Laptops and Routers and Cables, Oh My!

What a great day! You see three days a week Danny hangs out with little friend Oscar under the watchful eye of mom Jenni and every Friday he’s with Su since she is on a 4 day schedule. That left one day a week where we had to problem solve. Viola! We both got permission to telework every Wednesday and this was our first day. Armed with our work laptops we prepared for this big moment first thing this morning. Susanne basically dismanteled our whole upstairs desktop system and moved the router and splitter and cables and what not downstairs so we could both connect our laptops and work from our dining room table.

It was ugly. There were purple and yellow wires and message boxes the kept popping up saying we werent’ properly connected. It would be so much easier if we could go into our Virtual Private Networks wirelessly, but that’s not possible for security purposes. Then there was an online chat with Verizon to solve a problem, password “issues” and peripherals to attach. Believe it or not, Su just realized that Danny now knows that you have to reach for the mouse to do stuff on the computer. Scary huh? (I know, one could do everything with tab keys and shortcuts but basically he sees us using the mouse all the time!) Now he goes for it at every opportunity.

Anyway, So our dining room floor looks something like the picture here. (Okay, it looks nothing like this but there ARE a bunch of wires everywhere!) We’ll come up with a better solution soon, but for now, at least everything works as it should. And as an added bonus, our cats love the new wiring!

It’s a gorgeous day so we have been able to take him outside on his swing which has been fun, and so far it’s been no problem taking periodic breaks to “trade him off”. He’s a pretty content little guy so he’ll jump around in his Exersaucer or play with his toys, and he’s also a good napper so that helps a lot. And let’s face it—it’s fun to put him right here in his high chair next to us and let him eat/play with his Cherrios. M&Ms for babies I say!

Well, I’d better get back to my real work. I must admit that it’s sort of embarrassing to be the Director of a Federal University for Information Technology and yet be so pathetic (or is it apathetic?) about all this technical stuff. Thanks for doing everything Susanne! –Monica

P.S. I guess I didn’t have to write that since she’s sitting right here across from me! I LOVE this!