Marta and the Internet

For several weeks now, in the case of our internet access, download speeds, upload speeds and what have you, we’ve been in a world of hurt.  Finally, today Mark-the-Magician was sent by CenturyLink to have a look at our wiring, inside and outside.  And now, once again, all is right with the world.  The reason for major meltdowns at our house and in many other places on the coast was the hot weather we had a few weeks ago.  Apparently, the temperatures in some of the equipment kiosks reached 140° — enough to cause major damage and fall-out.   As in lucky us!  (Oh.  And did I mention the dead bats?  None in any of Mark’s kiosks but, apparently, a problem in others.  Heat prostration.)

Somehow, listening to the woes of the internet infrastructure put me in mind of “My Fair Lady” and “the gin what did her in.”  So with apologies to Eliza Doolittle and Company, who knew it would be the heat what done in our internet service?  “We just don’t expect heat like that here on the coast,” Mark said, “so we don’t have air conditioners in the kiosks.”  Understandable.

Little Brown Bats — Heat Sensitive

I was pleased to see that Marta — who is here visiting from the SF Bay Area — was incensed that the problem can’t be solved.  “But why not?” she insisted.  “If you were in a city area, it would have been fixed long ago.” I tried to explain that that’s the point exactly.  “We are rural-to-the-max and there’s no way we’ll ever have enough population (read: money) to warrant correcting this issue.”
“But that’s so unfair,” she said.  “Welcome to our world, said I.  “You’ve got PG&E where you live; we have CenturyLink…”

I don’t know exactly what magic Mark performed, but within a trice I was able to turn in the last of my Vespers article for day-after-tomorrow’s paper.  I hope it wasn’t too late…