Twiddlers in action

Sorry.  I've missed you too, but the Internet was down and we were offline.  There's both a story and history about this.

History - When Youngest Grandson was two years old we all started falling off the dining room chairs - at his house and ours - because he was systematically unscrewing the chair seats from the wooden frames.  We called him The Twiddler.  It was funny at the time, but now I recognize it as a genetically inherited trait.  He got it from me.

Story - OK, so I've been having computer problems for some time, but it wasn't a priority item when I was so sick and it didn't get dealt with.  By Friday I had diagnosed it as someone stealing bandwidth which meant that forever would go by before I could get online.  This was the problem I was trying to correct.

I twiddled with the router.  Years and years ago, when it was new, it was set up but the settings were never locked.  If I locked everything down I was sure I could improve my life online. I clicked on this and twiddled with that.  I even went so far as to reset to the factory settings.  Big mistake.  It would have been easy to call the manufacturer to get the secret magic password, but at that point I panicked and figured they wouldn't be open at midnight anyway.  I twiddled beyond the point of return.

I called our telephone carrier that also has our wifi service.  For only $15 I could get their compatible modem and talk to someone 24/7 if I ran into difficulties.

We were without wifi for 2-1/2 days.  It wasn't that bad, actually, because Steve and I both have cell phones and most of what we usually do online could still be done.  I have a tablet too, so really most of life went on.  I kept up with family via text and email.  I could maintain my games with Words with Friends (high priority).  I didn't take the time to pay bills via phone, but they all pay themselves automatically anyway so I wasn't worried.  Browsing was less convenient, but I read books instead.  It was too hard to blog.  I counted at least six public places in town where I could have gone to get online, but I took the time off instead.  I slept more - probably a good thing because, when I woke up this morning, I was not in pain for the first time in months.

The new modem arrived today.  It was easy to connect, just five easy steps.  And then the instructions ask you to call for activation.  That's when life fell apart.  I'm so tired I'll just summarize it: -- seven technicians over a five hour period, that's what it took to get us up and running with wifi and phone service, both.

My diagnostic hunch was apparently correct because I now have uploading speed as I haven't had in years.  In the end, we might say, the original twiddler solved the problem.