We've got DSL!! Da-da-d-dah-dah. (Doing the DSL dance.) Da-da-d-dah-dah.

You know how slow dialup can be? Well, supposedly it runs 56.8 kps through the line at a time. Except in my situation where we have a split phone line so that we can have two computers online at the same time, or a computer and the phone. (There are four computers in my household.) So whatever I get is being fed to my computer at 28.4 kps. That's why I don't ever open up photos friends send me, or funny videos, or anything intensive like that at home. I save it for work, which isn't a guarantee. I swear our computers at work were slower than my dialup last week!

During my break, I was working on a self-paced online class to learn our new WebCT. It's real fortunate it was self-paced. I'd click on a page and go get me some coffee or go brush my teeth while it loaded. The benefit was I had a good idea of how my own classes come across for those of my students who have dialup. But I think I got the idea now.

My son is a gamer and has been frustrated with our dialup situation. First, he definitely can't play any real time games online. Second, we were always battling for line time. You could hear the plaintive cry "Are you online?" at any time of the day or night -- Mike asking Boone, Shelli asking me, Boone asking Shelli, Mike asking Shelli, Boone asking me, me asking Mike . . . Last week, Boone brought up the possibility of getting hi-speed Internet, for the umpteenth time. Short of getting an expensive satellite setup, we couldn't, we explained (for the umpteenth time). The DSL access stopped just short of our road.

"No, we do have access," Boone said. "I just checked." Come to find out, this was the DAY after access to our road was opened up. It took about a week for all the kinks to be worked out, but what a difference. I don't have to worry about who's online! I don't have to time my online time so that our satellite can have the phoneline for downloading the programming information. Whoo-hoo!