Down for the Count?

Beginning roughly 4-5 days ago, Verizon wireless customers all over the country began complaining on message boards that their wifi connections went down. This seems to be a regular thing, if my research is any indication. Last night our own connection went down a few minutes before midnight and we're not getting any indication it'll come back anytime soon. And all the other connections in our neighborhood are security enabled (WPA, WPE).

So this will be it for a while (Mrs. JP and I are at a local internet cafe but we can't stay here all day), despite the fact there's a lot to write about.

I will say that because I've recently been stalked and wrongfully reported for (gasp!) trying to make friends on Facebook without actually "knowing" them, I was put on a seven day suspension from sending out more friend requests. The problem with that is the clock never started to tick and it's been seven days for the last five days in a row. Appeals to their "customer service" dept. resulted in one roboreply and nothing after that. Many of my FB friends have been complaining this has recently been happening to them and their friends. One friend in Hungary reported his friend was banned for seven days for three straight months and counting.

So last night just a couple of hours before we lost our connection, I set up a new Facebook page and started from scratch (I permanently deleted the old one today while I had the chance). So if you're on FB and you haven't already received an invite from me, please consider going there and befriending me. So far, I've been able to rebuild 45% of or so my original friend list.

Since we're hanging by a thread, we can't justify getting a paying account for internet, not that that's any guarantee of service, if my research into Verizon's chronic problems keeping their customers online are any indication. If you haven't donated in a while or ever and are able to, please also consider making a donation through the Paypal link at the upper right corner. Obviously, we'll have no more email once we go home so any communiques will go unanswered until tomorrow not because of apathy or ingratitude but a sheer inability to respond.

Hopefully, this will prove to be a very temporary glitch and our network will be back online but if not, please be patient. We also cannot afford to spend money on overpriced coffee to justify using the closest unsecured network.

I love and miss you guys already.