first new thing...

so here it is. the first blog documenting my year-long adventure of 52 new things. you would think i would want to start off with a bang. go ahead and swing away at the first pitch. a real home run shot. well, i hope you aren't too disappointed. for the first of 52 new things, i chose to accomplish something that i thought would be a piece of cake. i set up my own wireless internet network.

when my dad asked me a couple months ago what i wanted for christmas, i said two words: wireless internet. so, lo and behold, on christmas morning, what did i find under the tree? a wireless router! sweet, right? all i would have to do is follow the directions on the handy-dandy instructional cd and in five-- maybe ten-- easy minutes i would have freedom to roam through my apartment wire free. look up naive in the dictionary and there will soon be a picture of me in my christmas pj's totally unconcerned about the phd in computer science that i would soon need to establish that wireless network.

case in point: reaction shot #1: this is me completely dumbfounded by my computer's inability to establish an internet connection whenever it was connected to the dsl modem through the new hoity-toity wireless router. see, in order to set up the wireless router, this whole "conversation" has to occur between the computer, the modem, the router and the internet. when the ethernet cable was connected directly to the modem and the computer, everything was golden. peeps be seriously communicating. but when that pesky little middle man router was added, something gots seriously lost in translation. that is a look of total fear on my face. i had every right to be afraid...

fast forward one hour later to: reaction shot #2: same issue. nothing new. other than the fact that now i am angry. seething, if you will. even audrey is a little concerned at this point. i simply couldn't figure out what was the problem. i have slightly more than rudimentary computer troubleshooting skills. i mean, i watch chuck. but i was at a loss. and i hate losing! but i'll be damned if the first of my 52 new things is derailed by a little thing like technical difficulties. so i did something completely unexpected. i called technical support at at&t and steadied myself for a completely frustrating and more than slightly unintelligible conversation with someone strapped to a headset in bangalore.

much to my surprise and excitement, after 5 minutes of holding (to some really horrifically bad muzak) i was greeted by amber-- a bona fide southern girl (accent and all) stationed right here in the great state of georgia. things are looking up. i relayed the current sitch in 50 words or less, fully confident that a) i couldn't possibly be the first person to have this problem; and b) that with a little georgia peach ingenuity amber and i could lick this problem in no time flat. silly little rabbit. see, it is the policy of this great multi-media conglomerate (aka the gestapo of communication) to only troubleshoot problems caused by or resulting from malfunctions of their products. i had purchased my wireless router outside the at&t "family" (read: mafia) and they were under no obligation to help me out. at this point i think my bottom lip began to quiver. what's a damsel in distress to do?

thankfully, there still exists some customer service in this world. amber took pity on my nerve-rattled self and walked me through a 45 minute process that required several reboots and higher order computer procedures (who the hell knows how to "bridge" a modem? raise your hands...alright, dad, you don't count, but anybody else? i thought not.) that i never would have been able to do on my own.

amber was understanding, funny, and (unfortunately) taken. but at the end of it all, i had set up my own wireless network. so much for it being a piece of cake. but, you know what? it's still pretty sweet.