The wireless (and wired, all-in-one) router has been fucking up for a while. I tend to keep myself in benign ignorance of the details of the network, because networks are a thing that I'm very much tempted to back-seat drive, but it's been determined that the router is Fucking Up. The ISP tech support and I think some rooting were involved. (Purple has suggested that temperature may be a factor, since sometimes these things are insufficiently ventilated. It so happens that this object has a USB port, and the living room spent a little while cracking up at the mental image of a USB-powered desk fan plugged into the router and set to cooling it.)

Our friend Sonic suggested a Buffalo router, since hers (from Sonic) works a treat, but unfortunately the ones that meet Belovedest's specifications seem to be nearly completely unavailable, and have been buried on the website in favor of their core products. (There was an excursion in the living room while Belovedest and I tag-team explained what Network Attached Storage was good for and who needed it. Basic answer: it's sufficiently expensive that the least technical audience for it was probably geekfolk with large media libraries. *significant look at Belovedest, who has a NAS on their long-term wish list*)

So I asked Belovedest to write down their requirements. I know myself, and audio input of stuff that I am not immediately familiar with the distinctions between will go in one ear and out the other. Especially if numbers are involved. (Belovedest got to witness it firsthand one time, where they gave me the exit number and the street number, and I managed to mash them up when repeating it back to them.) Then I marched me off to a search engine, put in 'dd-wrt', 'router', 'best', and looked for articles from known sites with 2020 or 2019 in the titles. That got me a comparison aimed at an audience of small business IT that want to wring every last drop of functionality out of equipment before having to upgrade, which is exactly the kind of thing that Belovedest's tech demands and frugality would want.

I looked over the offerings, picked the one that seemed best, ruled out the "gaming" model which sported an entire 8 ethernet ports (for a handsome $100+ more than the 4 port model), and delivered my recommendation. Alex poked and found the site that was price-matching The Bad Place.

And so, quailing slightly at the price, Belovedest bought the new router, and soon our unhappy days of the network dunking up and down like a frantic tea ball will be at an end.



Today was Important! Because my mattress finally arrived! Apparently I was one of about seven mattresses in the FedEx Ground truck today. The driver toted it as far as the porch; I reassured him that I "had muscle" within the house.

It turns out that you can squish some quite heavy mattress into a small space. The roll was "thicc", as Steph described it, and took some doing to get over the threshold bump and on its end, since the entire assembly was in excess of 100lbs. The box was already on its way to falling apart by the time it was to the door, not to mention in the bedroom.

There followed an interlude of bed-stripping, including innumerable pillows, several blankets moonlighting as pillows, the gel pad that was sideways over the most-inhabited part of the bed, a sneaky foam pad that was at the top of the bed, some battered egg-carton style foam at the foot, and finally the 10+ year old mattress from IKEA.

Alex got the gel-spotted memory foam pad, the foam pad got shuffled into the media room for lack of a better immediate place to put it, and the egg carton foam was thanked for its good work and sent to the trash, it being in not quite as advanced a state of decline as the foam that had been sandwiched in my 2009-era "bed", but was getting there quickly. The mattress went to the basement, where it will either serve as a crash pad for some *cough* gym equipment, or a nap surface for the hot season, or perhaps some combination of both. Escape Calico seems to have been dubious about the weird softness of the gel foam mattress topper, but has become more comfortable.

While Belovedest hauled the mattress downstairs (which operation took them carrying the mattress, and Alex and me restraining the cats to avoid accidental murderizing, until the basement door was closeable), I shredded the box off the mattress and positioned the mattress on the bed platform. (We could have taken the plywood off at this juncture, and probably should have.) (Yellface was mostly not yelling or looking at Escape Calico throughout the holding session, because I had several large chunks of kibble in my hand, and she was licking at them and trying to get them pried out from my firm grasp. Definitely a food-motivated puss.)

The mattress was rolled, then folded, and the whole operation shrink-wrapped. Belovedest and I unrolled it, unfolded it, debated which way was up, rotated it, and let it inflate. I didn't get video, alas. Getting the plastic out from under was another small operation, and then we got the new, deep-pocketed sheets on. I fell over. It was comfortable.

I popped out long enough to let Belovedest determine that the plywood was doing more harm than good, since the mattress was smaller than the wood, and there followed an interlude that I am pleased to have not been in the way of. I resumed my flomp after some lunch-ish items, and only poked my head out when it got dark out. Guide Dog Aunt was pleased that she'd been able to give me such a thoughtful birthday present. It's a nice item for a milestone birthday. I explained the thing to norabombay, and may have sold her on it.

We will have to finish deploying the rest of the blankets before bed.