I couldn't have been more shocked if it had been Ed McMahon standing at my door this morning. It was Rick from Pacific Bell, and he didn't have a check but a work order to prepare my phone line for DSL. I couldn't have been more shocked.

As I might have mentioned, I signed up for DSL knowing to an absolute certainty that it wasn't available out here in the backwoods where I live. I was just goofin' on the phone company for sending me these random glossy ad flyers that were obviously meant for more civilized areas. What a stunner this is.

Not the least of my shock was the realization that now I'd have to install the DSL modem they're sending me. I could have paid another $250 or so to have it installed, but since it was never going to happen anyway, I let them think I was competent enough to do it myself. Now I have to do it for real. I hope the kit they're sending has instructions written in a language I understand. English would be good.

After I sent Rick around to the side of the house where the phone box is located, I realized he might have to hack his way through the weeds just to find it. Then I remembered it was his problem, not mine. I didn't ask him to drop by, and he didn't call for an appointment. I never expected all this to happen for real, and besides, why should two of us get stickers in our socks? Anyway, wasn't he wearing boots? (I didn't actually notice, nor did I actually care.)

So I waited until after he was gone to walk out to the phone box. There was a clear path and easy access, so I'm not worried about Rick any more. I'm sure he deals with worse problems in the course of his day, including customers who might be a little less cordial to a phone guy showing up out of the blue before they were completely dressed and ready in the morning (me, not him). He seemed pretty cool about the whole thing.

Now I'm waiting for my free DSL modem. They only have two more days to get it to me, because they've scheduled my account activation for this Friday. I'm excited and nervous and curious about how this all will work out.

Change isn't something I usually seek out (which is why I'm still working on a two-year-old computer with only 96 MB of RAM; it seemed like a lot at the time). I've been with MSN since the first time I connected to the Internet and have had the same primary email address all that time. I'm sure I'll adjust to all the ways things will change, but that doesn't keep me from thinking about it in my normally obsessive fashion.

You might think watching my nephews' softball team get hammered 28-3 would be depressing, and it would be if they lost 4-3 (or 28-27 for that matter). But they're so bad that all you can do is marvel whenever they make a halfway decent play.

It's not that they don't want to play better, just that they don't know how. It's obvious some of them really don't care whether they play well or not. I'm not sure why they even bother to sign up to be on the team. It can't be much fun standing out in the field watching the ball streaking toward you and having no idea what to do. But it's entertaining to watch, once you get over the illusion that you're going to see a well-played game.