Online Again

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I finally get a reliable Internet connection.

AirPort SignalI’ve been trying, since arriving here in Quincy, WA, to get a reliable Internet connection. Today I succeeded. Sort of.

I’m camped out in an RV park at the Quincy Golf Course. The golf course has just changed ownership and the new owners — the Port of Quincy — are trying hard to get the place up and running for the summer. They’re doing a damn good job. But they didn’t have Internet and they had too many other things to think about before adding it.

One of the people who works there, Matt, lives about four houses down the road. I could see his network from my computer, but it was secured. He kindly gave me the password. For the next week or so, I could connect during the day and take care of file transfers, Daily Show Downloads, blog posts, and e-mail. But when my next door neighbor returned around 5 PM each evening and parked his truck in front of his camper, my connection was cut off.

I could use my Treo and did so when there was no other choice. It uses Bluetooth with a Verizon service called BroadbandAccess Connect — which is also known as Dial Up Networking (DUN). (I wrote about DUN here in an article titled “Setting Up Your Mac to Use a Smartphone’s Internet Connection.”) I pay $15/month for this service and it’s worth it. It’s the only cellphone based Internet service I know that doesn’t have a bandwidth cap. I don’t like to use it because (1) it’s not terribly fast — perhaps 256-512 kbps and (2) when I get an incoming call, not only does it disconnect me, but my Mac always seems to need restarting before it will connect again.

I researched other options. All wireless options had a bandwidth cap that was far lower than I needed. (5 GB a month? Are they kidding?) Other ISPs who worked in remote areas — I’m in the middle of farmland 5 miles outside of town, for heaven’s sake! — didn’t serve this area. But there was one ISP who did serve this area.

I contacted them shortly after arriving, when I realized that the borrowed access wasn’t going to serve my needs. It’s obviously a small company. I spoke to two different people. I won’t use real names; let’s just call them Don and Pete. Don was evidently in charge of sales and was anxious to make a deal — even for a period as short as two months. Pete was the technical guy who did the installations and evidently had no desire to come to Quincy. Pete made a lot of excuses. It kept getting put off. Then I got Don on the phone again and made a deal with him. I was willing to pay $220 for two months of broadband access. (I really need access to get my writing work done.)

Pete came out to check my site. The service they offer is the same type I have at home. They mount an antenna in a high place and point it at their antenna within visual range. Then they attach a router to the local antenna and I’m in business.

Pete seemed pissed and was not very friendly. He went through the motions of pointing the antenna at one of two sites. But he was standing on the ground and he wasn’t trying very hard. He said there was no signal. He couldn’t help me.

I wasn’t about to give up. It had taken two weeks to get him there and I wasn’t going to let him leave. I suggested putting it on the golf course’s clubhouse building, which was 100 or so feet away. I talked to the golf course manager and he said okay. He also said that they also wanted Internet service, so they’d pay for the installation. All I had to do was pay for access for the two months I wanted it.

Pete didn’t seem happy about this. He said he’d come back in “a day or two” to do the installation.

Of course, he didn’t come the next day.

Wireless AntennaHe came today and did the job. He put the antenna on the roof of the building and set up the router in the golf course club house office. He connected one of the golf course computers via Ethernet. Then he came to my trailer and fetched the MAC addresses for the three laptops I have with me. (I really am serious about getting some work done.) He programmed them into the router so no one else could get access without paying for it. After a few false starts, we got all three of my laptops to connect, although my old 12″ PowerBook doesn’t pick up the signal as well as my MacBook Pro and Dell Latitude. I joked with him about living in a trailer with three laptops. He didn’t laugh. He still wasn’t happy. I wonder if that guy is ever happy.

Then he tried to collect $220 from me.

I told him the golf course people said they’d pay for installation. He got Don on the phone. I talked to him. He was very agreeable. When we hung up, I wrote a check for $70 for the next two months of access. I should be gone by then.

After he hurried off to be cranky elsewhere, I discovered the shortcomings of my connection. First of all, it drifts and sometimes drops — although it’s been pretty good for the past few hours. Second, they must have a port blocked because I had to reconfigure Mail to use a different port to send e-mail. (Read more about this solution here.) And third, because I’m sharing the connection with the golf course people, if they do some heavy surfing, my connection slows down.

But overall, it works well enough. And the price was less than I was willing to pay.

June 24, 2008 Update:
Read how this situation changed the very next day.

Giant Strawberry

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My hand is not small.

Giant StrawberryHere’s a strawberry I found in the package I bought in Quincy yesterday. It was a supermarket strawberry — not a local one. But, as you can see, it’s huge.

I ate it, of course. It wasn’t bad. I’m accustomed to absolutely terrible strawberries sold in Wickenburg. They’re usually either not fully ripened (still green or white around the leaves) or overripe and rotted. This batch was a great improvement over what I’m used to.

As the fruit in the local orchards ripen, I’m looking forward to eating some fresh, local fruit.

Takin’ Pictures

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I get out and try to photograph the world around me.

I brought my Nikon D80 camera and four of its lenses with me to Washington state. I’ve been out a few times taking photos. I got some nice bird photos on Sunday, but I’ve also taken photos of some less interesting subjects. The other day, on a walk near the golf course late in the day, I got some nice photos of a wheat field and some weeds growing alongside the canal.

I like the wheat field photos. One of the themes I’m always pursuing in my photography is infinity. I like photos of things that seem to go on forever. The fields of wheat, corn, alfalfa, and other crops here are huge and, from the right angles, it’s easy to get a photo of the crop that fills the photo. The photo shown here, shows the deep furrow created by the irrigation circle’s tires as it moves through the field. I have other shots that are just wheat.

Here’s another fill-the-frame image. It’s the bark of a tree alongside the golf course. I love the texture of this. I think it’s a birch tree — most of the bark is white — but the white bark is split, with deep brown-gray cracks. There’s a lot of depth to this. It makes a nice desktop picture. (So does the wheat.)

I took this photo yesterday while on a bike ride. It’s a good example of the kind of farm fields around here. This is an alfalfa field with an irrigation bar on wheels parked on one end. This kind of irritation travels up and down a field — it doesn’t do the circle thing. The alfalfa has been cut and baled. The bales are left out in the field until they can be gathered. While this isn’t an especially good photo, it’s a typical scene in the Quincy area.

Yesterday afternoon, I went back to Quincy Lakes with my camera, 70-300 mm lens, and tripod. Although the lens has image stabilization built in, the tripod really is necessary when you set it to the full 300 mm setting. My goal was to get a photo of a Yellow-headed Blackbird. Not only did I get a photo of the magnificently marked male, but I also got a shot of a female. I got both of these photos from the same place I shot the Redwing Blackbird on Sunday.

I also saw and photographed an American Coot, which is like a duck, and its babies, but none of the shots are good enough to share here. I might go back in a few days and try again. I know where one of the nests are and as the babies begin to mature, I should be able to get better shots of them.

I went out last night to take some photos, too, but I’ll save those for another post.

Quincy Tales: Bicycling

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A report from my summer camp.

I brought my bicycle with me to Washington with the idea of riding regularly to get exercise and lose weight. Thank heaven I’m riding once in a while. I’m eating so much that I need the exercise to keep from really porking up.

I noticed that my bike’s rear wheel wasn’t perfectly round. It may have been damaged in transit on the bike rack we put on the back of the camper. Or it may have already been damaged for some other reason. In any case, the wheel’s rim rubbed against the brakes. it wasn’t enough to prevent me from riding, but I figured it would be nice to get it fixed.

I found an excellent bike repair shop in East Wenatchee: The Second Wind. It wasn’t fancy or flashy. In fact, the place looked as if they hadn’t fully moved in (or were in the middle of moving out). But the repair shop on the side had three guys, including the owner, hard at work. The owner fixed up my wheel in a matter of minutes, then helped me choose a new bike seat and swapped it out for me. It was a pleasure to get good service within minutes — I’ve become so accustomed to people telling me I have to leave whatever needs repaired or wait.

The Second Wind is at a great location: at the end of a street that butts up against the pedestrian/bicycle bridge across the Columbia River and the loop trail. I don’t know if they do bike rentals, but they should!

Of course, I’d brought my bike along partly to ride that loop trail. It’s 11 miles long and up until that point, I’d only ridden about 6-1/2 miles on a single ride. It was hot and I ate a big lunch and I talked myself out of it. (Can you say lazy?) But next trip, I’ll do it.

The riding in Quincy isn’t exactly interesting, although it is easy. Quincy is mostly flat farmland with straight roads, laid out in a grid according to sections of land. A section is a mile square. So going ‘around the block” out here by the golf course means riding about 4 miles. Two blocks is 6 miles. Closer to town, there are more roads, but there’s also more traffic.

My riding has been sporadic. My first ride, last week, was about 2 miles. The other day, I thought I’d ride to the airport, which is 4-1/2 miles away, and back. I wound up doing just 6 miles total (around two blocks).

Yesterday, I decided to ride into town to check for mail and buy a bottle of wine. (I allow myself 1/3 bottle of wine each evening, after 6 PM if there’s no chance of rain.) Town is about 6 miles away. Taking the truck sucks down a full gallon of gas, so driving into town each day is costing me about $4.50. I figured, why should I spend the money and add to carbon emissions when I can take my bike and get some exercise? So I did. And I think the bike repair really helped out — the bike seemed easier to pedal. (Could it be I’m getting back into shape that quickly?) I was tired when I got to the post office, but not wobbly. I had one letter waiting, which I strapped onto the rack on back. Then I hit the wine shop and had a conversation with the proprietor about local wines. He set me up with a bottle of Jones of Washington cabernet. From there, i went to Harrington’s Drive In for a small hot fudge sundae (I needed energy!). Then the long ride back. There was a mile-long stretch with a gentle uphill slope that was the most challenging part of the ride. Then I was back, feeling as if I’d really accomplished something.

I hope to repeat this performance at least three times a week while the weather holds.