power cycle

When I got up yesterday, my internet link was down.  No WiFi for my Blackberry, no DSL on my computer.  So I huddled next to the window in my bedroom, pointed my phone toward the distant cell tower, and wrote to Father Bird.  "Why no internet access?" I typed.  "Power cycle the router," came the reply.

The term "power cycle", for those of you who are not in the know, (like I wasn't before I met him) means to unplug a thing and plug it back in.  I trotted downstairs and "power cycled" the router.  And I was taken back to the first time I heard the term "power cycle".

Years ago, Father Bird worked for a small startup company in the Salt Lake valley.  We lived across the valley from his place of work.  One day Father Bird, who is terribly afraid of heights, happened to be up on the roof, and discovered he had a straight line of sight from our house to his workplace.  (I expect he had suspected as much before he risked his neck climbing up there, or he really wouldn't have done it.)

Before I knew it, parts for strange-looking antennas were arriving in the mail.  He spent his evenings out in the garage cutting metal pipes and bolting things together.  He emerged after a couple of weeks carrying a mad contraption and wearing a huge grin.  "This goes on our roof," he told me.  Then, pointing back into the garage at an identical contraption, "And that one goes on the roof at work!"

I was skeptical.  "Does your boss know about this?" I said.  "Nah," he said, "No need to bother him."

One night after work he disappeared for a couple of hours and came back grinning and rubbing his hands.  A little more tinkering around, and we were up with a new (fast) internet connection. "And it's FREE!" he crowed.  I thought about all the money he'd spent on antennas and pipes, but kept my mouth shut. 

Because I really did enjoy the fast internet connection.  At that point, fast internet was more expensive than it is now, and we were more broke.  So I happily went along with his lunatic plan.  But sometimes the internet would go down.  And I'd call him and say, "Why no internet access?" and he'd say "Power cycle the link." 

"How do I do that?" I asked him the first time he said it.  "Turn the swamp cooler off and on," was the reply. 

Really?  The swamp cooler?

It seems that in rigging up the antenna on top of our roof, he had discovered that the only available power source was inside the swamp cooler, and he'd wired the antenna through the thing.  So, yes, to power cycle the link, I had to flip the swamp cooler switch off and on.  And, oddly enough, once I'd power cycled my swamp cooler, the internet worked again.

No one at work ever found out about his clandestine plan, and a couple of people actually had him come set up similar contraptions on their roofs.  We brought our antennas with us to Georgia, but here, he says, there are "too many trees", and eventually he got rid of them. 

So yesterday morning, as I unplugged and re-plugged the little, respectable, blue router that gives us our internet now, I thought about that whole setup.  It seemed so mundane.  I mean, there's not even a swamp cooler involved. 

~MB~

**Edited to add:  FB says that the IT department knew all about and sanctioned his project.  He doesn't want anybody thinking we were stealing.***