Yesterday was the worst day in the history of days. I’m not exaggerating like I usually do, this time I really mean it. Worst day ever. It started with a loss of electricity right as I was starting to work and had just told a client I would “get right on that”. I was such a shortsighted fool.
I could have used the company laptop with my 3G card while the power was out, but it’s battery life is about 30 minutes on a good day and I had depleted that installing a firewall at the end of the previous work day. So I sat there as the 100 degree temperature outside made it’s way inside at an alarming pace and person after person called me on my phone which was almost out of battery as well.
Did I mention it was a perfectly clear day? I can see the power going out during a storm, which it would do that exact thing later in the day, but when it is clear out? Come on.My calls to the power company were met with indifference and estimates of “looks like it will be a while”. Swell.
So 4 hours later the power comes back on and I begin working feverishly. Just as the room is starting to cool down, out goes the power again. Still perfectly clear out. This time, phone and laptop fully charged, I am able to continue working. Just as the heat inside reaches roughly 1000 degrees, and the laptop battery warns me one last time that it is about to cease all operations, the power comes back on.
I continue working and slowly cooling down. Then comes the storms. Then goes the power. Again. Five crazy hot hours later at midnight, well after I had abandoned using the ice tray from the freezer and a flattened cardboard box as a makeshift air conditioner and gone to bed in a giant pile of sweat, the power comes back on. It’s been on ever since, but I am still nervous it may go out and never come back on. Each time I turn a light switch off, I jump and then realize that the power hasn’t gone off, it’s just me turning off the switch.
If there is such a thing a Post Electrical Outage Stress Disorder, I am pretty sure I have a giant case of it.
A few days ago, my air conditioning unit suddenly stopped cooling the house down after eight years of dedicated service. It cost $250 to fix for who knows how long, but eventually, they tell me, I will need a new evaporator coil, a device which I don’t think even exists, and that it will be about $1600 to replace. There goes the iPad budget.
Now, my tractor won’t start. Who knows how much that will cost. Meanwhile, my lawn is growing at about nine times the normal rate and pretty much has me trapped in my own house, and with no tractor to mow my way out of here things could start to turn ugly soon.
This all adds up to the entire world plotting against me and my desire to own the most awesome device ever conceived of by man. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if my internet got cut off before I was able to post th
I finally found some time to work on this site a little. As you can see, not much is different. I mostly just played around with the CSS until I achieved the appropriate level of awesome. I have attempted to adhere to standards and, while not perfect, I think I did a pretty darned good job. How do I know, you ask? Because every single browser in the world on every platform renders this page exactly the same…. except of course for Internet Explorer, which has long been a giant floating turd and remains so to this very day.
So, to recap:
Browsers that render this page correctly – Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and every other browser in existence.
Browsers that do NOT render this page correctly – Internet Explorer
I don’t know about you, but I am getting very tired of the AT&T and Verizon ad wars. If you don’t know what I am talking about, let me fill you in.
It goes something like this:
Verizon: “We have tons more 3G coverage than you and we are going to flaunt it because you have the iPhone and we don’t, so there.”
AT&T: “We have tons of data coverage too….. in our own special way. Oh oh, and we have the fastest 3G network…… in the 3 or 4 places were we have 3G at all.”
Verizon: “Haha, your map sucks.”
AT&T: “DOES NOT!”
Verizon: “Oh, I’m afraid it does.”
AT&T: “Well…… everything you said is actually true, but we are going to sue you anyway because we don’t like you pointing out our deficiencies. OH OH, I just remembered something. You can talk on the phone and use data on our network at the same time. Can you do that on yours? Huh? Can you? Why don’t you pull out your iPhone and try it? Oh wait, you don’t have one.”
Verizon: “…..SHUT UP!”
AT&T: “YOU SHUT UP!”
And so forth.
As someone who uses the data plan on both networks, I can honestly say that in my area Verizon is way ahead of AT&T. Everywhere I go, I get 3G with Verizon. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been able to use 3G on AT&T. Usually, I’m stuck with their Edge data service, which I think got the name Edge because it skirts the edge of actually being useful, but mostly falls short. But even on such a craptacular network, the iPhone still rules. Most of the time, I use the built-in wifi and connect my iPhone to my Verizon access point so that I can have my cake and eat it to. Mmmmmm, cake.
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