11-3-2012
One of the things that never ceases to amaze us about living in the Chamonix valley is the power of coincidence.
You mention by name someone you haven't seen for 2 or 3 years in casual conversation and 9 times out of 10 you will bump in to that same person within a day or two, entirely by coincidence.
You can even use this to make appointments- you have a small plumbing problem and you say to your partner "I haven't seen Jean-Marie the plumber in ages" and, bingo, there he is outside the shop when you're buying your groceries. Of course Jean-Marie is far too busy to attend to your plumbing problem, but, never mind, it's always good to renew old aquaintance.
There is a dark side to these coincidences though.
As part of the fall-out to our current mildly nomadic existence we have 3 different ways to connect to the internet.
Backed-up to the hilt you might think. Well yesterday all 3 conked out at exactly the same time.
It happened last month on the 10th also- Mr Rant will explain
We have a 3G SFR dongle. SFR have our bank details and the right to take direct debits for this on the 10th of each month. For the last 2 months we've run out of credit on the 10th of the month. No problem you might think- WRONG.
SFR initiate the direct debit process on the 10th and then we're cut off until it goes through several days later (allowing for weekends, bank holidays, employees unused sick days etc etc). We've only had this dongle 2 months and we've been cut off twice so far.
Never mind- when we moved into our current winter quarters we spoke to the nice man downstairs who agreed that we could piggy back on his Hi-Speed Orange box in exchange for a small payment. He's on the ground floor and we're on the third (or the 4th if you're American), so, to start with, we carried our laptops downstairs and sat on the stairs to do our emails.
Mrs Rant found out by accident that she could connect to the Wi-Fi on the Orange box downstairs if she took her laptop into the bathroom (don't ask). Result- we can stream the BBC radio just by putting the laptop on the washing machine and leaving it playing. This is where the coincidence comes in- the man downstairs also gets billed by Orange on the 10th of the month and, like us he has also been cut off at this point for a few days for the last 2 months running.
2nd backup system. We're right by a railway station, so there is an SFR hot-spot there. We can pick this up and (yee ha) the SFR dongle gives us free unlimited wi-fi and access to the internet, although at fairly slow speed.
Except on the 10th of the month of course, when the SFR hot spot becomes extremely luke warm for a few days. Why? I give up.
How did I upload this file? By chance I put my laptop down on top of my bass amp, which is itself on top of a PA speaker in the corner of the living room so that I could try to print some off-line stuff out and, from that exact position, the SFR "hot" spot suddenly sprang into "life" on my laptop. I can now communicate with the outside world, but I have had to become a contortionist to do so.
For a few days I expect to be sent into a corner to communicate. It's better than being sent to the bathroom I guess.
One of the things that never ceases to amaze us about living in the Chamonix valley is the power of coincidence.
You mention by name someone you haven't seen for 2 or 3 years in casual conversation and 9 times out of 10 you will bump in to that same person within a day or two, entirely by coincidence.
You can even use this to make appointments- you have a small plumbing problem and you say to your partner "I haven't seen Jean-Marie the plumber in ages" and, bingo, there he is outside the shop when you're buying your groceries. Of course Jean-Marie is far too busy to attend to your plumbing problem, but, never mind, it's always good to renew old aquaintance.
There is a dark side to these coincidences though.
As part of the fall-out to our current mildly nomadic existence we have 3 different ways to connect to the internet.
Backed-up to the hilt you might think. Well yesterday all 3 conked out at exactly the same time.
It happened last month on the 10th also- Mr Rant will explain
We have a 3G SFR dongle. SFR have our bank details and the right to take direct debits for this on the 10th of each month. For the last 2 months we've run out of credit on the 10th of the month. No problem you might think- WRONG.
SFR initiate the direct debit process on the 10th and then we're cut off until it goes through several days later (allowing for weekends, bank holidays, employees unused sick days etc etc). We've only had this dongle 2 months and we've been cut off twice so far.
Never mind- when we moved into our current winter quarters we spoke to the nice man downstairs who agreed that we could piggy back on his Hi-Speed Orange box in exchange for a small payment. He's on the ground floor and we're on the third (or the 4th if you're American), so, to start with, we carried our laptops downstairs and sat on the stairs to do our emails.
Mrs Rant found out by accident that she could connect to the Wi-Fi on the Orange box downstairs if she took her laptop into the bathroom (don't ask). Result- we can stream the BBC radio just by putting the laptop on the washing machine and leaving it playing. This is where the coincidence comes in- the man downstairs also gets billed by Orange on the 10th of the month and, like us he has also been cut off at this point for a few days for the last 2 months running.
2nd backup system. We're right by a railway station, so there is an SFR hot-spot there. We can pick this up and (yee ha) the SFR dongle gives us free unlimited wi-fi and access to the internet, although at fairly slow speed.
Except on the 10th of the month of course, when the SFR hot spot becomes extremely luke warm for a few days. Why? I give up.
How did I upload this file? By chance I put my laptop down on top of my bass amp, which is itself on top of a PA speaker in the corner of the living room so that I could try to print some off-line stuff out and, from that exact position, the SFR "hot" spot suddenly sprang into "life" on my laptop. I can now communicate with the outside world, but I have had to become a contortionist to do so.
For a few days I expect to be sent into a corner to communicate. It's better than being sent to the bathroom I guess.
Mr Rant has now left the building.
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