DSL: The Saga is over

My DSL line installation has so far been a pure, unadulterated success. Now not only do I have a dedicated DSL line straight from the phone box to my modem, but my second business phone line is finally up and running. I know this sounds completely mundane, but in the last few weeks I have been losing my work/dsl connection 30-40 times a day due to low-quality phone lines and bad connections at the junctions in our house, so to not lose my connection at all today is a minor miracle. I wonder if the recently deceased Pope ever worked for a telecommunications company? It could be the ticket to Sainthood.

To satiate your inner geek, here are some wicked Rad pictures of what I saw, and what I did, and what's left to do to tighten this system up (or lock it down, depending on which side of the fence you hang on, or which side of the plate you swing from, or which side of the tracks you hail from...I could go on, but really...). Wicked, Frickin' Rad. To sum up, I put this one wire thing into this other box thing and then connected that thing to the phone one. And check it dude - the thing, the one with the wires to my DSL deal, is like, totally called a POTS (means Plain Old Telephone (service)) DSL splitter. Wicked cool. Then I ran a new line along the roof line directly to a new phone jack, hooked it up, and the rest is sand in the wetsuit, braw.

My most brilliant (nearly literally) moment in the project? Well, phone lines are generally low voltage (around 40v) and amperage, so working with them is not that big a deal as far as the threat of death goes (unless you have clouds full of lightning banging into each other above you). The one exception to this however, is when the phone rings. An excerpt from the site, "The Natural Handyman":

"However, when the phone rings, a series of high voltage AC surges come through the lines, up to 100 volts, and this can be dangerous, especially to people with health conditions, pacemakers, etc. And unless the phone company thinks your phone is busy, it will do its ringing thing, even if your phone is unplugged!!"

I can tell you, now, that if you go up on the roof to access that ill-placed junction box and you forget your wire strippers down below, and you just go for it and strip the wire with your teeth, and the phone happens to ring, you can get a pretty, *ahem*, Tasty, shock to those metal fillings you've never had removed. The good news is, I can now pick up shortwave radio signals just by opening my mouth, which should save me in the event that I'm ever lost with a professor on a three hour tour.