Well, today was pretty awful. No net when I got up, so I got on the phone with Speakeasy, and was on the phone with them for a long time. Got bumped up to second-level tech support, and they called in Covad for a conference call. After much more ado than this, we decided that my DSL modem was fried.

Naturally, it was just out of warranty. (And I own it, it's not leased.)

So I drove all around Boston looking for one. I know I've seen them on store shelves before, but I couldn't find one.

Posted to Suspects about it. Since I had net at that point, if intermittent, I didn't think to give an alternate contact address. (For the next few days, it might be a good idea to Cc: jay at ccs.neu.edu when sending me mail.) Then net died altogether, and power-cycling the modem didn't help. So I drove to work to get net so I could figure out how to get dialup to Speakeasy. Unfortunately, I had taken my work keys out of my pouch before Baitcon, and when I got to work I discovered I had not yet put them back. So I couldn't get in the building. I was also starting to realize that I had not had anything to eat yet today (this is about 9:30). So I had a steak (with bleu cheese, the only good thing about tonight :-) and I feel a lot better.

When I got home, I power-cycled the modem, and mirabile visu got net! So now I'm posting this, and I was able to get a couple hopeful replies from people who might have DSL modems I can use (Efficient Networks SpeedStream 5250 or 5251s). So hopefully this situation will only last another day or so, or maybe with some luck even less than that.

I am wiped out. Drove home from Baitcon pretty late last night, remember.

And there's other bad news in my life, but that'll be another posting.