First off, congratulations to Redbone on winning the amazing secret yerfbuck of all time. Secondly, man. Life is challenging. Not bad, exactly, but really trying. Here's something very bad and trying: our wireless internet service is shutting down next friday. We live way out in the wilderness, where technology is just something we hear about on our stone tablets. Prior to this out here, we have had dial up access, and then satellite (dial up was better most of the time...). The wireless was great, it was like having real internet only mildly less impressive than real people real internet. With them shutting down (via a hilarious letter that included yelling at the customers who didn't pay on time - not me!), I have spent the last day frantically scrambling to find an alternative. There ain't much out here but goats and tumbleweeds, and I have discovered that aside from DSL, it's
extremely hard to find out what kind of internet options are available. There are sites that will check your address and tell you, only all of them said "We don't recognize your address. Try someplace else."
So, after an exhaustive search, I think I found what I need. I'm apparently working through every possible form of data transmission, because I just put in my order for cellular internet. If it has decent speed and reliability (which it kinda sounds like it will, based on reports by customers), it will actually be really cool. It's a USB thing you plug into your computer which receives the signal, and since the signal is cellular, you can just go anywhere you like and still be connected at full speed! I can play WoW while I drive! I can't see anything wrong with doing that. So maybe this will be a good thing. It's only slightly more expensive than the wireless was, from reports it appears to be slightly faster and better ping (fingers crossed for reliability - wireless would give me very common 1-2 second pauses which were annoying), has unlimited bandwidth, and this magic travelability which I'm excited about. So maybe it's all an upgrade. I won't know for another week until the device arrives (hopefully in time before I lose this internet... it'll be cutting it close). I think it will be. That's been the process for the past couple months - things seem really bad, but then it works out quickly and easily and turns out really nice. But oh man, it's exhausting.
Robot Wants Puppy still underway... lost several days of work this week due to another of our ongoing issues - one of our cars is unavailable due to a chronicly unfixable transmission. That turned a 40 minute dentist appointment into 12 hours in town. It never ends! I'm off to go pay the nearly-over-the-limit credit card bill our dog ran up.
