The largest piece of software for which I download updated versions is the outstanding freeware suite OpenOffice.org. Why anyone pays through the nose for Microsoft Office is beyone me.

But it’s a pretty big download. In my old dial-up days, I would start downloading a new version right before I went to bed and just leave the computer, and the Internet connection, on all night.

This morning, knowing that I would have to put together a spreadsheet for Tuesday’s election results, I checked to see if there was a new version of OO.o available. I was pleased at the idea of downloading it with my DSL Lite connection. I set up the download, noted that it would take about an hour to complete, and left do pick up a few groceries.

While I was gone, my DSL connection died.

The BellSouth customer support people were terrific — helpful and specific without being condescending — but we haven’t yet figured out what’s going on. They offered to send someone out tomorrow morning, but I didn’t want to miss church. They are doing a check of the local area equipment tomorrow afternoon and will call me tomorrow night to let me know if that reveals anything about the problem. My computer and my modem appear to be working fine, so I think it is some sort of BellSouth problem.

I am writing this from work, while waiting to wrap up the Sunday front page, but even at home I won’t be completely without Internet access. BellSouth’s DSL accounts come with a backup dial account for use when traveling or during an outage.

Hopefully we can get this fixed tomorrow.