Forced absence...

The wifi went out in my area, on the 8th, and when it was restored apparently it messed up a couple of wires that connected my power source to the main outlet. Not just in my apartment but 4 or 5 others. So I didn't have internet service except on my phone until today.

I could use my phone's hotspot for a little while but it racked up the usage so I had to minimize it. It's funny, but I hadn't really understood how dependent I am on the internet till I didn't have access to it unless I went to a place that offered it, for free.

That meant McDonald's. I think I'm Big Mac'd out. But that meant research was out of the question. Fortunately, I still have a physical copy of a dictionary, so word spelling and definition weren't hurt.

The whole escapade of getting the repairs done is worthy of a Russian novel; man caught in his fate. Once the main service was restored and I found I still didn't have access, I contacted Verizon and went through their phone prompts and did a lot of back and forth with a techie before they agreed to have someone come out on Saturday to look into it. Supposed to be here between 12:30 and 2:30. Showed up at 5pm. And he's the one who noticed the problem with the wires. But he had to get into a locked room to handle it and the maintenance people aren't here on weekends. So he set up a new appointment for Monday.

That got changed to Tuesday, 8am-noon.

At 11am Tuesday it got changed to 10 am today. They showed up at 10:30. Took 'em 15 minutes to fix it. I've called Verizon and asked for a partial credit on what I paid for the month. They say they will once the ticket's been closed. Apparently there were still 2 more apartments to deal with.

So I've been catching up all day. I didn't have access to my printer without wifi, so that's nice to have back. At least I made myself spend the last 8 days working on Blood Angel's 2nd part...which has broken into 3 sections, each of which will be published separately. Section One/The Prussian is done and is 22,000+ words; I just need to do a proofing of it and complete the ebook setup for it to be ready. Oh, and I have to work up the avatar for it. That's going to be a pain. The image I wanted to use works better for Section Two, so I have to reimagine it.

I'll try and get all this done, tomorrow, since I'm doing the doctor on Friday and may be prepping for a trip to Lincoln, Nebraska for the end of the month. I've never been to Nebraska; should be interesting.