Techie Fix and a Friday Fish Tale by Bill Love

We, here at the Lovestead, have returned to the days of old with the Internet.  With luck, today we'll be back up to speed. 

I can remember a few years back when I could get several household projects completed while loading photos to the blog. 

Those were the days when just two or three photos would appear on the blog, if that many.  They took me forever to load, and I knew that most folks following the blog would have to sit and wait for the image to slowly appear if I loaded more than one picture.

Well, for the past two or three weeks, that slow-motion Internet is exactly what we've been encountering here at the Lovestead.

For a while, I thought the problem was due to weather changes because it seemed to be worse when we'd have rain after several days of no precipitation.

That assumption still bothered me because rain in the past had seldom affected our Internet speed. 

Anyway, after a long stretch of erratic feed and speed, I finally decided to call the company that provides our Internet.

We've been with Hughes Net for about three years, and we did experience a rocky beginning with Hughes Net Gen4, but eventually, things smoothed out.  

And, when we're putzing along on our Internet with no problems, we're happy.  

When the erratic feed and speed started, I held off calling the company because of horrible memories right after we signed up of the loooooonng wait on the line for talking to a live body.

Well, I must say that situation has smoothed out too.  This time the menu was simple and the two different live bodies talked to me from the other end within the first couple of minutes. 

Both individually examined our personal statistics and told me that we "have an issue." The second individual was nice enough to tell me that it had to do with the satellite dish alignment.

"I'll try to fix it from here," he said.  

When he could not fix it at his end, he told me to expect a tech at the house on Thursday between 8-noon.  

"He'll call 15 minutes before he arrives," the person in India or wherever told me.

That sounded great because I'm almost always around in the morning.  Well, the techie had to change that appointment to this morning, and he promised Bill in a phone call that he'll be here between 8-9 a.m.

With Hughes Net service operating much more efficiently from what we first encountered, I'm quite thrilled and hopeful that Internet life here will return to its usual normal bliss.

We are concerned, however.  Almost within minutes of each other, we both wondered if our leaf trees, which have grown over the years and have recently leafed out might be the culprit causing the "alignment" problem. 

We're not going suggest our theory to the tech.  Instead, we have a pact to cross our fingers and hope like heck that the technician can get things back to normal without any logging projects in the south lawn.  

Stay tuned.  With our track record, it could get complicated.  

As for Annie's excellent adventure, it turned a little sour yesterday when they left Rome for Amsterdam.  She noted a late flight, closed car rental office and a lost hotel reservation.  

She and her friends ended up in a hotel where Annie switched rooms with her Naren and Smita because of a door in her first room leading to somewhere that felt haunted.  She and her colleagues/friends have now driven to Germany.

The day is going better, she texted, but "someone hit our rental car, so we have to go to the police station later."  

Let's hope the geocaching activities in Xanten make up for the little headaches!

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As promised by the headline, you can read a fisherman's tale by none other than Bill Love. It's called "Crick Fishing," and it can be found in the online version of Sandpoint Magazine's summer edition.  

Besides Bill's story, which involves a member of the Lovestead Border Collie Nation who's a trout scout, the magazine is packed with lots of other fish stories and a whole lot of features about people and happenings in the area. 

So, with no further adieu, here ya go http://issuu.com/keokee/docs/issuu_sms15?e=1515675/12869194

Happy Friday and Happy Summer to students and staff in our local schools who are putting in their last day for another school year!