It's 10:40 when the installer shows up. I feel kind of foolish, the internet now working and all, he's friendly enough and shows me the modem stats online, no problems there, then goes and checks the outside of the house. He finds a couple of faulty connectors - one at the house, one on the line, and my problems are solved.
He notes what an "Interesting" place I have. I get this when I have people over, mostly plumbers and maintenance people. "Interesting" here is a euphamism for "What a lot of mis-matched rubbish....do you ever clean?", but I'm tired of apologizing, even if I were Martha Stewart the kids would tear it apart in a weekend, and life's too short to be spent vacuuming and dusting. A bit of maintenance wouldn't hurt, but that's a habit I have yet to acquire.
But my router isn't coming back online. Probably I'm doing something wrong, but for some reason it's broadcasting well, but not picking up an IP from the modem. There may be a problem there, I'll have to do a full hard reset, there's not time today to waste troubleshooting trivial things. The internet's working, and that's what counts. Now back to work.