The computer nightmare in Samsonville is over! Yay! Saturday I hooked up my "new old" machine. It works fine. I was able to eliminate the router, in terms of it being the source of the problem. On Sunday, after church and before going to my aunt and uncle's 60th wedding anniversary party, I figured out that the problem also isn't the NIC in my mother's machine. So that meant the only weak link was the 315' cable between our two houses. I thought for sure it was the coupler - a $2 item that is under my deck which connects the 300' custom cable to a 14' one I bought at Staples. But that wasn't it. We walked the length of the 300' - through the swampy area - and couldn't find a problem. So I figured it had to be that as an interior cable, after 10 months it succumbed to the weather and failed. It answered the question of why you can't use regular ethernet cable outside. So I put a regular modem in my mother's machine and hooked it up to dial-up until I can find a solution. My father wasn't satisfied with that solution - didn't believe the cable failed for no reason. So today they pulled the wire so he could test it on some kind of device he has that sees if there is a signal - and it turns out a rodent chewed through some of the wire. It wasn't fully severed, which was why we didn't see it with a quick walk through. He repaired the wire, put it back and my mother is back in business.

We took Ande to the vet today. So in a few days we'll know if he is positive for AIDS or Leukemia. Keep your fingers crossed! She thinks he is older than three months. He's grown - weighs 5 pounds.