Unmasked, Unmanned, Unmade

It appears the tech nerds at Sprint have finally shone a light into my little dark, protected corner. For three years or so I've used a Sprint cell phone via a bluetooth connection to surf with this laptop. It has been my sole means of connecting, and, though slow, it works virtually everywhere I fly around the lower 48.

The other night I pulled everything out of my bag in Rockford, IL, and my trusty connection refused to work. As I had done several hundred times before, I dumped everything and re-established the bluetooth connection, and all appeared well. But the Sprint network refused to come the rest of the way.

Only a week before we had finally got DSL & a wifi router in the house, and so I naturally assumed that something had been screwed up by that. But then I was approached by two other pilots who use the same Sprint connection protocol and they told me that THEIRS had suddenly stopped working as well.

I guess Sprint finally decided they were tired of giving us free what they've recently begun to charge some $60 a month for (using a special, intended-for-the-purpose phone).

But it leaves me

Hogtied.

hog·tie or hog-tie (hôg'tī', hŏg'-)
tr.v., -tied, -tie·ing or -ty·ing, -ties.
To tie together the feet or legs of.
Informal. To impede or disrupt in movement or action. See synonyms at hamper.

So until I come up with an alternative means of connecting--in every town I visit during my workweek--there'll be much less posting from wunelle. Or rather, I'll end up writing a bunch of stuff off-line and then every third day posting in a flurry.

Ah well, adapt or perish!