Hello, Tech Support

Hello, Tech Support
By Barbara A. Besteni

When it was time for God to hand out the gene that instinctively knows how to troubleshoot anything that has to do with computers, or ‘techy stuff’ as my friends call it, I apparently stood in line twice.

I’m blessed with a knack for understanding and fixing technical issues that most people would gladly hand over thousands of dollars worth of their hard-earned money to have someone else fix for them.

This, however, is not my chosen profession -- which is a polite way of saying I don’t get paid to dole out the technical talents with which I’ve been blessed.

But I believe that blessings come with a responsibility to help others … a responsibility that, in my case, often demands a lot of requests for technical pro bono work.

Case in point … a week in my recent history.

I had barely walked into the office one morning when one of my favorite coworkers walked up to me and said … “Barb, I’ve been meaning to ask you this for days. And if I don’t ask you now, I’ll forget. What should I use to back up my computer system at home?”

I gave him a detailed answer which would have sent him into Geek Squad bankruptcy and went about my day, knowing that not only had I helped him, I had done so by giving away a gift meant to be shared with someone else.

I am blessed to know this stuff.

A few hours later, a friend called to ask for my help setting up his E-mail account. This one really threw me for a loop because my friend is a fighter pilot who flew missions over Iraq during the war.

“You’re kidding,” I said, humbled by the fact that this person who I have admired and respected for so long would need my help doing something as simple as setting up an E-mail account.

“I know how to fly planes,” he said. “But I know nothing about this computer.”

I am blessed to know this stuff.

A couple of days later, I went to visit another friend at work who was trying to get a signal from her company’s in-house video system into a monitor at her desk. The tech support team said it was impossible.

Now, I'm not an engineer, nor do I play one on TV, but something told me that if I took the stray cable on the floor and connected it to the back of her monitor, it would work.

It did.

I am blessed to know this stuff.

That same week, my dad needed help setting up his high-speed internet account. This is the same man who had the answers to everything while I was growing up – the man who has gotten me out of more binds than I care to mention.

But something as simple as setting up the IP address to his Internet provider left him at edge of technical chaos.

I am blessed to know this stuff.

A few days later a friend asked me to fix the wireless connection to her laptop (a connection for which the technical support team at her office couldn’t fix).

I spent hours troubleshooting, researching and fixing the problem.

“You’re a genius,” she said when I got it to work.

No, I’m not. I’m just blessed to know this stuff.

Now, as far as my bank account is concerned, none of the things I’ve shared with you this month ever happened.

But I'm blessed to know this stuff. And helping others with that knowledge is payment enough.

Think about that next time someone asks you to do something you’re good at but for which you don’t get paid.

Don’t complain. Give thanks.

Because I’m blessed, but so are you.

Mardi Gras Through The Eyes Of A Yankee Virgin

Saturday Feb. 2, 2008 -- 8:32 a.m.

This post will stray from my standard format and follow my observations during my first-ever Mardi Gras in New Orleans -- observations that are best shared on a daily, perhaps even hourly, basis.

I was born in Cuba and raised in Brooklyn, New York. As a transplanted New Yorker now living in South Florida, nothing scares me.

I've been in New Orleans for a week and to be honest, I'm scared out of my wits.

Everyone is wearing purple, green and yellow. Conversations center around drinking, balls, parades and krewes.

As far as I can tell, Carnival is a latin word whose rough translation is "get as drunk and crazy as you can because after Mardi Gras there will be no more debauchery until Easter Sunday."

Beads are better than gold. ‘Throw me something, Mister,' is the secret sentence that will guarantee you'll get whacked in the head with a 50-cent string of beads you'll most likely throw away on Ash Wednesday.

Last weekend, I attended a small parade in Waveland/Bay St. Louis, MS. I was anticipating a scaled-down version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I quickly found out that Mardi Gras parades are very much like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade -- on acid.

When I finally got up the courage to stop cowering behind a 10-year-old boy and walk up to a float, I was rewarded by getting hit on the head with an armful of beads that could have rendered me unconscious had I not flung my video camera onto their path at the final nanosecond before impact.

"That's what's supposed to happen!" I was informed.

It's no wonder everyone looks forward to getting drunk.

So far, I've learned valuable lessons such as:

Bathrooms are perhaps the only thing more valuable than beads during Mardi Gras.

Don't grab something on the ground that was thrown from a float or someone will step on your hand and break it.

Announce that you're a Mardi Gras virgin and people will throw panties at you instead of beads -- purple, green and yellow panties, of course.

If you want to be a bead thrower instead of a bead catcher, you have to pay a king's ransom or mortgage your home to afford the privilege of joining a krewe and riding on a float. Last week I had no idea what that meant.

One of the most coveted trinkets of all the Mardi Gras parades are the coconuts hurled from the floats during the Zulu Parade. My head hurts just thinking about it.

"A few years ago, they banned throwing the coconuts because they were considered a liability," I was told. Now they just hand them to you. Oh, damn, I thought. Who is the partypooper who ruined it for all of us?

Finding a plastic baby in your mouth after a forkfull of King Cake is good luck. I can only assume that finding the baby floating in your poop the next day earns you a seat on a parade float the following year.

Ignore the fact that the costumes worn by some of the people on floats resemble Ku Klux Klan outfits. They cost thousands of dollars and will never be worn again.

You may have heard that next to drinking, boob flashing is the main attraction during Mardi Gras. But be warned -- Parades are not for boob flashing. If you want to flash your boobs, go to Bourbon Street where people will take pictures and put them on the internet so your parents can see what a great time you had.

It's considered a time-honored tradition to place small children on the top of step ladders so they can get a better view of a parade. Apparently no one has noticed the warning on those ladders that clearly shows a person falling to his untimely death after stepping on the top step.

What is wrong with these people?

Laissez les bons temps rouler!