Ready to show it off and begin getting familiar with my new iPhone, I came home Wednesday evening triumphant against the lethargic salesborg force at the Culver City AT&T store whose entire lack of urgency or expediency brought about a 65-minute bout of standing around until my name was called (while the apparent supervisor busied herself with menial tasks such as restocking brochures — everything but jumping into the fray of waiters). But unfortunately shortly after I arrived home any celebratory orientation had to be canceled because Ranger opted to tangle with a visiting skunk in the backyard and I was unfortunate in witnessing the moment of our wonderful dog taking both barrels of stank right in the kisser — including a substantial portion that went directly into her mouth. Ga-ross!
Unfortunately, I know what that experience is like, albeit on a much lesser scale. And this makes Ranger’s second odoriffic encounter with the species.
As the young skunk made its escape through the gap in the back of the south fence and into the neighbor’s yard, we made the mistake of letting Ranger into the house where she frantically scrambled around seeking relief that would not come by rubbing and scraping her slathering mug against rugs in the dining room, bedroom and kitchen, thoroughly infusing them with odor and necessitating their removal from the house to be discarded and replaced.
Finally containing the dawg in the kitchen Susan stayed with her while I whipped up a batch of skunk remedy (1 quart hydrogen peroxide, 1 quart water, quarter-cup baking soda, 2-3 tablespoons liquid soap — it really works) and Ranger and I then adjourned to the bathtub where she had calmed quite a bit and was tremendously cooperative as I scrubbed her up and rinsed her down.
Oh well. She needed a bath anyway.
The really cool part was after all was done and most of the odor had either alleviated (or we had just become accustomed to it) I finally got a chance to sit down with my new toy. Yeah, but that fun didn’t last long because after I connected it to my computer to register it and then followed the recommendation to update the phone to the latest software patch, the phone crashed, displaying only an image that urged me to plug the phone into a USB port and access iTunes on the computer. Trouble was a vicious cycle then repeated where a dialog box came up demanding that the iPhone’s software needed to be restored, so I’d OK that ordr and it would get almost to the end of that process before an error message would pop up advising that the operation couldn’t be completed because of some sort of fatal Error No. 6.
After multiple reboots and repeats delivering me to the same dead end, I called up tech support and a fine voicemail guide repeatedly attempted to steer me through a procedure that — surprise! — didn’t produce anything but the same result, FTW.
It wasn’t until 6 a.m. the next morning (yesterday) that I was able to get a real live technoid on the line and we were able to find the culprit: I had plugged in to a USB port on a hub when I should have plugged into a port directly from the computer. After rectifying that oversight, the software restoration and upgrade went great and my gadget was successfully revived.
Maniacally rhetorical question: Would it have been too much trouble to add the text “Make sure you’re plugged into a USB port directly to the computer” when I kept on being advised about the FAIL due to cryptic Error No. 6? GAH!
Anyway, the iPhone is working its magicness, and the dog and house is less stinky. But the area rugs still sit along the side of the house waiting to be cut up and thrown away.
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