Sunday

I went to the Direct TV site to pay my bill - due in 11 days but I pay bills when I have the money available and if that's well before the date, even better.

The bill was for $115.38.

Insanity.  I thought possibly ALL of my discounts must have expired at the same time and now I would have to spend whatever time it's going to take to get them to bring it back down again.  I went to my account and found 2 pay-per-views on the same day for $14.99 plus phone fees.  My first thought was the thieves, did they sit down and watch something while stealing my stuff?  No, the date was wrong - after both break-ins.  People are WATCHING this place now. PLUS, my Michigan neighbor is back and he definitely is a good neighbor on that particular front.

The only thing to do is call Direct TV - I'm going to get it removed if at all possible.  I bypass the first person that answers, that person isn't going to be able to do anything for me in a situation like this and they will try to tell me that nothing CAN be done, you are stuck, pay the bill.  SCREW that. 

15 minute wait.  Woman on the phone attempts to tell me that "if you would have" - I cut her off.  Don't want to hear it.  Don't care, have been dealing with this company for 11 years now, I know how it operates, I know what they are required to say with a computer screen in front of their faces dictating to them that junk, please DO NOT disrespect me. 

Guy finally comes on.  It was a short conversation.  He put a password on my account - I thought I ALREADY had a password on the account.  Not THAT kind of password, apparently, for ordering pay-per-views.  He says that 2 phone calls came in from 2 different numbers at such and such a time on such and such date - both happened on the same day.  They were "Adult" programming.  I guffawed again. I don't ORDER such s***.  He then gave the phone numbers, I immediately recognized the area code: El Paso, Texas.  I lived there for 5 years in the mid 80's to early 90's as a missionary, that prefix will never leave my mind. 

This guy puts me on hold to deal with removing the 2 adult channel PPV's plus the phone charges, I pick up the MagicJack phone and start dialing these numbers.  Endless ringing, no answer.  915-472-8887 and 915-779-9463.  Why post these here on the internet for any and everyone to see? Because they committed THEFT and I don't CARE who sees those phone numbers. 

Here's the scary part:  They would have had to know my name, my listed phone number - which is NOT the Magic Number and other information.  I've had only one recent conversation with anyone in El Paso, and that was through our company's email system with a person that works in the El Paso store.  My email - which I was using as intra-departmental - has my full name, the phone number that IS listed on the account and getting my address would be easy.  You don't expect that anyone within your company is going to use your information for ill purposes and if they are found out, that person will probably be fired.

Do I know for a fact that this person did it?  NO clue.  I called both numbers several times with no answer.  I looked up both numbers - they want money to identify who it is.  Like $15 and I have no idea if that is a very inclusive amount of information.  I have another idea which I am going to follow through with at work tomorrow. 

I REALLY get pissed anymore when anyone steals from me.  I mean, to the point I want to get a hold of that person and let them know - in vivid, physical terms, what I think of them taking my things.  I have lost thousands and thousands of dollars worth of stuff to thieves, I am SICK of it. 

Let's get off of that, I got the charges removed, the account is being "watched" by DirectTV and there is now a password on it that only I know in order to be able to order anything.  Even so, I'm still QUITE unhappy that someone is doing this and apparently getting away with it.

Onto other things.  I went to get the fish.  I had to wait for the other buyers to show up because - dunno.  The owner is a nice guy, we talked for quite a while throughout almost 2 hour operation.  I helped these people carry 2, very large Koi out to their car in a large plastic container - it was heavy and they couldn't handle the weight.  They had to take it back to their house, get them in their pond and come back for the rest.  I - was asked to wait.  When it was finally my turn - well, there were FAR more fish in that pond than I wanted to deal with,  I asked the other  buyers if they would take some of them - any of them - it's too much load for my small ponds.  They took 5 of them.  I still ended up with 18 fish.  FAR too many, I have already placed an ad on Craigslist to get rid of at least 10 of them.

We got all of the fish out of the pond and that was it, I got out of there.  Just too much time spent for what should have been a fairly short operation.  I did get a discount, however, for my helping, so that was good if nothing else.  Oh, and I drove the old Buick over there.  I am going to drop that off at the auto shop down the street from my work tomorrow to have the problem/s diagnosed.  I figure to only have it diagnosed there - unless it's something simple like days of old when a fuel mixture adjustment was simply a turning of a screw or adjustment of the jets in a carburetor - probably not.  This car is old, but not THAT old, it does have fuel injection, lol. 

My neighbor, freshly arrived from Michigan.  He shows up with an old, rusted, 1928 Ford Model A attached at an angle on the TOP of his pickup truck.  The guy is crazy, but he's likable enough.  I got to inspecting the thing.  Lots of rust, yes, but........the radiator was in perfect condition.  The doors opened and closed flawlessly.  The body? No dings.  Even the wood for part of the frame was still intact.  Anyway, I had noticed after he came back that another computer magically appeared on my Qwest modem info.  Hmmm, who could THAT be?  I had given him free internet last year in exchange to use his pickup. 

Hey, uhh, Randy, are you using my internet?  He was like, ohhhh, darn, well, yes, I came home, turned on the computer and there it was, internet service!! As if he didn't know it was the same setup as before.  I haven't changed my password and that would mean automatic access.  He started telling me he would pay for it when I politely interrupted him.  No, no, I'll tell you what I want.  Use of your painting equipment.  Ohhh?  Yes, I want to paint my old Buick - cheap paint, yes, but put a fresh coat on it.  It does not look very good right now, the paint is faded to the point it's got different discolorations all over the car.  He agreed to that.

So that's it.  I forgot about my laundry I put in the wash this morning and now am paying for it.  I put it in the dryer a while ago and cannot go to bed until it's done - it has my bed sheets in it and I don't have an extra set.  I do NOT sleep on a "raw" mattress, period. 

G'nite.

ben