Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Technology woes...

Living in a small town means you have to learn to accept that there are some things you just have to live without. There isn't a compromise. You just have to do without.

Unfortunately, one of those things we must live without in this two cow town is high speed internet. No DSL, no cable modem, no satellite service. Nada, nothing, zip. We have dial-up. Plain & simple. On a good day, I can connect at 32.1 Kbps. Most days I connect at 28.8. It's odd, though, at work I can connect at 52.1. I'm not sure why that is. Probably just another small town mystery.

Dial-up stinks. I mean, my service provider is ok. They are rarely down, and the customer service people are easy to deal with. But dial-up just stinks. Loading pages with graphics takes FORever. Try to open two pages at once and you can just about FORget it!

I like to play board games & card games at www.pogo.com (you'll find me there under the same nickname). I could walk around the block...TWICE...before some games will load. I also like to visit websites that are dedicated to my favorite hobby...scrapbooking. My new home is www.scrapthatmoment.com . I love this place. The ladies are wonderful and their artwork is GORGEOUS! I'm stunned when I look at their galleries. If you need to be inspired, that is the place to go. Anyway, when I try to go through the galleries (mind you they are full of GRAPHICS, and blinky bits, and swirly things, and stuff that fades off & on), guess what happens?! Yes, my connection slows down to a crawl. And once in awhile I think it just can't take it anymore and gives it all up by disconnecting from the net! Then I have to start all over again! *sigh*

I was on the City Council here for 4 years (my term just ended and I didn't run for re-election...more on that another day), and one of the things we tried to do was to convince the biggies (like Verizon or Charter Communications) to light the fiber optic string that runs through town. But they're not interested because it's not "cost effective" for them. (Can you hear the itty bit of sarcasm I have in my voice?) Why would whoever it was, pay all that money to install fiber optics and then NOT light them. *snort* Unbelievable!

So until we get something that crawls faster than a snail, I'll just have to learn to accept and to live without some of the modern conveniences of life! At least we have electricity & running water! :)

1 comment:

Chris B. said...

Great looking page. Maybe this will prompt me to start one of my own in my spare time. But wait, you have to have some first. Nice to learn more about your town. I never realized just how small it was. I Knew you lived in a rural area but never thought about how much. I'll stop back again soon.