Wuh...wuh...wuh...waiting.

It's 12:22 and I am waiting for the bus. Well, not literally, but I am trying to work from Mom's apartment while waiting til 2:30 so I can get to the Bolt Bus stop at 3:00 for a 3:30 bus to Boston. I will get in at 7:45 and Herb will pick me up so that we can drive to Medford and we'll get there at about 8:15. 
 
I was going to leave for Boston yesterday, but I got hung up waiting for the FIT tech who was going to install software for the FIT office printer on my laptop. At about 2 p.m., he said he would be back in 20 minutes. When I left at 4:45 and saw him in the hall, it turned out he had forgotten. Maybe next time I am in NYC for the class, in 2 weeks.  It took me one and a half hours to get back to the apartment from the school which is about one and a half miles away. There were no buses, and I waited at three different stops before I finally walked most of the way -- with the computer on my back. I DID find a Whole Foods on the way, so dinner took about 10 minutes to empty from plastic containers onto plates on the table. It took us about 10 minutes to eat what probably took two hours of someone's time to prepare, not counting the time it took to grow the rice and the corn and the mushrooms.

On Monday morning, I also spent about an hour  waiting for another FIT tech to install some other software that would allow me to receive email on my laptop while at the school.  The tech stared at the installation window for 10 minutes while it did nothing. He didn't multi-task with the papers on his desk. He didn't try any workaround. He stared at the unmoving screen. And he did that about a half dozen times. Finally he asked a colleague whether they could install the software with my virus program (TrendMicro). They decided that they couldn't. Just as they made that decision, it began to work.  Back at the apartment, I had to call my cousin for help with the settings for the internet connection. Now the laptop works but the ipad won't send any email even though the settings are identical as far as I can tell.

I was supposed to teach my first class at FIT on the night after Hurricane Irene. I had taken the bus to NYC (see above) on the Sunday before that Monday class. The class was canceled and the following Monday was a scheduled holiday. So I hadn't met with my students til this past Monday night. I met a good and active group, but when I got to the classroom, it took about 7 minutes to load the first page of the document I wanted to work with, on the computer / projection system. It took another 5 minutes or so to be able to scroll down into the section of that document that wasn't visible - 12 minutes (roughly) to see a single page of text. Assuming the system didn't "time out" and go to a blank screen. I was never able to get it to turn off at the end of the evening. The ghost image of that projection is probably still up.

Makes gardening seem like it happens at lightning speed. Tomatoes are available if you want to while away some time at the kitchen table. No waiting.