cbtreks

I haven't disappeared from the face of the earth! My Internet has been down for the past week (it's this computer - sometimes it'll start pulling a 169.... IP address and I can't get it to pull a good one for anything - very annoying - and then it just fixes itself a week or so later). Hope all of y'all who celebrate Christmas had a Merry one. Hopefully the computer will maintain a connection for awhile so I can catch up on your posts tomorrow.

Y'all probably know about my ongoing Internet woes with Comcast. (Yes, we're still with them, because we keep thinking we're going to moving soon - and "soon" keeps getting farther and farther down the road. *sigh*) Last Monday, the Internet went down again and has only come up once or twice since then. I've reset the modem, run a few diagnostics on the computer - all the things Comcast will ask me to do when I call them, just so I can tell them yet again "it's all your fault - fix it!!" (It always amazes me that it's never their problem yet whenever I call them, Internet comes back up within 24 hours.) This time I tried something new - plugged the cable modem into the laptop. Voila, Internet access on the laptop. It's fast, it's steady, it stays on till I disconnect, and when I plug the same cable modem back into the other computer - no Internet. So this time, apparently, it really isn't their problem, but something wrong with our desktop computer. Does anyone have any ideas of things I can test/run diagnostics on/try to fix without being in danger of destroying my computer? It's a PC running Windows Vista and is about 2 and half years old. I'm not comfortable taking anything apart but I am comfortable following instructions for things I can do from my keyboard, including DOS commands, if they're clear and from someone I trust. (I have to confess, though, that I committed a grave sin and did not make a set of recovery dvds when I bought it, so if I have to reinstall something from recovery dvds, I'm kinda screwed. I do, however, backup weekly to an external hard drive, so I'm not a complete tech heathen.)

If this is something I need to get fixed elsewhere, I'll just wait until we move (which really should be this summer) because there's someone in the town we're moving to - Bremen, where we lived when we first moved back here in 2007 - who's well-recommended and, according to my sister and nephew, can work miracles.

I wish this was still Comcast's fault! (They were, BTW, voted the number one worst company in America by Consumerist's readers.)

Yay for Internet access! I'll try to write more tomorrow and respond to people's comments from yesterday. Right now I need to go look at a video and read some outlines to prepare for the IC3 certification I have to pass next week in order to start classes. (Anyone familiar with it?)

No internet access at home for two days now. (Longer post later, I hope.)

Irish was awarded disability from Social Security on the first go-around. Whoo hoo! That takes so much mental and emotional pressure off him (he's felt, since he first became unable to work, that taking care of the house and cooking, etc., wasn't enough - felt he had to contribute financially somehow to be a good husband) and it's taken a load of pressure off me, as well. What I earn does stretch to cover our expenses, but it's definitely a stretch and leaves little room for extras. Irish won't be getting a ton of money a month by any means, but it's enough to let us keep up with our bills, put a bit aside every week (I get paid weekly), and not have to make such choices as "Hmm. Pay my school bill on time or live on rice and pasta this week?" (Which doesn't sound like such a big deal, but I'm much healthier and feel better when I'm not consuming large amounts of carbohydrates. Irish's doctor has also advised him to eat more protein and vegetables and less starch. Hard to do if you don't have a halfway decent grocery budget.)

Also, he got a bit of retroactive pay. We put aside a chunk of it so a friend and I can fly out to Las Vegas in April, rent a truck, unload our storage unit, and finally have all our possessions in one place. That'll be wonderful. I can have my piano back! Also, the money we pay each month for the storage unit will be welcome in our bank account. (You might wonder why we paid for a storage unit when we were so broke for the last year. Good question, and more than once I was tempted just to quit paying the rent and let the company get rid of our stuff. But there are things in there it would still break my heart to part with - milk glass that belonged to my dad's mom, things Aunt Lizzie gave me, things my dad gave me. If I'd have had to let them go, I'd have dealt with it - they're just things, in the end. Right now, though, I glad I held out.)

We got some things we need - clothes for Irish, whose old clothes are getting shabby; a futon for the living room (I'd have liked to have a sofa but Irish has been set on a futon almost since we got married and you know, it looks fine and it's comfortable, so why not?); a tuneup for the car, which was jumping and stuttering at every stoplight. (And I love not seeing the gas gauge drop to 1/4 tank after just 20 or 30 miles - having a tuneup when you need one really does help with gas mileage.) We'd been thinking about getting a new car - ours is 12 years old - but after further thought, we decided to put it off for another year or two. Ours is really in pretty good condition and while I wouldn't try driving it across the country again - that's a lot of wear in a short time - it's good for what we need and I certainly don't miss having a car payment.

We also splurged a bit: bought a computer and got Internet access, which was installed today. So I'm typing this at home. Can I even convey how excited I am?! We haven't had Internet access at home in about five years. This is living in the lap of luxury. *g*

On a related note, now that I'm putting money in savings every week and not having to touch it, I'm beginning to understand the thrill some people get with just watching that balance grow. It is definitely a nice feeling.

Upstairs, that's where. My BIL moved the laptop upstairs a few weeks ago and hasn't moved it back. He originally did it because it began acting flaky and dumping us continually in the living room and in one bedroom (but not upstairs or in the kitchen - how screwy is that? And it's all dial up!). He's never brought it back down again - I think he likes the convenience. And since it's not my computer I feel a bit odd about asking him to bring it back down. So now I'm pretty much relegated to the public library (which closes at 8:00 p.m. four nights a week and at 5:00 the other two - closed Sundays) or my other sister's house. If you don't hear from me very often, that would be why.

***

And it's a week late, but I still wanted to say Happy Birthday to adonnchaid. I've become convinced that if she can't fix it or find a way to, it probably can't be fixed (and perhaps shouldn't be *g*). Have a wonderful year!

Just an addendum to yesterday's entry - got home, checked out my cd drive and yep, apparently it's just a plain old cd drive. No writing capabilities. *Sigh* At least I figured it out before I asked someone else to take a look at it - 'cause that would've just been embarrasing! (That still doesn't explain the two cds I have that the computer seems unable to read at all. I can access them at work. Of course that's easily fixed by moving those documents to another disc.)

Apparently we're using too much Internet at work. Actually, what it is is that our Internet access has been (comparitively) slow recently and TPTB think it's at least partially due to too much non-work-related Internet access during the day. In order to determine how much more, if any, resources we need, they'll be running a thorough check on the system along with doing some monitoring - something they generally haven't done before - and have told us outright not to use the 'net for personal business during work hours. I'm dying here! I (and several others that I'm aware of) usually keep the Internet open in the background for a good chunk of the day and then when I have a few minutes here or there, check e-mail, livejournal, what have you. I can't do that anymore - and believe me, I felt paranoid the three times I hurriedly checked mail during the day today - enough so not to do it anymore. I'm completely aware that I'm complaining about something I don't have a right to complain about, especially since we're free to use the Internet all we want on our own time, but it sure is annoying. I may end up getting that phone line installed yet. (I wanted cable access but couldn't get it where I live right now.) In any case, if I'm slow answering e-mails or commenting in ljs, it's because I can't get to it just any time I want now.

Fortunately, that's the only real suckage at work. It could be much worse!