And now, dear friends, a guest-blog post from Mr. Crazy Happy Success (aka Paul, or, if you must, "that one guy that always seems to be hanging around Stephanie"). Before we begin, a caveat to you all: I am less crazy, less happy, and less successful than the Missus. Expect a far more watery/bland version of the usual fare. Consider yourself forewarned, and read on if you must.

Speaking of which, if you are reading this, then you are using the internet. Allow me to welcome you aboard this giant sea of knowledge.

You see, my habits have evolved as the internet has become more powerful. Now, I read my news on the internet (Google reader, which aggregates all my favorite news sources into one place); I watch movies (Netflix and Zediva) and television (Hulu) over the internet; I listen to music on the internet (Pandora); I shop over the internet (too many to list); I do my research over the internet (Pubmed, Google Scholar, Evernote, and Mendeley); and I have even transferred my phone to the internet (Google Voice and Talkatone/Whistle, and occasionally, skype). And now, with the iPad, the internet is always with me, for better or for worse. I embrace the internet as something that has become essential to my way of doing things and has improved my life in many ways.

My recent trip to Haiti reminded me of this. My hotel advertised wireless internet, if by that you mean pre-1995 speeds, being off more often than not, a signal too weak to reach to the rooms, and the impossibility of using skype. And so, I actually found myself disconnected for pretty much the whole time. For the first one or two days, it was liberating. For the remaining two weeks, it was excruciating. I felt isolated from loved ones, hampered in my ability to get work done, and maddened by how long it took to load even the simplest thing, if at all.

With my memory of this fresh in my mind, I made having a stable, fast internet connection one of my requirements for any home we would live in here in Tbilisi. If we could meet this requirement, it would mean that even though we would be halfway across the world, we could still be connected to our life back home. To be sure, there were other deal-breakers, but this was a major one for me. Fortunately, there are many internet service providers here, and in many instances, you can get better and faster connections than you can in the states (I'm looking at you, dad, with your measly 1.0 Mbps "high-speed broadband" connection that is the fastest you can get in your area). I got the fastest package available, and was pleased to see that it would be ample for our needs. When I wasn't getting the speeds I was to be paying for (or even close thereunto), I called the landlord, and in my limited Russian, explained the problem. He called the ISP, who then called me. In my limited Russian, I again explained the problem. A technician came. In limited Russian (incidentally, as a younger Georgian, his Russian was as limited as mine was, but a shared love for the WWW knows no linguistic barriers), I explained the problem (sensing a theme, here)? He tested the line, found that it was faulty, replaced it, and voila: broadband speeds aplenty. Moral of the story: Necessity makes one speak Russian.

In other countries that I have worked, one of the most maddening aspects of using the internet is the fact that it will cut in and out, seemingly at random. I have come to call this phenomenon "low internet pressure", because, like the water systems in these same areas, it seems as though sometime there is just not enough internet in the pipes to push it through to my computer. Our home internet pressure was thankfully in the healthy range. I can't say the same thing for the office at our local collaborator's office (the Institute for Policy Studies, IPS), nor at the hotel that my Johns Hopkins colleagues (among whom was my PhD advisor, Dr. Courtland Robinson) were staying at on their recent work visit.

After a very productive week and a half, we were wrapping up our work with these colleagues at the IPS offices and preparing to send off the fruits of our labors to the powers that be in order to keep this study train moving, when, to our dismay, we noted that the office internet was down. This is not an unusual fact of working in that office, so we agreed to call it a day and go to our respective [and presumably, more wired] lodgings to finish up (the aforementioned hotel and in my case, the Perrin Villa Tbilisi). I was almost smug in my assertions that we could work out of my house on the morrow, because we wouldn't have that problem given my great internet situation. Well, I got home, had dinner, and as I was putting the boys to bed, I got a phone call from Dr. Robinson. He informed me that the internet was down at his hotel, too, and so he would be unable to send the piece that he had promised. Fear not, Dr. Robinson, I shall rescue us all. My insistence for connectivity would bear immediate fruit. I shall save the day.

I logged on. And logged on again. And again.

No dice. No connectivity. Ego bruised. Pride humbled.

I called another Hopkins colleague, placed at a fourth location in the city. No internet there, either. In public health terms (I am, after all supposedly a public health professional), two outages is a coincidence, three, an alarming trend, and four, well that is a full-on epidemic. I've experienced power outages, and have even experienced internet outages. But a city-wide internet outage? New to me.

In the days following, my internet pressure was much lower than usual. The usual symptoms began to appear, and interrupted our attempt to view LDS general conference live via internet. Was this simply my fate when traveling. Gradually, though, the internet returned to normal.

And then, straight from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up archives, the cause of the blackout was brought to light: a 75-year old village lady wielding a shovel. International news media reported that the pensioner was out seeking scrap metal, when she came across the fiber-optic cable, severing it with the intent to sell. This begs the question: where does one go to sell severed cable chunks? My guess is at the Dry Bridge market in Tbilisi, which is like a giant post-soviet rummage sale (including rusty scalpels, stuffed badgers, Lenin heads, used dishes, and sheep horns). Now, just waiting for the story that explains the recent spate of power outages (sample headline: ROGUE COW TRIPS OVER CORD WHILE GRAZING, SEVERING THE CAUCASUS' MAIN POWER LINE IN PROCESS)

Apparently, if you are seeking to cut any one cable in order to disrupt a maximum number of people, this might just be the one. The Wall Street Journal notes:

"The company that owns the fibre-optic cable, Georgian Railway Telecom, said that the damage was serious, causing 90 percent of private and corporate Internet users in neighbouring Armenia to lose access for nearly 12 hours while also hitting Georgian Internet service providers.

But although Georgian Railway Telecom insists that the 600-kilometre (380-mile) cable has 'robust protection", this was not the first time that it has been damaged."

Robust protection? Excuse me? She downed the internet in two countries! Apparently, robust protection means that it is only rated to withstand shovel strikes octogenerian or older. Anything younger than that, and the protection mechanisms break down. The best part about the WSJ story, though, was the picture, in which the accused wields not a shovel, but a saw.

Perhaps she learned that shovels aren't the best cutting utensils after all?

Now, my initial reaction to this story was to laugh out loud, which I did with great gusto. However, when you--for lack of a better term--dig deeper, this story is actually pretty tragic. This 75 year-old lady was forced by circumstances to search for scrap metal to sell so she can survive. Imagine, if you can, your grandparents in her place.

My dissertation is actually focusing on the impact of displacement in Georgia on those aged 60 and older, and I can tell you that the situation for the elderly in Georgia is pretty grim. They feel neglected and depressed. They have minuscule pensions (about $20 a month) from which they have to try and survive. Some are abandoned by families.

Hopefully, by cutting us all off from our modern conveniences for a few hours, the 21st-century Georgian equivalent of hacking the local cable station to broadcast a grievance, there will be more discussion about how to better assist the elderly in this region. Hopefully, our study can do the same thing, minus the shovels, of course.