October 22, 1996
At this moment, I am sitting in front of my
computer screen, faced with one choice. I must do word processing. I have no fax, no Internet,
and NO E-MAIL! Since Oct. 20 at 21:00 I have been cut off from my cyberworld, denied my
precious messages, and have suffered immense withdrawal pains.
This crisis hit unexpectedly. My wonderful husband bought me a much-wanted color scanner to cheer me up (the last few weeks have been rather tough). The present thrilled me, but I knew that connecting hardware and installing software makes me break out into a cold sweat, so I wisely searched for help. A dear young friend and his engineer wife came to my rescue, and the three of us proceeded to install my scanner.
Without going into the gory details, I'll just say that nothing ever loads into my computer without destroying something else, and in this case, my external modem "disappeared." True, it sits right in front of me in its usual spot, and indeed, three little red lights show it is connected to a power source, but no amount of reconfiguration has put it back into a comport and allowed my scanner and modem to work.
I have one small saving grace: my computer at work. Though it has an e-mail address long enough to choke a horse, at least a few of my friends know it, so I have the ability to cast a lifeline between them and me. But what about those hundreds of messages piling up at my server? What of the tens of thousands of people who depend on my pithy comments to see them through the day? What of the millions of Internet sites waiting for my visit and my guestbook signing?
I am truly in agony, and the most pathetic part is that I see no repairs on the horizon. Oh woe. Just cut off my arms and call me "Stubby." I feel so helpless. :-(
NOTE: ON SATURDAY, OCT. 26, AT APPROXIMATELY 22:00 PST,
MY MODEM WAS REINSTATED. ALLELUIA!
