Internet-less for the weekend

A little over a week ago we had a bit of a spring/early-summer storm during the day. I was home for this. It had seemed to be quieting down a bit, as far as I could tell, and then there was one bolt of lighning.

The front window flashed bright white through the curtains. (Remember, this is the middle of the day. It was grey and cloudy, but the sun was obviously on the other side of the clouds. So that was very bright to flash the window that bright.) The thunderclap was practically instantaneous. And it was definitely loud. The combination even freaked out our youngest cat, who seems to have absolutely no sense of fear at any other standard times.

I unplugged my laptop, just in case, and tried to check on the weather. I'd been online when this happened, so I knew everything had been working, but it wasn't anymore. We occasionally lose internet briefly when there's a storm, so we didn't worry about it right away.

However, it was different this time. It hadn't come back later, and we figured out that both the cable modem and wireless router (the thing that lets us hook up multiple computers, including the laptops and the Wii, to the one modem) were fried. Mark ordered replacements before heading out of town for the weekend, but for about a week we had no internet access at home. (And even then, we only got fully back online when we did because we just happened to have a couple network cards to replace the ones in the computers that were connected physically to the router, including the desktop machine I use for our online banking, bill-paying, etc. after they turned out to also be a little toasted.)

This used to be the way of things, but I've gotten so used to having that access. I'm used to checking the news, or my email, or the weather while sitting on the couch in the living room. We streamed debates and speeches over the wireless onto a laptop feeding into the TV (it's not hooked up to cable) during last year's campaigns. I'm writing this while stretched out on the couch.

Not having that for most of a week drove me nuts. It's one thing to leave it intentionally, for a break from things. But to have it taken away by surprise like that? I don't like that.