The Thorn on the Rose ... or should I say, the thorn in my side.

As much as I love country living, there are a few definite drawbacks. One of which I experienced tonight.

Living so far out, we have two choices for internet service ... bad or worse. Instead of the slower dial-up, we have satellite (Hughes.net) which is marginally faster.

When Pat and I first met online, I doubt he had any idea how bad his internet service was. He knew it was slow, but had no idea he wasn't even getting near the service he was paying for. In matter of fact, his "faster" satellite service was not any faster than dial-up at times. It took us both months of wrangling with Hughes ... including contacting the state's attorney general ... before we managed to get satisfaction. At least now it is faster than it was ... that is when it works.

Tonight the modem went out. We knew it wasn't working quite right and I had already contacted them about it. Tonight it went totally on the fritz and I couldn't get online at all, no matter what I tried. Of course then I had to call Hughes and was put through to tech support in India. Having dealt with them before, I knew it was going to be a long drawn-out struggle, and it was. The Indian tech sent me through a long list of things to do, but still no luck, it was completely dead. I was then informed they were going to send a new one, free of charge ... Good! The tech then told me it would take four days to get here ... NOT GOOD!

Pat and I run an internet business through eBay. We have customers to take care of and a number of listings ending this weekend. We HAD to get back online.

I was sent the round of people to talk to and was even disconnected at one point, but was still not able to get the modem here any faster than Monday. No matter what I tried, I was not able to talk them into sending the modem overnight or even next day. I then began mentally trying to figure out which friends we would need to ask the favor of using their computer.

In the meantime, I unplugged the darn thing and went to take a shower. About an hour later I plugged it back in and low and behold it is working again ... for now. I just hope we can get it to hold out a few more days (sigh).