It wasn't widely commented on, but I've been mostly offline for the past eighteen hours. Surprisingly, the Internet still exists, and this bodes well for those of you who will survive my eventual death.

Yes, I had concerns.

We had some rain, elsewhere referred to as a storm, a rainstorm, or even the grating rain event, and in the midst of the lightning, thunder, and falling water I lost my Internet connection. These things happen, so I wasn't all that surprised. Annoyed, yes; isolated, certainly; apalled, nope.

!@(badlights.jpg:L120 popimg: "No Good")

The longer the outage extended, the more frustrated I was. I use DSL to connect, and coming from the "wall" is a typical RJ11 jack into which I plug the Pacbell-supplied "octopus." It makes the one jack two, one for the modem and another, with a filter, for the telephone line. Since the phone wasn't working, either, I figured it wasn't the modem and expected SBC to soon correct the problem. These things happen when it rains after a period of no rain, and even during periods solar activity.

My patience, however, has its limits, and when I wasn't able to get online this morning my brow furrowed (not by itself. I helped). After a bit, the modem returned to life, but it had been momentarily functional all along. Never longer than two or three minutes, but it did work occasionally. Better, the telephone gave me a dial tone, which I used to call SBC.

I spoke to some woman with a delightful accent who was no help at all. Okay, I lied to her about the number and flavor of my computers (it never helps to mention Linux), but followed her instructions. She couldn't find anything wrong, but put in a trouble ticket and dispatched someone. She couldn't see a problem, but suggested that the problem may be with "inside wiring."

I gulped, only, not really.

The one thing I know about interior wiring is that it's the customer's (read: my) responsibility. The phone co will charge, and charge exhorbitantly, to fix that kind of thing. Unknown to them, however, is that I did all the interior wiring myself (well, it was a part of my job for years). They may expect a nicely mounted wall jack, like everyone else has, and may shake their heads at the naked wire coming through a hole in the floor. I would be, too, only I drilled the hole sometime in the late sixties when my water bed broke and have found it to be a much handier place to run the wire than up the wall.

Later today, in recounting this story and my decision not to rewire the house today, I got a snide, uncharitable comment about preventive maintenance which I choose to ignore. I may have already run multiple lines under the house and, if not, it won't be a big deal. Ideally I'd like to install conduit down there and run the cable through that, but in the meantime I can just pull the existing line out with a new one attached and, voila!, re-terminate both ends. Now that I'm reasonably certain the problem lays between the telco demark and my computer, I know what to do.

When I said it was the rain I may have been optimistic. I mentioned that to the telco, too, but failed to say anything about the mice I saw saving themselves from our meager deluge. They're the ones I think did it.

It wasn't widely commented on, but I've been mostly offline for the past eighteen hours. Surprisingly, the Internet still exists, and this bodes well for those of you who will survive my eventual death.

Yes, I had concerns.

We had some rain, elsewhere referred to as a storm, a rainstorm, or even the grating rain event, and in the midst of the lightning, thunder, and falling water I lost my Internet connection. These things happen, so I wasn't all that surprised. Annoyed, yes; isolated, certainly; apalled, nope.

!@(badlights.jpg:L120 popimg: "No Good")

The longer the outage extended, the more frustrated I was. I use DSL to connect, and coming from the "wall" is a typical RJ11 jack into which I plug the Pacbell-supplied "octopus." It makes the one jack two, one for the modem and another, with a filter, for the telephone line. Since the phone wasn't working, either, I figured it wasn't the modem and expected SBC to soon correct the problem. These things happen when it rains after a period of no rain, and even during periods solar activity.

My patience, however, has its limits, and when I wasn't able to get online this morning my brow furrowed (not by itself. I helped). After a bit, the modem returned to life, but it had been momentarily functional all along. Never longer than two or three minutes, but it did work occasionally. Better, the telephone gave me a dial tone, which I used to call SBC.

I spoke to some woman with a delightful accent who was no help at all. Okay, I lied to her about the number and flavor of my computers (it never helps to mention Linux), but followed her instructions. She couldn't find anything wrong, but put in a trouble ticket and dispatched someone. She couldn't see a problem, but suggested that the problem may be with "inside wiring."

I gulped, only, not really.

The one thing I know about interior wiring is that it's the customer's (read: my) responsibility. The phone co will charge, and charge exhorbitantly, to fix that kind of thing. Unknown to them, however, is that I did all the interior wiring myself (well, it was a part of my job for years). They may expect a nicely mounted wall jack, like everyone else has, and may shake their heads at the naked wire coming through a hole in the floor. I would be, too, only I drilled the hole sometime in the late sixties when my water bed broke and have found it to be a much handier place to run the wire than up the wall.

Later today, in recounting this story and my decision not to rewire the house today, I got a snide, uncharitable comment about preventive maintenance which I choose to ignore. I may have already run multiple lines under the house and, if not, it won't be a big deal. Ideally I'd like to install conduit down there and run the cable through that, but in the meantime I can just pull the existing line out with a new one attached and, voila!, re-terminate both ends. Now that I'm reasonably certain the problem lays between the telco demark and my computer, I know what to do.

When I said it was the rain I may have been optimistic. I mentioned that to the telco, too, but failed to say anything about the mice I saw saving themselves from our meager deluge. They're the ones I think did it.

As a human I can appreciate how funny we are as a species. Aliens, when they're not busy probing us or creating crop circles, may have quite a different take.

In some ways I think we're little changed from very primitive times. Before we came up with the notion that angry gods caused floods and other misfortunes, we thought it was because of something we did or didn't. Since, if you slapped me it hurt and if I threw a rock in a pond it splashed, we wanted everything to be neat and orderly and to have simple causes produce immediate effects.

Thus, our ventures into magic. If we just knew that it was our watering a little plot of land that caused the heavens to bring welcome rain, like it did that one time, we'd be set. Trouble is, of course, sometimes we watered the little plot and the drought continued. In that case we strove to find another single cause, and came up with everything from dances to festive, particular clothing.

None of that worked, but we became very good at coming up with excuses. Later, the witch doctors lost their power to the priests, who told us how the gods were responsible and which seemingly random and arbitrary acts we should perform to please them. This resulted in the priests having the upper hand as far as tribal doings went, so they were pretty damn happy.

Yesterday I washed my dog, but today he's avoiding me. It's easy and second-nature for me to draw an association based on those two facts. Since my household lacks both magicians and priests I pretty much have to figure out for myself if this behavior is a cause and effect or just a coincidence.

As a human I can appreciate how funny we are as a species. Aliens, when they're not busy probing us or creating crop circles, may have quite a different take.

In some ways I think we're little changed from very primitive times. Before we came up with the notion that angry gods caused floods and other misfortunes, we thought it was because of something we did or didn't. Since, if you slapped me it hurt and if I threw a rock in a pond it splashed, we wanted everything to be neat and orderly and to have simple causes produce immediate effects.

Thus, our ventures into magic. If we just knew that it was our watering a little plot of land that caused the heavens to bring welcome rain, like it did that one time, we'd be set. Trouble is, of course, sometimes we watered the little plot and the drought continued. In that case we strove to find another single cause, and came up with everything from dances to festive, particular clothing.

None of that worked, but we became very good at coming up with excuses. Later, the witch doctors lost their power to the priests, who told us how the gods were responsible and which seemingly random and arbitrary acts we should perform to please them. This resulted in the priests having the upper hand as far as tribal doings went, so they were pretty damn happy.

Yesterday I washed my dog, but today he's avoiding me. It's easy and second-nature for me to draw an association based on those two facts. Since my household lacks both magicians and priests I pretty much have to figure out for myself if this behavior is a cause and effect or just a coincidence.

Why, oh why, did I end yesterday's entry promising exciting stuff today? Now I not only have to invent some remarkable event to write about, I have to do so with poignancy, insight, and humor. This may not be easy.

I have, naturally, a list of things to blog about, but none seem adequate to satisfy the build-up. I had an unremarkable day, so writing about that won't do, and my difficulties with women, life, and self have begun to bore even me. In fact, I write about other things to avoid thinking about those problems.

I could write about Pedro, my rally monkey, but I only got him to avoid looking like I didn't care about the Angels a few years ago when a colleague went to a baseball game. Everyone in the department got something, and it was pretty noisy there for awhile with all those thunder sticks. The rally monkey, with paws conveniently featuring Velcro, hung on the roll bar of my car on the ride back home and inspired not a few surprising looks.

In a convertible, everybody knows your business. Also, they have no qualms about asking you for directions since you're right out there. I'd say it's like you have nowhere to hide except there's no "like" about it. They can all see what you're drinking, hear what you're listening to, and notice how well or poorly you're dressed.

Today was a very hot day, not a good one for convertibles. People think they'd be cool, but it's like sitting in a frying pan. I did find out today that a guy I've been exchanging e-mails with for about five years also has a convertible. We're similar in our use of them, too, and agree that when you have a ragtop it's senseless to put the top up.

Few things bother me as much as seeing a convertible all buttoned up when it's a gorgeous, seventy-five degree day. I wonder just how much more beautiful it has to be for the clown to lower his top and justify the added expense of a convertible top.

This entry is not going well. Not exciting at all.

The other major achievment of my day was not washing my dog. I had no time, what with wondering how many people were reading my blog and how delighted they all must be. I read some other blogs, which were better than mine, but forgot to take any notes on how to do better, so this is what you get for today.

Maybe I'll leave off with a quote I remember. It must be a good one because I don't remember very many quotes. I have a book full of them that I use for inspiration, but hardly any I can summon up or that I've bother to memorise. This one, though, I have:

"Art should never try to be popular; the public should make itself artistic" -- Oscar Wilde.
Or, something like that.

Why, oh why, did I end yesterday's entry promising exciting stuff today? Now I not only have to invent some remarkable event to write about, I have to do so with poignancy, insight, and humor. This may not be easy.

I have, naturally, a list of things to blog about, but none seem adequate to satisfy the build-up. I had an unremarkable day, so writing about that won't do, and my difficulties with women, life, and self have begun to bore even me. In fact, I write about other things to avoid thinking about those problems.

I could write about Pedro, my rally monkey, but I only got him to avoid looking like I didn't care about the Angels a few years ago when a colleague went to a baseball game. Everyone in the department got something, and it was pretty noisy there for awhile with all those thunder sticks. The rally monkey, with paws conveniently featuring Velcro, hung on the roll bar of my car on the ride back home and inspired not a few surprising looks.

In a convertible, everybody knows your business. Also, they have no qualms about asking you for directions since you're right out there. I'd say it's like you have nowhere to hide except there's no "like" about it. They can all see what you're drinking, hear what you're listening to, and notice how well or poorly you're dressed.

Today was a very hot day, not a good one for convertibles. People think they'd be cool, but it's like sitting in a frying pan. I did find out today that a guy I've been exchanging e-mails with for about five years also has a convertible. We're similar in our use of them, too, and agree that when you have a ragtop it's senseless to put the top up.

Few things bother me as much as seeing a convertible all buttoned up when it's a gorgeous, seventy-five degree day. I wonder just how much more beautiful it has to be for the clown to lower his top and justify the added expense of a convertible top.

This entry is not going well. Not exciting at all.

The other major achievment of my day was not washing my dog. I had no time, what with wondering how many people were reading my blog and how delighted they all must be. I read some other blogs, which were better than mine, but forgot to take any notes on how to do better, so this is what you get for today.

Maybe I'll leave off with a quote I remember. It must be a good one because I don't remember very many quotes. I have a book full of them that I use for inspiration, but hardly any I can summon up or that I've bother to memorise. This one, though, I have:

"Art should never try to be popular; the public should make itself artistic" -- Oscar Wilde.
Or, something like that.

In my life I've had, or been around, several dogs. I keep outliving them, but I take no virtue in that: I think they live far healthier lives than I do. Without a doubt they eat better, I see to that.

Today's dog story is about my current dog, Minardi.
!@(Waiting.JPG:L120 popimg: "Minardi")
This is what he looks like when he's looking out the front door. The good news is, you can't see the yard, but you can see his ears. He's listening.

The good news is, for that picture, he isn't chewing. For the past few weeks he's been occupying himself with munching, or gnawing, on the root of his tail. I have no idea why, but I have two guesses: he has fleas or he has a hotspot.

Fleas I understand, and I have some Advantage(tm) that I can sprinkle on him. That means a bath, first, so he may get that tomorrow if I'm feeling hot and dusty. Since it will be about ninety degrees, the outlook for him is good.

But I've heard about these hotspots, too, without ever quite understanding what they are. I don't see any fleas on him, he doesn't scratch like mad, and I have no bites, so that would tend to rule out those guys. What I may do, before it gets hot, is pedal up to the pet store and look over the medicines. I'm sure they have something for hotspots, again, whatever they are, and it may be more than an ice cube.

See? Hotspot .. ice cube. That's a joke. I crack myself up.

Whatever, it's getting a bit yucky scratching his butt when it's all covered with dog spit. He likes it when I do that, and also when I rub his tummy, but he has no idea how much it bothers me. It bothers me enough that I will do what I can to alleviate this problem.

Tomorrow ... back to interesting entries!