"Choked with poison internet"

Tale of the poison internet

What can go wrong, will go wrong.
And when it's this photojournalist trying to get internet access at Wake
Forest University, I'm done in even before tipoff.
So I gave myself plenty of time last Tuesday to get to the basketball
coliseum for the Crest finals game. I got there early because I like to
have time to look around, check an arena out and make sure that my
computer will connect to the internet so I can email pictures back to the
paper after the game.
So, with almost two hours before game time, I tried to connect to their
wireless internet.
Nothing happened.
So I tried rebooting.
I got 'the blue screen of death', or at least that's what our IT guy,
Mark, calls it. The computer wouldn't start. I called Jeff, our photo
editor, and he suggested taking the battery out, unplugging it, nothing
worked.
Alan, our sports editor who was there, suggested my corner of the room
might have bad karma.
After the better part of an hour messing with the thing I was ready to
try anything. So I crossed the room.
The computer didn't start, but it showed more screens than the last time,
which I counted as progress.
So then I got the idea to just give up on the coliseum altogether. I went
out in the parking lot to my car. I laid the computer on my trunk.
And it started perfectly.
Now don't think I've never connected to wireless internet before. We've
had it here at the Star. I used it at school. Over at GWU's gym it's
stupidly easy. Just turn on the computer, click on Internet Explorer and
log in as a guest.
And don't think this computer is an antique. It was brand new when I got
to The Star seven months ago.
And I'm no techno-neophyte, either. Check out my sprawling personal
website from my college days: http://jderrick.bravepages.com/.
I took the laptop back to the press room and it screwed up as soon as the
wireless internet twisted its claws in again, against my best efforts, and
preventing any attempt to connect with a telephone or Ethernet cable.
THE AIR IN THERE IS CHOKED WITH POISON INTERNET. The best explanation
anyone's been able to give me is that their wireless internet is encrypted
so not just anyone can use it. Well, in that case, I'm not just anyone. I
was a member of the press using the press room. I get to do that.
I was pretty fed up. The good news is I had an out - 4th Street.
Positively.
The City of Winston-Salem has turned on wireless internet for an entire
street downtown. And I knew my computer would connect because of the last
time I'd gotten screwed over trying to cover a game at Wake Forest.
I was covering the Crest championship football game last fall. The
stadium had vendors, security, announcers. The press box had drinks,
desks, bathrooms.
But they hadn't turned their wireless internet on.
After a game journalists have to move fast to get their stories written,
photos processed and emails sent back to their faraway papers -not as
much fun with the press box's slow dial-up internet connections. But I had
a dial-up program on my computer and could make do without too much
trouble.
But about a half hour after the game some young guy came in and
said they were closing the press box. And kicking us out.
Now it' not very nice to screw over a press box full of journalists by
not even turning on the fast internet access. But then kicking us out
before we'e had time to work and send our stuff through the slow
connections is just wrong. KICKING THE PRESS OUT OF THE PRESSBOX ON
DEADLINE IS NOT A WAY TO MAKE FRIENDS.
And some of the journalists told the kid they needed more time.
So he told them he was acting on the authority of someone big and
important.
So the journalists educated him that they were in the press box. They
were the press. And they were doing their jobs.
I think I was pretty close to seeing the kid taken apart. I' not
admitting I would have helped, but I would have gotten some really good
pictures. Darn.
So the guy, who looked like one of those college-age kids who get hired
to work at a game, even if they'e never been on campus before in their
life, and really have no idea what they'e doing, said he' call security
and lock the stadium.
Boy, you think I can' handle a little barbed wire? Read my outdoors
column from last week the one about the cows.
Anyway, Alan Jenkins, one of our reporters, and I thought it might be
good to leave before the cops showed up.
So we got in his car, drove to 4th Street and filed out photos and
stories without any problem. Bless the City of Winston Salem.
So this past Tuesday after I finished covering the basketball game I
didn' even waste my time with their pressroom. My computer automatically
linked to the internet as I drove down 4th Street, I parked, processed and
emailed my photos and started back to Shelby.
So a big, fancy, expensive university can' give me internet access, but
a city street can?