Ugh...the day without internet...

[DWS]

For those unaware in the rest of the world, millions of Canadians had no internet and no phone connections during the entire day yesterday due to an outage at Rogers which is one of our largest providers. The distress this caused was massive not only because people couldn't connect with their friends and family but business was hugely affected as It disrupted banking and debit transactions among all other things business-related. In normal times, this would have caused me headaches because with no internet and phone, I'm pretty well shut down as a small business because that's how my orders come in and that's how I deal with suppliers. And listening to the news last night before bed, there was uncertainty when things would be resolved. Thankfully, it's all been made better today. 

But to myself as a griever, it was much worse because not only could I not communicate with anyone, I also wasn't able to get to this site. It made me realize what a saviour it's been for me over these past few months. This really is a club...certainly not one that any of us want to be in...but it's needed. The suffering of heavy hearts and grieving souls are soothed by being around others who understand, empathize, let us feel our pain in the moment and don't try to push us (or even worse, guilt us) into feeling better and more positive.  I mention this site quite a few times in my grief counseling sessions and my counselor is intrigued by it. She is now keeping it as a recommendation for her clients. 

[Brazil Man]

What a shame. I am glad that all is OK now.

[widower2]

It is scary how dependent we have become on the internet. It's like this subversive control game going on and us happily joining in. Can you imagine if something like a solar flare wiped out our satellites? oy. Anyway, glad you're back in action. This is a great site and it's all about the people on it. 

[Sparky1]

I had no internet or tv all day but thankfully my cell is with another provider that wasn't affected. My neighbour works from home and he couldn't work all day. Apparently Rogers is going to reimburse us for the down time. It hits home how dependent ( or addicted) we've become to technology. Might have to get me some rabbit ears as a backup for tv.

[widower2]

On 7/9/2022 at 11:15 PM, Sparky1 said:

 Might have to get me some rabbit ears as a backup for tv.

That's all I've had for many years now. Cable TV just became so bad it was hardly worth it. Even if they offered it half price I wouldn't bother. Rabbit ears gets me a surprising number of channels, and though I don't watch that much either, it's free, so it doesn't matter, and it does get me local channels and a few others that are more than enough.

[SSC]

Hahaha…rabbit ears.  Shows our age.  I would love to go “old school” but I have no idea how to connect an antenna to my smart tv.  I dropped satellite after my husband died as I just couldn’t see paying all that money for tv I didn’t miss.  We mostly had it for sports and I cannot bring myself to watch much of it anymore since that was what he loved.  If the tv is on it’s mostly to feel like I’m not so alone in the house anyway.  
 

I always have audiobooks on my phone to listen to as another form of distraction.

[widower2]

SSC it's really easy. They come with a cable connector and you just connect that to your cable jack in the back of the TV, and of course plug in the power cord and that's it. Mine only cost like $30 well worth it!

[DWS]

The question I kept wondering was how did people get through their grief and loss in the years before the internet. With a site like this one, we're able to reach out to others who understand but back then, you'd feel quite alone. Others around you are going on with their lives. Very quickly, you'd feel you have no choice but to hide your grief and not talk about it unless you were fortunate to have someone to share your thoughts. 

[KayC]

I do know what it's like as we had a bad storm in Feb. 2019 that wiped out electricity, water, internet, over 8 days, and 4' 5" snow that froze hard, couldn't use my restroom, it was a huge problem, food went bad, no communication as phone was out 18 days, no way in/out of town but stranded on the mountain, no mail, no garbage pick up, nothing!  it was very hard!  Feeding my cat was easy but Arlie, my dog, had to be cooked for as he had Colitis, and I couldn't cook his food, so stretched out what I had and was so thankful it lasted as I cut his portion in half and gave him dry.  The worst part was not knowing how long it'd last, that's the longest I've ever been shut off from the world!

[widower2]

On 7/10/2022 at 9:41 AM, DWS said:

The question I kept wondering was how did people get through their grief and loss in the years before the internet. 

Friends and family and church in olden days mostly, and eventually the concept of support groups happened too (all which still can apply of course).

On 7/10/2022 at 9:51 AM, KayC said:

I do know what it's like as we had a bad storm in Feb. 2019 that wiped out electricity, water, internet, over 8 days, and 4' 5" snow that froze hard, couldn't use my restroom, it was a huge problem, food went bad, no communication as phone was out 18 days, no way in/out of town but stranded on the mountain, no mail, no garbage pick up, nothing!  it was very hard!  Feeding my cat was easy but Arlie, my dog, had to be cooked for as he had Colitis, and I couldn't cook his food, so stretched out what I had and was so thankful it lasted as I cut his portion in half and gave him dry.  The worst part was not knowing how long it'd last, that's the longest I've ever been shut off from the world!

Yikes Kay! We lost power for 9 days once but it wasn't winter and we still had running water and the gas grill (heating up water for coffee in a pot on the grill, that was different...). Yeah we lost a lot of food too and I kick myself for not using some of it up earlier, but we had no idea we'd be out of power so long.