Living in the Dark Ages

For the past 3 weeks, I have been without Internet at home. How did I end up without any Internet? Let's just say there was a gross miscommunication with the phone company. I asked them to change our phone services. Somehow, they interpreted that to mean cancel our DSL service. Gotta love AT&T… yeah right.

This was absolute torture. I could only check my personal email once a day while I was at work. I couldn’t blog or read blogs. My google reader was taunting me we 1000+ unread entries. I couldn’t shop for things I don’t need. I couldn’t satiate my need for instant information or communication. This was hellish to say the least.

This experience has taught me something about myself. I am an Internet addict. I am certain I am an addict because I became an Internet scavenger. If there were even the smallest wireless Internet signal, I would desperately try to surf the net with my ipod touch. Does my livelihood rely on having immediate Internet access? Nope. My personal entertainment does, but not my job.

In my stint in the digital Dark Ages, I made some surprising discoveries. You would be surprised at some of the places where you have free Internet access. One such place is the grocery store. The Vons by my house and the Pavilions by my office have free Internet. I took full advantage of this. I used the “grocery store method” so much that I don’t want to contemplate how much I spent on groceries in the last three weeks. Another fun discovery is that our local Target shopping plaza had free Wi-fi. I also don’t wish to total up my Target receipts to see how much I’ve spent. Although Starbucks touts that they have Wi-fi, it most certainly is not free, nor is it worth the headache of setting up a T-mobile HotSpot account.

My favorite source of free Internet was my local public library. The library was awesome because sadly it’s never that busy. This was perfect for me to get caught on some freelance design work. As much as I loved the library, nothing beats surfing the net in your PJs while simultaneously watching TV. Believe me when I say, I am oh-so-thankful that everything is back to "normal".