Yeah, I Know What I Said

I didn't mean to not post, but life in the form of the patent bar exam got in the way as I began studying full blast for it almost right after my last post. For all that work, I didn't pass it, but the results weren't so bad as to be disheartening; a few more correct guesses and I'd have passed. It is disappointing, and I hate having to spend the money to register again, but I know now more what to expect, so I'm sure I'll pass next time. The next time I hope that my new brain doctor will actually be able to help me work better when I'm on the medicine. I don't care who you are, I just don't think anyone is going to pass a test that consists of 100 questions over six hours and it takes an hour and a half to answer the first six questions.

The other problem we've been having is that our wireless network that has become incredibly unstable over the last month or so. As long as we’ve had the network (“home”), there's been a competing network (“Olivetti”) that our wireless devices saw, but it was more a thing of interest, not a nuisance. At the start, the cable modem and wireless router has been in the basement and we had coverage throughout the house and into the backyard; within the last month, though, something has happened. You have to be almost directly above the router for a stable signal. If you take your computer into the back of the house, well, you can forget being able to do anything. If a wireless network is even detected, all too often the computer sees Olivetti only. If home is detected and an IP address it assigned (neither assured these days), the speed of the connection can jump all over the place and/or the computer will start looking for an IP address again and/or the connection will break.

I’ve put a lot of time and money into trying to correct this problem, but nothing has worked. Last week, support finally agreed that moving the cable modem might be the best bet, but when the cable guy came out the bastard wouldn’t move it. In fairness, it worked relatively fine again for a few days, which I used to actually look for work, but come Thanksgiving, the problem returned. The cable guy comes back on Wednesday and this time he either finds the problem or he moves the modem.

Updates as my connection permits.