Installment Three: Saga of the Search for Speedy Internet

Wait! First go read Introduction, and Installments One and Two. Seriously. Do it.

Catch up: I'm trying to return a portable internet modem.

So the next day I call in, and give the whole damned spiel about needing to return my portable piece o' plastic poo otherwise known as a portable internet modem in favour of getting the rural internet setup.

The guy asks me if I tried--
"Yes!!!" I probably cut him off.

But I calmly explain I was told I could get the rural instead so please tell me about that. So he says he has to process my return kit. He gets some info from me, clicks some keys, and says can he put me on hold. I say sure, and am subjected to LOUD classical music.

He comes back and says okay, the return's on its way, now we can order the rural service. So he takes down more information and says can he put me on hold. I am tempted to say no just to see what sort of havoc that would wreak but resist the impulse.

Once again, yes, LOUD classical music assaults my ear. I wait and wait and wait. Then he comes back and says sorry for the wait and he has bad news.

I'm thinking, like what? The internet gods said I wasn't worthy????

He says their orders processing server went down for maintenance and my order wasn't processed, it has nothing to do with me or anything, and can I call back in a couple hours.

Uh, sure.
At least he didn't promise to call *me* back.


So I remained,
a techno peasant

[Go to Installment Four]

Installment Two: Saga of the Search for Speedy Internet

(Go back and read Introduction and One first. Seriously.)

The saga of my quest for better than dialup continues....and I swear I'm not making any of this up.

Remember how we left off with the gal going to phone me back to see which service I'd like, the portable internet or rural internet? Guess what?

She never called back.

So the next day I called back. Of course it was an entirely new person and I went through the spiel of where I was at, saying I wanted to go with the rural modem. He started to talk me into portable, saying it was better: I could take it wherever I went, and it was faster than rural.

I paraphrase, but essentially express that frankly I could care less about taking it with me, it's here that I need the damned thing to work. And, well, how fast is rural anyway?

He says 2mbps.

I think, "Buddy, that's fast--I'm on DIALUP. Get it?!?!"

But he says to try the modem and he goes away to activate it. LOUD classical music blares into my ear. He comes back and says okay, plug it in now. He's so full of anticipation I can feel it through the phone. "What's it doing now?" he asks.

"The same endless tracking back and forth," I reply.

Then he asks me to plug in my computer. I say, "Well, I already packed all those cords up again but okay, I'll go unfurl everything and plug it into my computer."

Then he says, "What's it doing now?"

The same thing: Endlessly. Tracking. Back and forth.

So he says to try the northwest corner of my house.

"I already did that," I say. "But I'll do it again if it'll make you feel better." Okay, so I didn't actually speak that last sentence. I sure as hell thought it. So there I am trying the same damn rooms in my house again. "Are you supposed to wait while I do this?" I ask.

"Sort of," he says.

So there's no change in the endlessly tracking green lights after two locales. He says to try all the rooms in my house and he'll call back in a bit.

Um, yeah, sure. Whatever. So I hang up politely. I try the other couple rooms again just for the helluvit and to be a good sport and of course there's no difference.

Does he call back?

Nope.

So I remained,
a techno peasant.

[Go to Installment Three]

Saga of the Search for Speedy Internet: Installment One

I've already set up the background to my endless quest for better-than-dialup in my introduction to this sorry saga. And note that while I could have gone the satellite route, that was definitely an absolute last and worst case scenario. I was holding out for better.

It all began in mid April 2009. I decided that part of my problem was that I was an Unknown to Big Communications Corporation (BCC) responsible for doling out internet services. I'd been getting my dialup from an independent company and perhaps it was time I showed myself up on BCC's radar. So I decided to do just that. I drove 20 minutes to the BCC store to sign up for their damned dialup.

After waiting for my turn, I explained I wanted to sign up for their dialup service. Guy asks me if I wouldn't rather have something else. I couldn't help thinking, well Duh, but you won't let me. I express my doubts about my eligibility, but he takes my phone number and punches it in and says, "Well, um, yeah, that's right. Dialup."

No, really? Forgive my brain for dripping with sarcasm. Anyway, the guy then tells me they don't do that (sign you up for dialup) anymore at the store. He hands me a business card with a phone number scrawled on the back and says call this number.

So I drive home.

I call. And I get connected overseas. I listen really hard to the spiel about levels of dialup service and pick one. The guy is very nice and trying hard to be helpful. But then the guy asks me don't I want faster service than that?

Hell yeah, but you people keep telling me I can't have anything else!!!

Guy says, "No, you can have [redacted name of portable wireless service that may or may not start with 'W']."

So I ask if he's sure about that. He says, "Well, you get cell service right? You use a cell phone?"

Yes, we do.

He says, "Then sure you can have it, no problem." He goes through the spiel on those service and price levels and I waffle a bit, think, then say well okay then, send it on over. What the crap am I waffling for??? (Did I mention I hate making snap decisions?)

So it arrives. I am too busy to deal with it that day. The next day I pull the big ugly modem out of the box and plug it in according to the directions in the lovely setup booklet. I carefully align the modem with the logo side facing in and the back towards a window.  I plug it in to the electric outlet and I hold my breath and wait. No signal. Endless blinking of the green lights as they track back and forth looking for a signal. Book says to try another room in the house.

So I do.
All of them!!! Except the damn bathrooms.
Nothing. Big plastic piece o' poo!!!

I get on the phone to find out how to return the damn thing and get my 99 bucks back. The lady says she'll look me up to find my closest tower.

I'm like, why? But what the hell, I wait. I wait more. She puts me on hold. Some really LOUD classical music tries to calm me down or something. She comes back and says the tower is towards the northeast corner of my house.

Like I know where that is??!!

Okay, so I figure it out after a moment. I go up and try, with her on the line. I had already tried this room but I'll try the other window, which involves moving furniture to find an electrical outlet. Did I mention hubby is out? Anyway, I plug it in. We wait. I watch the lights track back and forth endlessly once again.

So then she says, "Well, you could try rural internet instead if you want."

HUNH??? Why do I get all these options all of a sudden???

But I ask, "What is that?" Apparently it's a modem they stick on the outside of your house and a cable goes inside to your computer and the technician doesn't leave until it's working or you don't have to pay for it. That's a few more coins a month, of course. Figures. But she says no problem, I can get it, cause I'm 5km from the tower and you have to be within 15km.

So I waffle, I think, and did I mention I hate being pressured for a snap decision--any decision? So I asked her to tell me about the service and she goes away to process something like the credit for my current piece o' poo and I listen to some really LOUD classical music. All of a sudden she comes back and says while she's looking into my account she realizes that my modem won't work because it hasn't been activated, and do I want her to activate it.

Did I mention I hate making decisions under pressure? So I ask her which service is better, rural or the portable thing I have that might yet possibly maybe but no guarantee work if it's activated. She says the rural is better because it's faster. But seems to me I recall choosing the slower of the two portable options I could have chosen and now I'm so damn confused I can't think straight.

Oh, and the girls are now having a fight about the chess game they are attempting to play incorrectly.

And I'm just behaving like an airhead. So she offers to call me tomorrow and see what I want. Thank god.

So I remained a techno peasant.

[Go to Installment Two]

Search for Speedy Internet Service: A Saga

January's not over yet, so I figure I still have time to squeak in another one of those retrospective type posts, right?

I already mentioned the best thing for me in my professional writing life in 2009. What about the second best thing? That has to be Getting High Speed Internet Service. Yes, complete with capitals and italics. Why was this such a big deal?

Um, imagine trying to blog, set up and maintain a website, work with an editor at a book packager to send and retrieve photo selections, send manuscripts, send and receive documents with tracked changes, and download pdfs for final editing all on DIALUP! And I should mention that all that needs to be done while SHARING a single telephone and internet line with your hubby who also runs a business out of the home. !!!

Okay, so I mostly didn't do all that on dialup. I left the building, so long as I could work around the family schedule, and made use of public libraries and the local coffee house and the rec centre which all offered free WiFi. Thank god for their existence and may they be handsomely patronized and thrive forever and ever amen is all I have to say on that.

The ability to do all I need to do to keep up and keep on from my own home work space has made my life a whole lot easier. I count myself very, very fortunate. But you can be forgiven for wondering why I'm going on and on about this. Couldn't I just sign up for better internet?

Nope.

I tried for years, like at least 5 of them, to get better than dialup service. The answer was always no, sorry, you're not in an area where we can offer that service.

This didn't make any sense whatsoever to me. I had people who had highspeed internet to the left of me, people who had highspeed internet to the right of me. And yet I, apparently, was not eligible. I was not worthy. But I could not wrap my head around that, especially when there is only one wire that GOES RIGHT BY MY HOUSE?!

Okay, so I have no real leg to stand on when it comes to technological know-how. It just seemed bizarre. Yes, I live in the boonies, but I'm a main road boony resident not a backroad boony resident. And it was the way I was being denied when my neighbours were not that irked me so much.

So I called every 6 months to ask, politely, if I could sign up. I'd get a junkmail flyer proudly announcing some new internet service or package available NOW in my area. I'd call or I'd fill out the form on the internet with my details. I always got the same result: Nope, sorry, enjoy your dialup.

But one day...

Well, this is getting rather long, isn't it? In fact, it's a pretty long story overall. It's a Saga, I'm not kidding. But I promise it's pretty entertaining, especially if you've ever tried to talk to a big Corporate Conglomerate about anything.

I'll start the installments tomorrow.

[Go directly to Installment One]

Stephen Leacock Said it Best

I'm feeling decidedly Lord Ronaldish this week. Who the heck is that? He's this fictional guy:

"Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions."  (Stephen Leacock, Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen)

I'm now a couple weeks into the new year and I'm between work-for-hire writing projects. I should be ecstatic! I should be gleefully ticking things off my colossal to-do list. But instead I'm feeling some sort of confusion at all the seemingly endless possibilities. I feel like I could go riding madly off in a whole bunch of directions, and I don't know which damned direction would be best.

As I was sitting here, trying to figure out what to do next, a vague recollection of that Stephen Leacock quote popped into my head. Wanting to be sure I got it right, I Googled the approximate phrase and Mr Leackock's name, and presto! There was the citation I needed. I found my copy of the book Laugh with Leacock and there it was.

Hmmm, all that was decidedly NOT on my to-do list.

I think after living 2009 under the pressure of almost constant deadlines, this little breather is freaking me out. So where should I start? It's just a little breather, really. It will be coming to an end shortly--

Excuse me while I go fling myself onto my horse and, well, you already know the rest now, don't you?

Keeping up with...Myself

Like most writers, I keep an archive of at least one copy of everything of mine that's been published. So, in a sudden fit of organization the other day, I realized that I've not yet seen the Babybug issue with the reprint of my poetic story "Fall Fun" in it.

I poked around the internet (what did we ever do before it?) and think this is the cover of the issue, October 2009. Lovely cover, lovely magazine.

My own kids loved this magazine as babies/toddlers. For now I will enjoy this virtual edition in hopes I'll get a real copy soon. And yes, that is a friendly hint to the appropriate powers that be. :>

Big Belated Book Week Thank You

I admit it: I mostly avoided my computer over the holidays. I think I needed the break. Either that or it was just so darned hard to find it on my desk, practically buried with papers and cluttered with miscellaneous office type crap, that really needed to be tidied before anything else happened. So it just didn't happen.

My first post of 2010 will look back on 2009 and give a big belated Thank You for the biggest thing to happen to me in my writing life: You know that has to be the TD Grade One Giveaway. I've been remiss in not doing up a roundup before now.

The whole experience was something not likely to be duplicated for me, ever again. It's hard to put it all into words (and isn't that a bit ironic?). It's not just that my book was given to so many Canadian kids...

It's not just that I got to tour southern Ontario with the book's illustrator, Scot Ritchie...

And it's not just that I got to see my book cover and name in huge type behind the TD bank president's head at a big publishing industry gala with free hors d'oeuvres and cocktails...



But all those things were excellent!

Writers mostly write alone, you know? I'm holed up in my little office (or really my supposed-to-be-a-dining-room writing space) trying to create something that fascinates me while hoping I'm not completely off my rocker and that someone else would also like to read it and in fact actually pay money to do that. Then I found out that the book's been chosen for this program that enabled it to reach EVERY grade one child in Canada. How do you wrap your head around that? The TD and the Canadian Children's Book Centre do an amazing job supporting Canadian book creators and literacy for Canadian kids. Thank you to them!

The schools and libraries Scot and I visited all Book Week were welcoming without exception, and the grade one audiences were always terrific, playing along with our action games and listening to the process of how I wrote the book and how Scot illustrated it.

Some public schools wore uniforms, some did not. Some schools were new and some were old. Some schools were small and some were, well, HUGE. (We went to the largest elementary school in North America and saw all approximately 240 grade one students. Yes, three groups of 80 kids back-to-back!) Quite a few of the schools had done a lot of work talking about the history of transportation and then displayed their work around the school. That was awesome to see!

As an unexpected bonus, we received some lovely hardware,

and some beautiful, er, software...?

Thank you to all who hosted us!

Scot and I got to and around the five cities by train and taxi. Given that the book is about transportation, it was quite appropriate to be using a couple different types of transportation while talking about that topic. I recorded some of the sights seen from the train each night during the tour here on the blog. They're filed under the Book Week 09 label.

Overall the opportunity to connect with all those kids made a big impression on me personally. And I think it was wonderful for those kids to see that an author and an illustrator are just regular people. We don't sit down and write or sketch something perfect the first time around. We work hard at revising our words and our pictures just the way they do when they write and draw.

To see the connections made between the book, the audience, the topic, the teachers...wow. Thank you for Book Week, book publishers, book creators, book readers, book supporters, and books everywhere!