By Christine Thackeray
Thursdays are heaven for me. That's when I get together with a wonderful group of ANWA sisters to have our virtual critique group. We are Skyping and after smoothing out a few wrinkles, it's working nicely.
Well, this Thursday did not go as planned. It was my daughter's opening night for her Junior High Musical. Since I would be attending the next two nights, she reluctantly understood when I told her that her fifteen-year-old brother would be there to support her at her first performance. I dropped him off when the time came and rushed home to my computer to log on with only minutes to spare.
When I typed my password, nothing happened. I was shocked so I did it again and again and made my computer hybernate to deter the intruder. How could I be an intruder? It was my computer. Then I remembered my son saying how he wanted to change the password and I told him not to. Well, he did. With no way to contact him, I looked at the hint. It said "Your last password."
Though I had probably typed it hundreds of times, that was six months ago. For the life of me I couldn't remember it. I typed in every password I could think of and anything I thought my son had been thinking about or touched for the last few days. For forty-five minutes I tried to get in, typing word after word until my mind was as rung out and spoiled as an old dishrag.
At last my older son called from work. He was heading over to the play that I had missed to pick the kids up and told me I could use his computer. So he gave me his password. I logged on and hurried to Skype but it was under his name. It took me forever to figure out how to sign in because he has a MAC. and then I couldn't remember which password I used on Skype because my brain was totally password jumbled. The worse part was the only place I had the password written was on a file on my LOCKED computer. At last I figured it out but my critique group had all hung up and gone to bed.
Lesson learned: Passwords need a backup and your brain is not enough. Today I printed off a hard copy of my password list and stuck it in my file cabinet. At least then if something happens to my computer, I won't be locked out of various applications like my website, my son's BYUi accounts and skype.
Ah well, live and learn... and wait till next Thursday.
wow. While I am very grateful for the blessings of technology...sometimes I wonder if it is worth all the stress. I have a terrible time with electronic gadgets. It is very common for me to have to stand a few feet away from cash registers before they will process my checks or scan merchandise. The computers will do weird things and my son suggests i need to wear a lead apron and rubber gloves before I get close...sigh...
ReplyDeletesorry you missed your meeting Thursday. hope it goes better this next week!
How frustrating! You remind me how these pursuits have to be a commitment, not a case-by-case decision. I didn't know you all meet on Skype--which is great, when you can log on!
ReplyDeleteI'm rolling Christine...that's why I have one password for everything...yes I know that's a no no but it works for me.
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