Journal - Why conservation doesn’t work

The day started out like any other, if anything there was a very nice sunrise and the light looked wonderful over the clouds:

I was planning to take the cable modem back to the store because it gave up the ghost the other day leaving me with very limited Internet. I kept plugging and unplugging the power cord but to no avail and the cable modem sat there blinking its light at me a few times but doing nothing else. It kind of reminded me of the monolith from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and I felt like some type of big ape poking around at it and looking for a bigger hammer.

It had given me some warning signals a few weeks ago when the fan turned on full blast and nothing seemed to be working. Restarting it by power cycling it fixed the issue, after I got over my fear of the, “Do not unplug this,” warning label.

This time when it broke, I talked to technical support about it and they suggested replacing it. Rather than wait for a few days until a technician could come out and service the modem I decided to help out the company and change it out myself. I figured it would be faster for me and cost the company less. I decided to ride my bike down to the store to get the new modem to save some gas. It was around ten miles round trip so I figured it would not be that hard if I went down when it was cooler.

The bike ride down was pretty nice. I got stopped by a street person who had slept in the forest by the bike path and he wanted to sell me a “silver” locket for $10.00. I didn’t have a ten so I gave him a twenty and he really liked that and quickly disappeared with the cash. The locket wasn’t silver but what the heck, I knew that.

The place to get a new modem didn’t open up until 10:00 am and I got there right after it opened. There were already almost a dozen or so people waiting. As time dragged on some people gave up and left, and one person exclaimed, “I’m going to go buy myself some rabbit ear antennas, I’m through with this.”

It seemed like about an hour by the time I was out of there for what took about 30 seconds for the person serving me to do once I got up to the counter. (Maybe it was faster but you know how time drags when your watching an inefficient process)

By the time I got out of there it was really getting hot, (people around here start to melt if it gets over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, please don’t laugh) and the ride back was less than pleasant.

I plugged the modem in and called the number they told me to call to get things setup. Nothing happened, not even a ring tone. Finally, after a minute I got a message telling me to call back again. After about an hour and six tries later a I got a technician on the line who kind of fixed things enough for me to get my main computer working.

He wouldn’t tell me how to change some of the settings because I, “wasn’t on the account.” I’m holding the freaking modem in my hand as well as documentation with its work order number, plus the last time I checked I’m at least partial owner of the house the modem is currently residing within. (The bank owns most of the house, I’m just the poor peon that pays the mortgage) Plus, I'm calling on a cell phone under the same account that his company bills to the address, which identifies my name and uses biometrics to make sure I'm the only one using it. Anyhow, I figured the conversation wasn't worth pursuing so I fixed the WIFI settings from my memory by myself but my Internet phone still didn’t work. So I had to call back the same number and luckily the automated process fixed the phone for me this time.

Thank goodness for automation - I'm getting to like the monotone messages, it is better than dead silence when you call.

I finally get all this done and my son needed to borrow/use the SUV to drive back down to basically near where I got the cable modem from, to buy a five dollar item that I could have picked up and brought back on my bike. So it ends up costing me $20.00 plus gas to try to conserve a bit of fuel.

Plus I’ve got to pay to fix the brake calipers and change the wheel bearings on the SUV tomorrow for $2200.

My theory is the more your try to conserve anything the worse it gets.

Sorry about the rant. It is actually good natured and I’m not really very upset about anything in case anyone is worried. It is very nice that the Internet works as well as it does, and most of the time my experiences have been much better. I do wish sometimes we could find a way to have everything that we need without having to go through so many obstacles to get there.

Thanks for reading! I always value your support and comments. The pictures were taken by me with my Galaxy S9+.