The Hassles Never Cease

 

Stella went to bed early, so I decided to try a night-time blogging session on my own computer. I switched the wires around... not easy, because I have to balance while I reach the cables and plugs behind my table... opened the DSL-type connection (yes, in Ubuntu Linux, one of the types of connection you can create is explicitly called "DSL" and is designed specifically for a direct DSL connection to a provider). I started the connection, which was originally created by the AT&T guy as a sort of apology for my broken LAN, and... it took me straight to an AT&T error page for a bad password. That in turn took me to the page that told me I can't use a non-IE, non-Safari browser. Grrrrr...

I looked at the connection config and recognized that the password stored in the config was wrong. (Yes, if you're an administrator, you can set up to see such things in Linux.) So I glanced around for the tiny piece of paper on which my friend George had written the password to which my account was forcibly (and needlessly, as it turned out) changed during the exasperating phone session with AT&T, and... it wasn't there. I'm neither crazy nor stupid; I remembered just where I'd left it.

Eventually I gave up and woke Stella, and told her I couldn't find the most important piece of paper in the house. She knew immediately what I meant. "Oh... I put it in the drawer." Which drawer? "The one on the left." I began to realize the gal was really still asleep. Eventually the paper was located and the password corrected.

Here's my question: Why did the AT&T tech who was here today change the password after he had successfully established a connection? I suppose I should be asking the late Enron: "WHY? Why? why? why? why?..."

It is still the case that only one of us can have a connection at a time. This is no problem with AT&T, whose lawyers doubtless have told them that since I don't have qualifying hardware and/or software, they are not obligated to get me connected. Again... GRRRRRR!