Satellites
18 May
Pending installation.
Satellite internet.
We’re hoping for an improvement beyond dial-up. We’ve had dialup for years, and we’ve waited and waited and waited for Bellsouth / AT&T to make it DSL available for us, but no such luck, even though virtually everybody and anybody else in Haywood County can easily obtain it.
Just the price we pay for living on the side of a mountain, I guess.
WildBlue is giving away free installation, knocking $50 off the equipment price, and has a $50/month plan. Uggh, that’s a lot, especially with DSL at $19.95 for the same speed, but again, it’s the price I pay, I guess, and it’s the cheapest satellite I’ve found.
Of course, there’s a healthy chance that it won’t work. We live on the north side of the mountain, and a clear view of the southern sky is required. I can SEE parts – well, a lot – of the southern sky, but it may not be enough. We may be stuck. This is our last hope. Well, almost. Our FINAL hope would be for Charter to bring cable in or for DSL to be mercifully granted.
We’re kinda having to trust God to do what he wants about it.
I feel bad about spending $50 a month on freaking Internet. That’s $30 more per month than I pay for dialup. That’s the same $30 that I wanted to sponsor a Honduran kid with at compassion.org or WorldVision.com. Can this really be right? There are folks driving junky cars so that they can sponsor more kids. (I drive junky cars and still haven’t gotten around to sponsoring…)
But I think it’s important. We waste a lot of time on the ‘net, but a lot of it at home is wasted because of the fact that it takes a LONG time to do very simple things. We can’t upload pics for Karma Shuford Photography, I can’t download videos for Crossroads, I can’t post videos for my friends and family of my kids, it takes forever to just check email…
Is my life TOO steeped in technology? Yes, as far as time goes, but I actually want to be able to do more of this at home so I won’t be so distracted by it at work. It’s been an easy distraction lately, and that’s not Christian, not good, and not right.
I’m making some things priorities in my life. One is the Bible. I’ve actually been using the laptop and the e-Sword program – killer program, by the way – to do nightly reading and Bible memory. (BibleMemory.us is great, too…). Two is giving my wife more of the husbandly attention and affection that she needs and deserves. Three is more time actually playing with my kids and doing the things around the house that need to be done. Four is trying to be the same Christian all the time.
While it seems almost stupid and ridiculous to say this, I’m hoping that this WildBlue stuff will work and will help me make some advances in the areas of my life that I stray from God’s direction.
All the while making it easier to do some of the things that we really need to be doing from home rather than borrowing someone else’s connection…
Y’all help me pray that this works. If it does, we’re basically stripping down our landline service and trying to balance out the costs that way. So, we’re okay there, but we REALLY hope it works.
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I like it when people ask these questions though. So few of us do. Most of us just follow our culture down whatever road it takes. I suppose whether or not high speed internet is a good way to spend your money depends on what you need to do with it.
Gordon – thanks for dropping in! I really do appreciate the comment.
I like the junky cars link. Both my vehicles are eight years old…and junky, but like you, I ain’t got around to sponsoring yet. Gah.