Network Anomolies and A Broken Gate

The problems started last night.  Exit133 was running slow and I had started to receive emails telling me about it.  Eh.  It’ll go away, I thought.  I woke up this morning to find Exit133 ground to a halt.  It’s there, but just barely.  I did a little digging around and discovered that somebody on my webserver was dugg and our server was crawling – barely.  It started last night and may only get worse as today starts up.  Blah.

There’s nothing I can really do to improve this so I went on with my morning.  I started the coffee maker and grabbed the recycling.  Outside the front door I found my morning paper folded on the table on our porch.  That’s interesting.  Normally the paper flies through the air and hits the front door with a thud.  Today, it would appear, it was hand delivered.  Plus, the paper’s been late the last week and I’m not used to seeing it before I leave for work.  So, all around, a decent thing. 

I rolled the large recycling bin across the yard and went to open the gate.  Then, I discovered, the central picket on our picket fence gate was broken off – sheared off might be a better description.  It appears that somebody hit the front gate so hard that it broke the picket where the latch attaches to the wood.  Folded paper on the front porch.  Broken gate… hmmm…  delivered the Washington Post for four years as a kid.  Once, on a particularly nasty and rainy morning, I took down a second floor storm window from fifty feet while riding my bike… I digress.  This sucks.  I’ve considered cancelling the newspaper lately.  This may do it.  It’s been a tough morning.