Return from Ivan

The on again off again antagonistic relationship with Verizon is off again. After four and a half days with no phone, and more irritatingly no DSL, the phone just magically fixed itself.

We were so irritated though that we made the guy come out anyway. After he checked it out he told us that our tap from the street line had become intermittent, but due to people calling us and our calling out we had managed to re-fuse the connection. But since he was there anyway he rebroke it and reconnected it again.

As a result the DSL is now running roughly 50% faster than it ever has before.

All in all I continue to realize that we came through the storm better than most. I mean, all that happened to us was a few days without a phone and now it works better than it did in the first place. Others - well others did not do as well:

http://www.post-gazette.com/journal/photos_display.asp?ID=13827

That page is a picture of several recreational boats up on the fountain at Point State Park. Seems more than one marina on the Allegheny just washed away, piers, boats, and all. One of the guys I work with went to a game at the stadium on Saturday and said they watched stuff like that wash by all afternoon. Here's another look:

http://www.post-gazette.com/journal/photos_display.asp?ID=13840

Can you imagine the phone ringing "Hello, do you know where your boat is?"

Truth be told this is really the least problematic of the things that happened here because of the rain. Many communities were really devastated. The people are trying to rally behind them. But its quite a bit to do. Scary how fast things can turn.