Pissing in the WIND

I've been remarkable silent for the past 12 days while on my annual Ferragosto jaunt to Pesaro. That just isn't normal and I hope to make up for it in the next few days with some posts about the town (one of my favorite in Italy), the food, the Rossini Festival, the food and the side trips to Urbino and Rimini, the food, the days spent in Assisi with an excursion to Perugia and did I mention the food?

One of the reasons I've been lax in my postings I can blame squarely on WIND. Its a long story but up to now I've been using an Internet key from TIM when I travel to various areas here in Italy. Other than on the train I have never had a bit of trouble.

Laurent decided to go the same route but went with WIND because they were the first Provider outlet we found in Pesaro. We should have done our research. He could not upload the application to his Ibook and when he took it back to the store their attitude was pretty much - we got your €50.00 so tough! I tried it on my Ibook and it set up okay so I took the WIND key and gave him the TIM. No good deed ever goes unpunished.

Over the past 10 days it has

• taken anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes to initialize the system.
• taken between 2 to 5 minutes to connect.
• taken so long to download basic Google that I was constantly getting time outs.
• took over 3 minutes to upload a small picture file - a larger one timed out.
• a check of their system to verify they had service in Assisi indicated it wasn't a problem - but the signal was so weak that nothing and I do mean nothing was coming through.
• Sitting on the terrace by the pool at the hotel in Pesaro there was not available signal for over two hours.
  

Though I have entitled this posting Pissing in the WIND which is what I feel like I've been doing the past few days, second thoughts suggest that this should be an outward rather than an inward gesture. If I could find anyone at WIND who seemed to give a damn I'd try it. However at this point I'm home, connected to my faithful FASTWEB - that has only failed me once in 3 years - and secure in the knowledge that on the next trip I will have my TIM key with me.

And I should start posting again. In the meantime I'm open to suggestions as to what to do with the key from WIND?

21 agosto - San Pio X Papa