Kill Bill or Wi-Fi Wars vol 1

The Girly Nerds did a great post about Passive-aggressive Wifi names And I am reaching the point where I am going to reconfigure my Router and the name I have chosen is...
 
Kill Bill

About 3 weeks ago we started to lose WiFi pretty regularly - around 7 each evening our WiFi goes down and the only WiFi we can see is....

Bill

We don't have any neighbours called Bill, at least no-one that we talk to - There are a couple of NIMBYs that do back on to us and who did take exception to our house being built, but no-one who looks like a Bill.
 
No idea who it is.

So, each time, off I toddle, down to the 'computer room' under the stairs (see it's not just me who's a Geek Engineer - Alpha Geek Macca is worse) and re-boot the router.
 
This does the job until Bill restarts his sodding router too.

Now I know that the reason is probably that we are on the same channel, and I know I should just change it, but Macca has the manuals and he is in denial that this is the cause.

So, if I change the name of our Router - will Bill get the message, and change his channel instead? Or will he turn out to be the leader of a lethal assassination squad and send them around to blow us all away? 

Vol 2 to follow.... 
 

Lessons from a 10-year-old

Well, Bug missed her (and our) first choice school by a measly 6 points out of 334, but passed both the others by hoooge margins. I am soo proud of her - she made up a huge gap in such a short time and yet doesn't hold the hard work against us (see Good Mummy or Pushy Mummy), but has demonstrated so many qualities that will stand her in good stead as she goes out into the world...qualities I never fully realised she had...

Consideration - We had a good weep, Bug and me... Me weeping for her, and her disappointment, until I realised Bug was weeping for me and not for herself....

Kindness - I spotted her hugging one of her friends who hadn't made any of the schools they'd applied for, and when she realised she was one of very few in her class who had made it to any of them, she stopped talking about it at all.

Optimism - Bug wanted that school place from the moment she walked through the door on Open Day, and to not get it was a terrible disappointment - the first genuine, life-changing disappointment of her life, and yet she is talking with such joy about the school she will be attending, I cannot fail to believe she will be a huge success wherever she goes....

Resilience - I suppose this is innate in 10 year-olds, but Bug is already back to herself in a way  I am not sure I could ever achieve so seamlessly after such a blow - and I resolve to try to look at life through the eyes of a ten-year-old, at least some of the time. I so wish I could bottle her energies to brighten all of our days....

Job Abandoned?

Today I lived up to my demented tag when I took a self prescribed 'Mental Health Day'. Problem was, I was already in the office and I didn't exactly slip away... I am not sure how my colleagues or HR are going to take it and I might find myself with a status update on the HR system of 'Abandoned job'. I know I have had a lot going on and it has all been taking it's toll, but wish I could maintain a little more self control and a lot more discretion. Final straw was probably fairly minor but resulted in a fair amount of bad language, a hasty shutting down of my PC and a determined exit from the office. We Irish are sometimes tagged the Latins of North West Europe, and I think there may be a some truth in the apocryphal family tales of us being descended from a survivor of a shipwrecked Armada - while I don't have Irish red hair either, I certainly could be described as 'having a Temper on me'. Anyway, I'm home now and considering my options. Wondering if I will have a job tomorrow, and at the moment, not particularly worried. Twenty years is a long time, especially if a fair amount of time has truthfully not been that enjoyable, so If anyone knows of openings for geek engineer Mums with a temper on them, then let this one know...

Walking and thinking - or not

I haven't been very attentive to my blog and finally made the tie to the fact that I haven't been walking much lately either. For three months over the summer I was on a challege at work - to walk 10,000 steps per day, and being a bit of an alpha type I managed to average over 15,000. I absolutely loved it, and it provided me with some much-needed thinking time, almost satisfied my addiction to exercise, and I lost over a stone too! The key to it for me was the chance to clarify my thoughts - Coming up with words in rhythm to my steps, blogging in my head as I paced - the hardest thing was trying to remember it all and get it down when I got home. The challenge ended in the middle of September and I have to admit I miss it, and the chance to free my mind - Time to get my pedometer out, a new pair of shoes on and get off my aching butt and walk and think and blog.....