oooOOOOooooo!!! (and something for Miss E)

Okay, I’m a little embarrassed to even admit this because it just verifies my Techno!Idiot status –  but I’m too thrilled not to.  I’m online in the coffeeshop, on my laptop, and I’m wireless!!!! And, yeah, I’ve had my laptop two years now. And, yeah, this is the first time I’ve been on a wireless connection with my laptop. Because, yeah, I’m a Techno!Idiot. And I never could figure out quite how that whole wireless thing worked. And if I followed the instructions and went to Network Connections, I never could see where you select "show all wireless connections". Because nothing ever said that. Because, ummmmm, the wireless card has been in a box with my extra discs and stuff for two years. I thought it was, like, IN the computer. I didn’t realize it is actually a totally separate entity that you have to insert and remove. Because, yes, I’m a Techno!Idiot!!! 

And I only finally FINALLY figured this all out because my battery has died and last night I was trying to determine if there might be something I could do to, oh, REVIVE it or something. I mean, other than recharging it. I started looking at my manuals and found there’s a whole vast Help thing ON my computer that I didn’t know about. A Solution Center. And from there I started exploring the whole wireless thing to see if there isn’t some reason that I never can find an option for showing all the wireless connections. And I poked around where I thought the wireless card was installed, and found the "eject" button, and ejected, ummmm…. a piece of plastic. So then I dug out the box with all my stuff in it… and there’s the card. And it still takes me awhile to figure out that there’s ALSO a CD to install the card’s… installey stuff. But, at last, it’s all figured out and it works!! I even took my computer with me to work so I could go to the coffeeshop at lunch and see if it really will connect. How exciting!

In my defense, when I got this computer two years ago, there were only a couple of places around here that had wireless connections, and I think they charged for them. So although I did wonder about getting on – and even tried at Barnes and Nobel once, as well as at a motel or two that supposedly had wireless – it was never a high priority. Now EVERYONE has wireless – including all of our campus, I could have just done this in my office but it’s more fun to go to the coffeeshop. Also, there is nothing, nothing in my manuals and instructions and help stuff that says, "The card is in your box. You must take the card and put it in your computer YOURSELF. It’s not already there, idiot!"

Oh, my – my world has just expanded yet again! I’d wanted to post some pictures I took at the horse show this weekend, and thought, oh, drat, I haven’t put them on Flickr yet. I’ll have to do that when I get to work – sure can’t do them from the laptop! But…but… with wireless, I CAN do them from the laptop!!!! They’re already on the laptop, and I can slap them right on Flickr. How cool is this????

SO, as it’s already nearly time to go back to work, I’ll end with some pictures from the horse show. It’s the longest running horse show in the country – eighty some years – and is going on right now. I went on Sunday for a few hours, and took about ten zillion pictures. I was very surprised at how well a lot of them came out – my camera has a "sports" setting that I’d never even tried out. Not going to many sporting events, I hadn’t had much opportunity.

I thought of Noko’s little Miss E, Horse Lover while I was there!

Baker B said, "Were you supposed to be that CLOSE to them??????" I did have a nice close spot, but of course this was using the zoom.