Life among the tall timbers, Part one
Summer Sol send warmth down through the tall timbers, and as I walk to the bus stop a raven debates a gray squirrel. I walk down the hill on a paved trail that is quiet except for the occasional barking dog, bicyclist, or jogger. But after visiting the bank, I walk to an enclosed bus stop, where what passes for opulence buzzes by with the heat and the flies.
"Living up here is a mixed bag. There is the peace and quiet, but there is also the frustration that comes with trying to work with a technological world." (as quoted in the Chico Enterprise-Record August 27) There is stock footage that aired on Channel 24 that depicts this area as a frontier community that wraps itself in the American flag.
Since the power supply went out on my computer, I had to take my jump drive on a daily bus ride commute down the hill in order to tend to An Internet Globetrotter because there are no useful computers up here that don't come with a high price tag. Below, see a letter I published in the Paradise Post earlier this year in an attempt to address the problem.
Rumor has it that Wal-Mart may build a store up here, and K-Mart is going through a significant renovation to serve the major needs of the ridge. Towers with cellular antennas are springing up among the evergreens, so somebody believes there is money up here. Digital subscriber lines don't reach everywhere so those who aren't served by dsl have to use cable if they can and an old-fashioned phone line if they cannot..
Thirty minutes up the Skyway leads to a societal split between Chico and the Ridge. As one who straddles that split between tall timbers and tall dreams, I find this a challenge that I have to make the best of, one of the by-products of my senior year at Chico State.
I published this letter on Thursday, January 4, 2007 in the Paradise Post, Page a-7
Paradise should have better technology
Editor
Last week I ran into a problem, and found that Paradise does not now have a solution to it. Nathan Lindstrom’s comments brought same to mind.
This started in the first major storm of the season, where my phone line got cut. The line is also the only access I have to the Internet. so with the line down I had to go to plan B.
Plan B is Portable Applications. These are programs designed to be run from USB jump drives.
At one and two gigabytes, these drives make very small and wonderful storage media.
Portable applications run off these drives, and allow the users to use programs that don’t have to be installed onto the computer the jump drive is plugged into.These programs work off of Windows without any difficulty
Firefox is one of these, an Internet program that can use any open broadband connection for access. So I hung my jump drive around my neck and tried to find a public broadband connection in Paradise.
There only two such places in town and they charge $10 to $15 an hour. As a starving student, those costs are prohibitive.
The library in particular, has signs posted that jump drives are potentially dangerous and their computers do not have open USB ports.
This reasoning is fallacious as they allow floppy discs from the outside. We have new technology here, veryeasy to use technology and aside from the jump drive, free to the public.
I save many settings on mine when I plug in these to get my work done without interfering with the host computer. The powers that be in this town need to look into this.
There are some parts of Paradise that only allow expensive means to provide broadband access, and this being a good alternative. Us poor folks need help here.
Gary D. Brune
Paradise