This is the 3rd week without internet…. Its really starting to get to me. The whole story makes very, very little sense, but here goes. About a month and a half ago, my brother started complaining about a drop off in bandwidth. I didn’t. But then again, there were often times 3 computers yanking bytes downstream, so with internet traffic conditions as they are, it could have been from all of that. About 5 weeks ago, I noticed a massive slow down. I also started watching pings grow and packets drop. Not good. Then about 3 weeks ago, we got the great internet silence. Poof. Like a light switch, it was killed. Calling the ISP didn’t little good. They forwarded us on to the company they purchase bandwidth from; they in-turn, sent us back to our telephone conglomo. The circle of life at its finest. Since it is DSL, it would ultimately end up in the hands of the telecom that owns the physical lines. Enter, Qwest. Who fought me on the phone, in argumentative ways, to keep from coming out to see what the problem was. So we still don’t have internet here. And at this point, I wonder if it is ever going to get fixed. So the logical question is how am I posting this? Well its on a pirated wifi signal I found in the neighborhood. It works sometimes. So here I am.

While I'm here, what else should I say? Well lately, I'll I've done is work. Seriously. I work all day. I come home. I don’t have the internet to play on. So I put on some music, until I fall asleep. That’s about it. As far as the job. Well, I was recently promoted. They gave me full-time status… so at the very least, I don’t worry about hours any more. It came with a slight bump in pay as well. But no benefits. They are also under the impression of promoting me to another store as a assistant department manager. I'm not sure that’s what I want to do. But, I suppose, a job is a job. They did give me a few options of location. Of them, Chicago-area and Ohio were the push zones. I dunno. Well see. If I do take a promotion out, it has to be for descent money. One place was in Wisconsin. Way the hell up in Eau Claire. I suppose I could do that. Not that I know any one that lives there…. Or even in a 100 miles of there. But I suppose I could do it. Money is the ultimate factor. Let's face it; I don't have any reason to stay here. I'm done with school; my friends have moved on; I'm not married or even close; and I don’t have any kids. Other than my parents being here, and the fact I've pretty much lived my life here to this point, I guess there isn’t any real reasons to stay. In a lot of ways, I envy some of you. I did everything you all did, but ended up a complete opposite. Some of the people that read this, go to college, and end up with great jobs. I have a degree that lets me sell toilet seats. People came into college totally unprepared for a relationship, and leave married. I don’t think I could come up with three names of females that would ever care to see me alive again, that I met in college. Some people walked into college as total shmucks, and walk out of it in good shape for the rest of their life. I went in prepared; in good shape, yet walk out almost in worse shape. People took courses that let them actually learn about things in all honesty I think college courses pushed knowledge out of my head. So maybe it is best that I leave.

I guess if I think about it; maybe I could get some small farm house in the Middle-of-No-Where, Wisconsin. Maybe I could really live out there in anonymity like I always threatened. Just do what it takes to keep me alive. Maybe I could just prove all of you right out there, that always hoped I would drop off the face of the earth. Maybe that’s being hard on myself. I guess, in the back of my mind, I look at the calendar and ask myself; What happened to the year? The year, that I figured things would be different for me. It really isn’t any different. Other than being out of school; its not really much better. I guess I hoped, naively, that I could have done something dramatic. Instead I sold copiers, washed out of that, and now sell toilets. I thought that I might take a while, but could get financially back in the positive, instead I'm about where I was before. I thought I could manage to follow through on a relationship that felt right, and as usual I'm here, and she's there with somebody else. So Wisconsin. Yeah. I haven’t decided yet. At some point I'll have to make a decision… probably sooner than later.