Plain and Simple Pat here back into the Belly of the Beast after having been forced to Go Amish.
Sorry kids, the SIM decided that it was time for my cell phone battery to swell up like a melon thus taking out my ability to corn neck to the interned net.
NOBODY sells batteries locally. Twooudn't do any good any whey: The brakes are out on my car.... I was helped to get a replacement juice storage unit so we are back in bid nez until the SIM decides to squat above my head for some other reason with some other disaster.
Since I'm sporadic and eratic some folks might not have even known I was gone. For others: Sorry, there was no way that I could tell you that I couldn't connect because... I couldn't connect.
Prepare, my friends, for the day when they take down the cloud or the tranmission lines and leave you with no way of contact with anyone unless you have a short wave - or a long wave depending on what your hairdresser does.
So, until the next disaster - you're stuck with me.
You were definitely missed. Going Amish is not so bad, it gives you time to catch up on all the chit you were ignoring for so long. You know, like feeding the dog, checking the mailbox and the dreaded yard work, lol 😂.
You need a PACE plan Patrick, like the special operation if the USMIL use. Primary, alternate contingency, emergency plan. Shortwave isn't a bad idea but if you've got amateur radio or what's known as ham radio repeaters near you or you want to set up your own powerful repeater you can talk to people all over the world pretty cheap these days without having to go the shore waiver route. I'm guessing you don't have Wi-Fi but if you did you could use a system like Zello which a lot of people are using now as an alternative. There's also cellular or Bluetooth mesh networks if you have any neighbors that happen to have cellular or Bluetooth enabled cell devices. Back to the ham radio thing there's a brand called bail Fang that I got for Christmas a couple years ago from my wife, they're Chinese of course and their cheap shite and they're probably loaded full of spyware but you can pick up an old uv5r5 watt bail Fang handset these days for $20 they're practically giving them away.