Saturday August 10th

Friday afternoon a single lightning bolt brought my business to a standstill.

While the rogue bolt was quite a distance from our building it had evil intent taking down our internet and to a lesser degree our phones. Phone service came back quickly but it's been four days with no email or internet.

Astounding is the word I would use to describe our dependence upon the internet.

We place and receive orders, process credit cards, invoice clients directly through our computer system. Email has replaced the telephone as the main form of communication. We receive and send software, label designs, graphics and support information as attachments to emails.

Without the Internet ............ We are dead in the water. Stress +3

Our call to Comcast Friday afternoon was answered with, “We see some service disruptions in your area”. Saturday morning the answer was, “There are no outages, turn your Modem off and power it back on again”. (Of course I had done this already). “OK, well get someone there Tuesday afternoon”.

Tuesday, Tuesday are you kidding? This is a business. Stress +3

Hoping the cable modem might have taken a hit my son got a list of approved cable modems and off to Staples I went. One hundred dollars later I returned with our electronic “Savior”. The Modem needs to be registered but our call went unanswered as the tech office closed an hour prior to my return. Stress +2

Monday morning arrives and tech support informs us that I have purchased the wrong modem. Stress +2 / Bank Account -100. “We will send someone out today”,

Stress -2. Finally we are moving in the right direction.

Our technician arrives and quickly determines there is no service to the office, no service at our junction box so it is somewhere down the line. His presence, Stress -1, may not get service back today, Stress +1 (Evens out).

Kevin walking into the office, “Dad we have a leaking pipe in the basement”. Priceless

My body, as tough as I may sometimes think I am no longer conceals the effects of stress. In a strange way perhaps it would be better for everyone to feel their hands hurting, their feet going numb and their guts churning to alert them to breath deeply, step back, relax and understand that shit happens.

Saturday evening, one of those perfect Maryland evenings, resembling late September instead of August, Sue and I entertained neighbors with a Margarita evening. Stress I'm afraid caught up with me and I had to excuse myself earlier then I would have liked.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling pretty good, albeit somewhat empty, to manage an eight mile run with minimal Achilles issues. Today I have have iced down a couple of times, I'm taking an anti inflammatory and am encouraged at how well I feel.

Sue starts back to work tomorrow, summer for us is over so we look ahead to fall.

Stay unstressed everyone.

Mike

PS> For some reason the post above sat for a week; since then my GI Track has been a disaster. My Sunday morning run (today) required three "bear in the woods stops" in five miles, the good news is that I still managed to log almost thirty miles for the week. A start. 

I fixed the leaking pipe in the basement (perhaps the most complicated repair I've done to date, ten connections to sweat), the Internet is fixed and fixed (perhaps more on that later); in it's infinite wisdom the universe has decided that another plumbing challenge is justified on the other side of the basement. This one is perhaps beyond my ability, might have to call the plumber. Oh well .......... no sweat ! 

"O"