I was awakened about 09:30 by Mom hollering up the stairs, "YooHoo! Is anyone there? Is anyone up yet?" I hollered back at her and drug myself out of bed and got dressed. I had not slept well... it was a short bed, my feet hung over the end and got cold, so I kept waking up and pulling them under the covers again, and it was a short night, to boot. But she had the coffee going, and I could smell it...

So I had my first cup and glanced at the headlines... noone had been injured in last night's storms, but there was a lot of damage. Soon I was back into the modem problem.

That SOB 486 would not recognize the modem, no matter what I did! I took a break and got the kids up and then continued fiddling. Nothing. Fiddle. Nothing. Fiddle more. NOTHING! I had tried every comm port, every address, every IRQ, every damned permutation thereof.

So... it's off I go, towing JD along, on a quest for a modem in Enid Oklahoma... on Memorial day, no less!

Nothing at Wal-mart... they quit carrying modems. Try Radio Shack, the guy said. Off we go, heading for the mall across the road. Waiting for the light, we noticed a truck from Lowes, the home improvement store... and both JD and I have seen computers there. And it's a fun place, anyway, and not too far away.

Well, Lowes has TVs, but no computers anymore. So it's off to the mall anyway. We park, and theres a store there by the entrance, Sight and Sound, which looks like it might be the place... but it isn't. The guy says Radio Shack. We go to Radio Shack. It's a Radio Shack Plus... I think that we're in luck. The clerk asks us what we need, I tell him, he shakes his head. He can order modems, but they don't carry them. I tell him that they're a PLUS Radio Shack, they otta carry 'em. He recommends Sears. We find Sears....

Jackpot! They have modems! So I got a USR 33.6 Winmodem... on sale, $60.00. I am pretty much overjoyed!

A WINMODEM! PLUG 'N' PLAY!

NOT! So I spend another three hours fiddling. I have a 3.5 floppy with the drivers on it... I have a CD with the drivers on it... WIN95 just doesn't get it. I have precise instructions on how to install it... they don't work. I have patience... patience.... not much left.

Finally, I do something... I have no idea what... and WIN95 says..."Hey! Guess what? I found a WINModem! Would you maybe want to install it, or should we go do something else?"

And it worked. Everything Kosher. Now... we decide on an online service. There are three local providers, ISPs, but... none of them are open. And there is Prodigy. Which comes with a setup on the CD that came with the modem. One of Mom's friends used Prodigy, it's a local number, so we do it. And it works.

The first thing that I do is look at nilknarf.net; it looks like sh*t with 16 colors. And it still has last Tuesday's entry! And I know that I updated it when I updated the other... but that doesn't matter right now. I want a driver for the diamond Viper card, since WIN95 doesn't have one. I go to their site, the have several... I pick one, download it, run it, re-boot... and the SOB works! So, now we have a 33.6 connect, a 800X600 million-color display... I slap the cover on the 486 and call it done!

I reconnect with Prodigy, it wants to update the software, it winds up being an hour DL. And it's... Netscape. I hate NS. Well, I don't hate it, I'm just really familiar with the quirks of MSIE 4.0, and I know that NS has quirks that I'm not aware of... and I will be trouble-shooting long distance. O'well... worse things could (and have, on numerous occasions) have happened to me...

While NS is DLing, Mom frys me up a hamburger, and I notice a jar of grape jelly in the fridge... so I have a jellyburger. Delicious... all of you non-vegetarians should try it some time... you'll never go back to cheese... the problem is the availability, od course. You can't go into McDonalds and get a jellyburger.

Maybe I should start a "Nilknarf Jellyburger" chain...

Anyway... now begins the task of... teaching Mom WIN95. And that task seems to go well. She is much smarter than she gives herself credit for. Either that, or Bill Gates is a much better designer... nah.

Then I hooked up the color printer without much of a problem at all. Things were starting to go right, finally.

So Mom now knows how to connect with Prodigy, get her mail, send mail and browse. She's gonna need practice, and patience. And I have the feeling that I'm gonna need to maintain my patience, too...

So... I get out while the getting's good. It's 18:45 and I'm on the road back to Topeka... 260 miles.

I see no signs of tornado damage along the highways. I did get to see a beautiful sunset south of Wichita... a real classic. And no camera. I did get to listen to Jazz all of the way back, though. First out of Wichita, KNUE, the public station, then KANU out of Lawrence. And south of Wichita I spotted a horned owl... a relatively rare sight here. Sitting on a fencepost... I noticed him gliding in to land on it. Beautiful bird, even if I was going 70MPH.

I really enjoy driving by myself sometimes. DOn't get me wrong, I love driving with Karen, and many other people... but driving alone gives you time to think.

And I was thinking about all of those slaughtered deer. And how it was getting to be dusk... when they start moving around. And I saw one mangled in the median... and a few miles later, one by the side of the road.

And I thought about the number of bugs that were dying hitting my windshield, and how pretty some of them were... the firefly that sacrificed his life for my amusement, his entrails (or whatever) smeared glowing on the glass... slowly fading.

And the deer. Waiting there by the side of the road, waiting for me to not be paying attention...

Yeah, I was getting somewhat paranoid. Comes with the territory... thinking, y'know.

What happens to all of the deer carcasses? Is there a group of people who make their livings cruising the highways, looking for fresh road-kill? Most likely, I decided. Might be kinda fun, huh, if you liked that sort of thing.

I wonder how much deer-hitting costs us for insurance-company premiums? A bunch, I'll bet...

DAMN!

Seven miles south of Emporia, a big buck deer jumps right in front of me and is gone before I can hit the brakes. Missed him by a couple of feet, and the doe that was following him was in the act of jumping over the median when I passed. I got pretty damned lucky.

23:00... arrived home, unloaded the car, talked to Karen for a coupla minutes, she was in bed. Hauled the majority of the junk downstairs and started writing. Email... 476 messages. Two days. About a third of that is from Diary-l, where I get duplicates because I can't figger out how I got subscribed twice, and when I unsub it unsubs both of them... sub again, I get duplicates. I'm hoping that will go away when nilknarf@atheist.com runs out...

It's 02:00 now, Tuesday AM... I'm gonna stay up a coupla more hours, then sleep for about twelve. Work tomorrow, dammit.