Sad Transmission

Wow, sorry for the weeklong blogout. I was busy early in the week and then ran into some InterWeb issues the last few days that left me without home computer access. See, we got my mother-in-law a laptop for Christmas (but ordered it while down in NJ a few weekends ago) and it showed up this week. The plan was to pick up a router and network our desktop and her laptop (and eventually, the laptop we get). So on Thursday, I picked up a Belkin router from Best Buy and follow the "quick setup" instructions, but can't get the thing to work. So I called Verizon tech support (we have Verizon DSL) and the dude walks me through getting the modem set up to configure with the router. But then he says I need to call Belkin support for the rest of the way. So I do, but it didn't work. Eventually, we determine that the router is defective and he tells me to exchange it for another. Unfortunately along the way, our regular Internet access no longer worked, so we have no Internet. Friday night, I go back to Best Buy, but I pick up a Linksys that was the same price and appeared to have the same features. I go to set it up, but call Verizon to help me get our Internet access working again. The woman who helped me tried a lot of stuff, but nothing worked and ultimately she concluded that our modem was suddenly defective and I needed another one. By this point, it was late and the billing department was closed; but this was good, because I didn't think she was right. Today, I called back and the dude I talked to was able to deduce that the USB cable that connected the modem and computer was faulty, so we tried an ethernet cable and sure enough, it worked. I had to get another cable to hook up the router and modem and was all set. I still haven't quite figured out how to add the laptop to the network, but I was pretty fried by that point and decided to get back at it tomorrow.

That stuff aside, it was a busy and strange day today. With several inches of snow expected overnight tonight, I decided to get my 13 miles (first week of Boston Marathon training) in this morning. So I was out by 7 a.m. Holy crap, was it cold! It was 11 degrees when I left, with a wind chill in the single digits. I was pretty well bundled up, except for my face. By the end of the two hours, my face was completely numb; guess I need to get one of those balaclava things to cover my mouth in extreme cold. But I felt good on the run and was glad to get it in.

I got home and had to haul ass to head to the funeral of a friend of ours from church, a 23-year-old woman who also ran the church nursery and got to know our girls pretty well. She also babysat for them on a few occasions. It was quite a shock; she died in her sleep last weekend. The funeral was so sad. A lot of her friends gave testimonials and it was pretty intense, heartwrenching stuff.

I had to leave right after the service to head home and take the girls to Hannah's soccer game, so it was quite the mad scramble to change out of my suit, get Hannah ready, and get back in the van. Then it was back home to work on getting the computer working. Needless to say, I'm fried.

I'll check in again tomorrow, I promise.