This past Christmas vacation I was fortunate enough to go skiing in Taos, New Mexico. I will leave a discussion of the skiing for another time, but it was terrific. At the same time I was unfortunate enough to have some applications due Dec 31st and Jan 1st, and being the procrastinator that I am, they weren’t done when we arrived in Taos on the 27th of December.
Taos is a pretty town, especially if you appreciate Southwestern style, art and architecture. It has small town charm as well- there are tons of local shops, coffee houses and locally owned restaurants. It does not, however, have a whole lot of internet.
At first our rental home was supposed to have internet, but for some reason it had not been installed by our arrival. I waited patiently, but by the 29th I was anxious. Asking a friend over the phone to search for an internet cafe, he directed me to Wired, the only one listed online. After skiing one evening we sought to find the cafe and were shocked to find it closed, completely dark, at 6pm. Granted, the sun sets at 530pm, but to be closed at 6pm? I was appauled. Next I tried a place I found in a directory: it clearly said open until 10pm both in the directory and on the front door. Someone must be confused about when 10pm occurs because the coffee shop was locked, the room was dark and there were no cars in the parking lot.
On to the backup plan: a hotel lobby. Walking into one of the main hotels in Taos at about 7pm I found out where all the skiers went: out drinking. The lobby, bar and restaurant were packed with 20 and 30somethings warming up with beer and cocktails. Needless to say the hotel staff did not have somewhere for me to check my email.
Back at the house I kept my laptop out and searched for a wireless network. I found one accessible in the driveway: but not inside the house. I sat in the driveway working on applications until my laptop died about an hour later.
The next day I thought I’d get smart. We left the ski slopes a little early and tried the public library. A sign on the door read: Internet down, sorry! Ok, let’s try Wired again. They’re open at 4pm, surely I will have success there.
Indeed Wired was open, so I went in, got comfy and ordered my coffee. By the time the coffee was ready I found out the internet wasn’t working- the barista cited a regional outage of the major provider in the area. Clearly I had found the ultimate internet dead-zone.
In the end we had internet installed in our rental house, for the last night we were there. So I had one night of application work and email bliss during my vacation, and the rest was frustratingly free of technology.
