Ri-desk-ulous!

Here is the final product! 

This morning I got the computer all hooked up, and had to do some serious problem solving regarding the WOW! Internet, Phone and Television cable package hookup that took pretty much all afternoon. Did you know that our phone isn't really a phone anymore? I didn't! Turns out all three services come into the house in a single coaxial cable. I knew I was gonna need about 50 feet of white(!) coaxial cable, a coupler and a splitter, but the whole messy process that awaited me was unimaginable. 

I started by stringing the cable around the perimeter of the room (from the TV to the computer) and only really encountered problems with the router, which up until this point had laid, happily blinking, upstairs in a cozy nest of brightly colored phone cords. Once I disentangled the router I found that they were actually all connected! Wall jack to coupler to router to phone! When I disconnected everything and got our internet up and running I soon discovered that I'd completely disabled the phones for the ENTIRE house! Evidently the phone service was coming through the CABLE through the router to the wall to the phones! 

This house is 70 years old and every phone jack in it was painstakingly installed by my dad and uncles or their dad, and let me tell you, they are few and far between. My next mission was to find a phone cord long enough to go from the jack in the kitchen (the ONLY phone jack on the first floor!) to the new computer set up in the living room and arrange it in such a away that wouldn't trip my unsteady roommate. This thing is so jury-rigged it's not even funny; the cord is long enough, but I'm using a splitter as a coupler and the whole she-bang is TAPED to the FLOOR! 

BUT- the phones work! As does the internet, and the wireless internet, and the television! And it's only 5:00! Time to make dinner!