Segmentation Fault: Core dumped..;-)

No dial tone..:-(

Posted : December 13, 2005 at 11:31 am [America/Los_Angeles]

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am indeed living in Silicon Valley. Yup, the Silicon Valley. Why? Cause in a few cases, things are so low tech here, that it makes you scratch your head. Case in point, my recent move.

One would think that the last thing I would have to worry about here in the Bay Area is not having a dial tone after my move. Well, that’s exactly what I am dealing with folks. No dial tone. Nothing. Nada. So, here’s what happened: I called my local phone service provider early last week and asked them to transfer my phone number to the new address. As per their plans, they did their “thing”. And yet, I have no dial tone. Digging a bit deeper into this mess, I realized that when your phone service provider tells you that your phone service is transferred, all they mean is that it is transferred to what they call the Minimum Point of Entry (MPoE), which in my case (since I have moved into a rental community) is somewhere outside on the rental property. So, who owns the last few hundred yards between the MPoE and my apartment? Lord only knows. I have gone back and forth between the two parties (rental folks and SBC, my phone service provider) atleast twice with no luck. Finally decided to set up an appointment with the SBC folks to come “enable” two jacks in my home (I really don’t need it) hoping that this would force them to fix the problem, wherever that might be. That’s the good news. The bad news: They don’t come until this Friday. In other words, I will be living in dark ages (from a connectivity standpoint) for most of this work week. Ugh…

Had it not been for my EV-DO card from Verizon, I would be completely in the dark. Not that 150 kbps and 30 kbps of download and upload speeds respectively is anything to write home about.

Yes, I hate moving. And yes, blogging will be super light until I get my new apartment back from the paleolithic age into the 21st century

- Anand

Category: Personal