Jim Koepke
06-17-2018, 2:22 PM
It's always something.
It was early Saturday morning… My last peek at the clock was just before 2:00 am. Candy woke me climbing into bed and informed me the power was out.
Dang it, an item on ebay has been on my search list for years and is not all that common a find. My thoughts dwelled on it closing in a little more than five hours. Hope the repair crew doesn't have a hard job to do.
My wife's alarm clock/radio/iPod doc has a time keeper circuit so it kind of surprised me the lights were back on so quickly at a little after 4:00 am.
Life was good again. Later when letting the cat in it seemed things were even better. The clock by the door had started running on its own schedule a few years ago. Recently my curiosity made me wonder which way and how much it was off. So it was set to the right time then forgotten. It seems to have decided to go along with the other clocks in the house.
Went in the computer room and fired up the network and computer and then went in the kitchen to take care of the other morning tasks.
Back to the computer room and there is an alternating green/red light for the 'internet' symbol. Hmmmmmm?
Pick up the landline phone and the screen reads "NO LINE."
Having had experience with working for a major phone company in the past this to me meant something was not good. My first thought was a car hitting a pole hard enough to sever a cable. There were other causes that crossed my mind, but those were starting to verge on the realm of 'hair on fire' moments.
Any way we had no internet so there was no way for me to finish the auction. Our phone lines have been back up for about an hour now. The item closed for about half of what my under the wire sniping style bid would have been. Oh well, nothing but to patiently wait for another to come along.
When she got up Candy informed me we needed to go to the Farmers Market because she had asked one of the women there to make something as a gift for our daughter's birthday.
We decided to do a bunch of other things since we were going out. When we got to the edge of town we saw a couple of big trucks and a few guys working around a broken pole and messed up looking cables. So we knew someone was getting a bit of O.T.
We went about the day and when we got home, it was still 'NO LINE' on the phones. One of our neighbors said they had the same problem. My curiosity got the best of me. The phone book was consulted for the 800 numbers of our phone service provider. Jumped in my truck and drove to town in search of a coin phone.
Where would you look if you needed to find a coin phone?
We do not have cell service for at least a mile from our home. We no longer have cell phones. Many of our neighbors have their cell phones working off of their home network's Wi-Fi.
On the way into town there were what looked to be the same two trucks sitting on location. Why not get the information from the horse's mouth.
There were two guys working on a small bench splicing fiber optic strands. They told me the tale of how someone took out two utility poles and really messed up their plant (communications equipment in phone company parlance). When he hit the poles it stretched the cables and even pulled some of it out of the underground vaults. This wouldn't have been too bad except the fiber optic strands were pulled so hard they got kinked in several places. Copper wire can still work with a little kink in it, fiber doesn't if it becomes deformed. These sections had to be replaced and they had something like four local aerial and underground sites to repair.
Ouch, what a way to get O.T. on Father's Day Weekend.
My time with the phone company was so long ago fiber wasn't in the mix.
So folks, be careful when driving. The cause of the accident isn't known to me nor is the fate of the driver. From all the parts of the car left behind my guess is it wasn't good.
At least over in St Helens we stopped in the Habitat for Humanity Restore and found a nice #10 Jennings pattern auger bit for 50¢.
jtk
It was early Saturday morning… My last peek at the clock was just before 2:00 am. Candy woke me climbing into bed and informed me the power was out.
Dang it, an item on ebay has been on my search list for years and is not all that common a find. My thoughts dwelled on it closing in a little more than five hours. Hope the repair crew doesn't have a hard job to do.
My wife's alarm clock/radio/iPod doc has a time keeper circuit so it kind of surprised me the lights were back on so quickly at a little after 4:00 am.
Life was good again. Later when letting the cat in it seemed things were even better. The clock by the door had started running on its own schedule a few years ago. Recently my curiosity made me wonder which way and how much it was off. So it was set to the right time then forgotten. It seems to have decided to go along with the other clocks in the house.
Went in the computer room and fired up the network and computer and then went in the kitchen to take care of the other morning tasks.
Back to the computer room and there is an alternating green/red light for the 'internet' symbol. Hmmmmmm?
Pick up the landline phone and the screen reads "NO LINE."
Having had experience with working for a major phone company in the past this to me meant something was not good. My first thought was a car hitting a pole hard enough to sever a cable. There were other causes that crossed my mind, but those were starting to verge on the realm of 'hair on fire' moments.
Any way we had no internet so there was no way for me to finish the auction. Our phone lines have been back up for about an hour now. The item closed for about half of what my under the wire sniping style bid would have been. Oh well, nothing but to patiently wait for another to come along.
When she got up Candy informed me we needed to go to the Farmers Market because she had asked one of the women there to make something as a gift for our daughter's birthday.
We decided to do a bunch of other things since we were going out. When we got to the edge of town we saw a couple of big trucks and a few guys working around a broken pole and messed up looking cables. So we knew someone was getting a bit of O.T.
We went about the day and when we got home, it was still 'NO LINE' on the phones. One of our neighbors said they had the same problem. My curiosity got the best of me. The phone book was consulted for the 800 numbers of our phone service provider. Jumped in my truck and drove to town in search of a coin phone.
Where would you look if you needed to find a coin phone?
We do not have cell service for at least a mile from our home. We no longer have cell phones. Many of our neighbors have their cell phones working off of their home network's Wi-Fi.
On the way into town there were what looked to be the same two trucks sitting on location. Why not get the information from the horse's mouth.
There were two guys working on a small bench splicing fiber optic strands. They told me the tale of how someone took out two utility poles and really messed up their plant (communications equipment in phone company parlance). When he hit the poles it stretched the cables and even pulled some of it out of the underground vaults. This wouldn't have been too bad except the fiber optic strands were pulled so hard they got kinked in several places. Copper wire can still work with a little kink in it, fiber doesn't if it becomes deformed. These sections had to be replaced and they had something like four local aerial and underground sites to repair.
Ouch, what a way to get O.T. on Father's Day Weekend.
My time with the phone company was so long ago fiber wasn't in the mix.
So folks, be careful when driving. The cause of the accident isn't known to me nor is the fate of the driver. From all the parts of the car left behind my guess is it wasn't good.
At least over in St Helens we stopped in the Habitat for Humanity Restore and found a nice #10 Jennings pattern auger bit for 50¢.
jtk