Man Down(ish)

Yesterday I woke up with neither my phone nor my Internet working.

My Internet connection died Tuesday afternoon, and I'd hoped that by unplugging everything and giving everything the night off would solve the problem. When it's working, my modem displays five lights -- power, system, transmit, receive, and LAN. The power light comes on when the modem is plugged in, but even getting it to light is not as easy as one might think.

The power connection reminds me of an older audio type connector. It's round and has a number of pins and requires a fair bit of twisting to get them all to align so I can actually plug it in. Then, instead of fitting securely in the socket, it just lays there and the power LED goes from blue, which is good, to red, which is not.

Sometimes I end up by putting some stress on the power cord by wedging it against the wall so that it's shoved firmly into the socket. When it's at its worst, if I even look at the damn thing sideways, it gets loose and turns off.

I've come to terms with it, though, and it only occasionally annoys me. Live and learn, as they say.

When the satellite dish was installed and the guy got me up and running, he warned me that this model of modem had a tendency to overheat and die, and he recommended I keep a small fan blowing on it. As luck would have it, I already owned a small fan, which I used to use to cool myself before moving here, and during the summer months I keep it trained on the damn thing.

Wednesday I noticed it was quite warm on one side, but other than keeping the fan on it, there wasn't much I could do. Then, sometime in the afternoon, the modem displayed just one light, the power on one.

Without either the system light, which I take to be a sign the modem is running its software correctly, it's LAN light, which goes on when it can see that it's connected to something, I wasn't surprised that Windows couldn't find the Internet or let me connect to anything. So, I just unplugged everything and called it a day. This has worked in the past, and I figured it would work again.

So, early Wednesday morning, I plugged it back in and nothing had changed. No flashing transmit and receive lights, no system light, no LAN light. Just the power one.

I says to myself, Grrrr, and fixed another cup of coffee.

Pretty much ever since I called Hughesnet and got connected, they'd been advertising a newer, faster plan than the one I have, one which requires a different modem. I wasn't interested in it for a couple reasons, but the last time I called them about a problem, Amanda (remember her?), mentioned that the plan and setup I have is pretty much past its sell by date.

Since I wanted to keep that plan for as long as I can, my first thought was to buy a replacement modem. This required two things: One, they still needed to sell them, and, two, I needed to call them and see about having them send me one or two.

Which is when I noticed the second problem. My phone couldn't find a signal (either!) and was stuck in "searching" mode. Another Grrr, another cup of coffee.

Before my Internet died, I'd seen some posts about people up here losing their cell phone coverage. Most of the people up here, of course, live in the cities and have those fancy ass G type things that let them use smartphones, so I hadn't given it much thought. Also, I can go for over a week without using my phone at all, so it wasn't any big deal to me.

But I did catch the end of the local news on the radio, and they were saying something or other about the outtage, so I waited.

I didn't have a working phone and had no Internet, but my TV worked, I had things to do, and books to read, so I was unhappy, but not without options.

A couple hours later my phone found a bar and I called Hughesnet to see about getting another modem. Instead of the usual options, I heard a recorded message saying they were having severe system problems, which they hoped to fix by that afternoon, and because of the volume of call, the projected wait time would be half an hour before I could speak with anyone.

I hung up.

It's been rather hot the past few days and it was expected to be even hotter today (yesterday), so I figured it would be a good day to drive up to Big Bear. It's always quite a bit cooler up there and I figured since he can't go to the park and play with other dogs because of his bronchial thing, I'd see how he felt about seeing a standing body of water.

So, I loaded up the Jeep with water and things, and drove the fifty miles or so up a winding mountain road to get to Big Bear. That was done mostly without incident, but I did overshoot one corner and a thrilling moment wearing a thousand miles off the tires as I skidded around the hairpin and out of my lane, but other than that the trip was uneventful.

We made it to a park next to (what's left of) Big Bear lake, and I met some women who'd taken their dog there, and we chatted a bit. Of course, they said lots of nice things about Vinko, and after a bit of that, we headed down to the shoreline.

Vinko, to my surprise, acted as if he didn't notice the water at all. I didn't expect him to get excited about the ducks, which he recognized as birds and, therefore, of no interest at all, but he didn't seem to notice the water, either. He waded right in, up to his ankles, and walked back and forth a bit, still on his leash. I didn't let him run free.

He was fine with wading until he spotted some moss on a nearby rock, gently waving as the water lapped the shoreline. That spooked him, and he'd have nothing more to do with the water and its wiggling plants for quite awhile.

He eventually got back in, again far enough to cover his feet, and that was about that.

When we got back home, my phone still worked and the Internet still didn't. I called Hughesnet and got an updated message that said the problem would be fixed later that night, and went about my business. Before going to bed, I tried Hughesnet again, and they'd gone back to the "sometime this afternoon" message, and we slept as best we could through another warm night.

Then, this morning, I plugged the modem back in and everything came up as good as ever. Also, it works and here I am, on the Internet and with a working phone, just like a regular person!