Snow Walk With Friends

Day 102: I went to work yesterday expecting to participate in a four-hour "webinar" to evaluate and learn to use the new Volunteer(dot)gov website soon to be rolled out. An hour in, they still hadn't eliminated the clicks, screeches, pings, dings, clacks, clatters on the line, and when an electronic flock of seagulls made their appearance simultaneously with more pressing office business on our end, we gave it up as a lost cause. I went back to my regular duties and just as I was finishing up, two friends dropped by and invited me out for a walk with them in the snow. I leapt at the chance. We made the rounds of Longmire Campground and although I didn't find any canopy lichens deposited by our recent winds, it was quite enjoyable.

Kevin and I left a little early, with me thinking that I'd get home in time for a quick dinner before heading up to Seattle for Morris dance practice. There was a catch, though. I needed to check my email first to see if the practice was still on, the other team members still rather tired from the Women's March on Saturday. I fired up the computer and...no internet.

"No internet" is a common complaint in my area. "Crappy internet" is even more common. Slow at the best of times, nonexistent at the worst, our internet would be rejected out of hand by occupants of most third-world countries. It had been out just a few days earlier, and when it was restored, we were told that a farmer had run a backhoe through the line. However, when another friend asked what had caused the outage, she was told that a tree had fallen on the substation. "Alternate facts" seem to rule in our ISP as well as in higher government. As for this outage, we were advised that, "We do not have a projected date for when your service will be restored." Are we charged for down-time? You bet! But it is my understanding that a group of locals are consulting with an attorney to initiate a class-action suit against the company whose other business practices are as dodgy as their service.

For now, I'm back, but that's subject to change without notice. Unfortunately, that one ISP is the only game in town.