Not my table

After spending several hours listening to great classical compositions and having some interesting conversations with Earthlink technical support for my DSL connection (“Please to now find on your screen the network icon”), I am back on line, have caught up on three days of email, written my column for tomorrow’s Pioneer Press and can once again start posting.

What was interesting about a frustrating experience is how quickly and efficiently (and courteously) the tech support people identified that my problem was not with my system or Earthlink’s connection. Having mastered high school Spanish only well enough to point to my throat if I need the Heimlich maneuver, I am in immense awe of anyone who can communicate geek-speak in a foreign tongue. On that score, I found the service was great.

Policy is a whole ‘nother matter. The problem was with Earthlink’s contracted local service (QWEST). So it was the old, there is nothing we can do on this end but contact our vendor trick. A mere thirty hours later and I was up and running with hours to spare for some research for my column tomorrow.

Ain’t technology grand -- it provides the rationale for me to bitch about a couple of day delay in doing research that once would have taken me a couple of weeks, assuming the sources would have a) been available and b) I’d have known to look for them sans Google. Now if there were just a way to make my gas tank look half-full instead of half empty.