Superstition and technology

[tenaya]

Work has been really busy. Premature babies are a dime a dozen at the moment, but I've finally got a few days off. Tomorrow, we go to the Los Angeles Country Fair. Hucksters shilling household items, food on a stick--what's not to love? :)

And now I can try to finish setting up the laptop. All was slogging along as expected until I must have entered the wrong info for the outgoing mail. The paperwork Earthlink gave me was smtp.earthlink.net but I have a strong suspicion it should have been smtpauth.earthlink.net. I think I ran into this problem 3 years ago when I set up this desktop computer; I'd scrawled it on the envelop the earthlink paperwork was kept in. It would have been nice if I'd maybe been MORE CLEAR about what that meant as I only access that infor every 4 or 5 years! :::sheesh::: And now I need to figure out if that is truly what I need to do and how to do it, particularly the router. I think I entered that in the router and I need to faq linksys. :( :::sigh:::

Complicating things, Mom very sheepishly and anxiously describe a worrying event last night while I was at work. She says she felt the wireless mouse tingle with electrical current. Things weren't responding and she shut stuff down. The new laptop wouldn't shut off so she put it on the stove and went to bed (she thought it felt too warm.) I turned it on today and it seems okay but the battery was exhausted. The desktop seems okay except for a few things. It couldn't access the net, until I bypassed the router and then I hooked it up through a different port. Zone Alarm acts like it's just been installed, asking which programs can access the net. The event log only goes back to yesterday. Defender seems to think it was active only since yesterday. Everything seems to be okay, but I'm thinking an electrical surge gave my desktop amnesia somehow. How a wireless mouse had a charge, or how it transmitted to the laptop or how it wiped Zone Alarms memory is a mystery and doesn't seem logical. But something did happen. I'm thinking Mom may have had a charge and it was leaving her body where it touched the mouse, but still...?

And this is how superstitions occur. Everything was going along fine until I brought the attention of the Technology God to my house with that laptop and router. Did it change the electronic feng shui and upset the chi? Is the Technology God a jealous and angry god? What sort of sacrifice is needed to appease it?

Comments

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Do you work with prem babies? My little guy was premature, born 5 weeks early in February. I have such an admiration for the wonderful nurses who cared for him (and me, nervous 1st-time Mum) during his 13-day stay.

That's spooky about your computers. Is Mercury in retrograde again? That always seems to screw with technology in general. In my experience the Technology God is not so much jealous and angry, more an appreciator of practical jokes and general frustration.

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

I'm a respiratory therapist, the people who run the ventilators and deal with all things breathing. Did your little guy have to have extra oxygen? Sometimes they are just fine at that age and sometimes they need help. It's so very hard for the parents. They had their expectations of what was going to be and suddenly they are in a strange place with lots of scary equipment. How's he doing now?

Last summer was hideous for me. Every 10-14 days something really expensive would happen--all summer long. I blamed it on Mercury being in retrograde. *g* And the Technology God does have a strong affinity for chaos, unfortunately. I'd say there's sense of humor but I sure don't find it funny.

I just checked: "This time is from June 16 to July 10, 2007. Next, from October 11 to November 1, 2007. And then from January 28 to February 18, 2008."

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. Yes, Griffin was in SCBU due to his breathing, it's the one thing he failed on his APGAR tests. He was on CPAP for 12 hours, but after that was just fine, and they only held him longer due to jaundice and a bit of a slow start to feeding. I must say the whole affair freaked me out - I hadn't even finished work. I still mourn missing the end of my pregnancy. But he's doing great. He was almost 19lbs 2 weeks ago and he's just about to start crawling. He was almost 6lbs when born so maybe it's a blessing he didn't cook any longer!

So Mercury is moving towards another retrograde. Eek. *battens down hatches*

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

He did pretty good, really. Just a little bit of help and off he went. :) Sounds like he's doing really well. That's great.

Interesting that you mourned losing that last month of pregnancy. Obviously, it's not the physical unpleasantness that you missed, or is it?

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what it is that I'm so sad at missing, because I think I would have been pretty darn uncomfortable at full term. My legs and feet were already swollen like balloons, and walking was getting really hard. I think I had this lovely vision of having my planned 4 weeks off work before he arrived, with my feet up, maybe doing a little bit of nesting, and getting my toenails painted, that sort of thing. The whole "mother-in-waiting" gig. I hadn't had a chance to film my stomach moving. I had no time to get mentally prepared for the birth. My water broke on the Sunday morning (thank goodness it wasn't at work the next day!) and I stood in the shower and just cried and cried because I wasn't done being pregnant yet. I'd felt so horrible for so much of it, and was just starting to enjoy it, swollen extremeties notwithstanding.

I understand it's quite normal to feel robbed of that special few weeks. All the girls in my coffee group were jealous of me, and I was jealous of them!

But I firmly believe it happened for a reason. I have a feeling my placenta might have been failing. If he'd stayed in things could have gone badly. Plus, I'm very tiny and he was on the way to being rather big.

Sorry, that was rather a ramble...

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

You had set aside that month to indulge in the anticipation, the preparation and to embrace this amazing event. You were cheated. :(

Many times, babies come early for a reason. I guess he hit the ejection button, eh? *g* And if he had gotten way bigger (since putting on weight is one of the main things they do in that last 4 weeks) you could have ended up with a c-section. Yes, there were some pluses to what happened.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Yes, you summed it up better than I could. Luckily I decided to make it a 4-week break rather than the original 2 weeks I had planned. My replacement at work wouldn't even have been trained! Guess I had a hunch. I am sure he wanted out for a very good reason. So many people said to me "he just ran out of room." I think he would have been over 10lbs if he'd gone full term. Ouch.

[deej1957.livejournal.com]

Shall I send Sam and Dean over?

You're totally talking me out of ever getting a wireless anything....

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

Naw, I'll still take Daniel. :) He might even be able to fix it.

Part of my troubles is my own fault. But you make a wrong step and it takes effort and tears to get it right. *g*

Of course, I'm hoping that 'shock' from a few nights ago was an electric charge and not some attempt to hack into the computer. The computers should be protected....