No electricity and aircard research

The new mp3 player must be alright, as I was handed another stack of CD's to rip into mp3's this morning. That lasted into the middle of the afternoon. Not too exciting work except..... right in the middle of a rip, the computer inexplicably shut down.

I mean it shut totally off, and wouldn't come back on. I had the battery out and laying on the end table as I often do. This preserves the life of the expensive thing since you are not charging a fully charged battery all the time. But only after I replaced the battery did the computer begin to boot again. I thought the power brick had burned out.

That's when Loyce noticed that the clock in the microwave was off too. In a few minutes, the neighbor came over to see if our electricity was out too. She thought she had knocked out her house some how, and was relieved that it was the entire neighborhood.

I started the generator out it the drive and set up an electric heater in the kitchen. It was rapidly cooling off in here once the heat pump wasn't running. Seems like it runs continuously. So for more than an hour this morning we were powerless.

To my knowledge, that is the first time we have ever been without electricity since moving here in January of 2006, and then it was only for a little more than an hour.

Once the music project was complete, I went out for some manly type shopping. You know, fill the gas tank and get a burger. And I went over to Best Buy to learn more about a wireless air card for the computer, once we get to Arizona again. I came away troubled.

Seems that the vendors have all setup download limits. 5 Gb per month. Its not that they charge a little more after that amount, but something like 25 cents a meg more. You could get yourself into financial trouble really quickly and not even know it. Its designed to be punitive, as they do not intend for their customers to use over 5Gb.

Now I am stopped in my tracks on what seemed like a simple decision. Folks that had a card from before the date that the limit was imposed are grandfathered onto unlimited band width.

Hmmmm!

Retired Rod