Wondering about wild grapes

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

No Internet

Wow, I didn’t know I relied on the internet for so much until I didn’t have it anymore. I guess the old saying is right “You don’t get thirsty until the well goes dry.” I sure got thirsty real quick. I was expecting an email with some important information that I needed to have by this morning and yesterday the internet came crawling to a halt.


Let me explain. A couple of days ago, I thought that I noticed a slow down of my DSL service. I just shrugged it off as it being overloaded with too many using it at the same time. The speed seemed to fluctuate and if I waited for awhile, I could do what I wanted without much delay. It kept getting worse until yesterday morning just after I got my blog posted.

It took over five minutes just to receive a two sentence email. Then it stopped completely. I called the service number and the technician had me unplug all my computers from the DSL line and he ran some tests. He said that it was the company’s lines somewhere between the switching station and my property. He put in a work order and told me it may be up to 24 to 48 hours before it gets fixed.

Well, it came back up to normal last evening, so cross your fingers for me and hope it stays up. It pleased me that they got it up and running so quickly, but this short period of time let me know just how much I use the internet for almost everything. I have become internet dependent. There is no way that I could function with out it. Since I have worked out of my home office for years, the internet was my link to my customers and visa versa. Blogs and my email, oh my, what would I do without them.

I hope the end of the Mayan calendar is not predicting the end of the internet. That would be the end of life as we know it. Dang. . . .

As I am trying to post this blog, the internet is getting very sluggish again. Whatever the problem in the line is, it must not be fixed and must be intermittent. If they did fix it, they didn’t do too good of a job. OK, now, let me see if I can post this. . . I may not be able to post another one for awhile nor comment on the blogs I follow.  Maybe it will be back to normal in a day or two.  Hope so.

8 comments:

  1. Dizzy, you're a HAM! Communication blackouts are the things that you're suppose to be able to overcome easily! :P

    Seriously though, most people are surprised that I have don't have internet (or any payed service beyond basic cell) in my home. Neither my wife nor myself have smart phones, DSL, cable TV or internet, no satellite TV, not even a land line telephone for dial-up. And to be honest, I don't miss it at all. In a world of media overload, it's nice to have a place that is relatively quiet.

    I do have a tendency to abuse the data in my office. I make a complete mirror of the Ubuntu software repositories just in case I want to install an app at any point. I check my email using a client which caches all my email for off line use. Even most of my web browsing has been taken up with an RSS feed reader (again, caching).

    In the near future I hope to add WinLink2K and PskMail clients to my ham station. I got a bit of equipment for my birthday, and I'm just waiting for the ground to thaw a bit to lay coax and hang wires. Maybe that can be something that you can look into. At the very least it's a fun niche of the hobby.

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  2. I don't have a phone or TV but do have a satellite for internet..take my mouse from my cold dead hand!

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  3. Grant, I hate intermittent problems. Those are the hardest to isolate. The phone company just replaced a port in their switching station with an updated one. They said that they couldn’t figure what the problem was and it may happen again.

    Frann, I know what you mean, for sure.

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  4. Yep DD, going without internet is not fun at all. Even with a land line now I feel real bummed when the internet goes down. It is 99.01% of my communication with the outside world, but has been known to get me in trouble before. (Especially recently) ;)

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  5. David, I am the same way, use it for almost all of communication and research, etc. Speaking about being known to get you in trouble, have you got that all straightened out with no loss no additional loss to you?

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  6. DD, two of the smaller ones were taken off and the $ put back in my account. The larger one I'll have to call back on after it actually posts.

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  7. Dizz I worked in Houston in the mid 70's,on a power plant out on the old Beaumont hwy as a electrician My working buddy lived in Conroe,He was a ham.He also managed a little one man radio station there in Conroe.He came to work one morning telling me about being on the ham with Arther Godfrey that night.I'm trying to remember his name .You may know him.

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  8. David, so far so good.

    Ted, I never heard anyone mention that he talked to Godfrey, but that doesn't mean that I haven't met him. I would assume that he would be one of the older hams.

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