Adventures in Computer Technology and Sleep-Deprivation

OK, I'm sure you're all waiting breathlessly to know whether I now have my wireless internet up and running. To which I can only say, uh... Good damned question. Let me tell you how my day went:

8:00 AM: I get off work, already so tired I'm having trouble keeping my head from hitting the desk, and crawl into bed. It's been raining, so I'm not even sure they're going to be able to do the installation today, but I figure they'll let me know.

9:15 AM: I haven't quite fallen completely asleep yet when my ISP calls. It's stopped raining, and we're still on. I can expect the antenna guys around 10:30, but I have to come into the office and pay them for the equipment first. I haul myself back out of bed and do so.

11:00 AM: The antenna guys show up, having gotten lost on the way to my house.

12:15 PM: I now have an antenna on my roof. I'm told the tech support guy will be by in a few minutes to handle things on the computer end.

1:00 PM: Tech support guy[*] shows up, does installation-type stuff, crashes my computer several times, crawls back up on the roof to adjust the antenna, and makes a lot of ominous-sounding "hmm" noises. Yeah, that's right, it ain't working. I'm getting a signal, but no 'net access.

1:45 PM: Tech support guy finally figures out what's wrong. I don't know what, because I didn't ask and would probably have been too tired to understand the answer if he'd told me. But it appears to be on their end, and it's not something he has the authority to fix. He leaves to go hunt down someone who does.

2:15 PM: Tech support guy calls and tells me that he can't get hold of the relevant person, and (since I've already told him that it's way past my bedtime) that we can pick this up again tomorrow. He'll be by at 9:00 AM. I thank him, crawl into bed, and sleep the sleep of the terminally jet-lagged, having basically just stayed up all night after having already stayed up all night (for varying definitions of the word "night").

10:00 PM: I wake up abruptly in the middle of a dream in which I'm desperately trying to catch a bus to New York for some reason, and realize that I have to be leaving for work in about an hour and a half.

10:45 PM: I know my dial-up is still working, as it allowed tech support guy to telnet in earlier when he was trying to diagnose things, so I log in and check my e-mail. After disconnecting, I notice that, hmm, the other connection appears to be active. Or at least, the icon's flashing. I fire Netscape back up and click on a couple of websites and, sure enough, up they come! Fast! Either my ISP has gotten things fixed from their end, or the Magic Internet Fairy has come and sprinkled wireless pixy dust on my PC while I slept. Either way, I seem to be connected. Unfortunately, I have no time to play around online, because I have to leave for work. Guess I'll find out what's actually happened when the guy shows up tomorrow morning. (He's going to have to come by in any case. He left his tools.)

Stay tuned for more thrilling updates!


[*] For those of you who know me in Real Life, or who have been paying obsessive attention to this blog, I should point out that this is not the tech support guy who's a gaming buddy of mine, it's a different one.