There's Always Something

Well, here I am in northern Wisconsin. I arrived safely and easily on Sunday, only to find that my mom's house did not have Internet or phone service. Not because of the cable company, who supplies the service, but because of my mom.

Funny story. Seems my mom, when she took the phone to the nursing home, which was connected to the cable modem, also took the modem's power cord. However, she somehow damaged the modem where the power brick connected to it. There were visible scratch marks and the power brick's connector would no longer stay plugged in. Needless to say, the modem would not power up, therefore no Internet or phone.

Now, this was an interesting problem, seeing as I need to be connected to the Internet to work with my company's network. Also, I communicate via, e-mail, IM, and phone, none of which were working Sunday night. So I needed to get to the cable company's office ASAP, but they don't open until 9:00 AM Monday (fortunately they were not closed for Columbus Day!). Fortunately, I had failed to check in some software I was working on Friday, so I was able to continue that work.

So, the cable repair guy came out to the house at 3:00 Monday afternoon and replaced the modem. I was finally up and running! I did spend my lunch at the local Applebee’s using their free WI-FI to check e-mail and verify that I did not have any meetings.

There’s always something…