Chamblee54

PG came in, turned on the computer, and saw that the internet was down. This was not unusual, because the router liked attention, and every few days needed to be booted. The problem came when the modem refused to turn on. New cables, reset, turn off for ten minutes, reset, pull a few hairs out, reset… nothing seemed to work. After four years, and one year in tandem with a cranky router, maybe it was time for a change.
The computer store does not sell modems. Considering that they were the ones who sold the router, this was not the tragedy it might seem. The man who answered the phone said he got a good modem at walmart.(spell check suggestion:wallchart)
The first store PG went to is a garish facility by the old GM plant. It has the same initials as a bovine product that is synonymous with lies. PG found a display of routers, and a router-modem combination with the Cisco name. The sales man took PG over to the comcast display, and talked to the man there. Yes, comcast can sell you a modem, but you will have to switch over to comcast service. “It’s faster” the man said. PG tried to remember the last nice thing he had heard about comcast, as he walked out.
The second store was in a strip mall, and had the same initials as basketball. A tall man with dreadlocks showed PG a modem. It looked good, until PG looked closer, and saw that it said cable modem. PG has a phone line dsl.
On the way, there was a retail store maintained by the ISP that is used by PG. The company has the same name as a character on the Addams Family. You go in, and talk to a lady at a desk, You give her a name, and wait for a salesman to come out and help you. As it turned out, this man had a little box that would provide both modem and router functions. Better yet, he had one is stock. PG was one step closer to solving the problem.
No computer issue is complete without talking to an english challenged tech rep on the phone. He said m as in mother, and about the twelth time PG understood him. It was something about a security question, and the answer was a total mystery. The good news, after a few minutes of plugging passwords into perfect ports, the new box was working. It even helped get this post up. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.