Thursday, February 17, 2022

Balm for the Soul


 Even in my uncaffeinated state, I managed to remember a picture of the black orange this morning. I think it is delicious. Tim says that it is okay, but he does not believe it is as juicy as a regular orange. 

Also, for the record, I'm not worrying about the trip at all. I am worried about the possibility of not being able to take the trip. And it is just a minor, niggling worry wrapped up the knowledge that Murphy's law is a real thing. 

Despite the death of our tenant, covid numbers have dropped dramatically here, so that is reassuring, but it is the only thing that could stop the trip in its tracks. (Well, other than unruly passengers, blown tires, or snakes in the light...)

So, I am not really worried. Much.

Something that has absolutely got me fired up is our phone and internet. We've been trying to sort this out since I retired and discovered we even had a problem. I called to cancel the landline, but was told that recalculating the package would result in higher prices, not lower prices. I questioned how that was even fair, because really the reason for the change is on their end, not ours. I also pointed out that whether we were going to even keep the internet was highly debatable. Long story short, three transfers later, I found myself on the phone with someone who worked for nearly 2 hours, assured me that my complaint was escalated, that it was not just me, it was a system glitch that affected others, got a phone number that guaranteed getting directly through to him and that he always returned the calls. I also was told that a district manager/supervisor/whatever would be calling within 24 hours. I hung up feeling as if I'd spoken to the person I needed to be speaking with. 

Did you know that you can check your internet? ismyinternetworking.com. Every 15 seconds, it checks your connection. You will get a green 'yes' or a red 'no'. After hanging up with 'Chris' I was having the same problems with my internet, but my connection was consistently a green yes. I couldn't understand it, until I took it down to being checked every 5 seconds. You could very plainly see it flickering between red and green.

I texted my new friend back. Twice. No response. 

The following day, I called him and left a message. Twice. No response. 

I also have not received the promised call from the district manager/supervisor/imaginary position. That really irked me. 

I was on facebook with my dodgy connection flickering on and off. I was trying to message Cara to call me. I can't call her on my cell, and the landline wasn't working at all. Long story short, a Breezeline blurb came up with all their promises of wonderful service, and there were literally hundreds of complaints just like mine. I added my comment and submitted it a dozen times before it took. The reply came back that I should PM "Sue" who would be glad to help me. I commented that if they were serious about keeping their customers THEY should start calling people back as they promised. Today I saw that they have deleted both comments.

Yesterday, I planted 6 mortgage lifter tomato seeds. I decided against planting everything before I go. Tim and I have always had an arrangement. He brings home the meat, and I tend to the vegetables. Starting 50 seed pots and then taking off seemed a little unfair, both to him and the seedlings. Still, I needed to soothe my grumpy self so I started those six tomatoes. 

It helped. 

My sister was on call for the second night in a row. Sitting around visiting with her and Tim for the evening also helped. 

I'm off for the day tending to tick some of the last minute things before the trip. Hard to believe that I'm leaving next Friday.

If I don't get covid.


19 comments:

  1. I'm assuming you unplugged the power to your router and rebooted it? That usually solved about 90% of my internet problems.

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  2. Don't jinx yourself! LOL!

    That's very frustrating about your Internet. I wonder how many people this is affecting?

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  3. That time is coming around very fast! Wave to me as your plane passes overhead on its way in.

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  4. I'm the same way. I never believe I'll go on a holiday until I'm on the plane. Years of traveling standby and years of not having anyone to care for Katie. I no longer have either of those problems but the feeling remains.

    I hate poor customer service and it's just shocking nowadays when you do get good service.

    Fingers crossed you're on the plane tomorrow.

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  5. Thanks for the photo of the black orange. I was unaware that it existed and I would be curious to see if my kiddos would even eat it.
    I have had so many phone problems with ATT that I felt a lot of anxiety reading about your issues.
    A lot of empathy and hope that it works out well.
    Good luck with the veggies, the trip planning and staying COVID free.

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  6. Oh, Ed. It has been rebooted time and time again. I got a new modem with the first visit. I've had two firmware updates since then. (My ware are no firmer, which was disappointing). The issue is the signal coming in. According to tech number two, he had come from our neighbor's house to deal with the same issue. Based on the complaints I saw online, this is something that is pretty widespread. There were hundreds of complaints, Steve. Hard telling how many they had deleted.

    Pixie, not leaving tomorrow, but NEXT Friday.



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  7. Can you just drop it all and find a different company?
    Anyway, stay as isolated as you can for the next week.

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  8. That would be the solution, AC. The problem is finding a server that handles this area...and one that doesn't have the exact same problems.

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  9. I'm looking forward to reading about your forthcoming trip.

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  10. I had AT&T for years. When the landline became too expensive, I dropped it. When I had to change phone models, I got all kinds of lies from several in-store folks. Yep, one gave me their direct phone. She said the exact opposite of what corporate would tell me.
    I was lucky to move to my son's plan, Verizon. My son and I had to go to an in-store place 4 times to get my AT&T account settled and get our correct cancel deals. He was so livid that cute little AT&T people would try to short-change his Mom. I think they honored their agreement (my son had printed out the chat/texts too,) because they knew we'd be persistent. We've had no trouble with Verizon and they were very helpful with that phone change and a subsequent one, gently transferring data and call lists from one phone to the newer one, all in the store.
    I will never have AT&T anything in the future. You almost need an attorney to get out from them. 4 years later, I occasionally get texts from them about how I can save money on my account, when I don't have one.
    Good Luck, Linda in Kansas

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  11. contact the fcc and file a complaint--thats what I did and it did get some
    action from the phone company.

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  12. We don't really have internet problems but I was looking at the internet working site and of course it was green but I saw an orange flash that said Maybe. The website is useful if you have some kind of connection, but not helpful at all if you have no connection.

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  13. I don't where your call centres are located but ours are NOT in Australia - usually India or the Philippines. We had exactly same issues as you when my mother in law's phone went out. We ended up taking to our telecommunication ombudsman who at least got us a return call from India. It took 6 weeks to resolve the problem with hours spent on the phone every day. At least Tim will have something to occupy him when you're away. How is he dealing with call centres?

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  14. The 'maybe' as it was explained to me is when the computer is actively checking the connection. It happens with every 15 second check, you see the maybe, followed by the result of the check. Ours goes green, yellow, green yellow, red, yellow red, yellow red, etc. (remember I have mine set to check every five seconds, which is how I discovered that the connection is actually sort of 'flickering'.)

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  15. Most of these issues are dealt thorough a call center. These people don't care and will say anything.

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  16. Anonymous: terrific idea. I did just that.

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  17. Those Mortgage Lifters are all they promise and more. The first year we planted them they grew over six feet tall, produced tomatoes that needed to hands to pick and tasted fabulous. As I recall, two or less filled a quart jar, in canning,

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  18. I'm looking forward to them, Joanne. My daughter in law gave me some seeds. We are building special supports for them. According to my reading, the seeds I have can get over 9 feet tall. I can't imagine. I have an amish cherry tomato that grows six feet tall and produces continually throughout the summer. If you want some seeds, I'd be glad to send them to you. It might make a nice thing to grow n a planter if you have a sunny place for them.

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  19. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, Debby. It really sounds like things are much better on the mainland. Hawaii's numbers are going down... sort of, too. However, every time I think it's going to stay down... it goes up a bit again. They say that since most people have now had the vaccine or have gotten the virus, it should ease up.

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