So there we were, minding our own\nbusiness, on Sunday of last week, when what to my wondering ears\nwould appear but some blinking and beeping from there and from here!!\n Our electrical stuff was doing very strange things. Some things\nwere flashing, others simply didn’t work at all. Having had enormous\nfun with similar power strangeness, I quickly went to the basement to\nturn off the main switch in the breaker box. Very soon after, our\nson texted me: \u201cYou guys have power?\u201d \u201cNope,\u201d was my reply.\n \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No storms, no winds, so we figured no\nbig deal. Didn’t really mess up any plans either, because we were\nplanning to go bike riding anyway. We have a generator, but the only\nthing I used it for was to run the air compressor so I could pump up\nthe tires. On our way to the bike trail we saw the power crews had\nalready sprung into action to fix what had apparently been caused by\na huge tree branch. We had a very nice ride, and stopped for an\nelegant meal at the local Taco Bell and headed home. We noticed the\ntraffic lights were working once again, so we figure all was well at\nhome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well almost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After turning the main back on,\neverything woke up except for our internet. Total bummer. You see,\nwe are spoiled Americans. Even when we don’t have internet, we are\nspoiled Americans; but when we can’t play on the interwebs we get a\nsmidge cranky. So I call the support number. Nobody’s home. Left a\nmessage. No call back. Left an e-mail the following day from work. \nNo reply. I call again and leave a message. Nobody cares. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lack of response is probably due to\nour subscription to the Podunk Holy Mackerel Super Fast Wireless\nInternet Service. For a mere $39.99 a month, we got all the data we\ncould swallow; but you’d be lucky if you got 2 mbps (pretty doggone\nslow by today’s standards). Well hey, these folks did the best they\ncould. They got us much faster internet than dial up; and it has\nworked most of the time. They came around about 10 years ago as the\nresult of a federal grant that was handed out to local companies to\nsend \u201chigh speed\u201d internet to rural homes. Was great for us\nbecause we couldn’t get DSL (we are too Podunky I guess); and there\nwere no cable providers running anything in our neck of the woods. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But they could’ve called…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well their lack of give a hoot gave me\nthe shove to go shopping. I work in IT so I figured things may have\nchanged a bit in 10 years; and sure enough it didn’t take long to hit\npay dirt. Well, I’ll be paying them<\/strong><\/em>…\nbut anyway; called Frontier and no, they still don’t have any lines\ndown our road. \u201cBut we’re always updating our network…\u201d which\nis what they said 10 years ago. Then I thought, \u201chey our son has\nComcast and he lives around the corner.\u201d I’ve read many reviews\nabout Comcast internet; and some folks love it and others hate it. \nCustomer service is known to be poor, but this is true for pretty\nmuch all internet service providers. When I told my friends about\nour internet woes and mentioned we’ve decided to join the Evil\nEmpire, everyone I told replied, \u201cComcast?\u201d \u201cYep!\u201d I\nreplied. And of course, sure enough!! They were \u201crunning a\nspecial\u201d for new customers; and for $20 a month for the first year,\nwe could get 25 mbps!! That’s like 12 times faster than what we had\nbefore. Of course, after the first year the prices goes up. I think\nit’s like $9713.57 per month (OK maybe only $50).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now\nwe can run faster and jump higher!! Oh wait, that was that old\ncommercial for PF Flyers (sneakers of yesteryear) (Holy Cow I just\nGoogled them and they’re still being sold!!) (Who the heck\n<\/strong><\/em>puts\nall these parentheses in one sentence??) (Me!). \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have I mentioned we are spoiled Americans? Yes, we are, and we’ve sold our souls to the Evil Empire. But boy can we stream videos now!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now all we need is an All Electric Home!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n