Today, I got my internet back. I’ve fasted from I-net for several days now waiting for the Cable Guy to come and hook me up. I went into shock last Sunday night when I finally called the 24 hour hotline for help. The sweet young thing assigned to solve my problem checked out their end and learned it was solid. Her reply to me was “we have to send a technician to fix the problem the first appointment opportunity is Wednesday.”
“What?”
Crash, as I dropped to the floor. “You mean I won’t have a fix until Wednesday?”
“I’m sorry sir, but that is the best we can do.”
Let me go back to the beginning. When Peg and I arrived home all of our TV’s were pixilated. We didn’t get clear high-resolution pictures we got pixels of enormous proportions. I solved the problem by killing the power to each TV that had a cable box on it. It is the same as re-booting a computer. After the TV’s I began reading my e-mails and my PC acted funny. After suffering with it for a while I decided to reset the machine. First, I shut the PC down. That didn’t work, so I shut down the PC and then the modem. That didn’t work so I shut down the PC, the modem, and the router. After starting everything back up the I-net was gone. Run diagnostics and get it fixed I told myself. After three hours of messing with the process I yielded to the hotline.
I had the yellow wire in the yellow socket and the white wire in the orange socket. It made sense to me.
Today, Larry the Cable Guy dropped by. He looked at the modem and everything was green. He looked at the router, picked it up and unplugged the wires. A few seconds later he re-plugged the wires and within ten seconds the I-net was back and running. “Wait a minute, what did you do?”
“The wires were crossed and I put them back into the correct sockets.”
“Oh sheet, I had done the same thing when I was resetting and I crossed them when I plugged them back in.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you sir?”
“Yes, do not breathe a word about this matter to anyone.”
Cable Guy left within fifteen minutes after assuring himself that our TV’s were working.
I remembered a story from college. The professor who told it was an old guy like me now. His commission was to teach a class full of Mechanical Engineers something about electric motors. The story was about when he was young and got a call to consult on a large electric motor that the owner could not get started. He arrived, looked at the motor and asked the owner to get him a hammer. While he went to get the hammer, the Teacher switched two wires. The man comes back and hands him the hammer. The teacher hits the motor with the hammer and says, “Now try it.” The owner pushes the start button and the motor starts right up. A week later the owner gets a bill for a thousand dollars. In shock over the cost, the owner calls the teacher and asks him to itemize the bill so he can understand the charges. The teacher sends him the itemized bill: 1. Service call to check the motor and hit it with a hammer $300. 2. Knowing where to hit it $700.
Today, the cable guy had the knowledge and I didn’t.
Filed under: Biography, Education, family, Humor | Tagged: Cable, Cable Guy, Internet, Reset | 2 Comments »
