Internet unavailable...shock horror!!

I haven't been around lately since our main computer decided to 'disconnect itself?' from the modem. My brother who has computer tech quals just happened to drop around the day it happened. He checked everything out (he knows about 'Bios' and systems and stuff like that. He checked everything out twice and concluded that the computer itself was fine so it was possibly the wireless adapter. He left us, muttering things about 'back-ups' and reinstalling Windows if buying a new adapter didn't work. To me...scary stuff lol!

DH didn't get the nickname 'Scrooge Mc Goodwin' without a reason. I don't think he believed that such an item could wear out so quickly. He organised to borrow an adapter from his DD2's partner to test whether that was the problem. However that couple were away for the weekend and this all happened on the Friday. When we did get the item on Sunday night courtesy of DH's DD3 (who had done the family taxi run to the airport to pick up the holidaying couple), we found that it wasn't an adapter but the USB for internet access to some carrier or other. We didn't need that as we have a D-link box in the family room and we just needed the little 'doover thing' which picks up the wireless signal from the  bedroom we use as an office.

Any way DH bought a new adapter on Monday...brought it home, connected its cable to the computer and voila! we were again on the internet. I know that I love being able to access the net, but I just didn't realise how much I use it until it wasn't available. I'm always 'looking things up for information', I use Google maps and Sensis to find places, white pages for phone numbers, historical indexes for family history information, I use FBook and Blogger, I look up Timezones, I use translators and currency converters, I buy things or check things out/compare  online before I buy in shops . I use online dictionaries, we book theatre tickets, airline tickets and accomodation online, I place holds on library books and extend loans, I send emails, pay bills and transfer money via the internet. I used to access online resources for teaching especially for using the IWB. In my working life in recent years, report cards were also completed online. Just as I was leaving the job, staff were training to put all their planning documents and assessment tasks online as well.

In my crafts, I get free patterns online or detailed instructions and tutorials. When I couldn't remember how to put the walking foot on my sewing machine, I found a video on the net and then I remembered all the steps. DH and I use Skype too. I reckon I've not mentioned all the ways that I use the internet...I still know people who proudly claim that yes, they do have a computer at home, but they haven't bothered to connect to the internet. So what do they do? Play games, create documents and spreadsheets perhaps?

I must admit I did get more knitting done on the weekend and much more reading (books and magazines) than usual...without the distraction of going online. I'll finish this post with some photos taken last week in the veggie patch. I'm also still harvesting bed #1 of potatoes and keeping a tally; so far I've dug up 3.675kg with still 4 plants to harvest. My brother made the comment that potatoes are incredibly cheap at the moment, averaging $2-$3 per kg but I know that mine have been grown without chemicals and that they are freshly dug not stored somewhere for months as the supermarkets are accused of doing. I noticed that he was happy to accept a paper bag filled with freshly dug up potatoes last time he was over! lol I read on the Brisbane Organic Gardeners site the recommendation that here we should plant potatoes starting in May, so that's something else for my 2012 calendar as well as divide hippeastrums in Autumn...I didn't know that before!

By this week, the plants were covered with little peapods

A volunteer tomato plant

We've had a few meals from the silverbeet so far

hmmm who didn't thin the carrots out properly? I'll know better next time.