Dog Bites Man
I know what you're thinking: surprise, surprise—Scott's had another lapse in blogging. And, I obviously realize this isn't the first time it's happened and that I've show up trying to explain why. But at least this time, there's a reason for it other than procrastination. Or rather, a few of them.
For starters, things headed downhill when I switched in mid-February, after nearly two years of flawless service, from Charter cable Internet to AT&T DSL. Lured by a 30% reduction in our monthly cost, guaranteed by a long-term contract and sweetened by some hefty rebates, I apparently forgot how much trouble we had with AT&T and all its numerous outages after we moved into our house in 2006. You think I'd remember the nights spent shivering outside with a phone test set plugged into our MPOE (minimum point of entry) jack, or the countless hours I spent on the phone arguing with script-reading tech support agents that finally prompted me to abandon AT&T, screaming and pulling out my hair, for an alternative. But I didn't. And since I didn't learn from history, it is, predictably, repeating itself, leaving our new service down as often as not—only weeks into what will be, if things don't improve soon, a very long two-year contract. It's hard to blog when you can't get online.
Next, as I was grappling with the connection issues and preparing to upload a couple of blog entries I'd written during the downtime, some very important people in my life were stricken with life-threatening health conditions. Given that I'd written about lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek topics—in part to veil my frustration with not being able to get online reliably—it just didn't feel right to post them with my head in an entirely different place, concerned as I was over those folks. And so, I began rewriting one and authoring another from scratch, only to have the service go down again—and this time much more severely, where it remained until (hopefully) yesterday. Ironically, I'd made a conscious decision just before these issues emerged to curtail my online time and focus more on home and family. Still, I wanted to be the one making the decisions about how, when, and why I'd be online, rather than being AT&T's stooge. Harumph.
And then finally, while battling the connection issues and propping myself up for hours on end on one elbow, under a desk, with a phone held to my ear with my shoulder, I began having severe pain in my neck that extended into my back and all the way down my arm and into my hand. As the pain grew worse, I took it seriously and decided that, stubborn or not, I was going to have to wait to address the Internet, my blog, and everything else related to the computer, since sitting at a desk had suddenly become very uncomfortable. But even with rest, the problem got worse, to the point that by last weekend, the pain had begun to rival that of the low-back problems I had in the 80's and 90's, when I had three herniated disks, endured multiple epidurals, and narrowly escaped surgery. I finally dragged myself to the doctor a few days ago, and while a diagnosis is pending (and the pain has mercifully subsided a bit, probably due to rest), it appears I may have ligament problems, tendinitis, and/or a neck injury—or some combination of the three. I miss being online, but if sitting is an issue, I don't know often I'll be there until this situation improves.
So, there's my attempt to check in and explain my absence, just in case anyone was wondering where I've been. In the grander scheme of things, not being able to check my email or grind out self-serving prose isn't really that big of a deal. You really come to realize that when the lives of people you care about are in danger. But I at least wanted to drop in and post something so it wouldn't seem like just another garden-variety gap in the history of Fatherhood.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to find a chalkboard so I can write some Bart Simpson-style lines on it. If Pennsylvania school officials meted out such a punishment to those who sold a $46,000 trailer on eBay for $1, it only seems fair I should face the same fate for not learning my lesson about AT&T's crappy broadband service. Repeat after me 500 times, "I will not fall for AT&T's lousy DSL service again." D'oh!
For starters, things headed downhill when I switched in mid-February, after nearly two years of flawless service, from Charter cable Internet to AT&T DSL. Lured by a 30% reduction in our monthly cost, guaranteed by a long-term contract and sweetened by some hefty rebates, I apparently forgot how much trouble we had with AT&T and all its numerous outages after we moved into our house in 2006. You think I'd remember the nights spent shivering outside with a phone test set plugged into our MPOE (minimum point of entry) jack, or the countless hours I spent on the phone arguing with script-reading tech support agents that finally prompted me to abandon AT&T, screaming and pulling out my hair, for an alternative. But I didn't. And since I didn't learn from history, it is, predictably, repeating itself, leaving our new service down as often as not—only weeks into what will be, if things don't improve soon, a very long two-year contract. It's hard to blog when you can't get online.
Next, as I was grappling with the connection issues and preparing to upload a couple of blog entries I'd written during the downtime, some very important people in my life were stricken with life-threatening health conditions. Given that I'd written about lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek topics—in part to veil my frustration with not being able to get online reliably—it just didn't feel right to post them with my head in an entirely different place, concerned as I was over those folks. And so, I began rewriting one and authoring another from scratch, only to have the service go down again—and this time much more severely, where it remained until (hopefully) yesterday. Ironically, I'd made a conscious decision just before these issues emerged to curtail my online time and focus more on home and family. Still, I wanted to be the one making the decisions about how, when, and why I'd be online, rather than being AT&T's stooge. Harumph.
And then finally, while battling the connection issues and propping myself up for hours on end on one elbow, under a desk, with a phone held to my ear with my shoulder, I began having severe pain in my neck that extended into my back and all the way down my arm and into my hand. As the pain grew worse, I took it seriously and decided that, stubborn or not, I was going to have to wait to address the Internet, my blog, and everything else related to the computer, since sitting at a desk had suddenly become very uncomfortable. But even with rest, the problem got worse, to the point that by last weekend, the pain had begun to rival that of the low-back problems I had in the 80's and 90's, when I had three herniated disks, endured multiple epidurals, and narrowly escaped surgery. I finally dragged myself to the doctor a few days ago, and while a diagnosis is pending (and the pain has mercifully subsided a bit, probably due to rest), it appears I may have ligament problems, tendinitis, and/or a neck injury—or some combination of the three. I miss being online, but if sitting is an issue, I don't know often I'll be there until this situation improves.
So, there's my attempt to check in and explain my absence, just in case anyone was wondering where I've been. In the grander scheme of things, not being able to check my email or grind out self-serving prose isn't really that big of a deal. You really come to realize that when the lives of people you care about are in danger. But I at least wanted to drop in and post something so it wouldn't seem like just another garden-variety gap in the history of Fatherhood.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to find a chalkboard so I can write some Bart Simpson-style lines on it. If Pennsylvania school officials meted out such a punishment to those who sold a $46,000 trailer on eBay for $1, it only seems fair I should face the same fate for not learning my lesson about AT&T's crappy broadband service. Repeat after me 500 times, "I will not fall for AT&T's lousy DSL service again." D'oh!
Labels: Scott
posted by Scott at
9:55:00 AM
2 Comments:
Sorry your back is bothering you, Scott. I hope it turns out to be nothing.
As for AT&T, I'll never go back to them. If you do decide to stop your service, good luck finding a phone number to contact them. When I cancelled, I found that they didn't provide an easy way to do so. So when some guy came around recently trying to sell me on AT&T service, I had no intention of switching from cable.
Thanks, Steve.
I had no problem finding a phone number. Problem is, the tier one techs are just script readers, basically, and the tier two wasn't much better. I ultimately solved the problem myself--mainly because the minute you say you have a network, they won't even talk to you since you didn't pay for one of their charge-to-set-up-and-maintain networks.
In fairness, Charter's customer service isn't much better. But at least the service is more reliable, and there's less hokey, unintuitive setup and maintenance issues involved with their service.
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