It was Monday when I headed up to the room that I call my office. To be perfectly transparent, it is also the place where I store things that are in the process of going somewhere else. I really have no choice in this. Over the years I’ve managed to convince the other people who live in this house that the dining room table is for dining, the living room is for living and reading and a place where cats can find a soft bed. The family room is not the place to accumulate stuff that has no home. My daughter’s bedroom is off limits to anything but being a bedroom with beautiful quilts and coverlets and a lovely bird’s eye maple Art Nouveau dresser and desk.
So, the bedroom which once belonged to my son, an eight-by-12 room with built in desk and bed is now quartermaster central with stacks of sweaters to be washed and put away, two good shoe boxes that must be good for something, 20 seductive recipes that I’ve printed out from various websites, assorted pieces of clothing destined to be donated – I am sure you know the drill. I store wrapping paper in the niche next to the file cabinet, ribbons, etc. in one of the closets, art supplies in another and a lifetime of photos that need to be scanned in and put on one of those thumb drives.
I had planned an assault on this mess to sort all of this stuff out, including the mounds of paper that need to be filed and another mound next to the computer that needs “attention,” but the spouse asked me to send some emails to clients. Not a problem. I could take care of that and finish my “take no prisoners” sort and divestiture.
Then I turned on the computer.
There was no internet. The computer noted this and offered to scan and fix the problem. “Isn’t that helpful,” I thought until the result was something like “there’s something wrong with the intel adapter and we don’t know how to fix it.” This was at about 3 in the afternoon. Well, I thought, I’ll just Google that. Oh, I can’t. No internet means no Google solution. So, I did what I always do, went downstairs and unplugged the router, waited 30 seconds, plugged it back in and returned to the computer. Nada…nothing. Still no internet and I had come to the edge of my computer fix-it knowledge.
I began searching in various and sundry parts of my computer looking for an adapter. Every time I found one of those magnifying glass icons, I typed in the words “Intel adapter.” Nothing in the computer recognized the terms. Am I being punked by Microsoft?
I was more successful when I opened the icon for the manufacturer of the computer. Lenovo said, “Sure, we have your adapter and it’s working fine. If you want to check it out, press here.” I pressed there and read the message “You are offline.”
It was about then that I noted that the little icon in the tray at the bottom of the screen was no longer there. Egads. What the heck does that mean? When it was there it listed all of the ISPs nearby including mine. Does this mean that the internet has disappeared? Should I call the neighbors and ask?
What to do?
I have another computer, loaded with Windows 7, that was working fine when I bought the new computer. For those who don’t know, Windows 7 was no longer of interest to Microsoft last year and anything with a higher number, say like 10, was not compatible with my rather older computer (ancient at three years old.) I had to buy a new computer. I had one of those brilliant moments … I remembered where I stored it. I hooked it up and … oh, my…the same thing – no icon in the tray of that computer either. Once again, the computer offered to fix it for me. The result? “We can’t fix your old decrepit computer because your adapter isn’t working for some reason or other.” Yikes!
I went back to my original computer, repeated all of the searches I’d done before … while muttering words I can’t print.
So, I called my son who is the family digital guru and reviewed what I had done. He had no idea why I couldn’t find the adapter, telling me that what I had to do, which was find it, uninstall it and then reinstall it…kind of like turning it off and on which seems to be the catch all method for most digital problems.
It was now close to 10 p.m.
I was tired and frustrated, so I took a shower and washed my hair. Refreshed, sort of, I began again. It was close to midnight when I tried one more thing and voila, there it was, the Intel adapter. I turned it off and then turned it back on and the icon appeared in the tray, with a request for the password. I had the password.
Don’t ask me to repeat how I found the adapter. I can’t remember.
At midnight or so, I was back on the net. I sent the two emails.
None of the sweaters have been washed and I still have no idea what to do with the two really good shoe boxes, the stacks of papers are still waiting my ministrations, but I conquered … what I conquered I am not sure … but I did something.
