I want to talk more about knowing what you know and suddenly hitting your limits. My brother was over with his girlfriend tonight—
Side note: My brother’s girlfriend is also GF/DF, which means that I can be chill about what they’re bringing over. I don’t have to worry about my big issues, gluten and dairy. And my brother makes a killer pulled pork that he brought over. His girlfriend’s daughter had her prom, so it wsa leftovers from their dinner for her and her friends. Which was very cool.
They brought over pulled pork, potato salad from CostCo, green beans, and a raspberry lemonade water that they made themselves. Oh, and corn muffins they made. It was all really tasty, and it was a relief to be able to eat without having to worry that I might suffer from some unfortunate results.
Anyway, I told my brother what happened with Zoom, and I asked what he thought was the problem. He made a few good guesses, but neither was right. I joked with his GF that he was my last stop. I didn’t want to rely on him too often, but it was nice to have him in my back pocket, as it were. There was one time that even he did not know what the answer was, which meant the answer was not to be found.
As I said in yesterday’s post, I was really pleased with myself when I figured out what the problem was (I tried to go through the app, which I did not have. It let me actually go into the app, but it denied my audio. I could see and be seen, and I could hear, but I could not be heard. I don’t understand why, but once I realized that and went through the browser, it was fine. Or was it me restarting my computer? Either way, it’s fixed for now. *Crosses fingers*
I don’t even know how I figured it out, really. I think it was my best guess. Ever since the last update, instead of simply clicking to join, they have two separate options–one is through the app and the other is through the browser. Even though I don’t have the app, it allowed me to join through it. I have no idea why. But it would not accept my microphone. That just annoyed me to death. Either don’t allow me to join, or patch my mike through if you’re actually going to let me through.
The thing is, I odn’t know if it’ll hold for the next class. That’s the worst part is that I can’t predict if my fix is temporary or real.
I will say that I did surprise myself by figuring it out. I was so at sea about what to do. I had tried everything I could think of. I don’t know what really triggered my brain to kick in, but I think it was looking carefully at the options. When I saw there were two, I realized that I was probably picking the wrong one.
Honestly, I didn’t know why they would allow me to choose it when I did not have the app. Maybe everyone automatically has the app, but if so, that’s pretty confusing.
I was talking with my brother and his GF about how technology is great until it’s not. His GF chimed in at the last bit, and we laughed ruefully over it. The difficulty is that when I don’t know what the actual problem is, it’s pretty difficult to Google for it. I mean, I need a basic idea of what is going awry in order to find a solution.
We also talked about the frustrations of the shortened attention span. We are all in our fifties, and none of us liked TikTok. I had difficulty with Instagram as well, though I do have an account. I do not have a TikTok. I have not used Facebook in several months, and I deactivated my Twitter. When I get my news, I try to read it beacuse I don’t want just ten second snippets. It’s frustrating as fuck that twenty minutes is now considered unfathomably long for a video. The group I wtached (Let’s Play) can go over an hour per video, which is fine by me. Some have even been over two hours. I consider it a real treat.
I think this is a lesson I can take to real life as well. But I’m not sure how, exactly. I mean, I’m a great researcher in general. I can find shit that other people can’t. My brother and I once worked together to find an old (in both age and length of friendship) friend of my father’s. It was my father’s boss from over thirty years ago. They had kept in touch for several decades, but my father lost the number along the way. This was from a decade or so ago. The boss, let’s call him John Johnson, did not have a Facebook and his number was not listed. My mother remembered his wife’s name (and they have a fairly unusual last name), so we looked for her. We found someone with her name on Facebook, but we weren’t sure it was his wife. We did a little more digging, and it seemed like after all our searching that it was his wife.
Oh, and we didn’t actually find a phone number. What we got was an address. My parents decided to drive over to the address to see if it was the right John Johnson. They came back about an hour later to tell us that it was. Oh, my brother is a Realtor, which helped in our search. I was proud that we could find it in less than hour, but also a little worried. Why? Because what could be found about me? I didn’t have anything embarrassing on the net, but I still did not want anyone showing up on my doorstep.
Not that I thought anyone would, but you can’t be too careful. I have done a light seaerch on myself, and I haven’t found anything too alarming or revealing. I probably should check again because it’s been a while. But, honestly, I would not expect anything other than my phone number or my address. I don’t answer my phone or someone at the door unless it’s someone who notified me ahead of time.
I’m done. I’m tired. That’s all for tonight.