A Day in the Life ...

(Source)

Sails Aback

This one is for the sailors: here the sails are aback as the Lady Washington tacks. The wind is on the wrong side and they are pressed against the mast and rigging. This almost never happens in a sloop rig, but it brings the bow across the wind in a square rigged boat. Below you can find a description of a square rig tacking maneuver.

Being "taken aback" is also an expression meaning unpleasantly surprised. If the wind shifts and takes the sales aback, it is a dangerous situation.

-- Don McCullough

As has been mentioned in these parts before, Life Comes at You Fast, whether you're ready or not, it comes. Often it goes, therein lies the sadness of it all.

Hard to believe that our man juvat's sister has traveled to the great beyond, left me sad beyond words. Too much death lately, that's all I'll say.

Raise a glass to Lisa, we'll not see her like again.

In other news ...

My bloody modem/router decided that it had done all it wanted and ceased passing bits to the various devices around the manse. Oh, I could see the wee lights flickering, acting all, "Oh no, Your Grace, we're working, must be your computer that's on the Fritz." Or both cell phones, etc. Bleedin' coincidence that.

I tried to recover things myself, to no avail. Requested a modem reset followed by a "did you try turning it off then back on again?" IT trick. Nope, nope, nope.

Finally gave up and called, (drum roll please), tech support.

A very nice fellow on the subcontinent (India perhaps, could have been Pakistan, after all, his name was Mohammed) proceeded to do the exact same things which I had done.

Again, to no avail.

So an onsite visit was scheduled, some 72 hours hence.

Sigh ...

Facing a long weekend (for I had Monday and Tuesday off) living in the 19th Century, I went to bed, gnashing my teeth and rending my garments. The Missus Herself did ask me to "knock off the wailing, you'll wake the neighbors," which I did, though I was an awful poor sport about it.

Awakening on Monday something struck me, I'm a damned engineer, my company pays me (rather well) to figure out why something is broken. So, applying geometric logic, I did some research. Routers get old, they wear out electronically, five years is a fair lifespan for a router, mine was a right Methuselah in the router community.

So, I says to myself, why wait for tech support to come out Wednesday evening (first available appointment) when I might be able to fix this myself. Solution?

Buy a new frigging router/modem.

So off to the tech store I went and purchased just such a thing.

Now in theory I should be able to hook it up, register it with my ISP and go forth, internet-connected and online.

Nope.

The gatekeepers at my ISP are rather fierce, well, actually, their servers were dead slow. Kept getting the "503" error, which for you non-techies means, "Run along simple peasant, this website is not for thee."

So back to the dreaded tech support.

They were aghast that I had actually had the temerity to purchase my own equipment and not go through them. Once they had stopped whinging and passing me around from office to office (no doubt out of sheer boredom, or perhaps it was spite) I finally got connected with a fellow who seemed awfully sincere and apologetic for his colleagues passing me around like some fat doobie.

One of his colleagues had actually registered my new modem in their system (gotta have the correct ID dontcha know) he proceeded to get me back on the information superhighway.

For which I thanked him profusely and declared him a prince among men, no finer lad exists, etc., etc.

So now I am once again online. As is The Missus Herself, whose sole kudo was "Why did it take so long?"

She would've made a fine flag officer, she would, that one.

Sigh ...

Then there's this ...

Looking at last month's stats (over 136,000 visits, no doubt most of 'em spambots) I'm not as enamored of the number as I was at one million.

The spambots take all the fun out of it, neh?

Back to Waterloo on the morrow.

Why yes, I am dragging it out, why do you ask?

😎

Editor's Note: Yes, yes, Independence Day it is, I have been out of sorts lately. Happy, happy. The day now only reminds me of the death of my Sasha two years ago on the 5th. It's getting old we are, no more the incipient curmudgeon, it's full blown curmudgeon-ness with this old chap.