Don't move anything...

So the other day Jen calls and says the wireless is down. She has verizon do a test and they tell us that our modem is crap. I get home and do a few things and sure enough it won't stay connected to the line. In Jen's conversation with Verizon they tell us that they can replace our modem/wireless router for $70. That seems a little steep, so I decide to to a little looking around. Come to find out the $70 deal is actually not too bad for a modem/router. But in my looking I am finding quite a few of the exact model on ebay. They aren't new, but they are a lot cheaper than $70. I haven't bid on ebay in years so I was surprized that I remembered my login and password for that and paypal. I find one that is supposedly almost new so I put in a maximum bid of $30. They have some others for $24 "buy it now" so I figure $30 would be good enough to get it. OF course I have to do my bidding at work (secretly) since we don't have dsl at home. The auction ends at night so I decide to try and take a look at it, just in case I do get outbid. I still have my netzero account that I can dial into at home for just such an emergency. I am trying and trying to sign on and it won't let me. This is where I find out that John Q has disabled my laptop modem because it was interfering with the dsl. Crap. I could have tried the tower upstairs, but wasn't that concerned. I get into work the next day and I was outbid. I bid for another one and keep to around $30 for the modem. Unfortunatly with the second one the shipping isn't free and it costs $9.99. I actually win the auction and I am sure that the actual shipping on this will be far less than $10. Freakin' rip off.

So I am sitting here waiting for my modem to arrive and I come home to pandelerium a couple of days ago. The phones are out, the TV doesn't have any volume, the kids are hungry and whining (found out later that William has fluid in his ears), and Jen is at work. The TV problem is nothing new. There is a problem with an internal sensor that doesn't allow you to turn the volume up and will turn off the TV. After some searching on-line I found an answer to the problem that allows me to go into a secret menus and reset the factory settings that solves the problem. I have printed out the instruction for the reset and also bookmarked the page with the instructions, but I don't have internet connection so I have to look for the print out. Jen has filed the printout and tried to tell me where it was, but I can never find anything in her "filing". So I ditch that problem and on the next, fix the phone and feed the kids. I figure the phone thing would be simple. Call the phone company, they send someone out to fix the phone. The is soooo far from what is actually required that it's laughable. First of all you have to call this number and go through menu after menu after menu and just hope that you get to a person. While you are going through the menus you can either dial in the numbers or speak a command which almost never works. They test the line and finds out that the problem isn't in their line. The phone died in the middle of a phone conversation so I am thinking that somehow it's still connected. During one of the numerous menus I can do a self test which requires opening a box on the outside of the house and plugging in a corded phone. I find that I get dial tone so the problem is definitly the phone. I go inside, unplug the cordless phone, wiat for a few minutes, plug it in, and it works. Sigh. So feed the kids and turn my attention back to the TV. The modem for the dsl has been off for a couple of days, and I am thinking that maybe I can get enough of a signal to let me access the website. I turn it on and here it is, 3 days later and it's still working pretty good. I don't know if it just needed a little break to reset itself or if we are just lucky it's working, But hey I have a backup on the way....