I’m writing this at 10:07 AM, Central Time, at my computer in my office at work, taking a short break from what has been an intense morning of work so far.

Tonight is our biweekly meeting of the BNC Writers. Normally between meetings I send out two e-mails to the group: one at about the midpoint between meetings, just saying high and updating everyone on what’s going on in the writing world, and reminding them of our next meeting; and one the night before reminding them of the specifics of the meeting. Last night when I went to bed, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I realized I hadn’t sent the e-mail. No problem, I thought. I’ll send it first thing in the morning.

But this morning, after my devotional time, after I printed my first-of-the-month forms, I discovered I could not connect to the Internet. Not a big deal, I thought. Our e-mail seemed to be working, so it must just be a modem or router needs resetting. As soon as the IT department gets in they’ll take care of it.

But I still couldn’t connect at 08:30 when I went into a one-on-one training meeting on floodplain modeling with a young engineer. When I was back at my desk after that meeting, at 09:30, it still wasn’t available. An e-mail from our IT guy said it was external. Sprint is having issues, and had not given us an ETF: Estimated Time of Fixing. I saw him about 09:45 and he said it’s a major issue for Sprint. They mentioned problems in Fort Worth TX and maybe even on the west coast. So this is not going to be solved any time soon.

Great. The one day in fifty when it’s imperative I send an outside e-mail first thing in the morning and we don’t have the stinking Internet available. And, I e-mailed a client late on Friday, after he’d left the office, telling him I’d completed a task and asking for instructions on what I should do with some documents on Monday morning. It’s some stuff his lawyers need concerning a lawsuit. Since the Internet is down, only our internal e-mail is working, not our external, and I don’t have his instructions. Guess I’ll have to use the telephone.

When I made my to-do list for today, I figured I’d use some time on the noon hour to begin my research into corporate leader ages, data required for Chapter 4, “Boomer Corporations”, for my book The Candy Store Generation. That research will require the Internet. Will it be available to me? It’s now 10:35, and that little circle on Internet Explorer is just spinning ad nauseum. Still no Internet.

Oh well, I could always walk during the noon hour. I could drive the two miles to the Bentonville Public Library, ignore the librarian who wouldn’t add my book to the shelves and use their computers—calling ahead first, or course, to see if they are on Sprint and thus out of service. I could read some in The Federalist Papers, which will serve both for research and promotion for a couple of books. I could work on the formatting needed for Volume 7 of the letters of John Wesley. I could pull up a study document I downloaded a few months ago concerning the Harmony of the Gospels, and read and/or print a few more pages to supplement what I’ve done with it so far.

But none of those are what I want to do. So I’m an unhappy camper right now. Which is 10:40, and the Internet is still down. If you are reading this, you will know that Internet service finally returned, and I just cut and pasted this into my blog.

P.S. I came home at 8:15 PM after writers group. An e-mail I had sent to the house from the office (with this text) was in my inbox, so I guess Sprint/ATT fixed their problem.