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Monday, February 25
Did I Mention?

...that I sold another story? Yep, I heard from Neil Smith at Plots With Guns and he wants my story "Getting Out" for his March issue. Coming so soon after the publication of "Lie Beneath The Clay" at HandHeldCrime, this is just totally cool. I'm going to update the Stories page today with a link to "Lie" and some notes about "Getting Out".

Also, I've been extremely lazy about The Stonebridge Diaries. Look for a new post later on today.


posted by Graham at 11:34 AM permalink

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The Boy Is Back In Town

Well, I'm back from the Blog Free Zone, two days in Houston and two days watching the kids. Houston first: I had to go to finish the installation and configuration of a VPN at one of our partners, but we were having some trouble with it and I thought I'd be able to put it off until today. That way, I wouldn't run out of time on Friday afternoon and have to make a return trip. But wiser heads prevailed, and soon I was starting the 4.5 hour drive down there so our partners would know we were doing something.

I spent the entire day Thursday hooking up a DSL line. The first problem: we had tried to order DSL service twice previously, but each time the phone number we tried to use did not originate in the local switch; it was "ported" or something like that. So when I went to punch the new connection, I had no idea what line to hook up. As it turns out neither did anyone at SBC (side note: if you are having trouble with broadband access, you're always safe blaming the phone company). They couldn't pull up the account and tell me which line the DSL was on. Instead they had to go through and check EACH NUMBER (about 15) to see if it was the correct one!

After I found out which line to hook up the real fun started. I don't exactly have the hands of a surgeon, and even with a brand new bag of tools, it took me a long time to get the line punched into the crossblock correctly. Finally, I had it all punched, had dial tone - and still no DSL. It turned out that I hadn't installed the filter on the correct line, but while I was talking to the repair guy, he mentioned that if they had to send someone on-site, they'd have to charge me for a full installation, which would cost $150.

So. I spent an entire day using a new $500 tool kit to do something we could have had done in an hour for $150.

Now the line was installed, I had connectivity, and all I had to do was configure the network. I called their DSL service center, gave them the number I spent two hours tracking down, and asked for my IP addresses. The conversation went like this:
Her: "Um, you only have the Basic plan. To get IP addresses you need Enhanced."
Me: "What's the price difference?"
Her: "$150 in one-time fees and $15 dollars a month."
Me: "When can I get the addresses?"
Her: "Ten days."

So I have to go back to Houston anyway. This morning I got word that the reason we were having trouble with the VPN in the first place is that it needs to run on NT 4, not Windows 2000. So it's time for the 3 Rs: reformat, reinstall, reconfigure.

All of which made watching the kids while my wife was shopping 200 miles away seem like a walk in the park. Even when my boy decided to give himself and his sister a haircut.


posted by Graham at 11:30 AM permalink

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