Wi-Fi Wars

In non-bear related news…

Some of you may recall that <a href=”http://shipwreck-light.livejournal.com/94925.html?mode=reply#add_comment”>my immediate neighbor has a serious power washing problem</a>, although that does predate the great friending memes of Summer 2011.  By and large, the people who live in our neighborhood are sweet and interesting, as opposed to rude and loud.  Lucky us, we’re between the two local jerkfaces.  The neighbors on the other side built an ugly house in a wash and fed their dog to a mountain lion, but that’s another story for another day.

So, we’ve been having some issues with the Power Washer family, unrelated to yardwork.  It started when they kept sneaking onto our wi-fi.  I don’t know what they were doing.  Streaming porn seems to be the obvious answer since our connection would visibly tank when they got on.  So, we secured our network and it became a pain for visitors to access, but the only porn on it was porn that we put there.  All was well.

For about a month.  The Power Washers got themselves an access point which they set up on the side of their house closest our access point.  Kind of rude, and we both got shitty signals.  But, to make matters worse, they set it to the same channel as ours.  In other words, we both had shit connections, especially when they went on their nightly bandwidth raids, which were so regular, I could time how many seconds I had left to be unproductive by when the kitchen light went out across the way.  Now, you’d THINK they would pick another channel or move their access point, but instead they got really aggressive about this being their channel in their space even though they had a brand new wi-fi hookup and COULD HAVE SWITCHED THE DAMN CHANNELS.

We bought a new one instead, so that we could switch channels.  And all was well.

For about a day.  You see, any time we switched channels, they would switch onto the same channel.  You may think this is a paranoid explanation for our own wireless failings.  We had a channel tracker application up in the evening and watched them do it.  We would have full power and so would they, but then they’d skip onto the channel we were using.  I’m not sure if this should be attributed to stupid on their end or brilliance.  I just know it’s been annoying as all getout.  

Also, it should be mentioned that between our new router and the frankly aggressive behavior on their end, they stopped greeting us, looking at us or braking for us when we happened to be in the street.  As to their problem, I know not.  They’re loaded and can easily afford their own connection.  Their use of our network couldn’t have had that great a signal.  Access points come with instructions for getting a better signal, so why set up on our side of their house? But, why power wash rocks? There’s so much we don’t know about this situation.

So, we got another access point.  An enterprise class access point.  Which we have set to full power.  We jury rigged the old one as a signal booster for this side of the house.  Currently, I have the fastest wireless speed available in the US.

We’ll see how long it lasts.  

I’m a bit bummed though: seems like Violet’s gone under, so my Nabaztag no longer works.  The last thing he said to me was.  ”I’m running off.  Off into the wild.”  Goodnight, sweet prince. I suppose Google will just have to tell me the particulate levels from now on.  Maybe I’ll repurpose him as an Easter decoration.

On Friday while driving into work, it started to rain.  I’m sure people somewhere panicked, as they do out here when rain occurs, but on the street I happened to be using at the time, everyone rolled down their windows and stuck their hands out in it, leaving me overwhelmed with cuteness.

I spent yesterday at the bead store, actually talking to people as opposed to fielding three word emails from bears on the other side of my cubicle wall.  I made a lovely pendant for Mum and made efforts to work out another one, but it quickly became the professional opinion of those in attendance that I could do better myself just noodling around, a vote of confidence which I much appreciated.  I talked about bears and my most recent visit to the rock shop, and one of the visitors told me about her Giant Fucking Hunks Of Moonstone Collection, which would just about make my humble rock garden coprolite itself, by the sound of things.

Noppin FINALLY shipped the Magical Shower Princesses.  The box may be here on Tuesday or Wednesday, but more likely everyone should expect them next Saturday, since I won’t be here to get them and such.