Technology - I Hate It

I got up this morning in anticipation of the landscape people coming out to plant spring color.  We do this dance each spring and fall.  In the fall they pull out all the tired and bedraggled summer color annual plants and replace them with winter color plants like kale, petunias and snapdragons that are happy in the cool weather.  In the spring the kale, petunias and snapdragons are looking pretty peaked so they are removed and replaced with vinca and moss rose and other heat loving plants that will bloom all summer long.  It would be a day of new color and rebirth.

What I got was one small technology issue after another.  Any one of which is really no big deal and not worth the effort to write about but taken together it makes me want to scream.

There was no internet when I went to the computer first thing this morning.  My husband ran out to his office and rebooted the system.  OK.  It doesn't look like a huge problem and now I have internet.  And a whole bunch of emails to sort through.  By now I've fed the animals and come out to the studio to get some work done.  Oh, look! Ferguson's Irish Linens is having a St. Patrick's Day sale with 25% off everything. Great!  I log on (now that my computer is working) and find the perfect napkins.  The plan is to dye them with indigo and have them for sale at the Contemporary Handweavers of Texas Biennial Conference at the end of May.  As I'm trying to check out there is a note - You might want to notify your credit card company if you are ordering from outside the UK.  That's a great idea.  I pick up the phone and no dial tone.  Seriously?

I run back to the house for my cell phone to call the phone company.  As all my friends know, I don't keep my cell phone with me at all times.  It lives in my purse which hangs on a hook next to my desk in the house.  I try to look up the phone number on my big computer in the house, but I get the "We are in the middle of a very important update to all the things you know well on your computer so bugger off till we're finished" or words to that effect. OK.  I do know how to use the phone book.  Of course, AT&T really doesn't want to talk to you on the phone.  They would prefer you notify them of problems online which I could do if my computer wasn't updating all the things I hold dear.

So I walk back out to the studio and use my laptop to contact AT&T since it did it's updating thing last night.  Now I remember why I always try to call AT&T when there are problems.  Their website is horrible beyond belief.  Well, that's interesting.  After navigating the AT&T website with only a couple of wrong turns which required me to re-enter my information each time, I discover we have a telephone outage in the area. Well, duh.  It should be resolved by Saturday night at 8 pm.  Yes, that's three and a half days from now.  Lovely.

At this point I'm fed up with all the technology in my life.  I know!  I'll go take some pictures of the wildflowers.  I'll need some pictures for this blog.  I grab my camera and walk across the property, out the front gate and across the ditch to get some nice pictures of the yellow coreopsis.  Blink!  Blink!  Blink!  Yes.  My camera battery just died so I hoof it back to the studio and plug the damned thing in.

I'm back on Fergusons Irish Linen's website and decide to try the phone just one more time before I order linen napkins without letting my credit card company know what I'm doing.  Yes!  Wonder of wonders, the phone is functioning.  I call the credit card company and am helped by a very nice college student who is studying graphic design (we got chatting).  Then I order the napkins and my credit card is declined.  Well, crap. Fortunately, the very nice young lady is still on the phone with me and transfers me to their fraud division.  Here I am helped by a very nice man who assures me if I wait 5 minutes my card will work perfectly.

Five minutes later.  I enter my credit card number and expiration date and it's declined again.  But with a note that it needs double verification.  Here is a phone number if you need assistance.  I don't think I need assistance so I press the ORDER button and it's declined again.  At this point I'm done.  Who needs the damned napkins anyway?  And then an email pops up that says Thanks for Your Order.  I guess I'll wait and see if the napkins arrive and if my credit card gets charged.  And I'll verify that all the amounts are correct.

Now it's after two in the afternoon and all I've done all day is muck about in technology that seems to be trying to drive me crazy at every turn.  I'm done.  I'm turning off my computer and leaving my phone is some other building.  I'm going to weave now.  My faithful Gilmore loom does not require electricity or any new technology.  All it requires is my attention and some wonderful yarn.  Sounds like a plan to me.  I may or may not invite John Denver to the party.