Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Jay Is A Genius And I Love Him

All I ever wanted was to see you smiling.
~"All I Ever Wanted" by Basshunter


There is a long and saddening saga of the intrepid tale of Time Warner & The Router of Doom, but to sum it up in short:

1. The Man from Time Warner (he had dreadlocks) came to our house and supposedly set up our router-modem.

2. It did not work. That router was an example of epic PHAIL mode.

3. All the single ladies who lived in the Exciting Apartment of Great Happenings called Time Warner, pleaded with them, and sobbed on the phone. The Time Warner gurus, including a man named for a female character in an Ayn Rand novel, deigned to come to our house once again. They connected their faulty router to Chana's exciting working router, then told us we needed to go get a modem.

4. Dana went off to get a modem in the Time Warner Place Without Bathrooms. It is Without Bathrooms because people are unhappy and unsatisfied and camp out there with their complaints and only leave when their physical needs make them do so. In any case, Dana survived the Store Without Bathrooms, returned with a modem, and nothing worked. All had been shot to hell.

5. We all called Time Warner and everyone told us different things. The man I talked to (whose name was Ira), said that my router and the modem were not "talking" to each other and we needed them to talk to one another. Unhappy, I called my father, who, exasperated, said: "I don't do networking. Why don't you call up one of your YU network gurus to do it for you?"

6. I came up with the amazing thought that I did not have a YU network guru. However, I did have an amazing anonymous blog commentator whom we shall call Jay. And if I emailed him, perhaps he would help me. So I emailed him by latching on to someone else's network (with permission) for a little while, he called me, and completely from memory (he didn't have a router in front of him or anything) gave me an hour of his time, walked me through the process of re-setting and setting up my router, and joked all the while. When he called, the first thing he said was "Tech Support" (he happens to have a gorgeous voice) and he made me smile. And despite my frustration, he refused to admit defeat but figured everything out based on what I was telling him. He fixed my Internet connection. Yes, you heard right. This complete stranger gave me an hour of his time, if not more and totally outclassed Netgear and Time Warner tech support. And he did it while joking, dealing with my complete ignorance, and making me feel at ease. He was sweet and kind and brilliant about the whole thing. And I completely love him. Because he did the impossible- he fixed our Internet connection! And why? And why, I ask you?

Well, that's where my epigraph comes in. The only reason he did it is because "all I ever wanted was to see you smiling." He wanted to make me smile, help someone out, and be a kind person. He practiced incredible chesed towards me when he doesn't even know me just to be a good, friendly and sweet person. After he fixed the Internet I did a happy dance all around my apartment. And then I explained to my roommates about how he had made the router and modem talk to each other.

Their stares of confusion and then bursts of ridiculous laughter warm the cockles of my heart. "Who's on top?" was the question asked...for who knew inanimate objects could have conversations? Perhaps, in lieu of 'All The Single Ladies,' we should have called my wireless connection 'Lilith' due to the Alphabet of Ben Sira version of her assuming a particular position...anyway, this has become rather raunchy for computers.

The point of this post is: Jay is a Genius. He is awesome. I love him. I owe him. So this is my expression of thanks and gratitude and saying that he is a freaking awesome person and he gives me hope in people! Because anyone willing to give up an hour of his time to help a complete stranger is a good guy. Girls, you can start the queue now. He's single...I doubt for long. *smirk*

9 comments:

eyelash diptych said...

Yay for Jay, whose name rhymes with yay!

Beth said...

Chana,this post is absolutely hilarious! Good job Jay!

The Cousin said...

From my experience, dealing with TWC is pretty much a waste of time.

Going to one of the TWC centers is probably even worse than going to the DMV...or perhaps they're equally horrible.

In fact I'm getting called to go fix a computer here at the office right now (doctors and computers don't always mix)

/Sets up networks all the time
//Has to find his father's old pocket protector

Anonymous said...

Jay rhymes with Gay.

Can a lesbian woman fall in love with a Gay man? After all they have so much in common!

Dana said...

to anonymous... this was a beautiful post about someone who used a skill they had to help another person with thea motive of simply being kind. if you're going to post inane things that middle school students would giggle about, please don't waste anyone's time. or maybe post it to a middle school kid's blog.

incredulous said...

instead of "Lilith" you might want to call it the "Egyptian" router; see this Rambam, Halacha 8 http://kodesh.snunit.k12.il/i/5121.htm#8 ; - your reference is not in this Rambam, but it is mentioned by poskim, I just don't remember where right now.

And if that's true we can understand this: "The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown." (from wikipedia) - not just coincidentally that she was captured where the Egyptians drowned, but Lilith & the Egyptians had the same attitude toward this behavior, and it led to both of their downfalls.

an old friend said...

So good of Jay to help you ,Chana.
Loved the fun post!

Dalia said...

As I wrote earlier: How can we express our adoration and love? Give him food? Water? Shelter? Is he single?

Thank you a million and one times over for fixing our internet!

The Talmid said...

Is Jay available for consulting work? Does he know Perl/cgi?