Entry tags:
and I had to repack everything once I got here, too
Sometimes printers are RIDICULOUS.
And, I mean, I really had no idea that printing something out could possibly be so complicated. It's more complicated than some of my patient care when you're attempting to do it in my parents' house. Which has five computers and three printers.
One of the computers is my dad's. My mom has two laptops, a Mac and a PC. The other two are semi-broken old relic desktops that are still around because nobody got rid of them and they perform a few basic functions that keep things like the extremely finnicky wireless (it goes out when the wind blows) running.
Only one of the three printers works. It is a wireless printer! That means that it should work with my netbook, that has the pdf file of my boarding pass for my flight tomorrow on it, right? ... Wrong. My laptop won't find the wireless printer. Four times. So I go ask my mom if I can use the printer cable from the mostly-dead desktop downstairs (that is plugged in to a broken printer, specifically the one that spits black ink everywhere when you turn it on -- my parents' printers are ALL extremely special) to plug it in to my netbook so I can get my computer to talk to the printer.
It ... doesn't go exactly as planned. Because my mother is completely confused by the idea, and I have to keep explaining and we kept yelling over each other to try to talk. Now, I was on the phone with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
distractionary at this time and so he had to listen to what transpired, which was something like this, paraphrased as close as I can:
RUE: So can I use the printer cable from downstairs?
MOM: The printer downstairs doesn't work.
RUE: I know that. I want the cable.
MOM: What?
RUE: The cable? That connects the computer to the printer? You plug the cable [hand gesture]
into the back of the computer [another hand gesture] and the other half into the printer. To make them talk to each other.
MOM: It's a wireless printer.
RUE: The one downstairs isn't.
MOM: The one downstairs --
RUE: Doesn't work, I know. I just want the cable.
MOM: What cable?
RUE: The cable that connects the printer to the computer!
MOM: But it's the printer downstairs!
RUE: It's a standard jack, mom.
MOM: I have no idea what you are talking about.
RUE: So just tell me I can go ahead and do it! I won't break anything!
MOM: ... Go ahead then!
Around this time my dad comes into the hallway and starts asking me a question, and then my mother yells something, and then I mentally facedesk and say "I'll call you back" and hang up on Brady. After a few more minutes of trying to get my mother to understand what it is I want to do (because she didn't actually stop talking after telling me to go ahead) I turn to my father.
RUE: Do you understand what I want to do? Because I feel like I'm losing my mind. I didn't think it was that confusing.
DAD: Yeah, you want to take the cable from the printer downstairs and use it to plug your computer into the upstairs printer.
RUE: Okay, so it's not me.
Then I go downstairs, climb behind all the stuff, unplug the printer cable from the computer, unplug it from the printer (carefully, so I don't get ink on me), go upstairs, and plug it in (after calling Brady back). The USB drive recognizes there is a printer there, but the computer doesn't. And the printer doesn't recognize that it's plugged in to a computer, either.
Brady goes to make dinner -- and therefore gets off the phone with me -- and I try and try again to do everything I can to get the computer and the printer to like each other. It doesn't work. I go in the hallway to tell my parents this. More confusion. My mother tells me that the downstairs mostly-broken desktop will talk to the upstairs printer, if we can get it to connect to the internet. I email myself the boarding pass pdf, and we set off downstairs to try to get the computer to connect.
... Yeah, no. Not so much.
Mom tries to restart it, and tells me to go upstairs because downstairs is really just cold. Actually getting cold, I consent and go upstairs, and about two minutes later Mom comes up the stairs.
MOM: What am I doing.
RUE: -- I don't know!
MOM: This computer [gestures to less-broken desktop] is connected to it too.
RUE: Oh. Well then.
So, animosity forgotten, we team up to get the less-broken desktop, which is upstairs in her bedroom, to print out the boarding pass. First, no one can remember the administrator password. Second, we can't get it on the internet either. Thirdly --
RUE: This computer has a PDF reader, right?
MOM: Right.
RUE: [downloads file, attempts to open]
COMPUTER: [asks Rue if she wants to open this pdf with Photoshop]
RUE: WTF. [sigh] No it doesn't.
MOM: Doesn't what?
RUE: Have a PDF reader.
MOM: ... Oh. Oops. I'll go see if I can get the downstairs computer to work after all!
She disappears down the stairs again, I watch Adobe download and install and then ask me to restart. I glare at the computer, because I don't know the password. I restart it anyway, then get my mother to enter the password.
The computer screen reads Installation failed: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
We both scream.
Mom goes back downstairs.My dad tells me to put the PDF on a flash drive and just give it to airline staff at JFK and hope that they can help me out, because after all, I do have a boarding pass, I just can't print it, I'm checked in and everything. I decide to try installing a different PDF reader first, and after some fun times fighting with the internet to work and CNet, I find one.
It downloads.
It installs.
It works.
I hit 'print,' and both parents come running in the room, proclaiming that they heard something. I point at the printer, whose little text window says 'Printing' on it (above 'MODE: COPY,' because like I said, all the printers are extremely special) and then at the screen, which has my boarding pass on it.
"Print five copies," says my dad.
And that, we concluded, is why airlines should go back to having tickets. And yes, I know there's a kiosk at the airport. It was too late. I had already checked in.
All of that over, well, in the morning I'm off to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chimbleysweep's for the week! Bye, New York, see you next Saturday. Hello, Washington.
And, I mean, I really had no idea that printing something out could possibly be so complicated. It's more complicated than some of my patient care when you're attempting to do it in my parents' house. Which has five computers and three printers.
One of the computers is my dad's. My mom has two laptops, a Mac and a PC. The other two are semi-broken old relic desktops that are still around because nobody got rid of them and they perform a few basic functions that keep things like the extremely finnicky wireless (it goes out when the wind blows) running.
Only one of the three printers works. It is a wireless printer! That means that it should work with my netbook, that has the pdf file of my boarding pass for my flight tomorrow on it, right? ... Wrong. My laptop won't find the wireless printer. Four times. So I go ask my mom if I can use the printer cable from the mostly-dead desktop downstairs (that is plugged in to a broken printer, specifically the one that spits black ink everywhere when you turn it on -- my parents' printers are ALL extremely special) to plug it in to my netbook so I can get my computer to talk to the printer.
It ... doesn't go exactly as planned. Because my mother is completely confused by the idea, and I have to keep explaining and we kept yelling over each other to try to talk. Now, I was on the phone with
distractionary at this time and so he had to listen to what transpired, which was something like this, paraphrased as close as I can:RUE: So can I use the printer cable from downstairs?
MOM: The printer downstairs doesn't work.
RUE: I know that. I want the cable.
MOM: What?
RUE: The cable? That connects the computer to the printer? You plug the cable [hand gesture]
into the back of the computer [another hand gesture] and the other half into the printer. To make them talk to each other.
MOM: It's a wireless printer.
RUE: The one downstairs isn't.
MOM: The one downstairs --
RUE: Doesn't work, I know. I just want the cable.
MOM: What cable?
RUE: The cable that connects the printer to the computer!
MOM: But it's the printer downstairs!
RUE: It's a standard jack, mom.
MOM: I have no idea what you are talking about.
RUE: So just tell me I can go ahead and do it! I won't break anything!
MOM: ... Go ahead then!
Around this time my dad comes into the hallway and starts asking me a question, and then my mother yells something, and then I mentally facedesk and say "I'll call you back" and hang up on Brady. After a few more minutes of trying to get my mother to understand what it is I want to do (because she didn't actually stop talking after telling me to go ahead) I turn to my father.
RUE: Do you understand what I want to do? Because I feel like I'm losing my mind. I didn't think it was that confusing.
DAD: Yeah, you want to take the cable from the printer downstairs and use it to plug your computer into the upstairs printer.
RUE: Okay, so it's not me.
Then I go downstairs, climb behind all the stuff, unplug the printer cable from the computer, unplug it from the printer (carefully, so I don't get ink on me), go upstairs, and plug it in (after calling Brady back). The USB drive recognizes there is a printer there, but the computer doesn't. And the printer doesn't recognize that it's plugged in to a computer, either.
Brady goes to make dinner -- and therefore gets off the phone with me -- and I try and try again to do everything I can to get the computer and the printer to like each other. It doesn't work. I go in the hallway to tell my parents this. More confusion. My mother tells me that the downstairs mostly-broken desktop will talk to the upstairs printer, if we can get it to connect to the internet. I email myself the boarding pass pdf, and we set off downstairs to try to get the computer to connect.
... Yeah, no. Not so much.
Mom tries to restart it, and tells me to go upstairs because downstairs is really just cold. Actually getting cold, I consent and go upstairs, and about two minutes later Mom comes up the stairs.
MOM: What am I doing.
RUE: -- I don't know!
MOM: This computer [gestures to less-broken desktop] is connected to it too.
RUE: Oh. Well then.
So, animosity forgotten, we team up to get the less-broken desktop, which is upstairs in her bedroom, to print out the boarding pass. First, no one can remember the administrator password. Second, we can't get it on the internet either. Thirdly --
RUE: This computer has a PDF reader, right?
MOM: Right.
RUE: [downloads file, attempts to open]
COMPUTER: [asks Rue if she wants to open this pdf with Photoshop]
RUE: WTF. [sigh] No it doesn't.
MOM: Doesn't what?
RUE: Have a PDF reader.
MOM: ... Oh. Oops. I'll go see if I can get the downstairs computer to work after all!
She disappears down the stairs again, I watch Adobe download and install and then ask me to restart. I glare at the computer, because I don't know the password. I restart it anyway, then get my mother to enter the password.
The computer screen reads Installation failed: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
We both scream.
Mom goes back downstairs.My dad tells me to put the PDF on a flash drive and just give it to airline staff at JFK and hope that they can help me out, because after all, I do have a boarding pass, I just can't print it, I'm checked in and everything. I decide to try installing a different PDF reader first, and after some fun times fighting with the internet to work and CNet, I find one.
It downloads.
It installs.
It works.
I hit 'print,' and both parents come running in the room, proclaiming that they heard something. I point at the printer, whose little text window says 'Printing' on it (above 'MODE: COPY,' because like I said, all the printers are extremely special) and then at the screen, which has my boarding pass on it.
"Print five copies," says my dad.
And that, we concluded, is why airlines should go back to having tickets. And yes, I know there's a kiosk at the airport. It was too late. I had already checked in.
All of that over, well, in the morning I'm off to
chimbleysweep's for the week! Bye, New York, see you next Saturday. Hello, Washington.