It took almost a week, but I'm finally up and running with internet again.
Earlier this week we had some unusually heavy rains here in Southern California. When I got home from the office in LA, my internet at home was down. I called my provider, AT&T, and spoke with the nice young man in Dehli, India who said they'd send a tech to fix my DSL the next day . At least I think that's what he said. It was either that or he was sending a peacock to peck my gout out in his own way. (His accent was a bit hard to chew through.) Naturally, instead of the next day, the tech showed up Friday just before 5:00pm. After he determined the problem was in their lines out on the street (well, the tech didn't really determine that - he just kinda confirmed what I had been telling 'em for more than 48 hours), he said they'd have to call in the Maintenance guys to come fix it...tomorrow. Jeez, that's convoluted.
Regardless, almost a week later I'm finally up and running again. I often ponder how nice it would be if things went back to like when I was a kid in the '70s with no cell phones, internet, and other stuff to distract you from family and friends. You'd clock out of work and not think about it 'till the next day.
Guess what - that's soooo not the case. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, just because I go down for maintenance doesn't mean the rest of my world does. Production dates still loom large and editing and e-mails have to get handled. With my office over 120 miles away, I either had to find a way to make it work down here or spend over 6 hours in the car and another 10 in the office each day. Not that it would matter that much, because thanks to our at-home VPN connections, most of our production schedule has been tightened so much it's become a necessity for me to edit stories, do reports, and stay "plugged in" as late as 11:00pm or as early as 5:00am.
I live a good 30-minute round trip from the nearest civilization, so I spent my week looking for wifi like a meth freak trying to score a fix. I'd drive my neighborhood with iPhone in hand looking for unlocked wifi to pirate. I'd hop in the car every time my iPhone dinged in an e-mail that needed answering or a story hit my IN box that needed corrections. Laptop in hand, I'd sit in my buddy's driveway at 5:00am or head down to the local coffee joint at 10:30pm after the kids were down to try and stay on top of all the stuff I normally handle at leisure from my home office.
You never really realize how much you get done in a day 'till your ability to do it is diminished. I guess technology has me by the balls. Eh, at least my automatic "willys" ad search function is up and running. Excuse me while I go look for more vintage Jeep projects to clutter my driveway.