Yesterday, I became extraordinarily upset when my dsl broadband service – after four years of relatively continuous operation – went off at around 11:30AM and stayed off. Usually these interruptions ended in about an hour. I went to a friend’s house to blog on his WiFi, but I was surprised at how agitated I felt, almost as if part of me had gone missing.
In the process of this, I became enraged with Earthlink (my ISP) whose support left something to be desired. Finally, in the evening a tech support guy at Covad – the company that had installed my dsl – informed me I probably needed a new modem, but they (Covad) could not check this because they were only the installers. Even though I knew better – none of them are terrific at this – I surfed the net at three a. m… on dial-up, no less… looking for a new ISP. I even scheduled an appointment (now canceled) with Adelphia to install a cable modem two weeks from now (talk about desperation!). Meanwhile, Earthlink was launching a full-scale “trouble ticket” investigation…
Anyway, I fixed it all myself this morning. I won’t overly embarrass myself by explaining what was wrong – it was a little bit worse than the plug was out, but not much – and now dsl is working again. I am back to my more normal neurotic self because my electronic self is functioning fine. Dicey as this was and is for me as a middle-aged man today, people in the future are going to find the line between their electronic and biological entities even more difficult to draw. I’m not sure that’s a day we should look forward to.
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