ISPs and oceans: different shades of blue

Last night was, actually, pretty hairy in the "connect-to-my-ISP" department. After a couple of unsuccessful tries connecting via their 800 number, I set the connection to display a terminal window during login. The problem appears to be that I was not vetted for logging in via the 800 number. At least not any more; we'd gone through this drill a couple of years ago, when I was in Colorado.

At any rate, I called just about every Netcom number stored on my PalmPilot. There are a lot of them. And a lot of menus to wade through.

Can someone please explain why anyone would go to the bother of announcing, "For quality control purposes and for the ongoing training of our staff, your called may be monitored," when none of the listed options seem to lead to human contact?

And why is it that some menus seem to be a collection of choices that sound like, "If it's Tuesday, and you're in a state whose name ends in a vowel, press 6"? And while I'm on a tear, here, I have to admit to being less than enthralled by mini-commercials embedded in menu choices, as in, "To inquire about FooBar, our award winning service that provides Internet users with high-speed, reliable foobat and optional multisegmented foobaz, please press 7."

So when I do finally get to the area that will tell me what the closest dial-in number is, guess what? I get, "We're sorry, that capability is not available now. Try calling again later." As if trying to get a dial-in number is some sort of whimsical exploit, the importance of which lies way below anyone's radar.

At any rate, I finally did get through to a human voice, and I got a number, and all is well with the world. It cost me, though, in nervous energy.

After a night's rest, I woke early, pulled on my swim trunks, and went hunting for the ocean that's reputed to be around here. It is a scant couple of hundred yards away, in that direction. Some of the Russians were already about, showing either that they did not partake in the traditional first-night libation, or that a couple of them have not been to sleep yet. Just kidding.

So I went for a dip in the Atlantic, thinking how ironic it is to live 25 miles from the Gulf of Mexico back home and not visit the beach once this summer, only to fly about a thousand miles and go swimming there. Ah, well, it's not worth worrying about. The water was warm and pleasant. Salty. The waves were just big enough to assure me that the planet was still spinning, and the shallows went out pretty far. Afterward, I spent time in the hotel pool, staying in the water until my fingertips started to look like very pale prunes. As I returned to the room, I noticed the ground is littered with probably hundreds of chameleons who head for the underbrush as soon as giants such as myself approach.

At any rate, as the accommodations at the Royal Mansions includes a kitchen, today I suppose I'll be helping the Russians get properly stocked with food for the coming week. Gotta go get showered and dressed.

Cheers...

Champ prize, or prize chump?

On the way to the airport yesterday, Lee and I stopped at an ATM and I picked up a drink from a vending machine. Something called Powerade, manufactured by Coca-Cola. The variety I picked was Fruit Punch, of a sort of a fire-engine red color that’s more a testament to a the skill of someone who knows way too much chemistry than to any hue Nature ever placed on any edible fruit on this planet

Anyway, about halfway through the drink - and halfway to the airport - I notice that this is one of those "look behind the label" promotional editions of soft drink. I peel the label and am momentarily nonplused with the words "FIRST PRIZE" followed by a long number, apparently to be used for redemption.

This is intriguing. First prize? Moi?

Then I start to read the weasel words on the label. I am invited to visit www.powerade.com and check out what I've won. The back of the label warns me that I can only use the redemption number once, which makes sense. I am also warned that I may visit the site no more often than five times in any 24-hour period. Wow, I think, a site that actually discourages visits! At the very bottom of the ukase stands the restriction, "Limit 1 Grand Prize & total 10 First Prizes per e-mail address/household.

Nuts. This is starting to look bad. They're placing a limit on "Grand Prizes" to one per household? So, how many, exactly, "Grand Prizes" are there; and how many "First Prizes" might there be? I begin to think that the momentary spurt of adrenaline I felt when I read the words "First Prize" was bogus, that the meaning of the phrase was being deliberately diluted by a bunch of marketing pukes whose idea was to furnish copious quantities of "First Prizes" to the thirsty multitudes. I am thinking I got more of a "gambler’s rush" back a long time ago when a friend and I searched an old, abandoned house on a mutual friend’s property in New Jersey and found three old silver dollars and a couple of dimes in a desk in the attic.

For some reason, I was also reminded of various and sundry offers my wife and I received, back ages ago when we lived up north in Jacksonville, to come down to this area of Florida to claim one of several alluring prizes. The only condition, mind you, was that we'd have to come - both of us, it was made clear - to listen to a time-share pitch. Invariably, among the large cash prizes, televisions, cars, and other prizes whose values are hard to fake, there would be prizes such as: a free vacation to Acapulco (to listen to yet another time-share pitch) or a "genuine" diamond pendant (a stone that would look small on a flea’s leg, mounted on genuine, um, metal). I remember one outfit even offering a real home computer as a "possible" prize if we'd only come down and listen to their pitch (some of you may remember this cute toy; it was the Sinclair 1000, which died commercially after dropping in price to about $10, suggested retail).

Anyway, this morning, I try to hit the Powerade site, only to find that the browser on this jalopy of a computer just can't handle all the bells and whistles the site designers embedded into the page. It’s no use, so I've stopped trying, and I'll be dipped if I'll waste a long distance call, as the back of the label suggests, to find out more. (I'm still feeling rotten about my Netcom experience of last night.) I'll try again when I get home. If the prize is, in truth, something cool, great. I suspect, however, that the game of collecting the prize will not be worth the candle burned to play it.

Cheers...

On-call relaxation, and other matters...

Today, I was on call, so there was no place I had to be, much, except close to my pager and my cell phone. :^)

So I decided to throw caution to the wind and do pretty much nothing all day, to the extent that my on-call status would allow. What a treat.

I hadn't realized how hard it is to do, well, nothing. I've so gotten used to the rush-rush-rush of daily life, of having a million and one things going on, of being surrounded by brush fires of varying size and intensity, that I found it supremely difficult to just sit in my room, or sit by the pool, or sit on the beach, and do nothing. As punishment, I forced myself to go swimming in the Atlantic today. Twice.

Actually, I figure given another couple of days to get the technique down pat, and I'll be able to do it without any twinge of conscience at all. Then again, everything is slated to back to "normal" tomorrow morning, when I get up at oh-dark-thirty to drive some folks to a meeting where the status of some experimental equipment for the ISS will be finalized.

I just got back from a little welcoming get-together for a new colleague. There were several Russians in attendance and we all helped to inflict severe damage on some hot dogs, a block of cheese, some tomatoes, onions, and some liquid to wash it all down with. It was a pleasant event, complete with the requisite telling of jokes (most of them in Russian, though I'd first heard some of these tales in English, too) and, of course, the mandatory proposal of several toasts (an art in which the Russian side clearly outstrips their American counterparts).

It is at moments such as this that I detach myself from my surroundings and have visions of the peoples of this planet working together, not in a way that presupposes lions lying down with lambs, but in a way that requires the investment of knowledge, experience, treasure, and blood into something bigger than any of our own petty, parochial interests alone.

It may be that my vision is nonsensical, stupid, unrealistic, unattainable, maybe even ill-considered. It may be that I am "thinking under the influence," right now. Lord knows that it represents nothing other than my own personal, private view. Yet when I see specialists and experts from different nations sit down and apply their brain power to the solution of difficult technical problems, I feel there is hope yet for our species.

Ad astra!

Cheers...