No - we have not fallen off the face of the earth...

...although we do sort of feel like we have.

It's just amazing to me how dependent we are on technology these days, especially in terms of communication.

We are having a bit of a problem getting Internet set up at our new house - which, by the way, is very cute and will be filled to the gills with our stuff in about 2 hours. But, as usual, I digress....

After having left the South American continent and landed on the North American continent in the great state of Texas, we spent a few weeks traveling to show off the grandkids to the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins who had not laid their eyes on the precious dears in two years. That was fun.

We landed officially in College Station on Saturday, August 30 and began making the necessary arrangements to "get connected" that Monday. We had been with Verizon before we left for Peru, so I called and got us set up with them again. On Sept. 1, they were able to squeeze us in for a Sept. 11 install. Wow. I thought that was a long time to wait, but there were 40,000 college students moving back to town, so, we went with it.

Until the next day...

That's when I received a phone call from "the voice" saying that she was very sorry, but our install date had been pushed back to Sept. 24 - two weeks after the original, which was 10 days from when I called. (For those of you who know, I did start quoting Brian Regan at this point -"Can you see the switch? Can I come flip it??")

So, I called Verizon and of course no one knew why it was pushed back, but no one could do anything about it, so I canceled my order and went in search of someone local to hook us up.

I found a company who we had used waaaay back in the day -local - I had to go up to their office to fill out the paper work and then they would call in a few days with an install date. I was assured it would not be more than a week to get it installed. This was last Thursday.

Perfect. Great. We'll be connected soon enough. That is until their service truck was stolen later that day.

So, unknowledgeable about the loss of their vehicle, I called on Monday morning to see if they had processed the paperwork and had an install date for us. (Just flip the switch...please.)

Guy: "Well, mam', our service truck was stolen last Thursday, so we are having to buy a new truck and it's put us back a couple of days."
Me: "So do you think we can get hooked up this week?"

As soon as it came out of my mouth I was ashamed of myself - "Gee, I'm really sorry your truck with all of your expensive equipment got stolen, but we really need Internet out here pronto." Did I really get that shallow on the flight between the continents??? Uggghhh.

So anyway, I didn't bother them again until today when I called again to see where they were in their truck purchasing project and while expressing great sympathy over their difficult situation, looking for any info I could get on even a potential install date.

Guy:"Well, mam', we haven't found a truck yet."

So I hung up and began calling every Internet company in the phone book, including Verizon, again, which gave us an even later install date and finally ended up with Earthlink.

So, I called the local company back to cancel our order - having already committed to Earthlink.

Guy:"Um, may I ask why you are cancelling?"
Me: "Well, I know y'all have had your truck stolen and I am really sorry about that, but we really need to try to get something going and since you still don't have a truck..."
Guy: "We just got a truck and we are starting to do the installs again today."

Of course. Well, I hope Earthlink is good.

So that's our internet saga. Who says life in the states is boring? :)

We will still not be connected until sometime in October - I'm serious, but until then, we will be frequenting the local public library and Starbucks.

In the meantime, as I mentioned, our container arrives today and in about a week and a half, we head up to Calgary for a visit. So don't look for anything more until we get back, at which time I have scheduled for life to officially begin on this side of the world. Or something like it.

Better run - time is ticking away on the library computer...hasta luego.