Irony Whups Me Upside the Head Once Again

Hot on the heels of my griping about our satellite Internet system, it comes through in the pinch and saves the day!

Friday, the Alaska Summer Research Academy held its Colloquium, in which each module presented its activities. The University of Fairbanks Webcast a live stream of the event for those of us unable to attend.

Worried about bandwidth usage and download speeds, I’d considered asking our friend, Cindy, if we could go to her house and watch with her. Her son, Eli, also attended ASRA in the World From Above module. I didn’t ask after all, deciding we might be all right without her on-grid, high-speed connection.When Friday came, we had a new concern: low wind had dropped our battery levels below the minimums we require for “safe” Internet usage. We didn’t have the power for a prolonged viewing, but logged on to catch Aly’s module, which presented first after the opening remarks. There were a few technical hiccups:occasional dropped audio and pixelization, the usual streaming problems, but we got to see and hear the majority of it, and even watched most of the next group’s presentation until the feed went bad, and we decided to turn it off.

Later in the day, Cindy called to see if we’d gotten on. She had had trouble pulling up the feed before Eli’s group’s presentation. I made a few suggestions, but nothing seemed to work; the connection kept timing out. I tried here, and got on; it wasn’t a problem at the university’s end.

Finally, Cindy hiked out here to the homestead to watch her son’s presentation! If it hadn’t been for our connection, she would have missed it entirely.

I’ve always been a fan of irony, even in its less subtle forms.

Aly and Eli arrived on the plane Saturday afternoon. The team is back together. It’s good to have our daughter home!

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