Mean Machines

I don’t know why mechanical and technical things hate me, but they do.

I feel like the character Eve Dallas in J.D. Robb’s futuristic police series. In the book Eve has an ongoing problem with computers and an interesting battle with the vending machines that has resulted in a boycott.

My car is one mechanical problem I have, but enough said on that subject. Haven’t found a name for her as yet.

My Kindle went dead, really dead, far past the polite message that warned the battery was running low. I tried to charge the battery using my laptop but with no success. It was very annoying as I have many of my favourites books downloaded, plus a number yet to be read.

Someone told me I couldn’t charge the Kindle from my laptop, but a friend said I could. So, I believed the friend. Her advice was to make sure I was using my laptop at the time, being on was not enough, it had to be active.

So, recharging while the laptop was in use was not going to be a problem, it’s almost always in use. I plugged everything in and waited…and nothing. Curses. I tried one more trick and used a different port, and it worked. Don’t know what made the difference, but now I know what to do and will be able to keep my Kindle charged.

I celebrated and bought myself a new book, had to prove everything worked, right?

Yesterday I followed my usual routine. I made a pot of coffee, turned on the laptop and sat down with my morning yogourt to check my E-mails, Blogger Dashboard and Facebook.

The laptop was on, but the screen was black. Nothing I did would change it.

Not a good way to start my day. I could feel the tension building as I faced a day with no internet access. I closed the lid, unplugged it and set it aside.

Last night I tried it again, and it started up just fine, except it denied me access to the internet. What was going on? The WIFI was working, I checked on the Kindle.

I went from thinking the laptop had crashed to having it work, but with no internet. I’m so confused. I looked up the help section and it said to make sure you were allowing internet access. I had one of those moments, you know, where I’m the Dummy they talk about in those Computers for Dummies books.

Why would anyone turn off access to the internet asks the woman who lives alone? Maybe to stop kids from searching the web? Okay, I get it, where the hell is the switch?

I looked at my laptop and saw the light that is usually on in the front was off. Could this be the miracle ON button for my internet access? Yes, yes, yes.

We were live and kicking once again.

Oh, but the mechanical things were not done fooling with me. I had a slice of bread in the toaster oven, making toast to go with my cheese omelette and turned my back, caught up in the Olympics on TV. The timer failed to work, and my toast kept toasting to the burn stage.

I called it quits for the night and read for awhile. My Kindle seems to like me, and so it should, I buy it a presents.