0Mbps and Turkey Day Pre-Gaming

So... this week has been a riveting one: My internet crapped out for no reason Monday night—which is always a good time for anyone, but especially for a cryptoanarchist who more or less lives in cyberspace.

I measured the bandwidth of my connection, and it was exactly 0mbps. (Granted, ISPs like to advertise their speeds in megabits per second (Mbps) instead of more commonly-used megabytes (MBps) per second: That way, their numbers seem larger and more impressive. But, you can just divide by 8 to convert megabits to megabytes.)

Incidentally, 0Mbps / 8 = 0MBps... which isn't very impressive at all.

Having lived in an actual third-world country where my electricity and internet connection went out for maybe 10 minutes per month on average, I'm always mildly amused when the third-worldness of our infrastructure here in the 'Land of the Free' rears its little head; but, I digress: That's another topic for another post on another blog ;)

Anyway, Comcast sent a tech out to fix the problem just in time for Athennia to lose her internet Thursday: But, in her case, Verizon told her that the projected restoration date for her service was the following Monday (yes, really) and flat-out admitted that they'd do anything and everything they could to pin the fault on her so they could stick her with a $110 service-call charge!

At any rate, Riley had already ended up having to miss her classes on Thursday; so, I told Athennia that they might as well come spend the night with me so Riley would have internet access for school the next day.

And, as always, we had a blast while Athennia was at work. I cooked up some burgers for lunch, we hung out here and there during her breaks between classes, and Olivia even stopped by for a visit...

Meanwhile, Athennia sent me a picture of the surprise "present" she'd received at work: They hooked her up with another screen so she can be part of the dual-monitors club...

Looks great, kitten! ...Aside from the Windows OS, that is.

I was part of the dual-monitors club once; but, now I'm a card-carrying member of... I dunno, the quadro qlub ;)

We had takeout for dinner with Kelly, Steve, and my parents on Friday night; and then Saturday was Athennia's family's Thanksgiving!

Her cousin Irene hosted at her house in Penndel, and everyone came except the "Pottsville crowd" (Dave and Debbie, and their daughters Stephanie and Melissa and their families—most of whom I met at their family reunion back in August).

So, we had Irene; her son Jake and her daughter Mary; Mary's husband Sean and their kids Reese and Bradley; Irene's brother Danny, his wife Magdalena, and their kids Cody and Maya; Athennia's cousin Blanche, her husband Bruce, their sons Brian and Joel, Brian's wife Victoria and their daughters Harper and Bella, and Joel's wife Desiree; Athennia's Uncle Kevin; her mother Lou; Taylor and her friend CJ; Athennia's sister Sandy, her husband Jim, and her sons Justin, Brendan, and Dylan; and of course Athennia, Riley, and me :)

Since the universe hasn't received the memo that it's November and not July, it was 70-some degrees outside and we played cornhole with Sandy and Jim before dinner.

And Sean owns a Pretzel Factory; so, we also got to treated to this delicious pretzel turkey before the actual turkey was ready...

During dinner, Athennia and I sat with Bruce and Blanche, Joel and Desiree, Danny and Magdalena, and Kevin...

We had a ton of fun sitting with Danny and Magda at the family reunion back in August; so, I was definitely up for sitting with them again. And, since Bruce and Blanche had been on vacation and hadn't made it to the reunion, we hadn't seen them since Magdalena's birthday back in May (where we only got to talk to them for a few minutes).

Bruce and Blanche were awesome and hilarious; Danny and Magda were fun as always; Joel and I got to talk a bit of Linux shop when he commented on my T-shirt; and Kevin and I talked a bit of politics when I commented on his shirt...

I was also impressed with Athennia's nephew Justin during the short conversation he and I had...

He's working at Tesla under everyone's favorite unhinged Dogecoin shill Elon Musk! I can't begin to imagine that; but, I'm sure it's a fascinating experience in its own right—especially for a guy who's only in his mid-twenties.

We wish you well, dude :)

Before dessert, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Danny and Magdalena's son Cody who's turning nine.

We all got into position...

Then Irene lit the birthday candle...

...Aaaand, it promptly went out!

Who knew Comcast even made candles?!

Irene ended up having to stand there and keep the candle lit manually until Cody blew it out.

Finally, I asked Athennia to snap a picture of me and Danny after dessert...

He asked—as always—when I was coming over to shoot some more pool.

And I told him that, after I move in with Athennia sometime in the coming weeks, I'll be right around the corner from him and more like four minutes away instead of ~40.

So, we'll definitely have to set something up soon :)