It has been a long week trying to get my DSL Service back up and stable. If anyone has tried to check you may or may not have been able to bring up this site. This was due to my Internet connection being flakey since early last week. Keeping connected for more then 10 minutes at a time was a real bonus.
When I first realized I had a problem I did all the normal things which were to check everything here to make sure the problem wasn’t something I could easily fix. Then I called Earthlink. As with many customer service departments in this world you can’t be sure which country your getting when you call. Judging by the accent of all the phone technicians I talked to I am guessing Earthlink uses India. Some of these folks knew what they were doing and some not but one thing is for sure, they all have a script they must follow. This makes you wonder if they log what has been done for each trouble call.  The last fellow I got on the phone, which was the 4th I believe, was the best. He and I discussed what had already been tried and then he proceded to try new things. After about an hour on the phone he came to the conclusion that the problem had to be which SBC who provides my phone lines. I tried to tell him this at the beginning of the call but he insisted that he had to go through all checks first. I can understand this.

When this last call was wrapping up he said he would put in a trouble ticket to SBC. This was Saturday early afternoon. When I got back home on Sunday afternoon I checked and it seems to be up and staying connected. You can bet that I am over-joyed.  I can now proceed to get more posts written and actually play a game or two online!!

As it appears at this point in time, the move to Eugene, OR is off. Is this for sure? No. It is truly stange how life throws you different changes along your path. My wife has been working in both cities, Reno and Eugene, for about a month now. It seems that the folks in Eugene stated last week that they want someone there full time. This is sooner then she can commit to.

She was offered Eugene but was asked to work both cities until the deal here in Reno went through. That deal now looks like it will happen in June. Therefore she can’t commit full time to Eugene until then. She is leaving again tomorrow to fly back to Eugene and will be there all week so who knows, things will change yet again. That we can count on.
In the mean time late last week she was offered Flagstaff, AZ. She and I talked about this and decided it was something we were interested in. Now on Monday, that deal is also off for the person that was vacating the position there decided not to leave. SO, where are we now? Still in Reno and now it appears that there is no other option open to us. Unless things change in Eugene and the way things have been lately, it could happen.

Update will follow.

Finally got out this last Sunday and took the family skiing. We had been talking about going for a long time and decided to just “do it”. My son David decided that he wanted to bring a couple of friends which worked out well for he and they wanted to learn to snowboard. Signed them all up for the lessons and off they went. Eric was in an all day snowboard lesson and he had a blast. He did darn well for never being on the slopes before. My wife decided not to ski but instead sat at the fire and talked to the other mom’s. She says she enjoyed herself but I know she wanted to go up to the peak with me. I had to resort to riding up on the lifts talking to the cute young California gals. Bummer huh?
Funny how even with the temperatures around 30 degree you can get a sunburn. Down at the lodge, which is about 1/3 the way up, it was sunny and very hard on the eyes with everything white. All of us came home with sunburned faces. We went to the Lake Tahoe ski resort called Northstar Village. Up near the top, 8300+ feet, where I travelled several times, it was windy and snowing. Strange how the weather can change as you climb 3000 feet. I have to say that our experience at Northstar was very enjoyable. The slopes were awesome and there are many places to get off the groomed trails and experience some deep powder. I had forgotten how to ski in powder but I managed to not hit any trees.

I will be posting a few pictures as soon as I get them back. Yes, I forgot the digital camera and had to use a disposable but I will get some posted soon.