I was really looking forward to today. Football is back and we didn’t have any plans for once so I was going to sit on the couch all day watching the NFL Sunday Ticket and perusing fantasy football scores on the laptop. Below is the abbreviated summation of what I did and why today just plain sucked. Note there are MotoGP and NFL spoilers so stop reading now if you don’t want to know.
10:30 ~ Drag myself outta bed after 11 hours sleep.
11:00 ~ Pay a few bills and print up all the info for my upcoming trip to NASA Nationals in Lexington, Ohio all while enjoy some delicious french press coffee.
12:00 ~ Make some breakfast burritos (no, not the frozen kind) as brunch for the wife and I. Tastyness ensued.
1:00 ~ Settle onto the couch, set up my different fantasty scoreboards on the ole work laptop and flip through what’s probably 10 NFL games, enjoying life.
2:00 ~ A scoreboard refresh times out but I figure it’s just server load ’cause thousands of men are doing the exact same thing I am. I try to load an unrelated webpage and that too times out. Thinking that the wireless network is on the fritz I check both desktops in the office, nothing. Rather than just enjoy football I decide that I have to fix the internet. The only thing worse than no internet is… well, I can’t think of anything right now.
2:30 ~ I’ve cycled the cable modem and the router at least twice and there’s no internet. Melissa informs me that she was planning on working from home tomorrow morning and it becomes a problem much larger than missing fantasty football scores. I call Adelphia Cable customer service and am placed in the hold queue.
3:00 ~ I’m finally connected to a Customer Service Repesentative and to my astonishment they speak perfect English. We joke about fantasty football and how important it was that I get my internet back. He walks me through a few more resets and finally gets the connection (from modem directly to laptop) working after a remote modem refresh.
3:15 ~ Test the wired computers only to find they’re still not working. Do some inline tests on the house’s ethernet wiring to isolate the problem to the wireless router in the office. The router has stopped working once or twice before but a hard reset usually does the trick. I decide it’s time to call Microsoft support, also known as India. After the initial explanation of the problem (after no hold time) I’m told I’m being transferred directly and will experience no hold time.
3:30 ~ I’m finally connected after being on hold for the last 15 minutes. I’m connected to a different part of India who appearantly doesn’t understand that I know my way around a computer. He tells me how to do each step twice, including how to access a DOS prompt and reboot my computer, click by painful click. If I try to skip ahead by explaining what that I’ve already done the next three steps I’m met with a “Hello?” and made to sit through the steps of how to do what I’ve already done. It’s obvious he can’t deviate from his script but whatever, I’ll deal with it if my connection is fixed.
4:15 ~ Three resets of cable modem, router and computer later I’m told that I need an extended reset of my router, to unplug it and he’ll be back after five minutes.
4:25 ~ My cell phone battery starts to die and I decide I’ve had enough with this effin router. I hang up on India and get dressed to make a run to Best Buy. That’s right, I didn’t even bother getting dressed because I was going to be that much of a lazy ass today.
4:30 ~ Ignore four callbacks from India and debate taking the S4 or the bike. By this point I’m fairly aggrevated with my day and decide to drive because road rage and motorcycles don’t mix.
5:00 ~ Return home with a $40 Netgear wireless router, a decision made easy after setting the exact one up for my sister and her husband at Easter. Decide to watch the first half of the Cowboys game on Tivo delay before I set up the router because I don’t want to learn to score on the internet before I see it for myself.
5:45 ~ Make record time through the first half (have I mentioned how much I love Tivo?) and sit down to set up the new router. Load the CD, plug in all the cables, configure the wireless network and WEP encryption for all the computers in as much time as I spent on hold with India.
6:00 ~ With the internet repaired I settle back onto the couch to watch the second half the Cowboys game. It’s not long before I realize that I should have just stopped after the first half as the Cowboys fall apart.
7:15 ~ The Cowboys lose and I come to terms with the likelihood that I’m going 0-3 this weekend in fantasy football. I also turn on the SF/Ari game in enough time to see SF kick a FG to put me firmly in last place for our family’s football pool. Have I mentioned how much I hate fantasy and football?
7:30 ~ Decide to watch the MotoGP race I Tivoed only to find out Rossi pulled out a win in the last lap. As I’m rooting for Hayden to dethrone Rossi this year for the championship this is not good news. I also pull up the laptop to blog my day thinking I’ll be long done before the Sunday night game.
8:00 ~ Turn on the Manning brothers game and I’m not where near done. Guess I really had a lot to say.
8:30 ~ That brings us to right now, when I’m finsihing this and seriously considering just going to bed to make it all end. I just realized my gym bag is in the car and if I plan on working out tomorrow (can’t quit on my second workout) I’ll need to go down to my car to get it. Now all I need is for my computer to crash before I post this. Blah… I need a drink.
Wow… I’m defnitely not checking this for typos.