Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 05:50
An Undesirable Chew Toy
For the past month or so, we have been experiencing problems with our Internet access. Pages were loading slowly or not at all. It was impossible to open picture attachments. And forget sending pictures.
I don't know how many times Randy called tech support for Centurytel. He was on the telephone with them for hours. And each time they would conclude, "You are just too far away from the hub. This is the best we can do."
Well, that was all well and good -- except the Internet access used to work much better than that. But then all of a sudden, it didn't work.
The problem, it seemed, was becoming increasingly worse too. It was very frustrating.
Saturday morning, Randy had to work. At one point, after I had fed the horses and brushed some of the loose hair off Isabel, I came in the house and started to get some mail ready. Eventually I needed an envelope. I keep the big envelopes by the modem and wireless router. As I leaned over to reach for an envelope, I saw it.
Tooth marks.
Tooth marks on one of the antennas for the wireless router.
I looked up at the clock. It was about 12:20 p.m., and I figured Randy was almost home. He works until noon when he has to work on Saturdays.
A few minutes later, Randy pulled in the driveway. I showed him the toothmarked antenna.
"Could that be the problem with our Internet access?" I asked.
"Sure could," he said.
Randy got out a cable and hooked his computer up directly to the modem and bypassed the wireless.
The Internet was back to its old self, loading pages quickly and opening pictures.
He went back to the wireless. Same thing. Slow pages or no pages and no pictures.
He hooked up the cable again. Poof. Back to the fast Internet access.
Then we tried it with my laptop. Same thing.
"Road trip?" I said.
"But I was just there!" Randy exclaimed.
"I know. I'm sorry. If I had seen it sooner, I would have called you sooner."
The long and short of it is -- Randy went back to town and bought a new wireless router.
All I can say is -- thank goodness I needed an envelope. And thank goodness the router is right by the window. And thank goodness it was a bright, sunny day. Otherwise, it might have been a long time before I noticed those toothmarks.
Now, if only I knew which kitty had chewed the antenna. I'm thinking it might have been Henry because Henry loves to chew on my shoelaces and chew the plastic ends off and he loves to chew on sweatshirt strings. But I don't have any proof. I didn't seen anyone do any chewing on the antenna. We won't have that problem again, though. The new wireless router doesn't have any antennas sticking up to tempt kitties who like to chew.
In the grand scheme of things, slow Internet access wouldn't be so bad, but I have a brand new great nephew born March 2. His name is Trent David. And his aunt, my niece, took pictures and e-mailed them the night he was born. And I didn't get to see those pictures until Saturday. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
Sunday, March 07, 2010, 06:22
Ting, Ting, Ting
One evening this past week, Randy and I decided to go for a walk. It was a lovely evening, and in fact, the days lately have been lovely, too, with highs of 40 degrees and sunshine and lows at night of 10 to 15 degrees. The days are much longer, too, with sunset at about 6 p.m. and twilight until 7 p.m.
It was an evening when I did not have to go to a meeting for the newspaper, so it was the perfect evening for a walk.
As we headed down the road, we heard it yet again -- ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting -- or maybe screech-weech, screech-weech, screech-weech was closer to it, like a squeaky wheel turning on something mechanical. The sound seemed to be coming from a fair distance away.
"What IS that?" I said.
The truth is, I have been hearing that noise off and on over the past few years, especially in the evening during the spring and summer. At first I thought it was a wheel of some kind turning on something quite a few miles away. But then I noticed that the sound would seem to move from place to place.
"Could it be an owl of some kind?" Randy said. He, too, has been hearing the noise but has been unable to place what it might be.
"An owl?" I said. "I shouldn't think it would be an owl. Doesn't sound like any kind of a owl."
The whole time we were out walking, for a mile and a half, we heard the sound, first from a spot to our left, then to the right, then ahead of us and then behind us. We could tell that it was originating from quite a distance, perhaps a half mile or more. And from the time between the calls, only a few seconds, we could tell it was not just one "something" making the noise but more than one thing because a bird or an owl could not possibly fly that fast to get from somewhere a half mile to the north to a half-mile to the south in only a few seconds.
When we arrived back home, I got out the bird book and Randy got on the Internet on his laptop. As I read off descriptions of what kind of an owl it could possibly be by the type of sound it made, Randy checked them out on the Internet. All were a bust, until. . .
"What about a Saw-Whet owl?" I said.
Randy located a Saw-Whet owl webpage and then played the voice recording.
"That's IT!" I said.
"Oh, my goodness," Randy said.
"What?" I said.
"Come and look at these pictures," he said.
"Look at that," I said. "They're so CUTE!"
The Saw-Whet owl is, in fact, a tiny owl of about six to eight inches in height. And they don't have any ear tufts. They are quite simply the most adorable little things.
"Oh, just look at them. But how could something so small make so much noise?" I said.
The bird book said the Saw Whet makes a mechanical sounding call about 100 to 130 times a minute.
"I wish we could see one," I said.
"Me, too," Randy said.
At long last, after several years of hearing that mechanical sounding noise, we know what it is. A Saw-Whet owl. Where we are here is just about at the southern part of their range in this area.
Maybe I will never see one, but at least now I know what that sound really is.
LeAnn R. Ralph