An Ominous Beginning

New Year’s Eve started off a business as usual day with a mid-morning workout at the Pain Cave, and plans to bring in the New Year with the seniors at a party in the Community Room, slated to begin at 5:00.

By the time five o’clock rolled around, I was way too comfortable to bundle up against the cold and head for the Community Room. I instead opted for a quiet night in ─ working on the latest needlepoint, watching the Twilight Zone Marathon.

THEN, along about 6:00, the cable services went down ─ no television, no internet.

The evening became a lot quieter than I’d bargained for.

At least the lights were still on, so I could spend the evening needlepointing ─ not like the day after Christmas when we had a complete outage first thing in the morning. Not only no television, no internet, but also no microwave, no stove, no lights. There was enough light seeping in from the outside that I could dress myself, but putting on makeup in the dark was challenging.

That outage was short, lasted a few hours. This latest outage lasted through New Year's Eve, and looked to be continuing all day today, with no end in sight and me with no access to information as to why it was happening and when will it end.

Along about 3:00, I decided to drive out of the area for bubble wrap and got cellphone access there to the internet. Able to log in, call my provider, make a complaint, I saw the outage was listed as system wide and caused by someone having damaged a fiber optic cable, whatever that is.

Whatever it is, the timing of it doesn’t sound like an accident or happenstance. More like the work of a disgruntled employee of the cable company or homegrown terrorist looking to ruin much for many.

I hope they figure out who, otherwise we can expect this kind of disruption again.

Expecting another night with no television no internet, about a half hour or so ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see lights once again blinking on the modem. Television and internet restored ─ too late to catch Judge Judy, but in time to catch tonight's episode of Vikings on the history channel.

Turns out the culprit cut the cable in two places between San Bernardino and Los Angeles.

Definitely someone with knowledge of the system's infrastructure.

At any rate, life will catch up with the culprit, if the authorities don’t, and karma will kick his arse. So though the start of 2020 seems ominous, it’s onward and upwards.