I know I'm behind in blogging - it's been one of those weeks!!

First let me say that I've had 3 different groups of over night visitors. I still haven't washed the sheets from the last use! And that one would be my eldest son. I really enjoyed his visit, but didn't think to take any pictures. We mostly just hung around, and did our thing. I did fix some holes in the pockets of his pants (yep, did the mom thing!), and I did get a little sewing done. Oh, then my husbands recliner broke, so earlier this week we shopped and bought him a new one. And since my chair is pretty worn out, we splurged and ordered a matching chair for me. It should be here in about 4-6 weeks. I think this is the last furniture purchase that we will make for quite awhile.

In the quilting area, I did get the rows of my BOM quilt put together, and I made the #11 square. Here is a pic of #11:

I will be cutting the pieces for block 12 pretty soon. And I signed up for the next block of the month, which starts Sept 27. I know it will be brights, and that there will be a center panel, with the 12 blocks arranged around it. Can't wait to learn more!!

Now for my RANT!

I have spent about 3-4 hours today fighting with our Internet - talking to customer support. There is something wrong somewhere, and it is getting worse. For TWO hours, I fussed trying to send a 4 meg file to one of our customers. I kept getting "transmission interrupted", so I re-zipped the file into two files (2 megs each) and tried to email those out. My email reported that I was successful, but the emails remained in my outbox, and the client did not receive them. My hubby finally got them to send using his email, and it took about 10 MINUTES to send each file. Now today is not the first time I've talked with Technical Support. But each time, I get different "answers", but never any real help. Our Internet connection keep getting slower and slower.

What system are we using, you ask. HUGHESNET. When we moved into the house, satellite Internet was our only option. [QWEST (phone company) finally got Internet service into our area about 4 months after we moved in.] And we got the BIG 2 Watt Business system from HUGHESNET, because it is our business Internet, and we (and our clients) depend on getting their files on a timely basis. Our clients make changes up to the last minute, and then need the documents immediately so they can get them to the printer, and then to the bidders on the project.

Now today I finally got to talk to advanced technical support, and they directed me to a screen that would run an Upload and Download Speed Test. The young man decided I needed a JAVA update, and directed me to do that, then run the test 3 times, and call back with the response, and we would go from there. Well first off, I did the JAVA thing, and now when I try to run the tests, I get a multiple JAVAs are trying to run, and it shuts down. CRUDDLY!

So aha, says I, "Hubby, can I run the tests on your machine"? Yes, I can. OK, so when the young man was giving me the instructions, he said that the numbers he would be looking for was 1.2 on the download test, and 200 on the upload test. (I think that is 1.2 meg, and 200K) I run my test 3 times as directed, and call back technical support. (I'm thinking OK, my download numbers are 608, 668, and 585, and the upload numbers are 11, 13, and 12 - I'm finally going to get some help)

Not to be. The man I got this time says "I'm not sure why they told you that, but we can't help you until you run the test 3 times a day, morning, afternoon, and evening, running the test twice each time, 15 minutes apart, for 3 consecutive days" Well DOUBLE CRUDDLY CRUD.

SO, I've run the test again. As I suspected, the numbers are getting better at night. (Things always seem to run quicker at night.) BUT WE ARE PAYING FOR A BUSINESS SYSTEM. IT SHOULD WORK BETWEEN 8AM AND 5PM!! MONDAY THRU FRIDAY!! IT IS A BUSINESS SYSTEM FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

So this is my plan. At the bottom of my blog, I'm going to start recording my readings. Then I can direct "Technical" support to my blog to read the numbers. And I'm thinking of starting a new blog - just dealing with DIRECWAY issues. (That way my quilting friends won't have to listen to this stuff!! Also, As our business depends on it, I will be ordering an Internet connection from QWEST. I guess we will run two systems, and maybe one of them will function??? And if you are thinking about ordering HUGHESNET Internet, well, maybe my experience is not typical, but be ready to get a different answer each time you call HUGHESNET Technical support.