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Last Wednesday I was again reminded just how precarious my internet connection is. For the third time since I installed the telephone line for my computer, I was cut off from the outside world. At least this time around I knew where to look.

In the fall of 1992, when my friend Audy needed to find a new home for his BBS (Bulletin Board System), The Super Board, I took over the job of Sysop (System Operator) and, as I mentioned in a previous column, ran it for about 3 years. It was for that purpose that I needed a second telephone line.

I've done plenty of telephone wiring before and couldn't see paying the phone company to hook up the new line so just had the line brought to the box on the back of the house. We are renting the lower half of an old two-story house converted to an upper/lower duplex. Since I didn't know how long I would be living here I didn't want to go to the trouble of drilling holes and snaking the wire through the basement to the front of the house where my computer is located, I decided that the easiest way to go was around the outside of the house and in through the front window. I ran the wire behind some bushes that lined the side of the house and the only place where it is visible is where it comes up through the front porch, which is a wooden deck, and enters the house through the window.

It's not pretty, but it works. Or at least it did for nearly 3 years until my landlord decided to cut down the bushes on the side of the house with a weed whacker. I was working nights then and the noise woke me that afternoon, but I didn't know -- or care -- what was going on out there, I just wanted it to stop so I could get back to sleep. It did finally stop and I did get back to sleep, only to be awakened again, this time by the phone (the other line).

One of the regular users of The Super Board called to inform me that the board was down. The BBS wasn't down though and after scratching my head for a while, I realized that there was no dial tone. When I went outside to trace the line I not only found the problem, but I also saw what that noise was all about. The bushes were gone, the telephone line was hacked up and completely severed, and luckily for the landlord, he was long gone.

I spliced the wires together and restored the BBS's connectivity, but I didn't have any electrical tape so just laid the line so that the wires wouldn't short out. I never did get around to taping up that patch job and of course it came back to haunt me. By that time I was no longer running the BBS so fixing it wasn't as urgent. Audy offered to mend it for me since I was so busy at the time, and his patch held up for over 2 years.

And that brings me to last Wednesday when I again lost the dial tone. With the unusually warm winter this year there's been a lot of melting and freezing, and when I went to check on the condition of the spliced phone line I found it buried under about 6 inches of ice. Water had repeatedly seeped in through the tape and then froze until a wire broke. I knew I should have tacked the line up under the siding of the house but never got around to it -- if it's not broke don't fix it, I always say. Julie helped me to dig the line out of the ice and I again repaired the severed wires. I wrapped the splice with half a roll of electrical tape and then tucked it up under the siding.

It should be good until spring now, when I plan to replace the wire. Maybe, if I'm ambitious, I'll even get out my drill and do it right.