Internet, O internet…

Or, AT&T, you vile temptress…

The lack of recent blog posts, contrary to what you may have been thinking, is not, in fact, due to lack of available time on my part.  I am busy, and the semester is off to a rapid start.  What has keep me from posting is the cruel lack of internet at home right now.  We used to share with our neighbor.  This was not an illegal stealing of a network signal, but rather a cost-sharing move that everyone liked.  When Jing moved rather abruptly, our internet access ended.  We were fine for a few days, and decided to wait until after the holidays to deal with it – after all, it seemed unlikely that anything would be accomplished over Christmas.  I called AT&T (after determining that their internet was a better deal than Comcast) the Monday after Christmas and was told that our internet would be activated and that we would have our equipment by December 31, 2009.  It seemed a little unlikely that the mail would move that quickly, but we waited until January 4 to call and complain.  When I called again they told me that my order had never been completed.  Something is clearly not straightforward about our address (unclear as to why, but there it is), and it didn’t go through the first time.  A nice representative started a new order and promised that this one would be completed (and to their credit the AT&T people have been very friendly, if not incredibly good at transferring me to the correct person on the first try – I talked to at least 4 other people before speaking with this woman) .  We received the equipment on the promised date and I attached everything very carefully.  I was so hopeful, and my spirit was crushed when I saw the blinking red lights.  Anyone who has ever tried to deal with anything electronic can tell you that flashing red lights are bad, particularly when you have clear documentation stating that they should be solid green lights.  I called again, and was told that there was a problem with my order and that a specialist would have to call me back.  All I want is internet – is that so hard?!?!?  A specialist called me back, and said that they were still trying to connect my service (still unclear why it is so complicated) and that someone would contact me when it was ready.  He couldn’t give me an exact date (red flag!!!), but said he hoped it would be by the end of the week.  That was last week.  I think I’m going to need to call again today, but I hardly have the strength…  Send happy internet-activating wishes my way (as your IRB wishes are working well so far – relatively few corrections and I think it’s on it’s way now), and hopefully the post frequency will be back up shortly…