People regularly ask me why I have a NAS (affectionately known as Dagobah) with a treasure trove of media. My response always begins, “What if the internet went down?” They expect me to be part of the Streaming Generation with the always-on high-speed internet connection. Now of course I am, I have Spotify and Netflix accounts and not having an active broadband connection is frustrating but my many years of maintaining and curating an impressive collection of music videos (among other video and audio material) means that a weekend without internet is not the nightmare scenario it may be for others.

As I arrived home on Monday night I noticed the router was not connected to the internet and carried out the usual checks before calling my ISP. I was hoping this was a minor issue and I would be re-connected within hours rather than days. It was not to be and would mean sitting on hold for a total of over two hours to only find out that an engineer needs to be booked in for Monday morning.

Now – history will tell you that I am probably the Jedi Master of being able to maintain some sense of normality while being torn away from my beloved interweb. In fact, as if to preempt such a semi-regular scenario I actually even have a category for “Offline“. So is there a need to link to the specific blog posts directly? Probably no need, but the fact there are thirteen (not including this fresh post) is never a good sign.

In every case above there generally has been a distraction to keep me busy from the problems with the infrastructure. This weekend is no different. I actually have not just an average busy weekend I have one of the best weekends planned ever. It probably comes close to matching that weekend in July 2006 when DB10 signed off on a high and opened the impressive football stadium in Ashburton Grove. Am I building up the expectations of the poor reader way too high? The story has come full circle. While saying goodbye to one club legend over a decade ago, I am embracing a new star and future club legend. The saying goes, you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Tell that to Ronaldo and Real Madrid.