Good lord, I hate dealing with cable companies. It should be a five-minute phone call at the most.

I’m one who will do the paper lists, too. But since I was traveling a lot the last year, I needed something that could travel easily with me. If my internet goes out, I still have my cell phone’s 4G. If the power goes out, the battery on my Surface lasts a good six hours (if I don’t play games). It’s about accessibility for me, and also about that unplanned outage.

I’ve got Apple products, and my iPad and computer are synced, but the phone’s iOS is too old. But it’s good that my to-do lists are mostly on paper (and the accountability thread on Anne’s forum), because my internet connection started going in and out yesterday. Then my Cable froze. Twice. It took half the day chatting with Comcast – and telling them a neighbor’s Internet connection was coming and going, too – before the company admitted it must be a signal issue, not an equipment failure. (They actually said the modem/router I got from them less than three months ago was “an older model.”) A tech will be here late this afternoon – undoubtedly during one of the brief periods when I actually have a signal.

It made me realize that however far I feel behind the technology curve, I rely on it way too much. I’ll stick to paper calendars and hand scrawled to-do lists. I’m more productive when not spending half the day troubleshooting tech issues – and more time the next day waiting for a technician to try to resolve them.