aq.org's net is very flaky (and some good stuff)

Bad: aq.org’s DSL connection has been slightly flaky for a while. Today it’s graduated to extremely flaky; down as often as it’s up. I’ve been on the phone (and on hold) with my ISP lots lately, but hadn’t gotten very far, in part due to the fact that until now the problems were very intermittent (so likely to have resolved themselves by the time I got off hold). My best guess is that this DSL modem is dying the way the last one did, since the symptoms are similar. I have another DSL modem, but it seems not to be configured right, and I haven’t yet been able to get in touch with anybody at Speakeasy who could walk me through configuring it. However, I believe that somebody will be calling me tonight at or shortly after 1:00am to walk me through that. If I'm lucky, and the problem is the modem rather than the line, and the new modem works, things may be all better tomorrow.

Bad: I have a cold. :-(

Good: I discovered that my old Ericsson phone (which I got when I had service with VoiceStream, now T-Mobile, may their stock price rot in hell) was not locked, and works with the SIM card for my new service. That means if my new phone breaks or gets lost, I’ll have a spare, and also means that I have a phone I can use in Europe if I ever go back.

Good: Had a nice long phone conversation with my mother today. She’s doing well, and it was great to get caught up.

aq.org (and polyboston.org) down :-(

Hi. After being told that a second-level tech support person would call at 1:00am EST, I waited until 4:00am (well, to be fair, I dozed off a bit) to call and find out what was going on. The second-level tech support person decided that the problem was definitely not my DSL modem (despite the fact that the symptoms are pretty much identical to last time, when it was definitely the modem, and despite the fact that the first-level tech support person I talked to on Sunday said the line seemed fine and it was probably the modem). He opened a trouble ticket with the DSL carrier, and told me to expect a call at noon tomorrow. (Of course, I've never gotten a call when I was told I would. The people I talk to on the phone when I reach them are always very helpful, but they don't seem to have a good system for telling each other to make phone calls).

So the upshot is that aq.org and polyboston.org (and world.peace.net, which is also hosted here) are off the net until further notice, since the connection seems thoroughly dead now. (I'm posting this via dialup from a laptop, but haven't had any luck getting the rest of the household net to route through the laptop, not that I've tried too hard since it was 6:00am by the time i got off the phone with the ISP, having discovered I wasn't going to have net tonight.

News flash: My net seems to have just come back on. Let's hope it stays up long enough for a little mail to get transferred.