Marc: Life without the Internet

All joking aside I had no idea how much I would hate not having easy access to the internet.

We closed on our home on 27 May and moved in that day. We didn't bother setting up any kind of TV or internet service in advance since we knew all of our stuff would be delivered on the 28th and we would have plenty to do. We finally got our internet installed today (9 June), Verizon FIOS if you care to know who is our provider. That's almost two weeks off the grid.

Man, am I glad to be back on the web! Internet is the new TV for me; I do fine without TV, but not without internet. And not just because of my social networking (fancy name for Facebook). Here's a (not so) short list of reasons that I seriously missed the internet:

1) Weather updates.
2) News. I get all my news from the web including headlines, sports scores, and local news.
3) Access to manuals/tech details on stuff in the house. For example, we wanted to sell the fridge and washer and dryer left here in the house. For ease in listing them, it would have been nice to plug in the model numbers to find the manuals and details.
4) Help/advice in working around the house. For example, I was doing some electrical work and was uncovering some weird stuff in the switch plates and was wishing I could research it.
5) Blog. My brother Brad kept bugging me about keeping up with blogs.
6) Email. Not having access to email is like not having a phone. In addition, I don't keep a hard copy contact book so all of the contact info for my friends is on my yahoo account. Not very handy when you don't have access to it.
7) Purchases/shopping. We hardly buy anything anymore without researching prices online first or actually finding exactly what we need online.
8) When I'm not checking the Facebook ticker I feel totally out of the loop with friends/family. I have a brother that is still doing the Al Baldwin on the idea of Facebook so I still have to call him all the time instead.
9) Skype rocks. We talk to our nephews in California, and all of Jennifer's family for that matter, on Skype video chat.
10) Maps, primarily addresses and directions to places that we want to go, especially since we're living in a neighborhood that's new to us.
11) Lyrics. I hear songs that I like on the radio and find them by remember one line from the song and then searching for it by those lyrics.
12) Podcasts. I like to listen to PTI and ATH in the car since they each only take about 20 minutes that way, and not seeing the video doesn't detract from it at all.
13) Reservations.
14) Fantasy sports. Good thing we're in the off-season right now!

I'm sure I'll think of more as soon as I sew this up and post it. I've always mocked the idea of an iPhone, but I often found myself peering over Jennifer's shoulder during the past two weeks as she was checking her email on her phone. Maybe I'm more like Dad than I think I am!

Thank you Al Gore. I love the world wide web!