The Trials and Tribulations of Internet Access

 Ah, this rural life. For almost five years, we had no internet connection out here.

The tower-and-receiver-based service we were using when we first moved in became extremely unreliable, as the racist, sexist, bigoted, ignorant old hillbilly who provided it decided that an Xbox, UNPLUGGED FROM THE WALL, was somehow using too much bandwidth. He was able to remotely view exactly what we were looking at (and did it often; and told us what perverted things our neighbors were looking at, so I know this is something he spent a great deal of time doing), but was convinced we were circumventing his system, somehow. We were not. And we made sure to look up as much of the most disturbing porn we could just to piss him off before he disconnected us. Good riddance. He kept trying to sell us broken equipment anyway, and claimed we were somehow allowing it to get damaged within an hour of him installing it. Nope. Come get your crap, we're done here.

He never did come to get it, and we've left it on the roof, as our house is very tall, and on a high hill. Each time he comes to the neighborhood for another customer, I hope it fills his heart with joy to see the extra-large tripod he convinced us to install at the very end of our relationship, but we refused to pay for until it gave us results. It never did. But it's still there if he wants it. Along with the last receiver he said was "new." It's probably weathered a bit in five years, but with no visible damage to the roof, so it stays a bit longer.

Thus, five years without internet at home, and only checking in about once a month at libraries.

 Well, that is one thing that has changed. Satellite technology finally caught up to the fact that not everyone lives in an area with DSL lines, so NOW services are offered that work completely off the satellite receiver (as opposed to receiving through satellite, and sending through DSL. Now the signal goes both ways). SO rural customers can now get an internet connection without either relying on cell service (which is also bad in most rural locations!) or investing in military-grade equipment. Hurrah!

After being almost 100% offline for five years, Google decided to lock my account two years ago. I tried everything to get back in. Changed passwords. Contacted them with many different "trouble shooting" forms. Nothing helped. Everything lead back to an infinite loop. Until this week. I was in a waiting room with a sick kid for two hours (another joy of rural life: the walk-in clinic), and out of desperation, decided to create a Google Play account on my phone. What's this??? My Google account is magically accessible again!?  Well go figure! All it took was access to massive amounts of private real-time information and the potential to bill me for in-game purchases. You corporate pig sons of bitches.

So. Again, I blog.