(Or, in which QB finds out just how Net-dependent she really is)
I hate our ISP.
It’s Adelphia broadband. The only choice for high-speed internet in our area, and it’s constantly going down. I had this great (well, I thought it was great) post written about the Quantum House’s ISP adventures this morning, and the damn computer ate it. So you get a shorter, crappier post instead.
I have a morning routine, which I rarely deviate from. I am a creature of habit, and the routine is comforting. Get up, take pills, go to bano, eat while reading newspaper. Pretty normal, no? However, the next step is to check email, read Straight Dope, and possibly log on to SDMB. Having assured myself that my online world is there and functioning, I get on with my day. But this morning, something horrid happened.
THE INTERNET WAS DOWN.
This is not unusual. However, normally it comes up after a few minutes. Normally I just grumble, go wash and get dressed, and by the time I’m done the Net will have coughed back to life. Not today. It must have been down for several hours. Dad, who is home recovering from surgery, was going bonkers and calling every ISP in the phone book trying to find another source of high-speed internet. Meanwhile, I was dealing with another problem.
A bit of background here. I’m doing a certificate program for a system called GIS; Geographic Information Systems. Basically hooking up maps with spatial data. Quite versatile, and GIS techs are currently much in demand. So I got the software, ArcView, to do my homework and hopefully employed work at home. Up until yesterday, Othello (the good computer) ran ArcView quite nicely. Yesterday, though, to make a long story short I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling the damn thing. Mutter, mutter. So this morning, I figured that this was a good time to do some work; nobody was on the Internet for once! However, I had postponed a crucial step yesterday.
Registration.
Evidently, all data of my previous registration was lost in the uninstall. Arrrgh. QB goes to re-register, praying that the software company doesn’t get their tails in a knot over having my name and code in their records twice. Only to find that I can’t send my registration in- no net! Fortunately, we have a fax machine. QB faxes info in, praying that someone will get back with the requisite data sometime in the near future. Goes off to room to rant into journal.
Not fifteen minutes later, Dad pokes his head in to say that the net’s back up.
Murphy really does live here.