Vacation + Internet + Go Airways = Problems

My wife and I just got back from vacation yesterday, after spending a relaxing week in Hawaii. I had brought my laptop along with me and I had every intention of posting some articles while on vacation, but I was unable to connect to either the wireless nor hardwire connection where we stayed at. But my computer problems began before we even left the mainland for our trip. I have a cable connection from our local ISP which along with cable TV I have been using for the past 15 months, and for the most part all had been working well. Back at the beginning of October I decided to switch our TV reception from cable to Dish network, keeping only the cable for Internet access.

On the Friday before we left, October 2nd to be exact, I couln’t get on the net. A call to my local ISP got me an explanation that somehow my cable modem had become disassociated with my account and it would take 2 business days to repair. OK. I’m bad. Not having Internet access for me is like taking away food. Not only for my posting of articles here at Lockergnome, but I also needed to send an article I had written to one of the newspapers I write a local column for. So I tapped into a unsecured network in my hood [which is a no-no], just to get my emails and psotings completed and headed off to Hawaii with my laptop in hand.

We were staying at the Hilton Grand Vacation Club located up the road from Kona on the big island of Hawaii. After settling in I tried to connect via wireless and wired connection in our room with no joy. I then noticed a guest reply card sitting on a end table, in which the previous resident made comment about no Internet access. After some investigating and spending some 45 minutes on the phone with tech. support I finally concluded that I was not going to have a connection to the Internet, to which my wife stated I could use a break from the computer. I agreed and we proceeded with our vacation plans. I must admit being off the computer and Internet was a blessing in disguise, since it did allow me the luxury to relax and enjoy myself with no deadlines to meet.

During our stay we took a hop over to Oahu via Go Airways. I wanted to visit the battleship Missouri which is berthed just down the road from the Arizona memorial. One word. Amazing! For those of you who may not know, the Missouri is where the Japanese signed the final surrender papers for WWII while in Tokyo harbor on 9-2-45. For you history buffs who have the chance to visit Honolulu the Missouri is a must see.

What is Go Airways? They have flights between the islands as well as other US ports and are a discount airlines. Upon our return flight which was to leave at 5:00pm they had us all lined up ready to board our flight, which continued to be delayed at 10 minute intervals for some 50 minutes. Finally they admitted a flight wasn’t available until 7:15pm. Apparently delays were happening all day, which was annoying being lied to. What was even more annoying was that the agents could care less. Some even smirked when talking to customers. Go Airways gets two thumbs down.

So back at home my computer troubles continued. I at first thought my connection to my cable ISP had not been fixed. What I found was that neither my wireless nor my hardwire connections were releasing the network connections from previous attempts to connect. Once the connections were released all was well. I thought I would just pass this on in case you may experience a similar problem. I’ll be doing another article on how to cure this problem.
It is good to be home and I look forward to posting more computer related articles.

Regards, Ron

PS Thanks for all of the comments that were posted while I was away.

[tags]vacation, Hawaii, internet, go airways, network, problems, [/tags]