Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
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Dog Canyon Sunset, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM, January 7, 2009
We had a nice long talk
I had a nice long talk with a Verizon tech support guy who worked with me diagnose my lack of Verizon Broadband Access access. As a rule if I have any reception at all on my cell phone (also Verizon) I have access to the internet via my Broadband Access account using my USB720 card plugged into my KR-1 router, boosted by my Wilson antenna and amplifier, at least at dial-up speed. It's been a good setup.
Since I arrived here yesterday I've had no internet access at all except for a few fleeting connections. All the while I've had 2 or 3 EV and 1X bars on my cell phone, and an excellent connection for this call to the service tech. I've never experienced this situation before and looked in vain for hardware and software glitches in my setup. Everything seems fine - but it won't connect.
The very helpful tech guy confirmed what he could about my setup and finally went into his system looking for trouble tickets in my area that might indicate a network problem and found there are 60 open tickets for the Alamogordo area. Suspecting network problems we left it that he would call Alamogordo when the office opens (I called him about 7 am local time) and get back to me.
He didn't call back.
Now what?
I'm going to have to make some decisions soon. I've got a couple of bills to pay online this week and really really need internet access. If I can't get online soon I'll have to go into town and find a way to get on line. Or I might move to another location if I could be sure my setup is working and the problem here is a network glitch.
Night camp
Site 7 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps map
- Check the weather here
When Hope Dies
When you give up on hope, something even better happens than it not killing you, which is that in some sense it does kill you. You die. And there's a wonderful thing about being dead, which is that they—those in power—cannot really touch you anymore. Not through promises, not through threats, not through violence itself. Once you're dead in this way, you can still sing, you can still dance, you can still make love, you can still fight like hell—you can still live because you are still alive, more alive in fact than ever before. You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died.
And who is left when that you dies? You are left. Animal you. Naked you. Vulnerable (and invulnerable) you. Mortal you. Survivor you. The you who thinks not what the culture taught you to think but what you think. The you who feels not what the culture taught you to feel but what you feel. The you who is not who the culture taught you to be but who you are. The you who can say yes, the you who can say no.