Friday
And I can’t tell you how glad I am that it’s finally here.

Yesterday, the DSL router at work kicked the bucket. I called our ISP and they said that it wasn’t their problem (which technically, it wasn’t but I wasn’t expecting to hear that) and to call Qwest. When the tech told me that, every sphincter in my body clinched. For those who may have joined our story already-in-progress, I am NOT a fan of Qwaste… I mean “Qworst”… no that isn’t right, either…. “Qwest.” Yeah, them. In the three years that I used their service I had far more problems with it than in 25 years of C&P/Verizon, BellSouth and GTE combined! And, that’s part of the reason why we don’t have a land line, but that’s another story… So I called Qwest, talked to a tech who wanted to walk me through the same damned processes that I had gone through on my own. At which point, I told her that I actually have – and know how to use – working brain cells. *braincramp* After a few minutes, she came to the same conclusion that I did: The router was dead. *sigh* She put in an order to have a new router overnighted to us.

I went in early this morning to be sure that I was there when the new router arrived. I got to work around 9:50. The UPS driver doesn’t come until 10:00 or a little after. Perfect! I even turned on the front office lights so that any average idiot would see that there were signs of life inside.

10:00… nothing.
11:00… nothing.
12:00… still more nothing.
1:00… yep, you guessed it: nothing.

At 2:00, I had gotten tired of walking and decided to go for my afternoon walk. I gathered my keys, phone and sunglasses and headed outside. I turned to close the door and what do I see?

“We attempted to deliver (item) on 7/23/04….”

“Livid” begins to describe how I felt at this point. Fortunately for the driver (and his family and the rest of the SLC-area UPS fleet), he left the router next door. I collected the package, set up the router, and went for my walk while it configured itself.

When I came back, I felt a little better. That was only until I came back to see that the router had configured itself to sit on the shelf and look cute. Serving up URLs? Ha! As if. But… having configured its predecessor, I knew how to get around the “Router Configuration for Dummies” setup that had been included. I changed the necessary settings, rebooted the router and PC, and voila! Hellooooo, Interweb!

Of course, I was now in no mood to do much else, so I sent a few emails, checked out a few sites and waited for a text message from Jess asking if we should take off early. (If it hadn’t, I was going to send her one that simply said “BOOOOOOORED,” but I didn’t have to.) A few minutes later, the message arrived. We decided to get while the gettin’ was good.

We came home for a bit and then it was off to Friday night coffee with the usual suspects; Perry and Max joined us, too. Twas good. I didn’t do much people-watching (not many other people there and I was busy playing around with Max), but I had a good time. And then, dinner and back home.

All-in-all, not a bad Friday.

NPR and Other News
Talk of the Nation – Science Friday: Space Update: Planetary Exploration
Talk of the Nation – Science Friday: McNeil’s Nebula
Talk of the Nation – Science Friday: Ode to the Lab Mouse
Talk of the Nation – Science Friday: Examining Epigenetics
All Things Considered: The 9/11 Report, Privacy and Civil Liberties
All Things Considered: Auto Deal a Challenge to Europe’s 35-Hour Work Week
All Things Considered: Flawed Tracking System Suspected in Missing Nuclear Data
All Things Considered: Ali G: Fooling Serious Interviewees, All for a Laugh

Stray Toasters

Namaste.