Because this post is full of complaints, I will intersperse the verbal bummerations with nice photos.
We had a week when the internet went out 2 or 3 times a day on 4 days, and one of those days it was down all day long. This meant that neither the cell phone nor the landline worked. We also had an unscheduled half day without electricity and another day without power from 9:30-6:15. All of this took place during the week when I was preparing for my demo/talk How To Draw. In addition, I had people waiting for emails, with proofs, sketches, and price quotes to approve. It was also a week that I had set aside to make multiple phone calls to a tech service in order to repair and understand my wonky website.
Without power or internet, how does one print drawing exercises? or scan things necessary for handouts? or print one’s own notes? or let inquiring customers know you are not a flaky artist? How does one repair a website that one cannot access?
One waits. One uses a yellow legal pad and a pen. One waits some more. One composes emails and puts them in a folder called “Drafts”. One keeps waiting. One works in quiet, without tunes or podcasts. And one waits some more.
When the power came on, the printer wouldn’t print anything in color until I cleaned the heads about 6 times. Then I had to replace the ink, of course. I believe that printers were designed by ink companies. The next one I get will be a laser printer. I don’t know what that actually means, but people who have these say they are very reliable and use less ink. Everything uses less ink. EVERYTHING. (Excuse me, I need to leave this blog and order some more ink while thinking about it.)
Okay, I’m back, $48.70 poorer.
Eventually, I was able to get everything printed and scanned in time for the talk. Eventually, the emails went through. Eventually, I was able to make one phone call to repair one thing on my website. I also got a bit of painting done on one disrupted day before it got too dark to see.
From this:
To this:
To this, when I finally decided it was too cold to leave the door open, but too dark with it closed.
Thus, we end today’s complaint session with a vague sense of productivity and thankfulness for autumn beauty and electricity and internet and telephones.
Simply Home
4 Comments
I forgot to check “Email me new comments” so here we are again!
I didn’t know that there was such a box to check!
If you have a laptop (and I think you do?) you can go to a place that offers Wi-Fi (which you may have to pay for by cash or buying a latte or something). Or, doesn’t your local library offer computers to use? Or a friend in Visalia? Not convenient, but productive.
Sharon, you right, so if it was desperate, I could go somewhere else. EXCEPT sometimes the entire town is down.
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