Monday, March 28, 2011

Cotton and DSL Weather

Hi, Cotton here.Yes, I know the title of this post is a bit strange but it goes well with how things have been going around here. 

What a weekend. We spent much of Saturday and Sunday under either a tornado or severe thunderstorm watch. When a neighbor asked Jan yesterday if she was huddled in the hallway when the siren went off at 4 am Sunday morning, Jan had to admit she hadn't heard the siren over the all-night squawking of the weather radio. Which was probably a good thing since we don't have a hallway to huddle in should a tornado materialize.

Sunday morning brought another bad storm. And there was a lightning strike way too close for comfort just before the transformer next door got hit. A couple hours later Jan turned the computer on for us but we had no internet. She spent much of the afternoon trying to get online and calling our DSL provider. They finally said they'd send a tech out today before 5. She called a neighbor who said, yes, she had internet ... wait, let me check ... no, I can't get online ... my son-in-law is checking ... no, he can't get the internet ... we got online after he rebooted. (Rebooting didn't help our problem.)

Later Jan called another neighbor and she has the same provider. She turned on her computer. No internet. A while later Jan decided to call our provider again to tell them she isn't the only one with a problem, and since they check for a signal, she turned the computer back on. And a few minutes later, she had internet. So she called and canceled the service call.

The tech didn't get the cancellation and showed up early this morning.  Jan explained our internet was working again. The guy said he had a lot of DSL calls to make and left. A couple hours later Jan turned on the computer ... and you guessed it - no internet! She called and a guy told her the ticket was still open so he couldn't put in a new one. And, no, he couldn't call anyone to try to contact the tech to come back. Jan hung up the phone and tried one more time - and got online.

So Jan called Windstream back and during the conversation, the alert lady said, "I don't see a signal, you're not on the internet." "Yes, I am ... oh, no, I'm not." Fortunately, she knew the procedure to pass on the message to the tech, who called a short time later to say he was on his way back.

He told Jan, "When I got to the office this morning, I asked what we have and was told all the guys were sent out on 3 calls. But by that time they had 47 more in the office and they were still coming." Guess most folks either didn't know they had no internet until this morning or waited until business hours to call.

We hope we will still have internet access tomorrow but life is full of surprises, so we'll see you again tomorrow ... or we won't. There are more storms coming and it's going to be a wet week. We know some of you are still having snow and/or freezing temperatures, so we won't complain. 

Oh, and one positive from this is the tech discovered our DSL filter had gone bad. He was surprised it lasted 5 years. He was even more surprised we even get a DSL signal since we're only supposed to use a 15 foot cord from the jack to the DSL modem and we're using either a 50' or a 100' foot one. See, there is only one place to plug in the computer and only one jack. The outlet and the jack are on opposite sides of the room, so Jan compromised and put the desk in the middle of the living room, so the phone lines to the computer have to be run up over the doors, across the walls and down the closet door behind the computer. It's unorthodox and a real pain, but we work with what we have, so as long as it works ...

To cheer us all, we have a sweet video today. The cute little boy with a dog is now 5 years old and for his birthday he asked for donations to help the animals instead of presents and raised over $400.


If the video doesn't play, click here.

12 comments:

  1. That nasty weather is pretty scary! So is no internet! But that video is so cute, hooray!!!

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  2. The storms can play a bad part with the electrical stuff. When the folks first moved out where we now live the mom was in the kitchen with lightening struck and came into the house. You wouldn't have believed what items got ruined and what things, though we don't know, didn't have to be junked. Good thing for insurance. Hope the internet gets fixed once and for all! No fun when you want to work and cannot get on line.
    If you don't have a hall to get into stand in the shower. That is, I am told a safe place to be.

    Love to all at your place.

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  3. Oh no - sorry to hear about your internet problems! We have had some big thunderstorms here too and electrical storms and we had a power surge which fried our computer's memory! And it was a new one which Hsin-Yi had just spent a lot of money paper upgrading!! She was very grumpy about that! So we had to send it away again and get yet another memory replaced! Now we have bought surge guards for all our computer plugs!

    Hope your internet settles down...

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  4. My mom is twitching at the thought of it -

    Thanks fur sharing the special video too!

    Hugz&Khysses,
    Khyra

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  5. Oh-yeah! Bad weather causes lots of problems!
    I hope your internet will be fixed soon!
    I loved the video!
    Kisses and hugs
    Lorenza

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  6. My human doesn't know what is scarier - tornadoes or no internet! Shows where her head is at.

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  7. Qe feel for ya. Innernets can be so tricky sometimes. That distance thing is a problem they outta fix. Ya can get across the world, but not 15 more feets! We are lucky. We put the computer right above where it comes in the house.

    In other houses, that might be the kitchen or bafroom. so it werked good here. An we are lucky. It could been the house was built the other way around an we would have that problem too. They really oughta fix that.

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  8. Florida is the state with the most lightening strikes so we feel your pain. We have lost more than one computer to lightening. And we have continual Internet problems.
    I laugh to because my wireless connection won't work well from my office to my bedroom and it's less than 50 feet.
    So it goes...hope your connection stays on!

    Purrs

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  9. Our mom complains a lot about the snow and cold, but we don't tend to get really terrible electrical storms (once in a while) and knock on wood, we've never had anything like a tornado watch. The mom would be freaking out! (Western Ontario is called tornado alley here in Canada.)

    So please do stay safe, everyone!

    -Fuzzy Tales

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  10. Hope your weather improves and your internet stays on.

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  11. So sorry to hear that you had to spend a great deal of time to have your DSL fixed. My mom is pooter-illiterature, she knows how to turn on and off pooter only.
    It's nice of you to share that sweet video, I really don't want pressies for my barkday anymore, I'll ask my mom to donate it to the local animal shelter for my unfortunate furends.
    Love ya lots.

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  12. Them storms sound very skeery!!!! I'd be huddled under da blankie...hehehe!

    Internet providers just don't knows how important it is fur us doggies and kittehs to blog. We should be top priority!

    Puddles

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