A Trip To 'Lil Mexico

About once a month i have to go out to Guadalupe, or 'Lil Mexico as I call it to do some stupid crap that any normal person should be able to do. This place is almost literally a annex of Tijuana, and a favorite stop for my buddy Sheriff Joe!! Other than me there are no white people in this place! There are Mexicans loitering around everywhere with nothing to do but walk in circles, and the Mother Marry (or who ever it is) is painted on the side of every building and on the back of every gay looking lowered truck. The street names are even changed into some Spanish crap for the length of the town. The main drag is called Priest Drive all the way from the 202 like 10 miles north, down to Ray Road, but for one mile the name changes to Avenida Del Yaqui! I dare you to try and say that out loud! The place is totally run down, and to give you perspective, if you want to buy a house, it will cost you less than the price of a used Chevy Corvette, about $40,000. Needless to say I am a bit creeped out, and a little concerned for my safety every time I go out there.

My destination there is the senior village! Not only is it a bunch of old people, its a bunch of old Mexican! Its a double negative! LOL So the reason for my visit is their internet is down, and my attempt to trouble shoot over the phone failed brilliantly because she had no idea what i was telling her to do! All i was asking her to do was reboot the router and modem by unplugging the power for a few seconds. Despite my repeated description of how the power cable looks compared to the network cables, she could not figure out which to unplug. I'm not even 100% sure she was even at the router and not her freakin alarm clock! So I made an appointment to drive all the way down there just to reboot her dumb routers.

So the first thing I do when I get there, like any other location, is replicate the problem. I wanted to see for myself that the internet was not working, and if there were any error messages that tells me, or anyone with a working pair of eyes, what the problem could be. Sure enough, when I opened IE there was a error message! It was a a love note from Cox saying their internet service had be "Temporarily Interrupted"! That's just a nice way of saying "PAY YOUR FREAKIN BILL YOU DOUCHE!" So wondering why she had not told me about this error message before i drove all the way down there, I instructed the lady to call cox to determine why she is getting that message, and sure enough the Cox bill had not been paid since June!

So they called out a tech guy at $80 an hour for a problem that could have been solved by just paying their bill!! Good one!

However this was not the end of the story! The next day she called me back saying the internet was still not working. I guess she called cox and paid her bill and the lady at Cox said her internet will work soon after that. I asked her if she had restarted her modem, and she said she did. So i figured there was another problem. Again, i make the trip out there. When i get there, sure enough I'm getting the same "Disconnect" message. She was talking to Cox when i got there and I was listening in to the conversation. It cought my attention when she replied to them ".. yes i have restarted it a couple of times now" as she restarts her computer. I know they were not asking her to restart her computer, they were asking her to restart her modem. I took the phone from her and asked Cox if the modem needed to be restarted for this, they said yes. So I restarted the modem, and what do ya know!!! Surprise surprise, it worked!! She apparently thought that the computer was the modem, and kept restarting her computer when we asked her to restart her modem! How does she function? This is ridiculous!

Anyways, I really appreciate the laugh, and so did my boss! Thanks for giving me something really goofy to write about on my blog!

Jeez! Things People Do!

Yesterday I picked up two computers to work on. One was a pretty normal case, infected with viruses and stuff as a result of a stupid user! I am often amazed at what people do to protect themselves on the computer. In this particular case, there were 4 separate programs for anti-spyware and virus along with firewall protection. First off, having more than one anti-anything is a lot like wearing your underwear outside of your jeans! It's just stupid and it serves no purpose. These programs are very territorial, and usually conflict with one another until your computer blows up. Usually they try to remove each other claiming the other is a virus. Second, all but one of these programs have expired subscriptions, meaning the virus definitions were not being updated which opens you up for attack. Besides, you don't really even need virus protection unless your a complete moron! Unfortunately, that does define 80% of the world! Instead of using a computer responsibly, by not doing stuff that sounds to good to be true, or opening an attachment in your email from a guy named Seemore Butts, you install multiple protection software that you paid out the nose for! Good thinking! This is why companies like Geek Squad exist! You make yourself so easy to rip off!

The other computer, well... they just couldn't remember their password! I am so amazed at the fact that they are willing to pay me $40 an hour to reset their password! I even told them that it could cost up to $120 for each computer, and they were cool with it! I of course will not charge them that much for such a simple thing!

Who is the Wizard??

This blog will be dedicated to my daily adventures in the technology field! Some days I may need to vent about stupid computer users, or document what i did for the day, or maybe I want to tell you guys about cool stuff! Whatever it is, it will be here!

So who is the Wizard? Well I am! Duh!! Its a funny story, for me at least! This guy Steve who works at one of my clients had a computer problem one day. It was a very serious situation. He had gotten a file he needed super bad, but it had an extension that even I had never seen! Anyways, i was able to find a program to open it! He was so impressed that he nick named me the Wizard! Specifically the Wizard from the Alltel commercials! Which is really funny because i love those commercials! Steve is also a leader in the Youth Group, so I'm the Wizard everywhere! It's great!

Anyways,... enjoy!!