Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Connectivity: My Problem with Blogging

I haven’t blogged in months, and I think I just identified one major reason: connectivity. I have too much connectivity…

I’m sitting here listening to the radio because the cable is out. I get my Internet over the cable. It’s how I check my email. It’s how I know if someone’s played a word in one of my Scrabble games on Facebook. It’s how I know the weather forecast (which changes rapidly here this time of year). It’s how I farm (on Facebook, of course); I’m at level 101 on FarmVille.

Being connected is how I know whether the other teachers made it home today. We left school early this morning. From what I hear, the kids all made it home safely. Stupid me, I live in a neighboring county. So it’s a half an hour of driving to get from school to my house – through the strip mine across Gary 14 Mountain and then over Stoney Ridge. I had to stop after I got over 14 Mountain and shift to four-wheel low. Then there were wrecks on Stoney Ridge. So I sat about halfway up the north face of that mountain for almost three hours, wishing I was driving down the south face, about a mile away. Oh well, once each year it seems like we play chicken with God. Thirteen months ago we lost. Today I think it was a draw - which is to say that none of my friends went to the hospital as a result (as far as I know) and no one ended up sleeping in their car...

And I’m taking time to blog about it because, well, I’ve lost my connectivity. I’d usually be sitting here checking the school closings on several different websites, half-watching the television, harvesting my FarmVille crops, looking through Google for educational games I can use, and browsing my reader for news and blogs. I really need to see the various responses to last night State of the Union (especially since I watched a rerun of Law and Order). But I can’t, since I’m not connected.

So instead, I’m blogging.

And I’m hoping that the radio gets around to telling me what schools are closed soon. When I’m connected I can get info like that on demand, and this irritating idea of waiting until they decide to tell me is for the birds.

Well, maybe soon my cable company will figure out where in all this snow their line is broken and they’ll restore my connection. Then I can post this blog. Of course, that will happen after I harvest my carrots on FarmVille, check the school closings, and update my status…