24 Hours

Well, Almost.

For starters, you should all know (you being those who actually read this . . . and of course I have no idea who you are) ahem . . . you should all know that I am not one to shed tears often. I don't think I've ever cried in a movie theater. wait . . . scratch that, I did cry when I saw First Knight when I was about 16 . . . and I cried when I saw Little Women . . . but right around the age of 18 I stopped crying. Rarely do I ever cry . . . and so now I go into my story:

Wednesday, 4:30 am:
I'm up late (yes, very late) writing a paper. Why so late you ask? well, I won't go into details . . . I'll just say that I am still recovering from the nasty never-ending cough/cold bug and I spent the majority of my afternoon/evening on Tuesday curled up in my bed catching some much needed Z's.
still . . . I' ve been typing away at this paper for at least 4 hours, and my brain is starting to slip. I'm tired, I'm cold, and the suspicion keeps coming to me "what if teacher is sick again today? she IS pregnant and she HAS called in sick the past 2 class periods to let us know . . . I should check my school email"
but you see, there's one problem. I don't have internet access (speaking past tense here). of course, if I drive down the street about a block, I know that I have standing permission to use my friends wireless network. hmmm . . . It's freezing cold outside. I'm in my PJ's. I would probably have to scrape my windows if I go out now. ugh! so, I brush the thought aside . . . but it just keeps nagging at me. so, finally, I put on my shoes and coat and I shuffle out to my car. Of course, for some reason on this freezing cold night as I'm sitting in my car, my computer doesn't want to cooperate and connect to the network and checking my email takes 15 minutes instead of 5. but, of course - nagging suspicions shout "we told you so" when I see the email from my english professor telling us that she will be in class - however, the papers will not be due! ugh is right! and so I drive home and climb into bed, still very cold, and unable to sleep. sound like a rotten night?

yeah, it was.

but there is a point to all of this. I'm typing this little post from the comfort of my bed right now. therefore - as you can see - my little fiasco on Wednesday morning finally pushed me over the edge and I decided it was about time to get internet access at home. a big step seeing as how I am a relatively poor starving student . . . but a step I felt I needed to take.
So I signed up with a good broadband ISP in my area. relatively cheap - the cheapest I could find compared to the competition. by Thursday morning at 10 AM, I had a connection. beautiful. of course, owning a laptop - I felt it would only be logical to get a wireless router and have the ability of blogging from anywhere in the house. so, Friday at 7 I came home, router in hand. little did I know that it would be a little less than 24 hours before I would be able to move away from the kitchen counter and type to my hearts desire.
After calling belkin 3 times last night because of problem after problem - I finally thought I had things fixed, and I went to bed. When I woke up this morning, however, I quickly discovered that things were not working as I had thought - and I could only maintain a connection wirelessly for about 4 minutes - then it would drop. I called belkin one last time, knowing that they were going to tell me to return the router - but hoping that there was a problem somewhere on my network set-up. alas - the technician was completely convinced that it was the router and I just needed to take it back. ugh! another trip to the store. no! but, by now, I had tried virtually everything! it was like 2 in the afternoon . . . I had already spent how many hours trying to get this to work? ridiculous!
so, I took the router back and got a linksys instead. much more reliable brand, supposedly (although I read excellent reviews on belkin). so - I got going on the set-up, and things were running smoothly, until the install software ran into a glitch somehow and I couldn't proceed. ugh again! I had to call linksys support . . . which was not fun at all. I had to call them twice - and both times they were rude. I'm not one to complain (honestly - I'm not) but they were rude. very short and impatient (don't get me started on my feelings about IT companies outsourcing their customer service to native lands. it really really really really really bothers me). sheesh. the belkin guys were at least patient and gave me slow step by step instructions. these linksys dudes were acting like it was the end of the world. I guess that's why I had to wait on hold with belkin much longer vs. the quick connection I got with linksys.

anyways - I'm getting off the subject here. on the second call with linksys, the tech told me (without really listening to my problem) that I had a defective router and I was going to have to take it back to the store. NO! (and this is where the crying bit comes in). I did not want to take it back! I did not want to bother with this anymore. as soon as I hung up with mr linksys, I shed a few tears and the hopelessness began creeping in. I was simply exhausted with the whole thing.

so, I called my brother-in-law and vented my frustration with him a bit, explaining the problem to his computer scientific self and hoping he would be of some help. He thought it was strange that I didn't have a connection. I agreed. I said "I can get a connection now, when I'm wired straight to the router . . . but of course when I go wireless and unplug the cord (reach back to unplug the cord - but wait - it's already unplugged. it's already unplugged? it's already unplugged! I'm wireless? wait . . . is this working? www.google.com . . . search for . . . 'free'. it works! no "page cannot be found" error. yes yes yes!)
and I immediately went from complete frustration to complete elation.

I guess I'm not much of a storyteller, but I had to relate that one. I called my brother-in-law at 6:30, so as you can see it took 23.5 hours from start to finish before I could sit on the couch and google torino while I watched the olympics.

and suddenly the world seems like an OK place to live in agian.

Thank you belkin for having relatively friendly customer service.
Thank you linksys for making a router that would actually work
Thank you B-I-L for listening to me vent
Thank you self for persevering and checking that cord one more time.

phew. any questions?

I guess I have an excuse to blog more often now. You should see more of me now.

peace out.