I filled out my absentee ballot today. This is only the second time in my life that I voted. The last time I voted, I didn’t feel like my input made a difference. This time, the ballot was so historic that whether or not my input counts the way I want it to, my vote would still make a difference. When will we have the opportunity to have minorities in the White House? An African-American man or a Caucasian woman…both are winners in my book for change in society and the way that minorities are viewed. It is welcomed change and I only hope the country benefits as a whole.

Back in August I pissed and moaned about a few computer issues. After weeks of research, bugging all my tech-savvy friends and family for advice, and throwing too much money at the problems, I managed to beat a few of them down.

The most important of these victories is the network one; my computers could no longer “see” each other. Running the DOS command tracert shows you the path that a network request takes from one computer to another. Typing in tracert TELETRAN1 should show a request that originates from my PC, goes to the router, and then to Nadia’s computer. Instead, the request would hit the router, leave the network, and goes to who knows where on the Internet.

Before you say it, I could have updated my host file. However, I was not willing to accept that as an answer; the network broke for no good reason. I didn’t want to patch it; I had to fix it!

I harassed every techie I know, read countless forum threads, called support lines and chewed off the ears of MS MVPs. Nothing. The network was broken, and there was no explanation for it.

I hobbled together an ugly setup that sorta worked. My Vonage adapter became my network’s main router. The Linksys router that once served as the main one became an access point. The Belkin router I bought to fix the problem became another access point once I realized that it fixed nothing.  After getting that mess set up, I got my wireless devices connected to the network again and the traffic worked as it should have. But Nadia’s computer was still unreachable via RDP (remote desktop)!

Nadia and I were in the PX today, and I decided to take a chance on another router. Maybe this one (my fourth router) would do the trick, and I am happy to report that it worked! Network traffic was back to normal. All PCs could see each other. Remote Desktop worked. The server could properly backup the PCs. A host of other problems I did not go into above also went away. I’m pretty happy right now because of that.

Nadia mounted my new Linksys WRT310N Wireless-N Gigabit router to the wall to give the network devices a bit more room, and to make the setup look kinda cool.

  Router, phone, modem, Vonage adapter, 10/100 switch

 Each cable is labeled for easy identification

I’ve got quite a few things connected there.

1. My personal desktop
2. My work desktop
3. Nadia’s desktop
4. My Xbox 360
5. Slingbox
6. Vonage adapter
7. Home Server
8. Cable Modem

I’ve got a number of other devices that connect wirelessly, including another 360, Zune, notebooks, and my phone.

My Linksys G and Belkin N routers

Now I’m left with two devices that work just fine as access points, but no longer serve as reliable routers. I am looking to use them to extend the wireless network’s range to blanket the house.

Not in a geographical sense; I’ve been here in the Springs this whole time. I’ve been away in an emotional sense. I stayed away from this blog and the social networking scene in general. I just had nothing that I felt like sharing with the world.

As if I were subconsciously sending out a telepathic distress signal, friends and family came out of the woodwork calling, IMing and emailing me during this period of silence. People I hadn’t heard from for a long time, just calling to check in on me.

That made me feel really good. Thanks to their help, I’m ready to get back out there and start blogging again.

Here I am, sitting in my giant, comfy recliner enjoying a nightcap from my favorite penguin cup while writing this entry:

(That picture has nothing to do with anything; I just needed an excuse to use this notebook’s built-in webcam).