modern "technology" strikes again!

so today . . . i am seriously frustrated. if i had a weapon handy, i would smash our wireless router to smithereens! yes, i said smithereens!!!

like many other people, we went wireless a few years ago. i could suddenly sit on the couch in the family room and surf the web, shop online, and send documents to the printer... all without being plugged into anything!! i was in looooove!

but for the last month or so, my ardor has cooled quite a bit. in fact, i am on the verge of wireless router-cide. i seriously want to kill that thing...

i am not a violent person. i am nice. i am thoughtful. i am accommodating. (at least, i think i am...) but this router has it in for me. it refuses to stay connected. several times a night, i have to get up off the couch, walk to the router, unplug it for a minute or two, plug it back in to reset it, and then go back to my computer and try to continue.

the other night i was shoe shopping online, because i wanted some really cushy shoes, but i didn't want to pay nordstrom prices--i didn't even want to pay nordstrom rack prices! i wanted nordstrom shoes at walmart prices, and i figured the only way that was going to happen was if i shopped online. so after a couple of hours of shopping, i found the perfect pair of shoes. i filled out the information on the order form and was just about to hit the "complete my order" button... and then the network went down.

AAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! i raced to the router to reset the stupid thing, and then i raced back to complete my order and get those cute, cushy shoes headed my way--only to find that in that short time, the shoes had sold out!! sold out!!! can you believe it?!?!? so technically i guess you could say it saved me some money, but my feet are not happy. they are afraid i will make them wear some terribly uncomfortable shoes just to look good, now that the cushy ones are out of the running...

and this is not the only problem. it is interfering with our tivo. we are kind of tivo addicts. we have the high definition machine with the big hard drive, and of course we also have the little gadget that connects it to the network wirelessly. which is great, when it is working. but right now, we sometimes only get half a show recorded... or all but the last few minutes! or sometimes we miss the first ten minutes, so we have no idea what the show is about. and even worse, sometimes when we are trying to watch something, we will get the dreaded blue screen of death. (i find it interesting that the dreaded blue screen of death never shows up during a commercial. oh no. it only shows up at the most crucial, dramatic moments. which means we miss the crucial, dramatic moments. because by the time we get up, reset the router, and wait for the tivo to power up again, the crucial dramatic moments are over, and there is a commercial playing...)

typically i am the one who resets the network when there is a problem. usually rollie is upstairs, and diandra doesn't know how to do it. or didn't know how to do it... until we went out of town and left her home alone. she texted me one night, because she couldn't get online. so i texted her back the directions on how to reset the network. which played right into my evil plan, because now when diandra and i are in the family room watching tv with our computers on our laps and the network goes down, we have a conversation that goes something like this...

"oh no. the stupid network is down again."

"well, i guess someone should go reset it."

"yes, i guess someone should..."

"i would do it, but my computer is on my lap."

"well, my computer is on my lap too!"

"yes, but look! milo is all cuddled up next to me. and i hate to disturb him--he looks so cute!"

"oh fine! i'll do it this time! but next time it is your turn..."

and we have this conversation several times during the evening. because sometimes the network only works for ten or fifteen minutes before we have to reset it again.

but tonight... tonight it just about pushed me past my breaking point. i've been trying to catch up on my blog reading, and sort through the 180 emails that have collected over the last couple of days, and check on what has been happening on shopping tv. i went to facebook for a while to see how martha's egg laying birds were doing (her REAL birds, not the angry virtual ones that everyone is playing with,) and how sarah was celebrating her birthday, and what pictures diandra had uploaded since the last time i looked, and then i went to play my island game. it was all ready to plant. i tried to get seeds to plant, but the seed store just kept loading and loading and loading. i exited the game and tried again, with the same result. i went out of facebook, and came back on, and tried again. and still, the seed store just kept loading and loading and loading. i finally gave up--it was just taking too long, and i wasn't sure it was EVER going to load.

i can deal with the interrupted tv shows. i can adjust to losing a great pair of shoes. i can even tell myself it is no big deal to reset the network fifteen times a night. but apparently, what will finally drive me to thinking deadly thoughts, is not being able to play my fb games...

that router is living on borrowed time...

the power of the internet

so today . . . we have good news! rollie's excellent doctors have found his problem and fixed it! he has to stay in the hospital a couple more days, but when they turn him lose, everything should be back to normal. actually, it should be better than normal, because he will have almost as much blood as a normal person and it shouldn't be leaking out anywhere!

through this experience, i have seen not only the power of prayer (thank you God for keeping him alive until he would finally go to the doctor!) but also, in a different way, the power of the internet.

on wednesday morning, while diandra was waiting alone in urgent care while rollie and i were seeing the doctor, she blogged about how prayer changes things. we had agreed not to call anyone until we had some news to share, so she was purposefully vague. but she was worried about her dad, and she wanted to share her experience, so she blogged. about an hour later, she said, "you need to call grammie. she read my blog, and she is worried that you or dad are sick." well, dad was sick, so i looked up the number and dialed . . .

last night when i got home, i was so tired. but i needed to blog. so much had happened and i was afraid i would forget how fortunate we had been. so although i didn't include a lot of the details of our day, i did want to document it. so i blogged. and then this morning i got a phone call from one of our friends from oregon who read the blog and was worried . . .

as i was talking to my friend from oregon, diandra was sitting in one of the chairs provided for visitors. they are not the most comfortable chairs, and so she tweeted, "hospital chairs=not comfy. at least my dad is awake :)" not long after that i got another phone call from another friend in oregon in response to her update. and so i explained the situation once again.

and then i got a text from my mom who had just answered a phone call from my aunt who was asking about rollie, because her daughter (my cousin) had read diandra's update on her facebook page . . .

this afternoon i had to plug in my phone, because the battery was totally dead! i don't think that has ever happened to me before . . . when i checked the messages later, there was a message from a friend of mine who is on vacation. so i called her. she is visiting someone who used to go to our church and still receives prayer requests by email. they were on their way home from an outing to a museum, when she decided to check her email on her phone. and she saw the news that rollie was in the hospital. so of course, my friend called to see how he was . . .

i guess if we want to get the word out about something, we just need to blog and tweet and post it on facebook, and pretty much everyone who matters to us will find out. good to know.

and as for rollie, we weren't trying to keep you all in the dark--we were just busy taking care of him.

and since every post is better with a photo (which i know i am terrible at doing . . . ) here's one of rollie getting ready to go to the hospital. does he look like he only has 6.4 liters of blood in his body?!?!?!