Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Internet-less

Our internet is suffering a slow and painful (for me anyway) death. When we moved into our house, we had a delay of several weeks before we were “online”. Some of the wiring outside the house had started to decay, and made it virtually impossible to use. I never questioned what had been done about the wiring once the problem was resolved. I was too elated from the novelty of being able to Google again.

But then a few months ago, we noticed our connection getting slower and slower. It got to the point where the connection would cut out completely. I kept threatening my DSL modem that I was going to start shopping for a new internet provider, and in retaliation the DSL modem would start flashing red. Leaving me Google-less.

Finally after hours (literally) of sitting in front of the DSL modem, and waiting for four magical lights to change green long enough for me to hack into my AT&T account, I got the information I needed for tech support. After doing whatever it is they do, to check my connection they promised to send a tech out. Our tech had bad news for us. The wiring outside had given up. It was dead. Completely dead. He switched over to a secondary line to await the permanent fix, and warned us that the secondary line was only in slightly better connection than the first.

So, here we are. Waiting for the red tape to get taken care of, so that AT&T can tunnel across the street from our abode to replace the wiring. Our modem senses our desperation and toys with our hearts. We’ll have four solid green lines while the computer is off, and as soon as it’s booted up they switch to flashing red.


At the risk of sounding like a junkie, I’ll confess that I miss the internet. I’m at a loss without the world wide web delivering my “hippy” products directly to my door.

Three easy steps to becoming "crunchy"

Step one:
Take your shoes off whenever possible. Embrace being barefooted. If shoes are required, choose the least amount of shoe that is still appropriate for the environment. In other words, for grocery shopping choose flip-flops over sneakers.

Step two:
Adopt a cause. Here the choices abound. You can choose the classic “boycott a large corporation/conglomerate” or a public education crusade or even challenge the way society views something as “normal”. Whatever you choose, your cause should be something that is dear to your heart, something that you can share with others.

Step three:
Occasionally eat some raw produce. It doesn’t necessarily have to be organic or even local. The simple act of eating raw produce gives you “street cred”.

Once you’ve mastered these three easy steps you can progress on to contemplating chemicals in food, cosmetics, clothing, and toys. Not all at once of course, but slowly, and one at a time.