The gift that keeps on giving.....

I came home today after a LONG day in MODEM HELL thinking I would curl up in my recliner with a Corona and some chips and cheese dip. A tiny reward for not killing anyone at work nor throwing any computers through the service window. LOL...

I stopped at the Kangaroo Mart on Redbank and gave away some life blood to the great GAS gOD who immediately reduced my checking account by 21.01. Have you ever tried to stop one of those pumps right on the .00 mark? It is not as easy as it looks. At 21.01 I stopped and figured that if I run out of gas I can always leave the car on the side of the road and hitch a ride with someone else if I am out of money. It does not take long for that to happen does it? There is ALWAYS more month than there is pay check. Our cost of living continues to rise yet our wages remain the same or get smaller. Atleast that is how it has been working for me in the last 2 years. I try to console myself to the fact that atleast I am not in Iraq being bombed as I whine about this. LOL... I guess THAT could put things in perspective.

Oh yes, the GIFT that keeps on giving. I wandered over to my desk to put my laptop bag down and remove the extra weight of the key ring in my right hand. As I turned around to turn on our computer I noticed a familiar and disgusting smell. At about the same time my nose was curling inward I noticed that there was what appeared to be a "mud pie" sitting close to the computers in amongst several wires that run from this computer peripheral and that. Imagine my instant surprise, revolt and disgust that hit me all at the same time. I was like "and what the HE** is this kids?? Of course, that was pretty idiotic for me to ask that when my nose and eyes had already delivered the message to my brain that a COW had delivered an unwelcomed surprise to my computer area. OH MY GOSH....

As you can imagine my brain started looking for a culprit to pin this on as well as involuntary labor to ASSIST me in listening to my excessive belly aching as well as removal of the toxic waste dump. Kristina and Justin were the lucky participants in that game called "oh my gosh, its time to plug our nose and pick up the doo doo....." Yes, we bonded in this moment in more ways than one. I think that as I write this that my blood pressure is now returning to normal.

There are seveal reasons why this transpired today. Shall we examine them one by one?

A. Mother Moffitt flew the coop and went out of town to be at a weekend long crop
B. A typhoon of some type camped itself on top of Duck Ditch USA and unloaded untold amounts of water all day long therefore leaving the MUTTS to their own devices with regards to potty trips.
C. the Moffitt children have a problem understanding WHY we are taking the dogs out for a walk to begin with.

Now lets examine items A,B and C in more detail.

When Mother Moffitt flies the coop for whatever reason for whatever amount of time the environment of peace and tranquility and all sense of normalcy implodes in on itself. Regular routines, chores, and whatever else you want to call it begins to unravel at a high rate of speed. Its a good thing Katy does not leave for any EXTENDED length of time, she might come back to a huge gaping hole in the ground where the trailer used to sit.

When it rains buckets the dogs have a case of Parkinson disease and they forget that their daily duties have not been permanently put on pause. They eat drink and beg for more food from anything that has some and then do more and more of that until they are NEEDFUL of a trip outside. You guessed it. The containers are only so big. After a while when you put too much goo in the bottle something is bound to escape. :)

Kristina and Justin view taking the dogs outside as a drudgery which is entirely designed to punish them and rob them of an opportunity to otherwise have fun entertaining themselves with some other mindless activity. They forget how important it is that the exercise is one that is PRODUCTIVE with VISIBLE results. But DADDY, we DID take the dogs out. I always ask them, did you take them out for longer than 25 seconds this time or did you run them around the yard and bring them back inside thinking that something had escaped both hounds through the process of osmosis.... When I ask IF they SAW the dogs DO anything I always get this incredulous stare as if to say, OH you want is to WAIT for this process to happen even though the dogs think they have an ETERNITY for it to happen? You get the picture here. We beat the dogs for any unwelcomed treats left that we dont want so they in turn return the favor by becoming mindless blogs of hair, nails and teeth when they get outside knowing full well what is expected of them. When you try to manipulate them into moving the process along sometime in this millenium they look up at you as if saying " you KNOW you brought this upon yourself so do not EVEN start this whining crap with me."

Oh yes, back to MODEM HELL.... I think that HELL is going to be full of Microsoft Windows products and broken hardware parts for a typical IBM capatible computer. Today I think that I gained atleast one more grey hair.
Modem HELL opened up its gates wide at about 2:30 pm in one of our customers (Goodwill PC Recycling Center) came back with one of the prize computers he purchased from me last weekend. This was an IBM computer and the modem was not working. The customer told me it was not working because he could not get online. By this time in the day I was by myself in the service center and anyone else with half a brain had the good sense to jump in their cars, mopeds, bicycles, pogo sticks or flying carpets and long since left me in their vapor trail. So, here I am with my MR Customer Service hat on with the good intention of fixing this problem quickly.

I fired up the IBM which is loaded with ME (Microsoft Millenium) and went into the control panel looking for the modem icon to see what was ailing our "modulater/demodulator" device. When I arrived I found the modem sitting in his room quietly watching me approach not having a care in the world. When I clicked on the modem and went to the diagnostic tab I found that the modem was talking back to the given AT commands. At this point I am thinking "the modem works but the customer does not know how to configure his Internet Software DOH...." I hook up the phone line to the modem and guess what. The Internet software did not get a dial tone from the modem. The OS saw the modem but the modem apparently had its mouth wired shut because no dial tone from Ma bell was making a trip. At this point we are about 25 minutes into this quick fix.

When I realized that the modem was a deaf mute I pulled it out and started the nightmarish process of plugging in other modems and at the same time getting the computer on our local area network so I could visit my favorite place of all times " www.driversguide.com". Do you think that the NIC card in this IBM would cooperate or do you think I had to fight with that for ANOTHER 5 to 8 minutes ? You guessed it, whatever was ailing the modem had crept into the NIC. One new NIC later and 4 minutes of fussing and I had that IBM howling on our LAN. Three USED modems later and about 30 min I looked at the customer and said. If you want this to happen today BEFORE 6pm you will need to go to Wallyworld and buy a NEW modem, bring it back to me and I will THEN be able to get you out of the door within 10 min.

In 20 minutes my customer returned after swimming down Rivers Ave to Wally World and being 32.00 poorer handed me a brand new US Robotics Internnal V.92 modem. I again told him, you will be AMAZED at how fast this process is going to be and you will be on your way with a fully functional computer that will get you on the Internet. There is an unspoken rule when working on computers. NEVER replace an item and then put the lid on and screw it down. You will ALWAYS forget something and even if you dont the hardware KNOWS that it has a mind of its own and it will FORCE you to open the case up again anyway. You also NEVER brag to anyone about HOW easy this is going to be and how FAST you are going to have them out of the door. Just as soon as you do that you will have more distractions and problems than Carter has liver pills.

Anyway, the NEW modem installed, ME recognized the modem, gobbled up the appropriate driver off the CD ROM. When I go to the modem applet in control panel to do the diagnostics number there are two com ports but NO MODEM installed. I get an error message that says something to the affect that " the modem is not installed correctly and the inf file is corrupt. Please remove this modem and reinstall it again." I did that numerous times and finally just gave up on it thinking that this is a bad computer. I went into the sales room and grabbed one of the PII 300 mhz machines that was for sale and put the NEW modem in it thinking, something must be bogus with the IBM, I will just jam this card in here and have him out in another 10 min. NOT... Same process, same error message.
Can you believe that through this all I have not cursed once nor have I thrown the computer or MODEMS through the glass window of the service department. Can you believe that the customer lived out in Walterboro and had been up all night and decided to wait this entire time for me to fix his computer so he would not have to come back. He also never raised his voice nor did he once holler at me or the computer. Kuddos to this cool cat !!

It became painfully apparent to me that this was just NOT going to happen no matter how I held my mouth or howled at the moon. I finally grabbed the last good computer off the sale room floor and tested the modem in it which appeared to be working normally and told the customer that he was getting a FREE upgrade. He went from a PII 266 to a PII 333 with a bigger hard drive and more RAM. IF the modem works for him when he finally gets home then he will possibly be a happier camper. If NOT someone (probably me) will be praying to the modem midgets (wherever they reside) asking them to make this situation fix itself quickly BEFORE I go screaming out the back door of Goodwill. LOL....