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It’s been a real struggle since my modem blew. I still haven’t heard anything from Suddenlink about the damage.

I spent all day at the junior high, even having cafeteria lunch in the library. We got to leave early for the Christmas parade, but I ended up sticking around for a while after anyway.

I came straight home after work to fight some more with my home network. After trying out a dozen different drivers at different speeds, I was able to get my gaming PC connected over ethernet, but at greatly reduced speeds. I got to chatting on #woot on irc.gamesurge.net and came to the realization that my first PC was built in January of 2004. My second and current gaming PC was built in January of 2011. If I’m to keep with my seemingly scheduled system failures, then it looks like I’m due to build another one this January.

I guess it is Christmas, but I’ve done nothing but buy things all year. On top of that, I don’t really game as much as I used to anyway. I would like to play around with some VR, but I feel like over the past few years I’ve mostly grown apart from my gaming group. I could sink a good amount of money into a new computer and be set for another seven years, but for what? Even when I built this one, I mostly used it for Chrome. Even if I did get more into gaming again, can I really afford to shut myself in even more?

Goals should be assessed.

At least the house talks back today.

I woke up this morning to no internet. My home life is so integrated, I couldn’t help but to be affected by the lack of service. I had gotten my wireless working again when I went to bed, but everything was completely down by the time I woke up. Somehow my router had gotten worse overnight, and could no longer detect the connection to my modem. I spent a while trying to bring it back to life, but ultimately gave up so I could get to work.

There wasn’t much going on at work, but I did get to learn a little bit about AppLocker. I stayed late to make up for some time and then drove by my parents’ house when I got off. As I pulled up, my parents were on their way to the funeral home to pay their respects to my fourth grade teacher’s husband. I only just vaguely remembered that period in my life, so I passed on visiting myself.

I really wanted to go to Dixie Cafe at some point today before they closed for good. Growing up, I had a very different version of “home-cooked” or “comfort food” than others around here. Even when we went out to eat, we usually ended up at a Chinese restaurant. There was a lot at Dixie that I never got at home, so it was really exotic food for me. I loved their appetizer sampler with their fried pickle spears, chicken strips with gravy, fried mushrooms, and fried cheese sticks. I always went through a couple baskets of their rolls and jalapeño cornbread. I only had a couple people that would ever go there with me, so it was really nostalgic for me, and now it’s gone forever.

Instead, I came home and warmed up some leftover eggrolls while I worked on my network. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite alone as when I walked into a dark, cold house that couldn’t talk back to me. I’ve grown beyond accustomed to my smart home, and it invoked a real emotional response when I came home and it was completely dead. After a bunch of trial and error, I remembered my pocket aces. When I worked at NEW, I had at one time required a customer ship us a router that he had claimed on his service plan. For some reason, I felt fit to keep this scrapped equipment. It was only one letter off of the model number of my router, so I thought it might be useful for parts. He shipped it to me without a power supply or even the screw-on antennae, but those parts from my fried router fit perfectly, and to my surprise the router booted up without issue. I performed a firmware update and got it running my home network in no time.

After I got my lights and other essential equipment back online, I settled in with my old friend Tom Collins and finished The Avengers. It really was a fun movie, and it reminded me of how far we’ve come in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I can’t wait for the next movie in the collection.

No one likes a one-upper.

Waking up was weird this morning, and that was just the start of it. Just as I was getting into my routine, the power went out and I had to do everything in the dark. It’s weird that I never really lost power during the brief storm, but the lightning fried so much of my stuff.

I went in to work about an hour late after stumbling through my morning, and managed to get a decent amount of stuff done. I met some of the guys at Quiznos for lunch, then went to my parents’ house after work for dinner.

When I finally got back home, I ran through the trial and error of trying to get my home back online. At this point, I’ve found that the storm took out my brand new modem, two ports on my router, and the ethernet ports on my computer. I’m frustrated to the point that I feel like I’m ready to climb into the attic to get some real wiring done. The hard part is choosing a location for the brains of the operation. For now, I’m sacrificing media storage for the ability to turn my lights on and off.

I’m truly living in the future.

…or all of the things.

Work was worklike. I spent all morning at the junior high, then stopped by Subway for a late lunch. I wanted to try out their reuben. It was okay. Super loaded up with subpar deli corned beef, but not enough of anything else. I ran into Michael there as I was walking in, and let him jump ahead of me so he could get back to school. Then when I got to the end of the line, he paid for my $11 sandwich. It all happened so fast, and I felt a little bit terrible, because I’m pretty sure my sandwich cost almost twice what his cost.

After work, I went to my parents’ house for some more chow mein, then came home for more laundry. I had just gotten settled in when it started to storm. The storm passed pretty quickly, but right in the middle of it – BANG! Lightning struck super close. I never really lost power, but things went a little funky for a bit. It wasn’t long before I realized my brand new modem had fried. After all the trouble with my internet, the coax to my modem was set to bypass the surge/backup battery. It’s completely dead. I called Suddenlink to have service switched back to my old modem, but now I’m having additional trouble getting my wired devices back online. At least two heavy pieces of equipment don’t seem to be talking to the network, so I’ve got my work cut out for me.

I hate, hate, hate this kind of thing, especially when it should have been prevented. There’s no reason for me to have to bypass safety equipment in order to use Suddenlink’s service. Enough for tonight though. I’ll have to figure it all out tomorrow or something.

SUPER HATE

I wandered tenderly around the house today, occasionally trying to stretch out my neck and back. It really does just feel like I slept wrong and it’ll work itself out by the end of the day, but it’s been nearly a week now. I just sat and played Oxygen Not Included for nearly the entire day.

I’ll look outside tomorrow.

It was overall another pretty productive day. I stayed busy until lunch when I joined the girls in the library for cafeteria salads, chicken nuggetstrips, and mac and cheese soup(?). The salad was pretty good.

After work, I went by my parents’ house for dinner, then stopped by Walgreens to pick up a FedEx package and some more cough medicine.

I finally committed to the Android beta channel for my Pixel 2 XL, so we’ll see how that goes.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I’ve been having trouble with my web host since it’s been free all this time. I should probably make a decision on whether to start paying for some real hosting soon, because I’m tired of never knowing whether or not the site will be up, and whether they’ll lose my data.

Cheapskate…

I still woke up super stiff in my upper back this morning. I’ve tried sleeping in every reasonable position I can think of, and nothing has helped. I don’t know what caused this, but I hope it works itself out soon.

I was between buildings quite a bit today, but I feel pretty good about what I accomplished. I’m back down to single digit work orders, and as far as I can tell, nobody’s complaining yet. I thought I was making plans to watch Star Wars with my sister on a vendor’s dime, but the time didn’t work out favorably enough, and I would already have seen it the night before anyway, so we just scrapped the whole idea.

I actually found another soul that enjoys Long John Silver’s, so I used my BOGO coupon and split lunch with Ronda in the library. Then after working a little late, I went to my parents’ house and had some asparagus soup.

I had to get gas on the way home, and then from there I stopped at AT&T to visit with Kevin since they didn’t look busy at all. The new store looks pretty nice on the surface, but is not without some really retarded design choices – and that’s not including the wheelchair gender.

When they closed up, I came home and sat around uncomfortably until bedtime. I’m gonna have to start yoga or something if my back doesn’t fix itself soon.

*laughs nervously*

The Murano was charged again by this morning, but it was so nice out that I decided to take the bike to work. It was cool in the morning, but not uncomfortably so. I predict bugpocalypse in the spring and summer.

I felt pretty good about the things I got accomplished at work. Then I took the Murano to AutoZone to replace the battery after I got home. I had forgotten how much of a pain in the ass it is to replace, but I managed.

That’s enough for today, I suppose.

Are we still on this?