Technology overload

I am finally dealing with the technology overflow from Christmas: we got money for a new computer (loooong over due for a new one), I got a new iPod classic, and the wife got a new iPod nano.

We finally got the computer on Monday. I was so excited that I let wifey convince me to go all the way to her office to pick up the "heavy" box that contained the laptop. I get to her office to find a 1.5' x 2' box that weighs no more than seven pounds (6.7 lbs., per the package's label). Hmmmm. I ignore the bait and switch and rush to get home to open up the box.

I get home and immediately take a knife to the box. The answer to all my technological frustrations is in that box (or so I have convinced myself) and nothing will keep me from setting it up TONIGHT. Never mind that is 8:30 when we get home and we're both hungry. Dinner can wait.

I open the box to find the laptop in a styrofoam nest. It's not the MacBook I had fantazied about, but it is a faster and bigger computer than any of the affordable Mac products. I decide to name it Hacienda, the Spanish word for estate...since our one-bedroom apartment is as close to an estate as we'll get in the foreseeable future. I let it go through its start up programming while we eat dinner.

As if perfectly timed, the start up finishes as I have the last bite of dinner. I run over to plug in the wireless router. The router had been retired to a box when we moved to this apartment. For some reason when we moved our computer decided to not cooperate with the router anymore. I tried everything I could, and to be honest, we were too frustrated with the whole moving process to look into the matter more. So we bought a gazillion-foot cable, ran it behind two bookcases, over the front door, and down the side wall in order to connect the computer to the modem. Yes, it we were those people with the blue ethernet cable creeping up and down the wall--not the most elegant solution, but it worked.

My hopes with Hacienda were that the wireless router would magically work. No rationale for this really, except that Hacienda is a new computer and new computers always work. Yeah, faulty logical per usual.

I plug in the router. And for safe measure I restart the modem and Hacienda too . I cross my fingers and open up the wireless-finder-network-finder-thingie (I'm not too much of a tech head). Its there! Network "neato cheato" has been detected and Hacienda is connected to it! I type in the password and cross my fingers (my toes too, for good measure). I open up Internet Explorer and I see Google! Woo hoo! I am filled with a happiness that can only come from ending a year of wirelessness after having had it for years prior.

My first mission is to download iTunes so that I can start moving our music collection. I go to apple.com and it's not there. I get an error message that Internet Explorer can't find the page. Wait. We all know that's impossible. I check cnn.com, nothing. ABC.com, no dice. WTFiswrongwithmybrandnewcomputer.com, nada (although, upon further research I have found that that site really doesn't exist).

I tinker with the router and modem well into the night. At midnight I give-up, deciding that the router is busted. Defeated by something that seems to come so easily to everyone else, I go to sleep.

The next day during work I research routers (it's ok, I don't really have a boss right now). I find the AirPort Express from Apple. I've heard of it before, but now I am convinced that it is the miracle pill for Hacienda. I stop by the Apple store on the way home (one of the perks of working in SoHo). Turns out they're sold out and apparently so are the other two Apple stores in NYC. So there goes that. I go to Best Buy and buy a Linksys router recommended by a guy that looked like Chicken Little with a Jewfro who wasn't really paying attention to me.

I go home, thinking that this Linksys router should solve all my problems. And no luck. Once again, my computer can connect to it, but can't get to the internet through it. Sheesh--no luck!

So last night, I bit the bullet and just connected our gazillion-foot cable to Hacienda. Wow. Even without the convenience of wireless, Hacienda is one fast MoFo. I've been able to write this entire blog entry uninterrupted even though at one point I was moving files onto this computer with one iPod, syncing another iPod, and had music playing. Yes, this might seem trite, but my old dinosaur couldn't do that, it would have freaked out and frozen...much like these goats.

Today I will continue my odyssey. I'm going to Best Buy to return that POS. Then I'm having some serious chattage with my internet provider, my router's manufacturer, and/or Hacienda's manufacturer.

Oh, and for those of you wondering about the iPods: we have an active family of three now. Mine is an 80GB piece of ebony wonder impressively named Masahara Kuro--yeah, he's that cool. Wifey's is an 8GB red nano named Stella Rosso which might be nabbed for runs with my Nike+ (you know, for whenever I am able to run again). And then there's Liam Grau, who you've all met.

And on the knee front: I did an MRI yesterday. It was pretty cool--or as cool as being inserted into a giant magnet can be. The pictures are amazing: you really can see everything inside your body. Man, if this procedure didn't cost my insurance $2000 then I would totally frame these and hang them as artwork. But no, I have to take them to the orthopedic on Thursday for him to tell me what's going on in there.