Confessions of a Nerd

My network broke today. Actually, it didn't really break. I broke it. It was a good network. Five drops of 100 mbps in one room, four drops of 100 mbps in another, with 802.11b (11 mbps wireless) connection.
I was rather proud of the wireless link. It didn't have quite enough "ummph" to connect computers in the upstairs, so I made my own parabolic booster antenna out of some cardboard, tinfoil, and scotch tape. That worked pretty good. Except for online games. Every so often if you shifted yourself around just the right way on the upstairs computer...the network would drop out. Not a big deal if you're web browsing, but it really put a pinch on Java-based games. I farted around adjusting the wireless antenna on the computer upstairs. For quite a while it was tolerable...to me anyways...mainly because I don't play a lot of Java-based games on the upstairs computer.
But problems were festering elsewhere. The second room downstairs (the one with the wireless connection and uber-cool arts-and-crafts antenna) had more than enough extra connections. The only thing hooked to that segment was the above-mentioned wireless drop and the Sony PS2. The problem was lurking in my downstairs home-office, first room; the engineering center of my house; the network-nexus if you will. Time crept by and more and more crap got plugged into the once copious five 100 meg drops. Until several weeks ago when they all got filled. This really wouldn't have been a problem if I could have just kept the kabash on my imperialistic computer tendencies.
An innocuous looking Dell and a half-hearted promise to fix it finally broke the proverbial camel's proverbial back. I actually resisted taking the Dell downstairs for over a week, knowing that to do so would be to force my acknowledgement of my network inadequacies. Someone finally found it upstairs though, lurking behind the Lazy Boy (immediately and fittingly giving away the fact that I was the guilty party that had stashed it there).
So there it sat in my computer room...naked, unattached, dark. My first instinct was to see how much stuff could be piled on top, providing addtional surface area for me, and again hiding it from my ego (my id would have kicked its sides in and thrown its mangled carcass into a brush pile). Ego, guilt, and secondary pressure forced me to acknowledge it this afternoon however.
Side note about secondary pressure: I guess it makes it hard for people to communicate when person B promises person A, that person C will get person D to deliver some good or service (computer repair for an abstract example). Person B probably tries to avoid person A while trying to contact person C, who is simultaneously attempting to avoid by B. Person D should have known better than to agree to deliver just on the princple of avoiding causing such a tangled web of deceit. Never-the-less D has made a promise and a promise is a promise.
Everything was going swimmingly with the wounded Dell until the bane of every consciencious computer nerd aroused its evil head...software updates. If I asked you "What are the top 5 reasons that most people upgrade to broadband connections?", you might be tempted to say "Number one: Software updates". You'd be wrong though. Probably the top four would be porn, but I'll bet software updates would come in at a solid number five. So, the wounded Dell was finally repaired and among the living again, purring like a silicon-based, 120 volt, 350 amp kitten when realization of the long forgotten network shortage struck.
So, I went through the five stages of grief (rather quickly, mind you, as it really wasn't all that traumatic in retrospect). I was kind of in denial all along, as I wanted to deny that I even had to fix the damn computer, although I'm not sure if that counts or not. Then I got angry. "Why do I have to have so much &^@#ing crap in one room?!?". Bargaining "Maybe I could unplug some of my own junk?". I probably should have just stopped there and realized that sometimes you really can get a good bargain. But nooo ...I had to go on to depression. "I'm just so sad that my network is so pathetic, whatever shall I do?". Finally, acceptance. "This network must be upgraded if I'm to finish fixing this computer and face my wife again" (person C in the above scenario as well as discoverer and mover of Dell cleverly stashed behind reclining chair).
A few trips into the junk closet (for an ancient router and a recently purchased yet neglected 802.11g access point, as well as various and sundry network switches) , a few trips to Best Buy (for replacement of ancient router that was apparently manufactured in ancient Mesopotamia for internal intercommunication in the Tower of Babel, and a new 802.11g USB adapter), and more than a few trips up and down the stairs (for final configuration of HouseNet v2.0) and the deed was done.
Now I've got 802.11g (54 mbps) wireless network (still using my handy cereal box inspired booster antenna; kind of like Martha Stewart meets MacGuyver), and four 100 mbs network drops (one for the PS2 and three for network devices to be named later) in the second downstairs room; 54 meg wireless networking to the upstairs (and is it ever working dandy), and nine 100 meg connections in my computer room/home office/neighborhood kids' Guild Wars festhall (another rant for another time).
Oh yeah...the Dell. Plugged it in; four hours and a multitude of mindnumbing mouse clicks later and it was finally finished, finito, a work of perfection.
And what was a computer nerd to do while waiting for service packs to download and patches to be patch-ed ad nauseum, nigh ad infinitum. I went on eBay and bought me a print server. I have always wanted to decouple my printer from my main system. I'm pretty sure my computer will run at least 2% faster (yeah, keep telling yourself that!) Plus now I've got all those new, virgin network ports to be filled. I'm starting to feel a little giddy just thinking about it....

-HBH