Gunther, the standing nutcracker 19

I've been making tremendous progress on Gunther and am hopeful that the end is in sight (perhaps 2 or 3 more weeks--notice how I hedged my bets there).  But I must first devote myself to some serious kvetching.

Florida's sales tax is due on the 20th of each month.  The powers-that-be have decreed that to get the 2.5% discount for paying on time, businesses must file electronically at the latest the business day before the due date.  Easy-peasy, we all say.  Except when life gets in the way.  Monday night I was feeling my creative juices and decided I needed to do the Needle Nicely newsletter NOW.  So I did.  And I forgot about my sales tax payment.  Tuesday morning I checked email and my favorite blogs and decided to eat breakfast.  While eating I had a Eureka! moment and ran back to log on to pay my sales tax.  EXCEPT I couldn't get on the internet.  No email, no nothing.  Mumble, mumble.  After much fumbling, I packed up my laptop and stopped by my computer gurus.  Before I dumped it in their laps, a kind gentleman suggested that he would just check if it were my computer or my internet provider.  AHA!  No charge, thank you very much.  So I stopped by the public library to use one of their computers to pay the tax and then went back to work knowing that a phone call to Earthlink was in my evening's plans.

Fast forward to 5:15 and I'm talking to NdeeYah.  And talking...and poking paperclips into the reset button on my "modem" to no avail.  It took an hour for the gentleman advising me to call uncle and decide I needed a new modem.  I wanted it overnighted (the modem is free, the shipping is another matter between me and my credit card).  However, by living in beautiful, bucolic Vero Beach it is impossible for anything to reach us overnight and so my gentleman suggested that I pay for 2nd day shipping.  So I mentioned the dreaded words--dial-up.  How do I achieve a dial-up connection?  He led me to the proper screen and then told me to enter the incorrect telephone number.  I suspected that and pointed it out (it was my home phone number--I promise I'm not an internet server).  He hung up, anxious to move on to an easier problem.  I did eventually achieve a connection to the internet after talking with 5 techies and one supervisor.  

How does anyone deal with dial-up?  It is so slow I read the newspaper this morning while things were downloading.  Thank you DSL, thank you, thank you.  

Shall we see if Gunther's picture will download in a timely fashion.  Drum roll--Tonight I'm starting the stitch for his boots.

Wow! downloading that photograph onto my blog took about 20 minutes, during which time I started a pot of water on the stove, powdered my nose, ,,,you get the picture.  Perhaps this experience is good for my soul and will make me appreciate blogger more.