Ever been in a hurry and need to urgently complete some simple task on your computer only to have your computer decide to fail to cooperate in every manner? That is me this morning. My computer, printer, and internet connections are all like wayward mules, the smell of sweet feed in the hot evening breeze, making them turn no way except back towards the barn; they are refusing to do more work whether you were finished with them or not. Mules are like that. So are computers, at times.

I worked yesterday evening to pack to get off to Nashville this morning for the Monroe Mandolin Camp. I had some documents I needed to print our for a bid that must be turned in next Monday, which means I must work on it on my vacation and get it off via Fedex on Friday for Monday delivery. Vacations are never really vacations for me, anyway. And those who plan for bids to be received on a Monday are destined to be consigned to a special place in Gehenna.

At 4:00AM I started to print out a PDF file of a construction contract so I would have some blank copies to work with to prepare the bid. I did this wanting to leave by 5:00AM. “You’ll have plenty of time,” I assured myself.

Unfortunately, the engineers have so secured the PDF file that it will only allow me to print it out twice, which I have already done. Now, it locks up my whole computer every time I load it. Then, ADOBE and JAVA tell me I must update my files, so I am waiting for the files to download, hoping against hope the PDF file I want will print out with the new version of Acrobat.

Then, I lose my internet signal from my Wi-Fi at the house. I have a new Wi-Fi router and two repeaters, which work extremely well most of the time. In the not-most time they seem to become sleepy in the wee hours of the morning, and my signal fades to next-to-nothing. Why this happens is a mystery to me. They are mule-headed, I suppose. After the sun comes up and burns off some humidity, they will work much better. I’m not sure the humidity affects the signal, but I can think of no other reason for their obstinance, unless they can smell the sweet feed like the mules.

Now I am waiting for an Acrobat update to download on a hit-and-miss Wi-Fi system to try and print out a document that may or may not have been corrupted, or be too secure to allow for a third printing. It is 5:15AM and though attempting much, I have accomplished nothing other than being 25% of the way through a download that should have taken about 3 minutes to complete instead of the 20 minutes only to be at 25%.

Grrrr……

But, I already said that.

I guess I’ll take two ruxolitinibs and be thankful for something….anything….glad to be going to indulge myself in the music of Bill Monroe.

If you are a Bluegrass fan and don’t like Bill Monroe, this camp is not the place for you. If you do like Bill Monroe, then I hope I get to meet you if you haven’t been there before, because spirit of Monroe music will hang heavy in Nashville for the next several days. My duties are to make sure there is rhythm playing for all those mandolinists, ranging in skill from raw-beginner to Grammy-winner. Not only was Monroe, arguably, the most influential mandolinist of all time, he could also work a pair of mules…most of the time.

As I am driving, I will play Southern Flavor over and over in my mind. I will save My Last Days on Earth for later. Much Later.

©2016 Mississippi Chris Sharp

missippichris@yahoo.com

PS: Then Firefox locked up three times and my Open Office document in which this was prepared locked up. I was able to recover it, but cannot post it as of 5:30AM. I am aborting all computer work and headed to Nashville. I will post ths later. Grrrrrr!!!

PPS: It is later—9/14/16. Posted from Mt. Juliet, TN 7:55AM