Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

It's interesting how much in my mind I see myself as traditional or old-fashioned, especially when things like what happened today take place.  Now that Dana has a laptop (a very NICE Sony VAIO might I add) she can understand the importance of mine in staying 'connected' to the outside world.  Forget making sure the landline telephone gets hooked up in our RV – I've got a Cingular RAZR on my hip so that's taken care of.  BUT, I have no cellular wireless broadband card to get online and even if I did, there's no coverage for high-speed data transfer out here.  I have a sense of depravity with no internet connection.

ENTER JAARS Housing…

They are in charge of all the housing situations at JAARS including the RV Park.  A great amenity to the park is DSL hook-up on EVERY site.  When we left the house last night to come to the RV to stay for the very first time, it was late and class started early this morning.  When and how was I to get my desperately-needed DSL modem from housing?!  The plans we chose were to not go back to the house until Wednesday which set me up to go into this evening with: NO INTERNET ACCESS and NO TV since it didn't make the first load out last night.  Anxiety started to really build in our last training session today from 3:00pm – 4:30pm knowing what awaited me at our new home.  So, I struggled to the surface to gasp for air and with that breath I whispered to Dana, "What do you think about going home this afternoon and getting the TV?" knowing full well it's the DSL modem and wireless router at home I want to grab.  She replied, "I don't know… we'll see."  I've become fluent in Dana-ish in the past two years and knew that I had to resort to plan B at that point.  Bad news was that there was no plan B!

I start going through the options in my head and remember that housing doesn't close until 5pm!  What's that?  A twinkle at the end of the tunnel?!  BUT, this just so happens to be Jonathan's week to stay after class and clean up.  Whoop-tee-doo.  On top of that, our guest speaker was very un-American in lecturing past 4:30pm.  Doesn't she know that's out of bounds in our culture?  (That's really not my viewpoint but is one of our culture that I had to be an advocate for in light of my situation).  So, I begin cleaning up and low-and-behold one of the VMS staff decides to have a conversation with me.  Nothing specific.  Just being relational.  Tick-tock.  Dana and I walk out of the building at 4:52pm and I reach for my RAZR with in-and-out service way out yunder in tha cuntry.  I get a ring and a live voice.  God bless you, Penny.  She says that they have ONE DSL modem left and reiterated their closing time.  I told her that it was okay because I was pulling into her parking lot as we were closing.  Relief.

ENTER Windows VISTA or HP or REALTEK – I don't know who this is contributed to…

The short drive to the RV was pleasant as I was looking forward to having internet access in our new home.  I run the wire from the box on the site into the RV.  I plug the power adapter into the wall outlet.  I plug the phone wire into the back of the DSL modem.  I plug the ethernet cable from the modem to my laptop.  I plug the power cable into the modem and its beautiful lights begin to glow.  What's this?  Unrecognized Network is what Vista is telling me and go figure it's one of their new terms.  I tried and tried and couldn't figure out how to get my laptop to recognized the DSL connection.  There was one final solution possibility before I had to accept being 'cut off' for another night… and it worked.  Remember Dana's VAIO?  Well, as it sits, it is probably one of the most expensive wireless routers out right now.  DSL into her Ethernet, out of her wireless and into my wireless.

Reading back over this causes me to assess my 'dependence' on being connected.  There could be danger lurking in what I see as an essential part of my life.  We'll see…