Wipeout!!!

Sorry for the lack of posts this past month.  Late summer activities and vacations and family and work and..., well, you get the idea, kept me plenty busy.  On top of that, I suffered a wipeout in my internet surfing.

I've been knocked off the internet before, but never with such a perfect storm that sent a tsunami-type wave that knocked me off my internet surfing board into a senseless drift of odd bytes and file fragments and onto a deserted island of no internet access. I spent a week marooned with no e-mail, no Twitter, no blogs, and no spam.  Actually, you can forget about the spam.  I can't stomach it and it's bad for my waistline anyways.

I made a rescue flag from my bikini top (okay, a small rescue flag), then sat down on the beach to work on my tan and watch for rescue boats.  The flag alone didn't help much.  I ended up having to frantically jump and down and wave my arms anytime a ship passed, but the first time I did so I got an immediate response.  Now I'm back in the civilized world and fully plugged into the world wide web.  Ooh, the new cat videos on YouTube I missed while gone!

Seriously, it was a 1-2 punch.  First I discovered I had no internet access.  I spent a couple of days checking the hardware and firewalls, then admitted defeat and phoned my DSL tech support.  Immediately, I got a pre-recorded message saying there was a problem with users anti-virus software.  The software was making everyone's computers so secure from internet viruses and hackers that the computers were now unable to connect to the internet.  That's very secure, but a bit ridiculous.  The fix was to un-install the anti-virus software and install the updated version.  I did so.  Once it was completed, I turned off the computer, grabbed my purse, and headed to work.

All day long at work I couldn't wait to get home and get back on the internet.  (Withdrawal symptoms?  Couldn't be!)  I work for an employer where nothing is secret, so I can't go near anything remotely TG or "questionable" on my work computers.  It's not that I work in a high security-type place, it's just that I have a super nosey and suspicious computer tech co-worker.  This guy set up an open Wi-Fi network strictly for employee use on their free time, and the first time I used it I found someone trying to hack into my personal computer.  Talk about "Big Brother"!

Anyway, I returned home, slipped into something more comfortable, hit the on button (on the computer, thank you very much!), logged onto the internet, and got nothing.  Zip!  Zero!  Zilch!  I spent the next day trying to connect to the internet.  This time I tried re-booting in safe mode and even bought a new ethernet connector.  Still nothing.  I decided to phone tech support again and did so the next day only to discover my telephone was dead.  My telephone is an old-fashioned land line but is connected to DSL.  After I had downloaded the new software and gone to work, we had heavy thunderstorms move through the area and knocked down the phone lines on my block.  Girl, did I feel stupid!!!

So now I'm back surfing the internet and trying hard to update my blog more often.  Also, in case I am ever hit by a tsunami again and forced to make a rescue flag, I am switching to one-piece internet-surfing-swimsuits.  Wait a minute... I just noticed a problem with that plan.

Kelli