A Pilgrim’s Digression

Every time I call Tech Support for some product or other, I always ends up writing a blog post about the awfulness of the experience.  Today I had the pleasure to call Dell tech support, so my frustration was double if not triple the agony.

My wife was recently given a new laptop at school, and she brought it home to do some work this weekend.  She asked me to connect it to my home wireless network.  I set up the connection, and the wireless icon in the taskbar said I had a strong signal.

When I started the browser, I got an error saying that Internet Explorer could not connect to the internet.  Firefox told me that “the proxy server” denied the connection attempt.  So I went into Internet Options and disabled the proxy server, setting up the computer for automatic configuration by the router.

Still no connection.

It took me not even a minute to write that, but it probably took me at least an hour of tinkering to get to the point that I had exhausted all my self-support options.  I am not a Windows user, but networking is basically the same across platforms–there are just different names for control panels and different points of access for such things as proxy server configuration.

So I called Dell.  I spent approximately ten minutes on hold, then got a tech person, probably not residing in America judging by the accent and his difficulty in understanding me.  He basically took me through the steps I had already tried on my own, and I could feel my frustration rising each time I told him “I already did that” and he would say, “Well let’s try it again.”

Finally, he put me on hold while he “researched” the issue.  When he came back after about five minutes, he told me that he couldn’t help me any further.  He said that Dell does not support “networking” issues, only Dell or Windows software or hardware.  He had only been helping me out of the kindness of his heart, apparently.  He suggested I call my ISP and ask them for help.

I was already resigned to the fact that he was not going to solve my problem.  There often comes a point in a tech support phone call in which you realize the person on the other end is reading from the same support database the company provides end users online, and so the tech support person is really nothing more than a glorified phone operator.  You can just tell they don’t know what the hell they are doing.

This fellow even let it slip, as he explained to me why he couldn’t help me further, that he had “googled” the issue and discovered nothing that would help me.

Thanks for googling that for me, Bud.  I could have done that my own goddamned self.

So, after a break to cool down and rest my tired arm and ear, I called Comcast.  I felt like this person knew what she was doing.  She was confident, and she understood me and seemed to get right down to the issue: this new laptop was not showing up on my home network, even though it was connected.  Either the router or the software firewall is blocking access to the internet.

So then she asks me what kind of router I have.

Now, at this point, my past experience tells me to lie.  I need to say Linksys.  I know I need to say Linksys.  Instead, I tell her the truth.  I have an Apple Time Capsule combination wireless router and backup device.

I could hear her audibly shutting down.  She won’t help me any further, I realize.  Not one minute before, she was sympathizing with me over my bad experience with Dell.  Now, she tells me, “We don’t support that product.  You will need to call Apple.  Let me get their tech support number for you.

“I don’t need that number,” I say “I have the number if I want to call.”

“Oh it’s no trouble, let me get that number for you.”

I said, “Look, what does it matter that it’s an Apple router.  I have another Dell desktop PC connected to it via Ethernet, and it works fine.  My Mac works fine.  I just want you to help me make this laptop work.”

“I’m sorry.  I really can’t help you.  You’ll need to call Apple.”

So, I give up.  So what if I call Apple?  What are they going to do for me?  The router works fine, obviously.  I looked up the Dell and Comcast tech support numbers online on my MacBook Pro.

It frustrates me, first of all, that Dell apparently only supports an extremely limited number of problems (I wonder if I called in with trouble connecting the printer that they would tell me to contact the printer cmpany).  It also frustrates me that I can’t admit that I use Apple products without facing a total shutdown of technical support from Comcast.  Yet the latter happens all the time.

Am I right or wrong?  Is it clear to an outside observer that the problem is with my Apple router, and I need to call Apple?  Or am I right and the problem is with the Dell laptop and its apparent refusal to connect to the Internet wirelessly?

There has to be a better way to get help with our technology without paying for an expensive home visit by a techie.  I feel like I wasted a perfectly good hour of my life today, and the laptop is no closer to working than when my wife got home on Friday.

The whole experience, rather than dampening my devotion to the Macintosh experience, has only confirmed it.  I know that when I get a new Mac laptop and open that lid for the first time, it is going to automatically connect to the strongest wireless network in the area.  No configuration required.  No multiple networking control panels to tinker with.  No fuss.  It just works.

Right now, if that Dell were mine instead of the schools, I’d be ready to chuck that hunk of plastic garbage out the back door into the rain.  As it is, I am going to recommend my wife take it back to school and hand it over to her tech support guy to troubleshoot.  Chances are, though, he’ll blame our Apple router and say there is nothing he can do.

I listened to most of the Democratic Convention highlights as I drove back to Washington last night.  Have I mentioned before how much I love XM radio?  No?  Ah well, that’s another blog post.

I listened from roughly seven until a little after ten, then finished by watching the remainder of Mrs. Obama’s speech on Fox while unpacking.  Conventions are, of course, mere stagecraft and theater, but as always I am a sucker for a well-produced show.  I didn’t see any of Kennedy’s speech, or the film about his life, but I could tell from what I heard that it must have been powerful.  I’ve seen pictures of him today, and I have to say he does not look like a man who recently had surgery for brain cancer.

Again, however, it’s unlikely they would have wheeled an invalid to the podium on a gurney.  Politicians become experts at fooling us.  Kennedy’s brother John stood before the public as a pillar of health and middle-aged vigor.  In fact, he was deathly ill of Addison’s disease, addicted to prescription narcotics, and suffered from back pain so severe he had to sleep on a backboard.  When not in front of the cameras, he often walked with the help of a cane or crutches.

I thought the family testimonials leading up to Mrs. Obama’s speech were also quite powerful and effective.  Her brother was an effective reference for Obama’s character, and the film of Michelle’s life, narrated by her mother, humanized her and her family in a way that the public needs to see.  I think it was Michelle who said that hers and Obama’s life stories were American stories, stories similar to those of the majority of Americans who come from humble backgrounds, in Obama’s case that of a fatherless boy raised by a mother and grandparents, and have had to work hard for every advantage.

The point was well-made: no Republican with a wealthy wife and multiple homes is going to successfully portray this man and his wife as elitist, silver spoon liberals.  They went to school on scholarships and loans, just like everyone else.

Seeing them together with their two girls also had the intended effect of planting them solidly within the American upper-middle class.  They are not just “like” us, they are us, in so many ways.

Before her convention speech, Rush Limbaugh was even floating the rumor that Michelle might be pregnant and planning to announce it during their speech.  He made it sound almost like a dirty trick, as if these liberals would go to any lengths to secure power, including getting pregnant.

So far, I think the convention is going as planned.  Radio talk show hosts and even network news anchors are trying to stir up some discord between the Clinton and Obama camps, for the sake of something to talk about, but overall I think the Democrats have to be pleased with how it has begun.

The problem for Obama is that showmanship can’t carry the day anymore.  We all know he can deliver a ripsnorter of a speech.  Now we want to get to know the man in the suit.  And time is running out for him to reveal himself.  Republicans have been slow to define Obama this season, but they are getting their act together.  McCain is on the attack, and Obama can’t be like Jackie Robinson (sorry, Reverend Jackson).  Obama has to be on the attack as well.

Finally, I wondered when the white supremacists would come out of the woodwork.  Don’t those two look like what you would expect a racist to look like?  Although these threats have to be taken seriously, somehow I doubt those two inbred morons were capable of pulling off an assassination.  I can’t imagine anyone pulling off an Oswald, as these two were planning to do, shooting Obama from the top of a building with a high-powered rifle.

Then again, Kennedy had 447 police officers assigned to his detail in Dallas, not to mention his Secret Service detail.  Yet all it took was one man in the right place at the right time, and Kennedy was killed.

I am reading Vincent Bugliosi’s Four Days in November.  The assassination of a man in whom millions have invested hope and dreams is a heartbreaking possibility to contemplate.

Yesterday, a Republican friend asked me if I watched the Brokeback debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, this past weekend. I admitted I hadn’t watched it, nor had I heard anything about it. It wasn’t really the Brokeback debate; I think it was actually something like Steelback, but since I didn’t watch it and haven’t read anything about it, I don’t know.

This Republican friend was excited, though, because apparently John McCain blew Obama out of the water. She mentioned that even Limbaugh had to give McCain credit for a stellar performance. People are probably giving McCain credit for simply doing better than expected; or perhaps people were disappointed that Obama did worse than expected. I don’t know. I do know I have not been impressed with what little I’ve seen of Obama when he’s off teleprompter, speaking impromptu. He’s a good public speaker, but not a good extemporaneous speaker, which I’ve always found to be the oddest thing.

Apparently his speech coach in law school never taught him that “uh” and “um” kill all momentum in an opening or closing argument.

However that may be, I don’t know how he did in the debate, and I don’t really care. I can’t remember an election in which I’ve had so little interest after the primaries.

Despite that, I pick up bits of pieces of news here and there. On Tuesday night, O’Reilly did a bio-piece on McCain, which I listened to on XM on my way back to D.C. I’m anxious to see a similar piece on Obama, because I think we need to be able to compare his life experiences with McCain’s. Obviously McCain has had a longer life, so his experience is bound to be much richer, but we need to be able to size up the two men, side by side.

Personally, I don’t think McCain’s military service is going to matter as much as he hopes. Yes, compared to someone who was a POW in North Vietnam, the life of someone whose purported qualification for the Presidency is that he was a “community organizer” is going to look pretty small and uneventful. But in the end I don’t think the vast majority of Americans can relate to a military man anymore.

A very small percentage of the population currently serves in the armed forces. Most people spout the usual drivel about supporting the troops, but we are all removed from the actualities of military life, to the point that war is something that happens on TV to men and women we have built up as larger than life “heroes” (such an overused word).

McCain himself has polished the image of his younger self into that of a bronze statue; and while we dutiful pay it respect, a statue can sometimes make the real-life model look much smaller. The portly, somewhat corrupt little Napoleon who thrusts his thumbs at us from the stage is so far removed from the dashing pilot of 1967, I’m not sure anyone can make a rational connection between the two.

A liberal co-worker said to me a few weeks ago, “He holds himself so stiffly; he looks like a robot.” I responded, “That’s because he broke both his arms when his plane crashed, then the Viet Cong re-broke his arms and dislocated his shoulder while torturing him. He can’t lift his hands above his head.”

“Oh,” the co-worker said flatly. He might have been embarrassed, but the truth is that most people are like him: people don’t know, and if they do know, they don’t care. It’s like when Dole made his service in World War II part of his campaign, or Kerry played up his Vetnam War experience–ordinary people can’t relate to the military experience anymore than they can relate to the experiences of a wealthy Hollywood star.

In the end, I think this election is and always has been a referendum on Barack Obama. McCain hardly matters. Right now, I don’t think things are looking good for Obama, though. It seems less important to me that McCain’s campaign is resurgent in the polls; the real indicator of Obama’s fortunes is the stagnation of his numbers. He hasn’t really moved up or down significantly, this summer, as if everyone else in the United States is as tuned out as I am.

I’m starting to think maybe the pundits of the winter were right and the fight with Clinton did more harm than good, sucking all the energy out of the General election. However, perhaps the Convention next week will turn the tide that currently seems to be running against Obama.

One of the benefits of waking up for work before five AM is that I catch the final minutes of Coast to Coast AM, the early morning (or late night, depending on your point of view) talk show in which host, guests, and callers discuss paranormal and other pseudo-scientific phenomena.

I consider this a benefit because if I formed my impression of Americans and how they think solely from mainstream sources such as daytime talk radio and cable news, I’d probably believe that we are all exceptionally rational human beings. Instead, by listening to Coast to Coast, I’ve been given a glimpse into the erratic minds of people who listen to radio at four AM and then decide to call in to report their experience with “visitors” from a parallel universe. Somehow I think these late-night denizens of the airways are far more typical of Americans than otherwise, especially when you consider that according to a recent study, educated people are more likely to believe in the paranormal than the uneducated or religious.

[The study] “of 391 U.S. college students done in 2000, found that participants who did not believe in Protestant doctrine were most likely to believe in reincarnation, contact with the dead, UFOs, telepathy, prophecy, psychokinesis, or healing. Believers were the least likely to buy into the paranormal.” Monsters, Ghost and Gods: Why We Believe

The reason I bring this subject up is not that I am a coldly rational skeptic, but because indeed I am fascinated by stories of ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, and the like. However, I like to think I do approach the subject with a skeptical, questioning mind. What amazes me about Coast to Coast is that people call in with the most outlandish stories, and their wild tales are accepted as true by the host and his guest.

Sometimes I feel the host and his guests aren’t skeptical enough of their own beliefs and stories, as well.

For example, this morning when I turned on the radio, George Noory was talking to someone named Joshua P. Warren, a paranormal researcher who, judging by his photo, looks a bit too much like the kid in high school drawing Metallica logos on his notebook in the back of the classroom while his science teacher drones on.

The subject under discussion was this photo of construction at the White House, taken during the 1950’s and first appearing in David McCullough’s biography of Harry Truman. If you scroll down to the magnified view of the image, you will see what appears to be a transparent image of a man standing amidst the construction.

Now, if I saw this photo in the McCullough biography, and if I noticed the “ghostly” man at all, my first thought would not be “Oh my god it’s a ghost!” My first thought would be “double exposure.” Because that’s what it looks like, and that is the simplest and most likely explanation. Or perhaps the picture was taken with a camera with a long exposure time, and someone moved, causing their image to be blurred. Who knows…but my first thought is not “Ghost!”

My wife and I enjoy watching the show Ghosthunters on the SciFi network, and I find myself both believing and disbelieving at the same time. However I rarely end an episode of this program convinced of anything, because so much “proof” of paranormal activity is based on unverifiable human sensory perception–a person senses that something is watching them–or else on fallible technological evidence, such as recordings, photographs, or (most laughable of all) fluctuations in temperature within a room. So often I think that, as in religion, we believe in the paranormal because we want to believe, not because there is any evidence worthy of our belief.

Furthermore, sometimes we can be influenced to believe by accepted “wisdom” concerning the paranormal. For instance, the idea that photographic equipment can capture paranormal manifestations invisible to the naked eye is a staple belief of paranormal “researchers,” and most ordinary people interested in the subject believe it. Similarly, a prevalent idea is that when a ghost or presence is in a room, the temperature will lower dramatically as the being sucks energy from the room. Thus when a person sees a blurred human image in a photograph of construction at the White House, they have been trained to think “Ghost” when in fact the image may be perfectly explicable by reason.

To give another example, I live in an eighty year old house here in Washington. My landlady is 94, and her husband died a painful, prolonged death in the house a few years ago, finally going out of his mind in his final days. There may have been other deaths in the house. Thus, given accepted wisdom about the kinds of houses that are haunted, this house seems like a likely place for the paranormal to manifest itself.

My diet of literature and TV shows about ghosts and the paranormal also influences what I expect or believe possible. I hate to be alone in the house. I don’t like looking in mirrors, for fear of what I might see behind me. I hear a lot of noises at night, including creaking doors and the crack of wood as the house cools. I’ve been awakened in the night with the oppressive fear that something is in the room with me, literally hovering near the bed.

The latter in particular disturbed me, for awhile. I don’t sleep well, anyway, and I used to attribute it to the “presence” in the house.

Then at some point, it occurred to me that if I wake up in the night with this feeling of oppressiveness about me, why do I immediately attribute it to the paranormal? Could it be I’ve been conditioned to think “ghost” because of all the crap about ghosts I’ve loaded into my brain over the years? Could a more likely explanation be that I just woke up out of a pleasant sleep, and so naturally my brain is not going to be functioning at its highest, most rational level?

We’ve all had the experience of being in that twilight state between sleep and waking, and thinking something that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. But in the light of day, we look at it and think, “How ridiculous!”

It is probably no coincidence that people tend to see ghosts mostly at night. There is probably a psychological link between how our brain works during sleep and in those periods just before or after sleep, and our mis-perception of reality at that time.

In short, I think more often than not ghosts and the like can be explained by reference to our brains and our environmental conditioning, rather than to any measurable manifestation.

And yet, I still am attracted to the kinds of “evidence” people such as Joshua Warren propose as proof of the existence of ghosts. Why do I want to believe? I don’t know. In the end, I think like a lot of people, I just like a good scare and the feeling of creepiness when I hear the sound of a voice on a recording of an empty room.

At some point, there has to be room for faith in life–belief divorced from evidence. But for the most part, I hold these two parts of my being separate, the part that believes on faith, and the part that demands evidence. There is no need to reconcile them. Humanity itself is unreconciled to its own humanity, thus our belief that we become like gods upon death, transcendent and immortal.

Summer is winding down. Within two days, Brendan will be back at school; Lynn has already been back to school since early last week. Not much changes for me, since I am not on an academic schedule, but my life, too, becomes a little emptier without wife and son around on my days off.

Other than school beginning, it isn’t really the end of anything. But over the years I’ve become accustomed to marking the end of one year and the beginning of another with the start of the school year rather than on January 1st. It’s an old habit I will probably never lose.

When I was a kid, I actually loved this time of year. For about one week after school started, I was excited about school. It passed. But I still love the Fall and view it as both an end and a beginning.

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Lately for no particular reason, I have been feeling supremely happy with my life. Nothing special is happening right now, but for whatever reason I feel good. Furthermore, the smallest event is likely to trigger that feeling of glowing warmth inside, like someone just gave me a wonderful present.

Late yesterday evening, I was watering the rose bushes, and I got that feeling. We cooked chicken and corn on the cob on the grill last night, and I got that feeling. Lynn and I were sitting together watching “Mad Men,” and I got that feeling.

Maybe it’s a combination of things triggering these feelings. On the one hand, at odd times I’ve had the recurring thought that this is likely to be my Grandma’s last summer. So the nearness of death makes me appreciate the life that I have. Also, the weather has been extremely mild this weekend. Today, the high is only supposed to reach 79, which is spectacular for August. Additionally, Lynn and I have really been enjoying each other’s company lately. We have been playing a game of Scrabble together in the evening, something we used to do back in the first days of our relationship. The sex has been pretty good, too.

Also, last week my mother-in-law, two nieces, and a nephew came to stay with us for several days. Ordinarily, such a visit might be the cause of extreme strife within our marriage. I know that there was a time when I would have been one miserable S.O.B for a week, while they visited. But, for one thing, I wasn’t home all week (On Monday, I went back to D.C. to work and did not return until Thursday, one day before they left). And for another, seeing how much Brendan enjoyed having his cousins here for a week was a real pleasure. I’m sure he is going to have some great memories of this summer.

Also, before I left for work on Monday, they threw me an impromptu surprise birthday party. My birthday is not until October, but my mother-in-law said that since they never get to celebrate it with me in October, she wanted to have a party this week.

That little party was so unexpected, I had to choke back a few tears.

Every little thing seems to trigger an emotion, now.

I remember when I was little, one of my favorite fairy tales was the Three Billy Goats Gruff. I can still remember sitting on my grandma’s lap while she read that story to me from a book that had been my Dad’s back in the fifties, when he was little.

I never really got the point of the story, other than troll’s live under bridges. That triggers another memory: riding with my grandparents across the Memorial Bridge in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and hearing my grandpa say “We have to pay the toll” except what I heard was “We have to pay the troll.” I got down in the floor of the car and hid until Grandpa and Grandma laughed and told me what he really said.

The point of the story, muddled as it is, seems to be that if the grass is greener on the other side, go get it. Just make sure you have a big brother to kick the troll’s ass.

Well, I am at a point in my life where I don’t particularly care whether the grass is greener on the other side of the bridge. I’m happy with the green grass of home.

One way I can tell I am getting old is that, though I still love the Beatles music dearly, in the song “She’s Leaving Home” I identify more with the parents than the runaway girl. I found myself rather teary eyed at the verse:

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that’s lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband
Daddy our baby’s gone

And yet another symptom of the end of youthful romanticism is that I used to think the song “Fixing a Hole” was about the treatment of depression: “I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in.”

Now, I think the song is just about basic home maintenance.

I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in…
I’m filling the cracks that ran through the door…
I’m painting my room in a colorful way…

Who said the Beatles were all about drugs and sex, anyway?

Here’s an interesting way for you to occupy a lunch break. Put the Beatles on your iPod and go to songfacts.com and read the commentary for each song, as you listen to it.

What I find fascinating is how there is no simple interpretation of even the simplest Beatles song. Of course there are those who interpret everything as either about drugs or sex, but the fascinating thing is how people personalize these songs and totally disregard such anchors of interpretation as authorial statements of intent.

So what if Paul said that “Fixing a Hole” was literally a song about fixing a hole in the roof of his home in Scotland; I say it’s about recovering from depression. That’s what it means to me. And someone else sees it as a song about recovery from drug addiction. Still someone else says the song is about the freedom to let your mind wander while smoking pot.

And people argue about these issues, too, as if the misnomer “Song Facts” must literally be true and we can, indeed, establish hard facts about the meaning of songs.

One of the funniest arguments isn’t even about interpretation, but concerns something that ought to be a verifiable fact. At the end of the 1967 song “All You Need Is Love,” one of the Beatles can be heard in the background singing, almost chanting, the chorus from the 1963 hit, “She Loves You.” But is it Paul or is it John? There is a raging argument about that in the comments section. And people seem genuinely angry about it. Take this one guy, for example, who insists on his point of view as if he were Simone de Beauvoir arguing a vital point of epistemology with Jean Paul Sartre:

“This is definitely not like Paul! Not even close…obviously you don’t listen enough to their music. I mean, to say someting like that if you are not well versed in their history is sensational. This song is VERY John.”

I don’t know how anyone can doubt the greatness of this music, when you have passionate people like that arguing such miniscule points of contention as if they were medieval scholastics debating theology.

Anyway, you still learn a lot from reading the info at Song Facts in conjunction with the music. For example, did you know that in the background of the song “Paperback Writer,” you can hear John and George singing Frère Jacques in falsetto?

You might also learn that the man who burned his mind out in a car (from “A Day in the Life”) is actually Tara Browne, an heir to the Guinness fortune who died in a car accident. The “news” in the song comes from two stories Lennon read in the Daily Mail, one about Browne and the other about a surveyor who counted 4000 holes in the roads of Blackburn. In saying that there were enough holes to fill Albert Hall, the surveyor–who presumably could be found out with a little research–unwittingly provided one of the most comic lines in all of music history: “Now we know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.” The comic part being that, of course, a hole can’t fill anything.

Whether you have time to waste, or want to know more about the Beatles music, this is a decent, informal place to start. However, as with any wiki, one should not necessarily trust it as an authoritative source. Authoritative sources are so boring, though. I much prefer, “I heard it from my brother who got it from a roadie that traveled with the Beatles.”

The word is that the FBI is going to report the 2001 Anthrax case “solved.” The more I read about the supposed murdered, Bruce Ivins, the less certain I am that he is the culprit, however.

Today’s Washington Post story, “Tales of Addicton, Anxiety, Ranting” only confirms in my mind that like Stephen Hatfill before him, Ivins is a scapegoat for investigative incompetence. At first glance, an alcoholic who, so his therapist says, made threats against his colleagues, would seem a likely suspect. However, his descent into addiction and mental illness seem only to have occurred after the FBI made it clear he was their prime suspect.

Some of the ways in which the FBI harassed him included telling his children and wife their father was a murderer–once going so far as to stop Ivins and his wife in a public mall and telling his wife that her husband was a murderer.

They also tried to entice Ivin’s son to implicate his father by offering him the reward money plus a sport’s car of his choice.

I think addiction, anxiety, and suicide look less and less like guilty behavior, and more like a natural response to this kind of stress.

Anyway, the FBI is going to lay out their case against him soon. FBI to Show How Genetics led to Anthrax Researcher. At this point, I am a skeptic. I don’t think there can be a case made proving him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or even on a preponderance of circumstantial evidence. I am more inclined to believe that an over-zealous government hounded an innocent man to commit suicide.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time, but I put it off until a confluence of recent events brought it to mind again. First, while driving to Pennsylvania to pick up her mother, two nieces, and a nephew and bring them back to Virginia, our GPS system utterly failed my wife and caused a brief, but intense marital spat. Second, there was an article in today’s Washington Post titled Why we hate our GPS devices. I think I have some insight into why we both love and hate these devices, and I think the Post article only partially gets it right.

My brother-in-law bought me my Garmin GPS for Christmas last year. He is a truck driver, and he had bought one for himself and thought it would be a good thing for me to have, considering the driving I do.

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