boogie.

The fact that iPhone, iPad and Apple watch wouldn't connect came to mind only later. For the time being the day had been saved.

The next day passed uneventfully until mid-afternoon. So proud of the handling of the problem, it seemed like a good time to try another one. Ever since an installation of an operating system upgrade, one of my email accounts had been inaccessible. I messed with it a little and then called the provider's technical assistance. I had finally figured my problem was with an errant password, but I couldn't figure out what. Five minutes on the phone and we had it fixed. Super now all those accounts worked. Still no connection to the other devices, but I thought fooling with that stuff could only bring more frustration than I needed.

There was that plus I really liked the faster smoother operation with ethernet. The next day I started looking at the back panels of the components. Voila! On the back of the router there are three ethernet ports. One was occupied with the printer but two held nothing. Sooo, I found by unplugging the ethernet wire to the computer from the back of the modem which then could be connected to the router, then I could run the ethernet out of the router to the computer and maybe have both wi-fi AND ethernet. Long story short, it worked. Now I have smooth fast ethernet to the desktop and wi-fi for the phones and pads and the like. Awesomesauce.

I felt quite confident. Confident enough even to tackle the big one that has been a pain for a week. On this new snowmachine I had been looking through it just for familiarization and learned there was no easy access to the top of the engine – to do things like change spark plugs. I couldn't even see spark plugs. I didn't get far but I had gained enough humility to expose my mechanical ignorance to the dealer and ask how to do that. Another five minute phone call. (Incidentally it is not an easy task. There a lot more fancy electronic connections on this new machine than I have ever seen before, but I did learn how to get at the spark plugs.)

So, with connectivity better than I've ever had before, all my email accounts working and a new snowmachine I am much more comfortable with, it's time to put my feet up, perhaps a glass of wine and who knows, maybe a playlist tonight. And, oh yeah, think snow. And, too, be thankful nothing melted in the fridge.