tonyandkirsten.org

This is really Tony’s story, but I don’t know if he has thought of posting it…so I’ll do it instead. You might only find this funny if you know a little bit about computers. I laugh every time it comes to mind.

So, the first day of our trip we wanted to get some free wireless internet access. Our hotel had wireless, but it wasn’t free. Not being sure where to find free wireless nearby in downtown San Diego, we drove quite a distance to go to the one Panera Bread in the San Diego area.

Our laptop, which runs Linux, was able to access the web for a short time, and then was no longer able to do so. A Panera bread employee was wandering around with a Tech Support name badge, and had told us to let him know if we needed any assistance. So, Tony called him over. Tony gave a brief, technical explanation of the problem he was having (not mentioning the computer runs Linux) and the guy sat down to look at the system.

After poking around for a moment or two, he pauses and asks, “This is Mozilla, right?” Tony replied that it was. The guy pauses again and then asks,”So, did Mozilla take over your whole operating system or something?”

I think Tony and I both just wanted to laugh hysterically at that point. Tony politely told him that no, it was running Linux. The guy said that other Linux users have had problems with their wireless in the past, but he didn’t really know how to do anything about it…and then he left us to ourselves to figure it out. Wow.

Tony soon figured out a creative way around the problem we were having, and we were able to get at least some of the information we had set out to look for in the first place. A while later the “tech support” guy walked past again and noticed that Tony was browsing the web again. The guy asked if we had fixed the problem, and to keep things simple Tony just said that he found a way to make things work. The guy walked away again, muttering something about needed to try out his ‘Linux emulator’ again. We have no idea what he meant by that, either!