Monday, February 26, 2018

Well Hello, Internet...

Good lord, Jeff and I are so dumb.  We have struggled with our internet for ages; it's failed and dropped and has dead spots and has frustrated us to no end.  My computer has suffered the most, which we figured was due to it being the farthest from the router and modem.  This has been pretty much a daily issue for me, losing internet, having to restart everything, sometimes getting it back, sometimes not - it's been a mess.

At some point, we are planning on having our personal tech support (aka our son Sam) get the house wired properly and put access points in various areas in the attic so every room will have a strong signal, but with him being in North Carolina, it's not like he can just pop on over for a weekend and get this accomplished for us - and on that note, why hasn't time travel been invented yet?!

In the meantime, we've been dealing with spotty internet, and my computer wasn't connected for most of the weekend.  After various tries to fix it, including hard wiring my computer directly to the router, talking with Sam several times for ideas, and just plain ignoring it (spoiler alert: that did nothing to fix it), we finally went out and bought a new router - and not only do I have internet, but I have that high-speed internet that our internet provider has been bragging about in their commercials!  As Jeff said, we finally have what we've been paying for all along - geez!

Seriously, why are we like this?  Why do we try to fix things nine ways to Sunday instead of spending a little bit of money - in this instance, $78 - to get a solution that at this point feels nothing short of miraculous?  I swear, we are our own worst enemies.  It's frustrating to have dealt with this so often, and it's especially frustrating to realize that all we really needed to do was buy an up-to-date router, or, in other words, throw money at the problem.

I guess we are this way mostly because we are just old enough to remember when you used to repair things instead of replacing them when they stopped working.  Technology had a different meaning back in the day; I remember when I'd saved up enough babysitting money to go buy a clock radio, my dad told me to not pick one that had a tube in it - THAT'S how advanced technology was in the early 70s.  These days, it's moving and changing so fast that it's hard to believe you need to replace items that I swear we just bought...but it's also pretty incredible when doing that fixes the problem.

I said all that to say that I have nothing good to blog about today, because over the weekend we were ready to become Luddites and toss all technology in the trash.  Thankfully a new router changed our plans, but I'm spent at this point.  So this is the best I could do for a post.  But hey, if you're having internet issues, apparently a new router can work wonders...

26 comments:

  1. This actually made me laugh out loud. Mr. Helen and I are your twins when it comes to stuff like this. I swear the older we get, the stingier we get which only makes matters worse. I will say when we changed from DSL to cable internet a few years ago, it was the best thing we ever did. Of course, we pay for that but I'm pretty sure we could not return to other unreliable internet at this point.

    Welcome back!

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    1. Glad to hear we are not the only people who do this! Try as we might to not become the "back in my day" shouting at the clouds geezers, it still seems to creep in...we need to work at acting like millennials better.

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  2. I am glad that your Internet problem ended up being an easy fix! You know I've been having problems with my ifit technology on my Tm. Unfortunately that has been a disaster.

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    1. It was way too easy of a fix; we made it much harder than it had to be.

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  3. Ha! We just had the same issue. I called our Internet provider and they sent out a tech who was amazing. He replaced our modem too and voila--no more issues. Well, very few....

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    1. I guess this equipment really only lasts for so long before it goes, which seems silly, but this is life in the 21st century?

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  4. Never met you but we are you. Guilty of wringing out every bit of life out of everything before updating. Update. Slap the forehead. Repeat after me: why didn't we do this sooner?!?

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    1. Too funny, and you are dead on, complete with the forehead slap!

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  5. I had to go and look up Luddite before I could comment. How come you know this word and I've never heard of it since I love textile art so much? Anyway, I didn't even understand most of what you wrote until you said router. I've had a couple of them go haywire with lightening storms. And since my internet company is a mile from my house ("rural") I called them and they said bring in the router. Now I pay a small amount to rent the router from that company. Its probably not a good deal, but its supposed to be super powered compared to the other ones I had.

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    1. ::whispers:: I read about the term Luddite on the internet...as an insult to those who fight the technology of today, LOL.

      Your rented router sounds like a good idea, especially if they get fried from lightening storms!

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  6. Is it just my imagination or did things really used to last a lifetime? Toasters, sewing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, mattresses...it seems like back when I was a kid we had the same [insert appliance here] for at least 30 years!! In fact, I am using a standing deep freeze that is at least as old as I am - and it's still going strong. It seems like 8-10 years is the max shelf-life for anything these days! It's ridiculous! And while I'm at it, you kids get off my lawn!! hashtag:cranky

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    1. I have a Kitchen Aid toaster that has got to be 20 years old and it's still working like a champ. But I bet you dollars to donuts that if I bought one today, I'd be lucky to get five years out of it.

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  7. My husband tried to have our 30 year old washing machine fixed. He had 2 repair guys come out and order parts and then come back...only to find out that what he thought was wrong...wasn't! So after a month of not being able to do the wash without standing right next to the machine the whole time (to rearrange the clothes because the machine kept going out of balance), we ended up getting a new washer. Which was not really very expensive!!! And it works great!!! Why why why did we wait? :-)

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    1. Oh my, I can relate to this so much! And guess what else we just replaced? Our washer! I'm super fancy now with this machine, but I have to say, both Jeff and I couldn't stop gushing about how much nicer our clothes are looking out of the dryer (which we also bought...figured if the old washer was on its last legs, the dryer was going to follow soon enough).

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  8. Oh, I can relate as well! I finally replaced my dead laptop after dragging my feet for 2 years. When I went to set it up and had to ask hubby SO many questions about their set-up options ("do I want that? Do I need that?"), I decided they should have us enter our age at the get-go. Then they'll know not to bother asking questions about how I want my phone to interface with my laptop to interface with my (non-existent) iPad...

    Gimme the old fogey edition!

    But glad you got your router issues fixed so you can still blog!

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    1. You are onto something there with that entering your age thing...that would solve a lot of the problems when we get something new, because YES, I have those same questions - and I don't know if I need whatever they're asking about!

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  9. LOL! We have these signal boosters in several of our rooms that just plug into outlets. Since our walls are solid cement, the wireless signal struggles to get through those. It took us a while to figure that one out :D

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    1. I had a signal booster in my office but it didn't end up being enough with a wonky router. Technology...there's always something to go haywire!

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  10. Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or go without! A motto I used to have on my refrigerator back in the day that doesn’t apply in today’s techno society!

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    1. I swear I remember seeing that motto on your fridge! But you are correct, it doesn't work for today's technology, that's for sure.

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  11. I wouldn't have thought to get a new router with those issues either! I think you're totally right that most things could be fixed (over and over again) in the past, rather than just replaced because they're "old" or probably cheaply made in the first place. Like, why do our $600 phones start malfunctioning to the point of needing to be upgraded every couple of years?!

    Your mention of the clock radio reminds me of such long-lasting technology as my old clock radio with CD player. I got it for Christmas in 1994 and that thing, which took up half of my desk, seriously, was still waking me up for work in the morning well into the last decade. Sigh. They just don't make them like they used to.

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    1. Well thank you - glad it's not just us who don't automatically go to the router.

      Your clock radio/CD player sounds like it was an awesome beast!

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  12. Aww, I am glad you got it all worked out though. Technology is hard to keep up with! AND expensive. Like our smart phones... my iPhone from three years ago is really struggling and that just seems insane, but that's how it is (plus them purposefully slowing it down).

    I think it's good to do research and see if there is a fix before just jumping in and spending money. I bet a lot of people waste money that way. I know we have. One time we had a repair man come in to look at our dishwasher because it wasn't working - it was such a simple fix - the type of soap we had was making it so the door wouldn't release it to wash the dishes. It's good to use your brain first, sometimes ;)

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    1. Interesting point about an easy fix - of course now I'm curious...what kind of soap were you using in the dishwasher?

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  13. Yay for a new router! So glad all of that frustration is over now!!

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