Off the Grid

That’s right, I am removing myself from the World Wide Web (and Deep Web, for that matter) to nearly the greatest extent I possibly can. I am limiting myself to five minutes online a day for leisure once I find a suitable printer for canvas prints (I cannot find a suitable one of these in the five minute timeframe, of course). In these five minutes, the only thing I am going to allow myself to do is to check the scores of tennis matches, baseball games, and the Stanley Cup Finals, and occasionally to check my e-mails once a day. That’s it, nothing else. I’ll outline the rationale for this below, as there are a number of reasons for it.

First off, this all came to a head with the recent events in dealing with my internet situation. Bright House Networks is my internet provider, and they take the cake when it comes to incompetent internet providers. I have wasted dozens of hours of my life trying to get them to get my service correct, have techs correctly set up equipment, get a static IP configuration, and still it has never worked like I needed it to. I finally got to a point where I was closing in on getting everything set up to meet my I needs. I’ve learned a lot along the way on configuring things myself since no one in their entire company nor my internal IT department know how to do it, and the admin that works remotely is so busy that he’s just not had the time reconfigure his Watchguard since Bright House gave the wrong configuration information in the first place (and I am not allowed to have admin privileges to the equipment; while I could reset it with everything I know, I am not going to do that and possibly get in trouble with them). I spent about three hours the other night tinkering on my own, and as of today, I felt I was going to be able to have everything except my Watchguard set up and actually have wireless internet again. Then, sure enough, Zeus had other plans, and lightning fried my equipment that was plugged into my brand new Tripp surge protection device (screw you, Tripp). Upon further messing around, it appeared that the modem wasn’t fried somehow, rather, just the power cable ceased working. So I went on a trek to get bent over and forced to pay 2000% of the actual cost of a power adapter for the unit. Ordinarily I’d make this purchase online, but given I needed it today, I didn’t have much choice. I finally ended up getting one at Radioshack, or so I thought. I showed the guy exactly what I needed: 2 amps. He “tests one out” and said it lit up, so I was in a hurry and didn’t think much of looking at it myself. I just wanted to get back home and continue another miserable day of work. Well, first off, I left the modem at the store, so I had to drive back, pick it up, and at this point I ordered some Chinese food since I was in no mood to cook. Upon getting home, I ate, and then I was so agitated about everything, the internet, work, and personal life things, that I didn’t even bother getting set back up, I just went to bed for a nap. Three hours later, I wake up around 11:30 and figure I’ll get set up again, and lo and behold, the power adapter is 2.5 amps, not 2, so of course it doesn’t work. It lights up to acknowledge a power source going in, but it will not power the modem correctly. Of course, this is too late to go back to Radioshack, so my only choice is to go to Walmart to buy a temporary modem before Bright House can get me a new one by coming out to the house (I need to lease equipment for them to enable static IP – it’s a Bright House thing, not an actual thing, just one of the many reasons they are a horrible company). I get my router, come home, and then spend the usual 30 minutes on hold before I reach a person at Bright House to give my new MAC address on this modem to, and, sure enough, “the department that can do that is closed”. They open at 8 tomorrow. How convenient, looks like I won’t be able to begin working at 8:00.

So that details my frustration of late. I hate having to work a second job just to get my internet set up the way it needs to be for working from home. I’m over it, and while I don’t have a choice because I need the static IP, it has been the series of events that makes my stomach churn so much that I cannot take it anymore. This is on top of already being sick of not having WiFi. I’m the first to admit I waste entirely too much time online (more on that in a second), but having WiFi enabled me to do two things: access the internet from my laptop, and watch Game of Thrones on my PS3 (this is really the big reason I wanted to get my WiFi set up). Without WiFi, I am limited to working from my desktop in my little home office. Now, you can say, “the internet’s the internet”, and you’d be right, but it’s a psychological thing. I spend my whole day in front of the computer in that room, in that chair, and at a desk. Before, it was enough for me to be able to be online on my laptop in another room and lay on my bed or the couch in a different set of scenery for me to be okay with being in front of a different glowing, soul sucking screen. Not so much anymore, though. I’ve just about had it with being on the computer altogether. This is another contributing factor as to why I haven’t edited my photos of late; I have my personal desktop with my photo editing software, 8 core processor, and IPS monitor in my office, along with my crappy work desktop that is maybe 15% as good as my personal computer. They’re both hooked up at the same desk, as both have wired internet connections and utilize the same dual monitors, so my photo workstation now shares my business workstation, and that has been a psychological deterrent on top of the other psychological deterrents I outlined in a previous entry. But I’m beyond even that now; now I just don’t want to be on the internet at all.

Here’s the other reason for it; I know that I allow it to suck the life out of me. It’s a problem, I don’t manage it well, and I need to cut it out entirely. I resort to the internet to deal with anxiety. I resort to the internet when I am depressed. I resort to the internet when I am bored. I resort to the internet when I want social interaction. I resort to the internet when I want to avoid social interaction. I’m not as bad as many people, but I am far worse off than I want to be, and enough is enough. I thought back to what I did when I wasn’t online so much. There’s been an ebb and flow to my time spent on the internet. Back when I would have considered myself a highly functioning human being, I still spent time online. Prior to 2011, though, I was not even on Facebook. Time spent on the internet was mostly on Reverbnation or other such music sites looking for new, underground music. The only reason I even joined Facebook was that I was going to more and more shows, and people typically don’t like communicating with you via Youtube, last.fm, Reverbnation, or any other source simply to get pictures from a show. So I did it for the convenience, and while I can’t say I regret it, I’d like to get back to the point where the internet is not a means for me to waste my life away. It’s not the internet’s fault, and there’s no guarantee I won’t continue to waste my life away, but I’ll be damned if I keep doing it online. I live in a new city now, and I am reaching the stage of my life where people my age are less interested in doing things with new people and are more focused on spending time with their existing networks of friends and acquaintances. I completely get it, but it doesn’t help me. As such, I resort back to going online to whatever paltry social interaction I can get there, but I’ve reached the point where I would rather be alone and keep myself busy than have such distant social interaction. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that. I actually think I will be well served to go out into nature and be alone with my thoughts. I felt as though I was making good psychological progress not too long ago, and I’m seeing it unravel before my very eyes. Anyone knows me knows that I am a fighter, though. I don’t go down easily, and I don’t go down without a fight. I want to get my punches in, and maybe I took a few lately, but it’s my turn to send a few back. One of many analogies for depression I have come up with over the years is being taken down a river in the current. You have to tread water to stay alive and wait for a branch to try and grab onto when the moment is right. When you get that moment, though, you have to take it, and you have to time it right. Lunge for the branch too early or too late, and you just spent all of your energy to miss after biding your time for so long. You have to know when to make that lunge and time it right for you to be successful. I’ve been treading water, and now it’s time to make that lunge. I want to live life again, truly live life, not just live it enough to allow me to drudge through the monotony, and I am going to do it whether people want to do it with me or not.

Despite my 2:00 a.m. drowsiness, I am a bit excited to be taking this step. I hope that people join me, not in giving up the internet, but in staying connected with me through more intimate outlets than the internet. I miss phone calls and texts. I don’t want to make it difficult to get a hold of me, but that’s going to be the only way to do it other than perhaps sending an e-mail. I likely won’t respond to the e-mail, or if I do, it will be a response that takes a minute to type and will likely consist of “what’s your phone number?” as a reply. So, that’s that, and apologies in advance to anyone I upset to the people who will inevitably try to contact me via Facebook at some point only to not get a response because I won’t be on the site any longer. At least there’s documentation here saying that I am doing this, not doing it to ignore you, so please, take your BS internet drama elsewhere :)

Tennis Blasphemy - I Don't Like Nadal vs. Djokovic Matches

Well, no real need for an introduction - the title says it all. I dread Nadal/Djokovic finals. I don't deny the rivalry. I don't deny that they have some scintillating rallies and that they go through spurts where the level of play is remarkable. What I do deny is that they have so many "epic" finals with some of the highest quality matches you'll ever see. That's simply not the case no matter what the sensationalist announcers who have no memory beyond the most recent five matches they've seen as to what is the greatest match they have ever seen.

Here's my biggest qualm: the length of a match does not translate to the caliber of a match. There are a number of reasons for this. One, long rallies do not always equate to good rallies, and two, the length of time for a match does not mean that the entire duration was spent playing. To touch on the first point, long rallies do speak to consistency and endurance. There's no doubt that these men are the two fittest players on tour, and to have these prolonged rallies without making errors is certainly not something to be overlooked. Sometimes there are spectacular points, but other times the points may just be defensive, with no one wanting to take an offensive chance in the rally, so it just keeps going. While each of these players are certainly capable of some good offensive tennis, their primary styles are trying to make the opponent break by playing relentless defense from the back of the court. When you have two guys who won't make as many unforced errors as the rest of the tour quite as quickly, it does lead to longer points. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it isn't, but it's simply repetitive. I completely understand how some may not like watching big servers like John Isner or Ivo Karlovic where the point is typically over in three shots or less. Neither type of match is particularly diverse. The matches with baseline rallies have more tactical elements to them, but by and large, when you have two players whose styles both default back to defensive baseline play by nature, it's still not as exciting as people seem to portray it. Matches between Djokovic and Federer have been far more entertaining with Federer more of an offensive, precision style baseline attack, and both players are more prone to employing change of pace tactics like coming into the net to catch an opponent off guard. Likewise, when you have a power player versus a finesse player, it makes for more compelling tennis, in my opinion.

When watching a Djokovic and Nadal match, there's almost always a constant ebb and flow in the level of play. I have long felt this sentiment about there matches, but typing this while watching the French Open final really is a prime example. You have moments where each can look completely disengaged in some of their matches. You have moments today where Djokovic gifts away five straight games with a slew of unforced errors that aren't even close to the lines. For every brilliant rally, there are three average to underwhelming ones. The matches' unforced errors outnumber winners, and those don't even contemplate forced errors that could easily be considered shots the player would ordinarily make. The periods of significant drop off in play are accentuated due to the fact that there is less variety in other potential matchups. Somehow, it seems a little more bearable if a player hits a blistering forehand wide down the line when going for an outright winner than seeing a shot that was pushed long on a ball that was right in the center of the court.

The other element, as I mentioned, is that the length of time of the match does not translate to the amount of time played. These two players take some of the most time between points of any two men on tour. I believe it was their longest ever Australian Open final that hey played where the average amount of time between points was above the legally permitted amount of time by ten seconds. When you subtract all of the time that should never have occurred in the first place from the total match time, it shaves about an hour off of the total match time. That's an hour of us watching Nadal fix his wedgie or Djokovic bounce a ball before a serve an inordinate number of times. I completely get that after a particularly long rally that the chair umpire has good reason to overlook a time violation, but I've watched points during this match in particular where there is a serve, a return unforced error, and a length of time between points that exceeded 20 seconds. Certainly these men are not cut in the mold of Roger Federer or Andy Roddick, both of whom would ordinarily take well under the allocated amount of time to return to the service line for another serve. A match with the same number of points between those two pairings will have a 60-90 minute difference over the span of five sets solely from the amount of time spent between points, not the points themselves. That's a staggering difference. Assuming the level of tennis is the same between the two matches, wouldn't you want to have all of that tennis packed into a shorter period of time? I certainly would!

Undeniably, these are the two greatest in the sport of tennis right now. As such, we can fully expect more finals between the two in their already most contested of all time rivalry. They absolutely deserve to contest these matches, and I am not taking that away from them. Still, you'll have to excuse me if you see me rooting for some Djokovic vs. Wawrinka or Nadal vs. Tsonga finals instead of this matchup, which has lost its luster in my eyes.