This all started because Grenada requires three copies of invoices on every thing you bring into the county so they can hit you for import duty. I had lots of receipts for what I'd bought locally and some of the companies actually included invoices in their boxes but seven companies didn't. I needed to find the order confirmations in our emails, pull up the orders and print them all(in triplicate for Customs).
About 10 days ago, my MacBook died. The old hard drive was shot. I dropped it off at a company(Action Computers) to get it fixed. This computer is so old that the case is made of plastic and it's considered a "vintage" computer by Apple. They won't fix it its so old. Well, Action will and did. Only problem it that they up graded the operating system to 10.7.5.
When I got home this afternoon, I plugged our printer into the MacBook. Well, as it turns out, when they upgraded the operating system, they "lost" the drivers for the printer(old HP 5610). I told the computer to down load the drivers and figured that would be the end of it. Oh was I dreaming. It turns out that the printer is so old(2005) that its not compatible with this operating system. I called HP and their recommendation was get another printer. There was no way to get the two to "talk".
OK, I bit the bullet and took off for Wally World to get another printer. Picked out a nice new HP since that's about all we have ever owned. At just $40, it was a great buy. Brought it home and set it up only to find that now the computers operating system was too old for the printer. First it was the printer was too old now the computer is to old!!! The tech at HP told me to upgrade the operating system. As I'm leaving tomorrow night to return to Grenada, that wasn't even an option. I wanted this done and done tonight. I packed up the new HP printer and headed back to Wally World. This time, I found a Canon that was compatible with our operating system(10.7.5). Home I went and set it up. This once came with a CD with all it's drivers. Well if you have a Windows computer you would be just fine but we didn't. I got on line and went to Canon for the drivers. If I had a mirror, I'm sure that by now there was steam coming out of my ears I was so frustrated.
When I came home, I signed up with T Moble for phone and internet. Even got the unlimited data plan. Well they didn't tell me that the "unlimited" only applies to data on the phone, not on a hot spot for my IPad. Theres a limit to just 14 gigs. Well, even without the MacBook and just the IPad, I had somehow used up close to 35 gigs. Suddenly while I was still unlimited, they had put a choke hold on my data stream closing it down to just 129Kbps. Really slow. I was a bad boy and needed punishing. I went from "4G" to a whole to less speed.
Well, I got on with Canon and started the download. Heck it was just 365 megs of data. Well with the new choke hold, it was going to take one day, 14 hours!!! I called Canon and got someone that could help me. He directed me to the driver download site and he had me download the drivers I needed to have it download off the internet. Not a full download of all drivers, just what I needed to get the job done. As it was, it was a 20+ minute download. I asked the tech to call back in 25 minutes as the download slowly progressed. It finished right on time and I installed it in the computer. I tried it out and all was well. A few minutes later, the tech from Canon called and I gave him the good news. I was up and running. I thanked him for his help and off I went scanning our emails for the invoices I needed. In about 30 minutes, I had them all and printed in triplicate for everyone that will need a copy when I get in. As it is, I'll need an "Agent" to help get these through Customs. I'll let you know how that goes.
Meanwhile the packing continues.