My vacation

Modern-day lingo calls it a staycation.

I spent it re-organizing and re-invigorating ideas on some changes both inside and outside of the house.

I won't go into the outside things, that's something I'm still contemplating and attempting to define what I want to do with, only considering the east side of the house where the ponds are.

My concentration of energy was in my bedroom and more, in the bathroom. I have, over time, been attempting to find pictures to put up on the walls in there and as I find them, I put them up. Just going to keep looking and hoping to find a good deal on something that appeals to me - which the focus is on the Great Outdoors.

Meanwhile, I am still coming to terms with the fact that my son is going to be gone for 2 months, back for less than a month and then gone for an entire year - and after that who knows what's happening.  I thought about the trip up to the camp on Sunday to take him up there and got this feeling that I better make it a "quality-time" event with him, because after that?

Waxing sentimental and emotional. Daddy isn't losing his son forever, but he is going to have to wish him well as he goes on life's adventures, to put it in third-party terminology.  He's a great kid and God has great plans for his life and I cannot interfere with that and wouldn't even try.  It's just a final letting-go thing that I haven't gone through yet and already I'm feeling it. From the point of delivering him to the camp and after he gets back and going to the airport to leave for Hawaii, I won't be seeing him much anymore and that?  A hard thing to grapple.  It's a point in life I have no experience with and the thought of it brings tears to my eyes.

Okay, I can't really write about this anymore and it's my bedtime.

ben

Goodbye CenturyLink DSL, Hello Cox Cable High Speed Internet

I found the company on Craigslist that I was searching for in the past for hooking up to Cox Internet.  It's a 6 month offer for less than half the price of Cox's regular pricing for that tier of service, plus free, professional installation.  I have had more than enough of CenturyLink's rude, offensive and obnoxious attitudes towards customers.  The only individual that I have really connected with in that company is the local field tech supervisor who hasn't played the denigration game at all.

But after having yet another conversation with CenturyLink management this morning - with this lady repeatedly interrupting me and talking to me in condescending tones, just enough is enough. As I have stated before, it's time to find out whether the grass is any greener (and even if it's partly browned, it will be vastly better than the blackened grass on Century Link's side)  on the other side of the fence. I have been a CenturyLink customer since they started here, buying out Qwest, of whom I was a customer since - well since Ma Bell, unless there was another one before that that I am just not remember, of which I would have been a customer as well.

That's a pretty long-time relationship to be ending with a company.  But so it is.  I am getting such pathetic, low speeds on my internet now that coupled with CenturyLink never-ending attitude that's just time to cut the cord.  The service cuts out frequently, it goes down to as low as 2,500 mbps (megabytes per second) - which is really slow when you are talking "high speed internet" - I have had them out here 4 times in the last 2 weeks and this problem is obviously not going to be fixed.

So, they were going to send someone out Sunday - but I am not going to be here Sunday afternoon in taking Caleb up to the mountain youth camp with Salvation Army and I definitely want to be here for the installation.  See how much I can get away with, ie: having the cable installed underneath the house coming up through the wall.  They may not be interested in doing that, but I am going to ask anyway.  If not, I can have it installed the same way it currently is, which is from underneath the house through an existing portal going up to one of my kitchen counters.  The different would be that a hole would have to be made in the drywall and line run up to it for the outlet I would like to have.
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A LONG time passed.  Lol.  Not going into the rest of today, cause' it's now my bedtime, interesting stuff, though, at least for me : )