A busy couple of days

And it's not over yet!

About 10 days ago I ordered a DSL upgrade, going from wire (1.5 Mbps) to fiber optic (6 Mbps). The installation date was to be yesterday. UPS delivered an envelope from the service (Qwest) around 1 pm with the installation instructions. OK, no problem. When Fran went to play her games after dinner the Internet light was out on the modem. I'd seen that at a neighbor's house last week after she'd been upgraded.

I pulled out the installation information, inserted the CD and started the installation program. Two steps into the process the program informed me that I did not have Administrator privileges -- Bye bye! (Damn Vista.)

A couple minutes were lost switching users then I'm off and running again, sort of. It was looking like a case of "How slow can you go"? A half hour later the modem was happy and a speed test (courtesy of 2wire) reported a 3.5 Mbps speed. Acceptable, but not the full-tilt boogie I had hoped to see. I switched users again and Fran too was happy.

Yesterday morning Fran powered the PC up. She re-entered the kitchen, interrupting my Sudoku, to inform me that one of the lights was off on the modem. Crap! Remembering some of the installation instructions and switching users again, I ran a repair program. It naturally could not fix the lost Internet problem, but did restore the modem's old settings. Next, fire up the installation program again. Again the modem was up and running, this time after only 15 minutes and Fran was happy.

Then it lost the connection again after dinner. Yesterday after 5 pm was our contracted connection time, so the whole of the morning process was repeated. Fran was happy.

This morning, another power-up and no Internet light on the modem. Grr -- this is becoming a bad habit. Again with the restore settings and re-installation. It took 30 minutes today because the installation failed part way through. Whether the whole setup Will survive another evening and morning power-up remains to be seen. I'm losing faith in a process which should have worked the first time.

It's Thanksgiving day. Tish was planning to have dinner on Jeff's side of town. Fran and I were planning a non-traditional dinner for ourselves. Cooking a turkey for just the two of us didn't make a lot of sense. On the menu were Cajun meatloaf and from scratch dirty rice. Beyond that was up for grabs. We were planning on Tish and Jeff coming over for some.

Around 10:30 this morning Tish calls and asks if Jeff's folks and Nikala could come over too. I said OK while trying to scale up the recipe for six to something which would leave us with leftovers for sandwiches. I've been working in the kitchen since Noon. This is my first break and there is still more to be done. Fran's been scrambling too, cleaning the house and preparing the table for everyone to sit down to. The day's not over. There's more work to be done, mostly cooking.

Our final menu items: pumpkin soup, yellow kernel corn and peach cobbler. I'm starting to get hungry! More tomorrow.