Our wireless service provider reports that Dolly’s landfall in Texas may affect our connectivity in Virginia:
Your connection communicates with the Internet through our gateway in Laredo, inland from Brownsville where the hurricane is expected to hit first. This means that your service may be affected, even if your local weather is mild. Even if your home or business is many miles away from the storm, you may experience a loss of service if the hurricane hits the Laredo area.
To complicate matters our dial-up service is wonky, too. Last week some drunken idjit hit the phone box a few miles down the road, knocking out everyone’s phone service. They fixed it, but ever since then our phone connection has been intermittent.
[Hmm…is there a patron saint for telephone service? They have one for every other conceivable endeavor. For example, Saint Valentine is the patron for bee keepers. I still haven’t figured that one out]
In any event, if you don’t hear anything from Gates, that’s why. Y’all can keep talking, but we won’t be able to correspond if both services go out at the same time.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to imagine life without the internet. As I told Pundita in a recent email, “what life?”
Nearest I could find is Gabriel, for telecommunications.
Anthony could help you find a good connection :).
Meg–
Here’s the National Hurricane Center’s “Discussion” by Forecaster Franklin:
At 700 PM CDT…the center of Hurricane Dolly was located
inland over extreme south Texas…95 km northwest of Brownsville
Texas.
Dolly is moving toward the west-northwest near 10 mph…16 km/hr.
This general motion is expected to continue…taking Dolly
farther inland over south Texas.
Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 75 mph…120
km/hr…with higher gusts. Dolly is a category one hurricane on
the Saffir-Simpson scale.
I hope she weakens. The radar sure is neat looking, though.
Okay, blogagog, I’ll bite that piece of toast: who the heck is Anthony?
Thing about Hurricanes is they’re exciting, plus if you’re dry they bring a little rain.
Come on rain. Man we could use some here in the southland. Brownsville and Matamoros, however, is a little too far south.
Dial-up? Are you serious, Dymphna? That’s so yesterday. I gave that up years ago. This comes from a person who didn’t get a microwave oven until 1985. 🙂
I think blogagog is refering to St. Anthony
Paul–
I love hurricanes, too. Growing up in FL you never said “Hurricane So-and-So”…it was a first name basis –e.g, Anna, ugly ol’ Betsy, Debbie, etc.
Marianne–
Doh. Saint Anthony, finder of lost things…maybe he’ll locate my Superwoman cape.
Dial-up is for the boondocks, which is where we are. 40 miles to the nearest latte. That’s why we have satellite internet, but it’s touchy so dial-up is our only alternative for back-up.
Hey, when we moved here, the phones still had party lines.
I was wondering why my daughter was singing “Hello Dolly” all day.
Praying for a soft landfall.
Dymphna, where in FL did you grow up? We’re in Jax, and fortunately, all the storms either skirt above or below us.(so far…)
@meg–
We’re in Jax, and fortunately, all the storms either skirt above or below us.(so far…)
Jacksonville doesn’t get many. Yes, I did grow up there.
I remember one blow that drove the rain so hard it came thru the sides of the windows and ruined all the books in the shelves below.
And another image I have is of paddling around in a inner tube in the front yard.
The great thrill was to miss school, though. We sure didn’t get any snow days…hurricane days were thrilling.
Here’s something a childhood friend sent me about living in FL. You might enjoy it:
You Know You’re a Floridian If..
If memory serves, St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost items, or something to that effect.
So if you lose a good connection, ask St. Anthony for help finding it again :).
This comes from a person who didn’t get a microwave oven until 1985.
I remember using Internet back then.
But microwave? Useful for popcorn, little else.
Anyway, back on topic. In New Orleans was an internet provider, DirectNIC, who weathered the hurricane and the flooding with amazing skill and courage.
Their story is told at the Mises Economics Blog
Who also has an interesting essay on the crappiness of central planning: Katrina and Socialist Central Planning
Dymphna;
Hey, I’m floating a mile offshore of Cameron LA, bouncing about a bit in 4-6 foot seas, but I’m receiving you fine.
Bilgeman–
4-6 foot seas? I sure hope you took your seasickness pills! Glug…
__________
Henrik, you obviously don’t cook.
Microwaves are an excellent way to steam fresh vegetables or rice, cook bacon, make a curry sauce, or bake potatoes and other root vegetables in 10% of the time it would take otherwise.
Even luddites like me find them indispensable.
Henrik, you obviously don’t cook.
Dymphna, for the first time ever I can say straight out:
You’re wrong.
I know microwaves are great time-savers. But when it comes too cooking, I’m very conservative. I do not like the wishy-washy taste coming out of the microwave and prefer classical steaming or frying.
Dymphna:
“4-6 foot seas? I sure hope you took your seasickness pills! Glug…”
Pah…a bathtub…it’s a nice long groundswell in Dolly’s lee, not too bad if you don’t take it from the beam.
It does appear that the gentlemen on the rig seem blissfully unaware that Class 2 hurricanes don’t just “pass by and begone” in a few hours,(they’re a jack-up rig, so they are “standing” on the dsea bed).
Some rigger on another boat fell off a stack of drill pipe and performed a “face plant” onto a deck plate…bound to leave a mark.
WE opted to tie off to a satellite rig and wait for calmer seas.