Tech Glitches, Boondoggles and Resets. How a surprise problem led to a rejuvenating weekend.

For reasons that are hard to explain, our internet router is underneath our house in a cold and dusty crawlspace. It’s actually at the entire other end of the crawlspace from where you enter.

And this month, I got the pleasure of crawling across that dusty, dirty space 4 times.

We live way out there. It’s quiet. And the price of quiet is limited connectivity. We have a satellite system that provides us internet service. It also provides us our TV services. And because there is maybe 1 bar of cell service, we depend on the satellite internet for wifi calls and data, too.

So, when the satellite provider dropped service well, we couldn’t actually Google search to learn that there was a global outage because we had no internet and basically no cell service.

We did what any respectable folks with careers in IT do, we decided to reset the router. My husband made the first crawl. He went under the house to reset the router and observed no lights and decided that it was kaput.  He unplugged the device and proceeded to drive a few miles away to find cell service and call the provider. They weren’t answering. Cause they were in the middle of solving a global outage crisis. But we didn’t know that yet.

We went the rest of the day and night without internet. If you stood in just the right spot and hopped on one foot and held your phone in the air, you could get 3 bars and a very slow download. Not worth it.

We decided to drive into town and get a real signal. That’s how we learned there was an outage and that service had been restored. So, we went back home. I crawled under the house and reconnected the router. Still no lights. My husband said, bring it back out.

We spent another day and night without internet. The weekend loomed. What on earth would we do all day? We’d already read books and taken walks and worked on anything that didn’t require connectivity.

Road Trip!

We headed nearly 4 hours south to Santa Fe.

On the trip down I said, “Hey do you want to turn left at Chama and see the town? We are always in a hurry and we’ve never gone that way before.”

Why not. We saw the town and watched a family hurriedly park and run to catch the historic train before it departed. That one decision seemed to set off a series of short exploratory detours that made up a day long boondoggle. We experienced art and nature at its brightest. Creativity and inspiration abounded.

It was Spanish Market weekend. We got rockstar parking in the shade. We meandered the market with tons of other people. We stopped in my favorite gallery and I ogled all the incredibly creative art.

We left the hustle and bustle in favor of a 3^rd floor dive, Desert Dog, with good drinks, AC, and the best freaking al pastor tacos. The bar tender told us the tortillas were locally made from Alicia’s Tortilleria, so naturally we decided to go find her store and buy some to take home. So  delicious.

The cold drinks & the arty murals all around helped us get thoughtful and creative. Could we buy a new router in this town? Best Buy says they sell the same satellite service.  Let’s go talk to them.

We popped into the Best Buy on Zafarano Drive and an upbeat and friendly young associate named Jorge saved our bacon.

Jorge is a leader. I saw this in him immediately.  Not because of a title or rank in the store. Because of how he chooses to engage.

See Jorge took the time to ask us questions about the model satellite and router we have.

“Oh ya, I have that one, too. It’s older. We don’t sell it anymore.”

He explained that the new system has a router that isn’t compatible with our antenna. He couldn’t sell us a new router today.  But!

While he chatted and questioned and answered our inquiries and told us about the differences in the models, he uncovered two key pieces of information.

My husband had not tried to use the app to restart the router.

And Jorge didn't think the router was broken. 

He said, “Oh, the old model router doesn’t light up ever. It’s not broken. You just need to reset it in the app.”

!!! 

My husband assumed that no lights meant it was broken. He’s nerdy enough to have tested the electrical cord to ensure it was able to receive power. So then 1+1 and he thought the router was dead. Seemed reasonable.  We even googled it when we had driven to town. A lot of people said the router lights up. But that appears to be them talking about a newer model.

Cause Jorge knew what he was talking about.

Since we were already on a boondoggle, we thanked and left him and explored a bit more of the New Mexico countryside, including my request to drive through Galisteo so that I could sing out loud in my very best Queen imitation “Galisteo, Galisteo, Galisteo Figaro!”

We saw a dude who played guitar from a bus while broadcasting on Radio Free Galisteo. That signal broke up less than 5 minutes out of town, which is a shame 'cause he was good.

We surveilled the nearby MEA campus.

We ate a meal at an ancient trading post in a teeny little town called Lamy with a functioning Amtrak station. Who knew.

And then we hopped on the road so we could drive 4 hours home and I could crawl back under the house late at night and plug in the router. Following Jorge's advice, my husband checked the app and voila. Like magic we had service again.

Dang. Thank you, Jorge!  You didn’t make a sale but that didn’t stop you from being friendly, helpful, listening and sharing your knowledge. We got better service from you than the 5 attempts to contact the satellite provider.

And, it turned out to be one of the most fun weekends we’ve had in a while.