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Thursday, January 22, 2009 - Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM

LD and cell tower, Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM, January 22, 2009
LD and cell tower, Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM, January 22, 2009

Verizon BroadbandAccess goes awry

Aaarg.... something's gone awry with my Verizon BroadbandAccess setup. I left Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM earlier than I had planned to because of access issues and now I can SEE the tower right out my back window, I get 4 EVDO bars on my cell phone, and BroadbandAccess still won't connect.

I spent two hours on the phone this afternoon with a tech (Victor) at 3gstore.com (the fine folks who sold me the Kyocera KR-1 router and USB720 modem I've been happily using for the past 15 months) diagnosing my setup and never did come up with an entirely convincing conclusion about why this modem won't connect. Everything checks out - but it won't connect.

We left it that I will go into Las Cruces tomorrow and find a fast connection so he can remotely tweek something in the firmware in the USB720 modem I'm using and see if that helps.

We also left it that I will seriously consider upgrading to a newer modem and router. It'll be a bit expensive but I'm thinking this might be the way to go. It turns out the Kyocera KR-1 router and USB720 modem I bought about 15 months ago were at the end of their product life cycle at the time and are not well supported anymore. I think I might bite the bullet and go ahead and replace them now rather than try and nurse them along any longer. Especially since two hours of nursing today didn't get me connected.

Aaarg.....

Night camp

Site 11 - Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM

It's No Use Arguing Tastes with a Cow

By what appears, furthermore, to be the compensating justice of Nature, the treasures of the earth are always hidden in the most unattractive, dismal, and dreary spots. At least all the mining places I ever visited are so located, and Bisbee is no exception. To get away from the cramped little village and its unsavoury restaurant, I established my first camp four miles south of it on a commodious and pleasant opening, where we could do our own cooking. But here a new annoyance, and rather a curious one, was met with. The cattle of the region evinced a peculiar predilection for our wearing apparel. Especially at night, the cows would come wandering in among our tents, like the party who goes about seeking what he may devour, and on getting hold of some such choice morsel as a sock, shirt, or blanket, Mrs. Bossie would chew and chew, “gradually,” to quote Mark Twain, “taking it in, all the while opening and closing her eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if she had never tasted anything quite as good as an overcoat before in her life.” It is no use arguing about tastes, not even with a cow.

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