detail

I didn't get through the first spiral yesterday as hoped. I had a frustrating day with computer stuff, including spending a couple of hours, total, on the phone with tech assistance about my DSL modem upgrade I'd just installed on my computer. The wait time to speak to a real person was around 30 minutes each time, long enough for me to s-l-o-w-l-y peruse the Woven Gems catalog (that was fun--the canned music provided for my entertainment while I waited was not!) In the time I spent waiting, the phone battery got lower and lower--and just as I'm sure the gentleman in India was about to give me the magic word to make my connection to the world work again, the phone pooped out!!

SO, I thought to myself--self, you can go to the weaving studio at school, get online and see if you can trouble-shoot the problem for yourself!! Off I go, unlock the outside door at the building where the studio is located, unlock the inside door into the studio itself, walk into the room where our two OLD Macs are housed--------and-------they're not there!! Neither of them. And the little cheapie printer was gone, too.

I called the fine arts department office to see if the computers had been picked up for some reason by the IIT folks; the secretary said she'd check but didn't know why they'd do that. In the meantime I went back to the house and got on the phone again to a local techie to see if he could walk me through the install (the problem that was occurring was that the Windstream set-up assistant insisted I must have Internet Explorer to proceed--which I don't have, don't want, and don't believe I can even get a version of for my Mac) through my system preferences.

As I was on the phone to him, I had an incoming call--which was the FA secretary calling to say IIT had indeed NOT picked up the computers and that the campus police were heading to the building and wanted to meet me up there.

Turns out, a window was broken and the computers removed...probably over the past weekend. I didn't even notice the broken window when I went in--I was so focused on the empty tables where the computers had been! And, as it turns out, the thieves overlooked another computer that we hadn't yet had installed--at least they didn't make a clean sweep of what little we have. It burns my buttons anyway...!!!

SO...the weaving time was cut to a bare minimum as a result of all the hoopla of the day. But I did get some way into the spiral and here's a shot of that. AND, because I'm posting this it's clear that I finally spent some "quality time" with another gentleman from India late last night and he was able to work the magic needed to get my modem to understand that working with a Mac is OK!!

Off to Asheville today to pick up a tapestry that's been away at a Guild exhibit for over a year--in the Appalachian Regional Commission Offices in Washington, D.C. along with the work of other Southern Highland Craft Guild members. Another piece of mine went to replace it in the next installation of Guild members' works at the ARC.

Here's a detail of the tapestry at this point: