Scribbling this up on the Saturday, but I won't be able to post this until Monday, earliest, more than likely. Dial-up woes at home. Yessss -- soooo Last Century! Fitting tho really, seeing as I'm living in a half-century old stucco walk-up. Know for a fact the cable guy's been in here once more than a decade ago. The phone company not while I've been here -- and prob'ly not since wiring the place. Used to get 50.6 kbps regularly buzzing and boinging thru the modem -- and even 52.0 -- but not recently. Crackling and popping phone line, and -- if the modem can actually establish a connection -- speeds so slow that our modern-day graphics-heavy internet basically is non-functional. Land line has even gone dead.
Land line's dead right now.
There's enuf of a stiff breeze out bending the trees. It could just be one of those winter-time things. Every time it fixed itself, either in hours, or by next morning, so I haven't griped to the phone company. Once upon a time I did try to get high-speed in here, but that happened during a nasty little labour dispute between phone company and workers, and I couldn't book off work "just whenever" to meet the pair of managers whose scribbled notes left the impression I was inconveniencing them. I prefer not to wake the dragon, if it isn't necessary. Same dread, and the busy'ness of work, holds me back from calling up the cable-tv folks and enquiring about their high-speed packages.
I've longago given-up thinking I'll write, ready the pieces, post them from home on the weekends -- because home just ain't got reliable internet access these weekends. Where I work, tho, boasts a kind of high-speed internet: chugs a bit, carrying all that network traffic, but it works. So I've been writing stuff as usual when I can: jotting down what comes during the workday on whatever paper's handy, and doing more most evenings, Monday thru Friday, and on those weekends when there's no excuse not to. Work's plenty busy enuf that I usually have at least paperwork to organize after everyone else has gone home: in this manner paying for my use of the company's machine and internet access, and assuaging my concerns of any impropriety.
Staying late and updating inventory spreadsheets was the only way I could post stories on Protagonize.
I've even come to look forward to those evenings. The stillness at the end of a busy day. Only me, and the phones quiet. Zapped cup of leftover coffee. De-compressing with Protagonize: read some, post some. Then finish clearing off my desk.
This solution, tho working, of course only a workaround. Likely, my home dial-up woes will clear up as the weather improves, and as the phone folks fix and replace whatever winter battered and broke. The very best fix I'm figuring would be to do away with all wires and cabling. And need for the guy who has to install it all. So I'm watching with some interest every scrap of news about the wireless spectrum wars. Here's hoping we're not all naive in expecting it should bode well for us, harried and over-charged bandwidth surfers!
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Um...A postscript needed here.
Phone rang on Saturday night. My Dad left a message re Easter. I picked-up the phone immediately after -- and dial tone only held not even seconds before the line going dead again.
Sunday Morn: naturally checked, and the landline still dead. Within minutes, the phone RANG! Letting the answering machine take it, of course no voice there, no message, however, unlike Dad's call in Saturday night, when this Sunday morn caller clicked off (possibly a telemarketer, I guessed), the answering machine didn't cut-off the connection, recorded some seconds of restored dial tone -- setting me wondering might it have been the phone company just restoring the line and calling to check it's functional?
Landline's still working -- and clearly, like it's brand new. I'm seeing a conspiracy here -- such as befits that new X-Files' movie Mulder and Scully have just put in the can in this wet Pacific Northwest city!
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Yeah. Wasn't ready to go online Sunday morn, after whoever called seemingly fixed the phone line. Sunday chores still to do: laundry to launder; bike to ready for Monday work. Right -- crackling phone line by afternoon -- dead the instant the modem tried to dial out.
Good thing I'm about past caring.
