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Life imitates golf
Posted: Wednesday March 15, 2000 11:45 AM
Sports Illustrated senior writer John Garrity was a 42-year-old 8-handicapper when he suddenly lost his swing. Since December 1989 he has been looking for it -- a modern-day Odysseus adrift on the troubled waters of swing theory. As Garrity travels the world reporting on golf, he visits as many driving ranges as he can, avoiding the dreaded "mats only" ranges that prevent him from teeing it up.
Tuesday, March 14 KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- This column is late, yes, but I have an excuse -- I bought a flatbed scanner for my home computer. As a consequence, I have temporarily given up golf. And writing. It's amazing how something that comes in such a small carton can disrupt your life. My first problem with the scanner was its footprint. It was too big for my computer desk and printer stand, so I had to haul an old table into my tiny office. My work area is now as cramped as a cockpit, though I bet your average pilot doesn't have a power cord and an SCSI cable draped over his knee. Then I had a little software problem. The scanner hummed properly, and the UFO light flashed under the cover, but no actual image appeared on my screen. So I called technical support. Support technician No. 1 -- let's call him Butch Harmon -- diagnosed my problem as an installation failure. He thought I should uninstall the scanner software. To do so, he said, I needed simply to track down the 17 files, folders, plug-ins and documents that had VistaScan or UMAX in their names and drag them all to the trash. Then, after disabling my extensions and restarting, I could reinstall the scanner software. I said, "Thanks, Butch," and went to work. Thirty minutes later, when I tried to reinstall the software, the screen froze. After two more restarts and two more crashes, I sighed and reached for the phone. Support technician No. 2 -- let's call him David Leadbetter -- said he was sorry that Butch had screwed up my computer. "It's not an installation problem. If Butch had bothered to ask you what model of computer you have, he might have recognized that it has an SCSI interface timing bug that can be corrected by downloading a simple patch from our Web site." David said he would e-mail me the link. I would find the patch under "special downloads" in the downloads area. I said, "Thanks, David," and took a break. After dinner I opened the e-mail, found the Web site, and then spent 20 minutes looking for "special downloads." Unable to find it, I swore under my breath, yanked the phone off the hook, and dialed. I got 15 more minutes of soothing music interrupted by, "Please don't hang up!" Support technician No. 3 -- let's call him Hank Haney -- didn't try to reinvent the wheel. He found the Web site on his own computer, clicked on everything in sight, and finally found the patch under a button labeled "SuperMac." While he waited, I found the patch on my machine, double-clicked, and watched with relief as my downloads window opened and the patch traced a perfect draw down the center of the window, a good 37K from the tee. "Awesome," Hank said. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a hacker." I thanked Hank, hung up, and returned to my computer desktop. I double-clicked on the patch icon, clicked the decompress button, and then watched as a new document icon unexpectedly appeared on the desktop. This file, I was informed by a pop-up box, could not be read because the program that created it was not on my hard drive. Gritting my teeth, I put the heels of my hands against my forehead and pushed hard enough to leave marks. Support technician No. 4 -- let's call him Chuck Hogan -- was sympathetic. He spoke in the hushed tones of a healer, concerned, I think, that a careless comment might send me running into the street with an automatic weapon. "I think the patch went where it was supposed to go," he said soothingly. "Sometimes we get too ... technical. I mean, if a file is in the applications folder instead of the system folder, does that mean the computer won't work?" Taking his question as rhetorical, I said nothing. Chuck's advice was simple: ignore the icons on my desktop, assume that everything was O.K., and reinstall the scanner software. I ate another meal, drank some root beer and went back to work. This time, to my amazement, the software installed itself without a hitch. I fired up the scanner, watched the scan light glide down the glass and checked the screen. No preview. I bit my knuckles and made a strangling noise that brought my wife running. Support technician No. 5 -- let's call him Satan -- cheerfully took me through page after page of preferences, tweaking this, resetting that, until he was satisfied. "That's it," he said. "Click on PREVIEW." When the scanner again fired a blank, he said, "Huh ..." Now I'm waiting for a call from an "upper-level" support technician, a man trained to handle truly difficult clients -- a Brian Mogg of computing. And while I wait, unshaven and listless, I have this feeling of déjà vu -- a sense that this scanner ordeal is part of some familiar pattern that, for some reason, escapes me. Frankly, I'd rather be playing golf.
Watch this space for another installment of Mats Only. To send John Garrity advice, share your experiences or suggest a driving range, click here.
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