Wednesday, August 08, 2007

technical difficulties

The cable guy came to install the internet and phone (land line) service to the house. He hacked and coughed and claimed to have bronchitis. He hadn't been here long before he was hacking and coughing and telling us how the satellite people "ruined the Smart Box" by running their cords the wrong way.

He went into much more detail than that, but he might as well have been speaking in tongues because I had no clue what he was saying. It reminded me of learning about different types of intelligences. Not so much kinesthetic intelligence or emotional intelligence, but intelligence towards more practical things. For example, medical intelligence. Even educated people can have a hard time reading and understanding medical literature. It's a different language altogether, and if you don't speak the language, it's hard to understand.

In the realms of technical intelligence and computerized intelligence, I consider myself to be above average. I don't know C++, but I am the person in the office who is called when computers lock up or when cell phones need to be reprogramed. Tech I get.

However, I function at a basic electrical intelligence. Basic as in I would be riding the short bus to electrical school. Basic as in "See Tip run." You know, don't touch fallen wires, raw wires sticking out are bad, and call other people if you have questions about said wires. That's why we have electricians!

The only time I think I would need to know how to play with wires is if I had to hot wire a car. Mind you, I have no idea how to hot wire a car, but I'm sure I could figure it out if I had instructions to direct me. You know, to flee from zombies.* If you're interested in learning how to hot-wire a car to flee from zombies, see the link below. (I would hyperlink it, but Blogger and the Mac don't play well together.)

So anyway, the cable guy instructs The Hater what to say to the satelite people before he leaves, coughing and hacking.

Hooray, after two months we have the internet.
Boo, to get it we lost the satelite signal.

Ladies and Gentlemen- I am finally blogging from home. The Hater is playing video games as we wait for the satelite people to come fix the cluster they created the first time they piddled with the wires. Maybe we should call an electrician.

* Mom insisted I learn how to drive a straight shift when I learned how to drive. I think this is because BigDaddy made her do it when she was young. Although she was insistant that this take place, and she had a car where I could learn, she refused to sit shot-gun to my learning curve or let me drive her car. It was actually Obmij who taught me to drive a stick in the field behind our house, where we jerked and coughed across the orchard. One night I asked why I was learning to drive a stick when she wasn't going to let me drive her VW Bug and the other cars were automatics. She said, "What will you do if there's an emergency and you have to drive away in a straight shift?" I answered, "That would mean that I was stealing a car, and as long as I'm stealing a car, I'd steal an automatic instead." Straight shift lessons in the back yard stopped the next week.

* Prepare yourself for zombie warfare: http://www.ehow.com/how_2044915_hotwire-car.html

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