Thursday, January 17, 2008

Ruckus

Things have been bad in the Pietz/Jorgensen household as of late. It all started last month when we signed up for the City of Minneapolis Wi-Fi service. The modem, called a Ruckus, arrived December 14th. It was then I realized that this wasn't wireless. The Mac still had to be plugged into the modem. So this was not appealing-I want to be able to wander from room to room with my Mac.

We couldn't get a good signal, and I still wanted this to be truly wireless. So I went out and bought a router. Still no good because the signal was bad, and dealing with the support at Belkin was not a happy experience (think calling India). The easy startup cd was a nightmare. So I packed up everything and decided I couldn't deal with these problems until after our vacation and the whole holiday whirl was over.

Deceided to try again last Friday. I never should have started this after work and before Men's Knit Night at the Yarnery. I got so involved I didn't get out of the house for Knit Night, and I heard it was a really fun time. Sorry Scott and Eric.

Called USI Wireless on Friday night and they said they would send out a super-duper modem. It is basically the same Ruckus, only with an antenna attached to the modem. The new Ruckus arrived yesterday, so I set it up. Same thing. Bad signal. What to do. Called USI Wireless this morning and explained that the new Ruckus didn't help matters. They called back with 2 options: 1. For another $50 they would come out and put an antenna on our house. 2. We could cancel the service and get a full refund.

Guess which option I chose. I must say they were very nice about the whole thing. Didn't have to threaten calling our city council person or other friends in high places. So, back go the 2 Ruckus modems. We'll stay with Comcast for now. And I'll go out and buy an Airport to have the truly wireless experience in our house. This has taught me to not jump on the next new thing until the next new thing is about 2 years old.

We go to another Packer playoff extravaganza on Sunday. (I guess I need to say why I'm a Packer fan-I grew up in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, 30 miles from Green Bay and my aunt and uncle and cousins lived about 3 blocks from Lambeau Field). This time our friends Terry and Susan are going to be making Northeastern Wisconsin chili along with the brats from Maplewood Meats in Green Bay. This basically means elbow macaroni in the chili. A co-worker strolled by my desk today said "I guess you'll be pulling for the Packers this weekend" and then started to throw stats at me-finally coming to the point that the Packers could be the only team able to beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. My eyes glazed over and I just agreed with everything he said. Luckily my phone rang, and I said "oops, gotta take this." Saved by the bell.

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