Friday night we had this real big nasty storm up here in the B'ham. People were freaking out! Schools let out at 1 pm and a number of businesses (including mine) let their employees go at 12:45. If you were from the coast, you would swear that a cat 4 hurricane was about to hit.
Of course this storm was a puss in my area. I know it was nasty up in TN and even some of the area north of B'ham saw some tornadoes. But here, it was pretty calm. I had, however, in my paranoid state unplugged my entertainment center and all my PCs. Thank the Lord that I'm paranoid.
Saturday morning, I wake up and go to check email. Turn the UPS back on..........POP.....smoke......uh oh........mmmm.....ozone smells goooooooood....... So a trip to Best Buy is in order. Run up to BB purchase a new UPS, get home, power back up, sweet! Hit gmail.....no ip.....a network cable could be unplugged......nope......why doesn't my router have blinking lights on it? Son of a biscuit maker!!!!! I didn't unplug my router (though it was on a power strip). Odd. So I replace the router with a spare I have and still no Internet. PC connects to router fine, but router to cable modem is a no go. Dog doo!!!
Of course I don't know the number for Charter (I'd generally just look it up on the Internet, doh!). Soooo....I survive the weekend without Internet. I get the number while at work and prepare to make the dreaded call. Hey....why don't I get a dial tone.......mother mary of oranges!!!! The stupid phone is jacked up to.....there goes my new cordless with answering machine......piece of crap! So I get my 30 cent spare corded phone and plug it up. Thankfully it works.
Dear God do I hate talking to tech support. HELLO!!!!! I'M NOT STUPID!!!!! So after reseting the modem 12 (no lie) times, rebooting 5 times, and trying 8 different cables I get the tech to admit that the modem is fubar. 57 minutes on the phone for the tech to tell me something I knew 3 days ago. Bastages!
So guess I have a trip to Charter coming this week. As well as another trip to Best Buy for a new cordless phone and a replacement Linksys router.
If you are wondering how I wrote this (good catch). I got sneaky and borrowed a USB cable to hook my laptop up to the modem. Appears the RJ-45 jack is bombed but the rest works fine.
Ah.....the great adventures of life! Even with all that I can't be in a bad mood. I'll post on the "good" event later....stay tuned!
