The dreadful weather I encountered in Boston seems to have followed me back to Georgia. Intense downpours at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport delayed my flight Wednesday night, and I didn't wind up getting home until nearly midnight.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "The storm system that spawned damaging tornadoes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama weakened by the time it reached Georgia, but still managed to dump record rainfall in Atlanta on Wednesday. The deluge caused a few minor problems across metro Atlanta. About 50 homes in the Collier Hills neighborhood were without power just before daybreak Thursday after a tree toppled onto power lines, then crushed two cars and damaged a pickup truck.

"The storms had moved eastward into the Carolinas by Thursday morning. The National Weather Service said 2.87 inches of rain was recorded by the city's official rain gauge at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the most ever on Nov. 15. The old record for the date was 1.94 inches, set in 1914. The heavy rain also erased the city's rainfall deficit for the year. The 44.80 inches of rain so far this year is .17 inch above normal, the Weather Service said."

Fortunately, my home was not one of the 50 in Collier Hills to lose power, but my driveway was impassable due to all the wet leaves. My driveway has always been steep, but the loss of traction due to the large quantity of freshly fallen leaves caused my car to spin out and halt about halfway up the hill. I slid back down, backed up a little, gunned it and tried again. Only halfway up that time. I tried a third, and a fourth before finally making it with squealing tires on the fifth attempt.

Finally getting in the house, I found that my high-speed internet access was out Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Thursday was not quite as rainy, but still overcast and glum, and when I got home Thursday night, it took me three attempts to make it up the driveway. And the internet access was still out. Friday morning, too.

By Friday evening, I decided to call Comcast tech support, who put me through various drills ("Unplug your modem and them plug it back in. Turn off your computer and turn it back on. Simon says. . ."). When Techie Number One couldn't help me, I was connected to Techie Number Two, who walked me through various tests of my IP address before finally giving up ("I can't help you. I'm giving up. Sorry it didn't work out. You might want to try your computer's manufacturer.").

I tried everything I could think of, even removing my Norton Firewall and virus protection. Nothing. Saturday morning, the connection was still down, but when I passed by the computer a little while ago earlier this afternoon, I noticed that the Google Talk icon down in the system tray was active, and thinking that might mean that somehow I miraculously got back on line, I tried, and lo and behold, there you all were, right where you've always been.

No idea what's going on. One of those things. In the words of the now unemployed Donald Rumsfeld, stuff happens.

But excuse me now, I have some leaves on my driveway that need blowing.