Losing An Internet Connection Has Real Impact.

Our internet connection went down this past Wednesday night just before dinner time and it didn’t come back until the middle of the afternoon on Thursday. Well, sort of back. About half of the time it’s OK, but painfully slow; the rest of the time, nada. The cable company is going to send a technician out … on Tuesday!
 
A dozen times during these past few days, I’ve instinctively lurched toward the computer to undertake some quick, routine task, only to remember moments later that we had a very spotty internet connection. For the first 36 hours, I couldn’t email the NARP headquarters in Washington. I couldn’t check to see if the David Price deal has been officially announced by the Red Sox. I couldn’t choose my seat on the British Airways flight I’m taking to London next August. It’s hard to imagine a technical advancement that has had a greater impact on our daily lives than the internet.
 
Except, maybe, the train.
 
Think of it this way: Until a train rolled off down the track with people on board, no human being had ever traveled faster than a horse could run. Now that was impact.
 
And because of the the train, the travel time from New York to San Francisco was suddenly cut from three months to one week … and it put the Pony Express out of business. That had some serious impact, too.
 
I know … this is all barely relevant, but as I type this, my internet connection is not functioning. I’ll post this when and if it every comes back. Or not.
 
In fact, my wife has just observed that—like the internet—I, too, appear to be not functioning and, she says, this is a perfect opportunity to mow the lawn and make a run to the recycling center.
 
Irrefutable logic. And she has plenty of impact, too.