Thursday, September 10, 2009

Pirate Signal

No coffee-no beverage of any kind, just the leftover taste of toothpaste on my tongue, "Pirate Radio" by John Hiatt on iTunes for music--though not through the house speakers as *we have no network*. Last night both the router AND the DSL modem gave up the ghost. This morning I post by pirate airwaves from my neighbor's wireless. Thank heaven there are still people who don't secure their networks! Acquisition of a new modem/wireless router on the list for today. Why does everything break at once? Why can't life be compartmentalized into work and home? Why is responsibility responsibility and must-be-fixed-now must-be-fixed-now regardless of when they occur during the day? First the top on Dave's Mini, then the refrigerator water dispenser, then the dishwasher (and it still won't drain), now the home network. Don't all these things know I have a business to build?!? I need to be filling out loan forms, updating web pages, getting orders out, paying bills, putting the details on paper for my business agreement with Lori for the KGRC... I don't have TIME to keep googling how-to-fix-X so I can futz around repairing mechanical systems!

Rant over. On with the post.

Yesterday I picked up rubber and clay moldmaking supplies and tools from The Engineer guy and Daven's (and signed a couple of books for Daven's while I was there), and put together and scheduled the first Glass Bead Making For Beginner's class at the studio with Becky. Pretty ambitious as we don't even have torch set-ups yet! I am giving up my office at the studio to have a torchworking classroom. The big comfy green chair, the neutronium oak desk, the Mission file cabinet and TV stand, the mini fridge, the espresso machine, and the microwave are all going to have to be relocated--most of them not to another place in the studio as there is no more room. I am going to move to a sleek little white melamine table like I have in the home office that we'll put in the front room (the retail space). Makes sense to put retail and office together--and is also better planning to put the classroom space not in the path from the front door to the rest of the studio.

One last addition to the studio on the books for this fall--we're going to rook over the little (10X10) back deck and set it up as a plaster mixing area. The wax melt-out area will be under the back-door overhang. It'll be good to keep both those activities outside (weather permitting--I can always set-up on the screened in front-porch if it's really raining).

I have been very good lately (always?) at starting things. Now I need to get a bunch of them finished. My to-do list for today is very scary--and some things are going to have to go. I was hoping to go to Lori's this afternoon and let Jessie swim in the pool while Lori and I hammered out the final details of our business plan, but that is going to have to wait till next week. And now I have to wrap up this post--the up-and-downness of my pirate signal is driving me MAD!

PS--The calendar in the post below is interactive: Click on the arrow to go to the months after September and you'll see a whole bunch of classes with more to come soon!

PPS--Thank you to the Spouse for telling me about the above XKCD cartoon whose alt caption reads: We need a special holiday to honor the countless kind souls with unsecured networks named "linksys".

5 comments:

Bill said...

How hard can it be for Dave to buy the necessary equipment and overnight it to you? How can he leave such things up to you at this tiem of stress and panic?

FusedLight said...

Ah, yes... pirate signals! I love it when I'm taking the train Out East and we stop for 15 minutes in some little town. I can pop on for 10 minutes before we move out.

I do hope you are providing a special Ernie Only place in the construction?

Anonymous said...

As to your dishwasher.... if your have a garbage diposal run that and then try to get the dishwasher to drain. We had a similar situation. Replaced the dishwasher. After a while the drainage problem appeared... the garbage disposal needed to run just before washing dishes. Might help
Good luck.

Cynthia Morgan said...

Parents kept having wireless router problems. Ordered a new router, direct-wired Dad's computer to the Internet, disconnected Mom's laptop and told her she'd just have to use Dad's computer until I could get back with the new router.

Following day Mom calls to say she can't print from her laptop. "That's because you're not on the network, Mom." "But I can get my email and do the web. It's just that the printer tells me it's printing but nothing comes out."

Somehow she's logged into the neighbor's wireless network--I can see their computers, files, devices, absolutely no security. On a hunch, I knock on the neighbors' door and, sure enough, they've got about a dozen copies of the photos Mom's been printing...on their printer. No idea how she managed it.

Brenda Griffith said...

Gary, of COURSE Ernie is getting only the best accommodations! He will have a royal bed in the cushiest spot--aloft from the noise and bustle of the rearranging studio.

Doug, I tried the running the garbage disposal thing and this time it didn't work. I think something is down the drain of the dishwasher (and fortunately it's Dave's science project to figure out what it might be).