THE Lowly Peon

My Journey Back in Time 
26 February 2010, 2:08am

Wednesday morning, 3am, something very interesting happened to me. It had a fairly profound effect, and also made me realize how my priorities have perhaps skewed in the last several years.

In the last few years, I've acquired quite a significant number of electronics. I have my laptop, of course, which has stood loyally by my side for years, as have my wonderful iPhones, which I update immediately upon the release of a new model. Last year I got a Mac Mini which I use as a media server, on 24 hours a day, allowing me access to my files and a real computer at any time (even from my iPhone). Last year I also got an Apple TV; though it is a bit of a disappointment, I still use it when I'm using my media server for other things and don't want my TV shows/movies to hesitate while I'm watching. My Wii, which I got shortly after arriving in Hangzhou, isn't used much these days, though I still wait for the day blabby11 calls me up and suggests playing Mario Kart from across the planet. I also have an external hard drive called a Drobo, short for data robot. It's a huge storage space that backs itself up so I never need to worry about disk failure.

Last but not least, when I first arrived in Hangzhou, I bought an Apple Time Capsule. A Time Capsule is a wireless router with a hard drive inside of it. This means that it is not only my gateway to the internet, but it is also the thing that connects each of the above listed devices via its wireless network. If my Mac Mini, which is hosting my iTunes, wants to talk to my Apple TV, it needs to go through the router. If I want to play Mario Kart with blabby11, it connects to the internet via my Time Capsule's wireless network. If I want to use my iPhone to control the music I'm listening to, it does so by connecting to the Time Capsule. If I want to connect to my Mac Mini when I'm out of the house, it goes through the router. And so on. Furthermore, it provides a space for me to backup each of my computers, wirelessly, every hour, using software called Time Machine. So this little guy contains all of my backups, which, to me, makes it very important.

I woke up Wednesday morning, and, as I always do, rolled over to check my email on my iPhone. I got an email from saulemander with some link. The link took forever to load, and I noticed that my iPhone was using the cell connection (GPRS) rather than the WiFi. Confused, I peeked my head up to look at my Time Capsule. I noticed the indicator light was off. I did the basic trobleshooting stuff, and determined that something with the power was busted. I frantically contacted benji and hulkamaniac, and they both told me that this happened to lots of Time Capsules, and that Apple will give me a new one if the serial is in a certain range. I immediately called Apple, where they told me they'd give me a new one, and asked for my address. Well, this is where it got sticky. China makes this, like other things, impossible.

With daisy's help, I spent most of the day trying to find a place in Hangzhou that'd give me a new one. But of course, there's only one authorized service agent in the whole city of six million, and they'd need to order one, which would take up to three weeks. Three weeks without internet or a local area network?! You must be joking. Fortunately, we found a place in Hangzhou that sells new ones and has one in stock. I bought it. I figure I'll do that, then get the old one fixed in the US next time I'm there, after which I'll give it to daisy to promote backing up. Then after I got home, I was unable to connect to the internet because my PPPoE settings were wrong. Frustrated, I gave up.

[Very] Long story short, I spent two days without internet access, or a local area network, and thus all of my electronics. Despite my frustration with not being able to get it to work, it turned out to be great. It was like life years ago, when all I had was a laptop, or, even better, nothing at all. I went for a run, made myself a delicious dinner, listened to music the old fashioned way. I decided I need to start spending more of my time electronic-free. I'm still reliant on my electronics to communicate with my family and most of my friends, which won't change, and I still listen to my music on iPhones/iPods/etc. But The last two days have left me feeling much healthier.

(...And of course I spent over an hour this morning playing with my computers and my iPhone...)