The "Red Line" has been crossed.  Now waiting to see what, exactly, Obama is going to do about it.  This concerning Syria, Assad's use of chemical weapons against his own people and more pointedly, Sarin - probably the gas version of it.

I don't like to give Obama too much time of my day, so I won't delve into that any further.  Mr. Big Government The Bigger The Better And You Don't Know What's Good For You So We Are Going To Take That Right Away From You And Tell You Instead - President - will eventually go down in history as one of the worst Presidents this nation has EVER had to endure.


I was very disheartened and very sad to see an event take place before my eyes this morning.  The property next door is being leveled.  It used to be a restaurant.  Behind and to the other side of the property is an apartment complex.  The complex has a lot of pine trees planted in rows, beautiful, anywhere from 20 to 40 feet tall.

In about 2 hours time, an excavator/trackhoe took out about 20 of these magnificent, very-healthy trees and dumped them in a huge pile.  There was an 8 foot tall block fence in front of those trees.  I had no idea that not only was the block fence going to go, all of those beautiful trees were going to be destroyed as well.  The apartment complex bought the unused restaurant property and the adjacent property and are going to add 62 more units to their already huge complex.

If I had known that all of those trees were going to be taken out, I would asked if I could have one of them - have it professionally removed and replanted at my house.  There were literally tens of thousands of dollars worth of trees just torn down and reduced to a pile of rubble this morning.  I am a tree love, but not a tree "hugger".  Trees and their lumber and by-products serve so many useful purposes, I have NO problem whatsoever with lumber companies cutting them down and selling the products they make out of them.

But to just trash that many trees?  Were there no landscaping companies or nurseries that were willing to come and take all or some of them out? I wonder if any such were ever contacted.

But after seeing probably 50 to 60k worth of block fence destroyed, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I dunno, but tomorrow is Friday and I can say without hesitation, this has been one of the longest, drawn-out, extended, unbelievlably - did I say long yet? - LONG weeks I have endured in quite a while.  Very few deliveries.  We are running at around 100k worth of sales and we are almost at the middle of the month.  NOT good. But it's not just our store, the decline is region-wide.

Funny thing? The company continues to hire people.  Meanwhile, I was offered a job today at one of the municipalities I deliver to, lol.  I was thinking: Pensions.  Yeah, no pensions there, several other municipalities have pensions in these parts, but not this particular one and I seriously doubt they are going to start me out anywhere NEAR the money I am making now.  But it's always good to have some kind of options available in case you get confronted by Mr. (or is it Mrs.?) Pink Slip.

I wonder if they even have such things anymore.

Meanwhile, George came walking through here with 2 suitcases a few hours ago and declared he would "see you Sunday", meaning he is going to spend the weekend with his girlfriend.  I haven't seen the new tenant in several weeks.  But that is the nature of his job.  He is currently in New Mexico.  My son's bedroom is empty, sniff-sniff.  The only ones left are Mark and Lynnette.  Mark is a very unhappy camper with his bike situation, but I don't want to go into all of that right now.

It is strange to go out every morning now and see my old, blue Buick sitting there on the street.  The first thing I think is Caleb is sleeping and the next reality that hits is, no, I took Caleb up to the mountains last weekend.  He is living life and he is enjoying it.  I am happy for him, but that doesn't mean I can't miss him.  The final weeks he is here after getting back from up there and leaving for Hawaii? I'm going to make the most of them, as time permits for him.  I love my son dearly.

Enough.

Time to start preparing for bedtime.

ben

Centurylink didn't bother to even call me about the tech coming over until around 3:00 pm and was informed that they wouldn't be here for another hour.  No worries, I replied, I am no longer interested, I have Cox Cable over here installing new internet service now, you need not come.

The "real" Cox tech had the thing done in about 20 minutes and he was gone. Speed tests are showing that I am getting around 30mbps - though the package I asked for is 15-20.  This compared to the 5mpbs Centurylink was giving me and telling me they couldn't do any better.  

Well, hopefully, I am done with all of this nonsense.  Making endless calls to Centurylink, getting sent over to Philippine incoming call lines, having to ask for Americans, then still having to go through a ridiculous process to actually speak to someone.

I have no intention, whatsoever, of paying the outstanding balance on the bill and intend on calling them to let them know that they can take that bill and remove it.  For as many times as the service has gone down completely, for as much time as I have had to sit around and wait for techs to show up - they give you a 4 hour window that they can show up in - and for as much as the internet speed has dropped as low as 2.5 mbps, yeah, I have no intention of paying the 60 some dollars that is outstanding.

Half way through the work week.  When I left yesterday?  There was nothing in the system for deliveries today.  Nothing.  Unbelievable.  Yesterday at least I had enough work to keep me busy until 2:00 pm and then go home after 8 hours.  It might have changed since last night - contractors often call in the afternoon after they get home and place orders for the next day - but I won't be holding my breath.  Meaning another long, drawn out day attempting to invent things to do.

It isn't the most favorable conditions to come back to work to after 9 days off, is all I can say, in having nothing or very little to do.  Plus it's hot outside - though for whatever reason, I haven't had that much difficult adjusting to it this year.  I usually need weeks to get to the tolerate-it point, not this year.

Nothing else new around here.

G'day.

ben

Cox Cable

So, this subcontractor from Cox Cable (remember what happened with a subcontractor with that company last week!) shows up and tells me he is going to start with the box out front and then work his way back.  He is at the wrong box.  I pointed at the other one on the other side of my property and said that's the one over there.  "I'll find it myself, thanks".  Attitude.

I just decided to go back inside the house and let him figure it out on his own.  He comes in the house eventually and asks where a cable outlet is.  Right there, I replied.  No, sir, this is a phone outlet.  Yup, I said, that's where my current internet line is, I want that one yanked out from the bottom and then feed a new one up through there, I don't need the phone line anymore and don't want it.

I had to inform this guy fully 4 times, saying the same thing over and over about where the interface was installed and how I want a line under the house.  It became clear that he did not want to climb under the house.  I said fine, I will just call Cox and they will send out someone that will. NO, I'm HERE, and went storming out of the house.  I thought, this isn't going to turn out well, is it? to myself.  About 10 minutes later, I hear this crashing noise inside of Mark's bedroom.  I mean, really loud.

Mark comes out and says the guy had pulled the cable for his Direct TV box through the hole, cause the box to crash off the TV and everything that was up there to fall onto the floor.  WHAT, I wondered, was this guy doing?  Why is he pulling out a cable for the satellite?  The guy came back in a while later and I kept my mouth shut. I want the cable installed, just get it done and if there is damage I will contact Cox. But this guy's tudes wouldn't quit.

Then, he went back out and disconnected George's Cox line.  He couldn't get any work done until this guy rehooked it, though the tech never stated he was going to disconnect the other line.  Whatever.  I go outside and start watering plants, ignoring this man and just trying to keep my cool.  I am standing on the side of my house and suddenly hear this loud crashing noise, like something had been smashed into the side of my house.  I didn't even go over there, I figured whatever was going on, it was with this tech with the tude and let's just get this over with.

Well, the tech comes walking around the corner with Mark following behind him.  Mark bluntly states that guy has an attitude problem and then informed me that this tech had taken the hatch that covers the access to get under my house and smashed it up against the side of house.  That's all I needed to hear at that point.  I got up and walked over to see if any damage was done while this guy is stating that the thing had fallen on his head. Well why didn't you just remove the damned thing?  You can't.   It weights maybe 20 pounds at the most, I picked it up with one hand and put it on the ground, but it was too late.  We got into it.  No freaking tech from some cable company is going to come onto my property with an attitude simply because he doesn't want to do the work - climbing under the house - and then start destroying my property.

The ensuing altercation became so heated that I told him to get off of my property.  Get your stuff, get off of my property, right now.  This tech went into a string of colorful adjectives including calling my house some choice words - which is when I informed the man that if he doesn't get OFF of my property NOW, I am going to call Cox cable.  Which I was going to do anyway, but I was going to get my cellphone out and let them hear what this guy was doing.  Instead, he became even more agitated which is when I just informed him if he didn't leave, I was calling the police.

I followed this guy all the way off the property, giving him some choice words of my own after enduring his outbursts.

I then called Cox and got a hold of management and told them the entire story of what had just happened.

I don't have time to go into the rest of it, but hopefully needless to say, they weren't happy about what they were hearing.  Another appointment for a Cox employee to come out and finish the job is for later on this afternoon.  I don't EVER want a Cox subcontractor to step a foot on my property again.  I have half a mind to cancel the appointment and let them come out here and just take their router -which the "tech" left behind and just stick with Century Link, even though that service totally sucks and the highest speed rate I am now getting is somewhere around 5.5 mbps.

Time to be off to work.

G'day.

ben

Off to the races.  Amazingly, the hint of the sun's light already showing up at 4:30 am, when I got up for work.  Weather forecast to get up to 109 today.  This is one day - coming back from work after 9 off - that I hope and dream of just an 8 hour day, get it over with, get off work and get home.

History, however, usually has a much crueler version of coming back to work after extended time off.  But I don't really care that much, working is a part of life, at least my life and there isn't much I can do about it at this point in time.  As long as the AC works in that truck and hopefully there are runs to do - not sitting around the shop all day attempting to invent things to do.  That was where I left off now that I think about it - work slow down and not looking up too much.

And, the hint of "head-count reductions" as my company likes to call it.  Probably most companies call it something like that, a bit of a distanced way of saying you are getting rid of employees whose life-blood comes from the paychecks they receive from whatever company is laying people off.

But, I can't dwell on that.  I still can't believe how fast that trip up to Heber and back occurred.  I was "probably" not going the speed limit.  My excuse is a malfunctioning speedometer that is going to cost hundreds of dollars to fix and not really high on the priority list to fix.

Well, whatever the case, time to be off to work.

G'day.

ben

2 hours up, 2 hours back.  Trip to Heber that is.  Spent the entire time driving up there talking with my one and only offspring - Caleb, my 20 year old son.  The conversation ranged the heights of the mountains and the depths of the sea and the trip up there was over too soon.

No emotion this time, though, the first time I took him up there I was pretty well undone.  Prayed with him and asked him to PLEASE tell us what's going on up there, even if he didn't think it was important.

The drive back was so heavy with traffic that I didn't have time to think about what was going on, even though I have already given that much thought.  But the reality sank in after pulling up to my driveway and seeing his car parked out there.

It's one thing to know something is going to happen and is coming your way, it's another thing entirely when that happens and then it hits you.

I'm not crying, but to know that form this point forth, I'm just plain not going to see him very much?  Not really the happiest of thoughts.  He's a good person, he's full of love and compassion, his friends posting on his Facebook wall attest to that fact.  One of them was really undone, obviously, as he wrote to Caleb and told him about their growing up together and what it means to him for Caleb to be gone.

The whole thing has unsettled me.  I'm sitting here working a job 5 days a week and really getting nothing out of it.  It isn't what God has called me to do yet it's so easy to get snagged into it forever.  I'm called to be a missionary, an evangelist, preaching the Word.  I don't know what to do.  Yet.  I do have some ideas for a beginning to that end.  Some serious life changes in order.  Not quitting work or anything, but what I do with my free time.

Not going into that, just not the right time for it.  Get it going  in my life and then discuss it.

Whatever the case, a 9 day vacation is over.  It's almost bedtime and then get up at 4:30 am for work.  It's been very helpful to have this time off and give me time to think about things.

My son asked with a longing sound to his voice whether I was going to get rid of Sebastian.  That's what he calls my old Buick that I gave to him to use until he didn't need to use it anymore.  Well, the car isn't worth much and I have much more dumped into it than I will ever get out of it.  Just for his exclamation of his apparently relationship with that old car, I decided not to get rid of it.  Instead - sounds selfish and maybe it is - but the situation with the people next door is intolerable.

They used to call the police if anyone from my house parked their car even 2 inches on the other side of my property line and across theirs.  There is nothing illegal about that, it's on-street parking. But we went ahead and made sure we were behind the property line and then one day,  a female tenant that used to live here had parked a foot or so in past my line and this guy started cussing her out and giving her a very hard time.  I wasn't there but my neighbor saw it and was shocked.

Now, for 8 months anyway, this guy has been parking in front of my house.  Like anywhere from 1 foot to 4 feet beyond his property line.  No, I don't call the police like he has on us.  Instead, I am going to wait until that van of theirs is gone and I am going to park Sebastian right up to the edge of my property line.  I am going to grease the front bumper in case he decides to back into it.  It's going to sit there for a long time.  Like almost 2 months until Caleb is back from the camp thing.  He will be here a short time and then off to California for a youth convention for a week and then back here for a couple of weeks and then.....of to Hawaii for a year.

It's after he leaves for Hawaii is when I will decide whether to keep that car or not.  I have no use for it, though I don't consider it a bad thing to have a backup car in case the main car breaks down.

Whatever the case, not a thing I need to concern myself with now.

And onto the final thing:

time to go to bed.

ben

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.
____________________________

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 : )

First off, I finally figured out the digital thermostat.  That thing has been driving me crazy.  It shows a "target" temperature of 77 - or whatever you want to set it at, really, that's what I have it at. It will not turn on until it hits 79 degrees. It will not go off until it hits 75 degrees.  Freaking ridiculous.  The manufacturer's instructions were faulty. THAT is what the problem was and that's why it took me so long to figure it out.  It has a SWING option - and it was set at a 2 degree swing.  Up to 79, down to 75.  So, the thing sits there not doing anything until it gets to 79 degrees and then has to bring the temperature all the way down to 75.  That takes quite a while.  Once I figured out how to set the swing temperature - NOTHING like what the instructions say to do - I got it down to .25 change to start up.  That's what I want: cycle on and off at a constant range, not have a 4 degree change in temperature.  Enough of that, just one more thing I finally figured out.

So, I'm outside spending quality time with Century Link employees - nice people actually once you get them to start talking - I am not an ogre with these people, especially the people that show up to my property - and my son calls.

I'm now over by the ponds.  I like my ponds.  They are a place to contemplate,  have some peace, not have to deal with "things" in the house.

Whatever the case, we get to talking.  After all that stuff, I ask him what's up.  I mean, he doesn't really call me unless he needs something.  He wants a ride up to Heber on Sunday, to be there around 4:00 pm. I had to think about that for a minute.  Sunday, the final day of my vacation, facing getting up at 4:30 am, needing to go to bed early.

I can get home in about 2 hours 15 minutes or so.  Maybe a bit longer, just coming to a guesstimate.  I can get to my mom's property in about 1 hour 45 minutes and that's about a half hour to 45 minutes away from the camp, I think anyway if I remember correctly.

Well what am I going to do, tell my son no?  Lol.  I can be home early enough to get to bed early.  So yeah, I agreed to that and unless he ends up taking another ride up there, that's going to be Sunday.

Centurylink.  They were out here for almost 2 and a half hours.  A field tech, a supervisor and the dude that dissed me this morning at a remote location.  They check the interface - for a long time.  Then they move to the pedestal and then tell me that the pair was bad and they were changing it.  Everything they were doing required long testing periods.  Which I could have cared less, test all you want and then, fix it.

They did all of that - which ate up a lot of time and then came into the house.  I fired up both computers and still showed slow speeds.  So, they wanted to replace the line from my outlet to the modem. Be my guest.  That didn't change anything.  Then, they wanted to give me yet another router, that after they changed the type of service I was on.  I mean, this was endless changes.  Okay, a new, more updated router. Wasn't that what they gave me last week?  No, was the response, I was hooked up to an older system - ATMDSL - and now I am hooked up to "pure" DSL. I could only envision an ATM machine taking money and giving nothing back.

The explanation of ATMDSL was not sufficient enough for me to envision what it was, the guy was far too generalized about it.  It goes through "more routes to get where it's going". Whatever.  No biggies.

So, we get ALL of this done and after my computers still showing slow speeds, they get their OWN computer.  Yup. Slow but it has improved enough to meet their 20% standard.  20% slower than what I am paying for.  That was good enough for them and they were gone.

I'm pretty fried about it.  It's time to start looking on Craigslist and find a cable modem/router and get switched over.

Wednesday. Halfway point in my vacation.  Nothing exciting, really, just taking it easy.  I was going to go up north today, but that plan was yet hampered again by Centurylink and their apparent inability to diagnose a problem.  After a long and rather intense discussion with a manager yesterday, I was promised a high level tech and a supervisor to come out and find out what the problem is at 11:00 am.

I am not going to go into the details of that conversation, it would just take too long and it was such a crock of crap.  No-one in that company takes responsibility for anything,.  Such as the promise that I was going to have a 2cd tier tech come out yesterday morning, which did not happen.  I was just another tech who couldn't figure out what the problem was.

This manager yesterday could have cared less what was promised.  She just blew it off, but I kept bringing it up until she was forced to at least comment on a co-manager's statement that the problem would "finally" be taken care of.

Anyway, this guy calls me - Mike is his name - telling me he is here to fix the problem.  Great.  Are you a higher level tech?  I asked this time because no use wasting my time yet again with a person that isn't going to be able to figure out what's going on.  He doesn't answer the question.  He states again he is here to fix the problem. Great, I replied, are you a higher level technician?  Uhhh, just call me that, okay?  What kind of reply is that?  I asked him again: either you are or you aren't.  I have had numerous techs out here that couldn't fix the problem, you either are or aren't.

He then started in on this spiel asking me if he wanted to start a confrontation or did I want the service fixed. Wow.  Okay, let's see where this goes.  No, I asked you if you were a higher level tech, legitimate question especially with all the problems I've had here.  Well are you going to be contentious - yada yada yada.  How do you equate my asking you a simple question with being contentious?  The tone you answered the phone with (???) and the attitude you have with me now.

Attitude? I think the person that has the attitude here is you.  I have said nothing to you to start this kind of exchange, I asked you a legitimate, simple question.  Well, he replies, I heard you abusively treated a technician that came out here and started trouble on the phone with customer service, I am here to fix your problem, either you do or you don't.

Unbelievably appalling.  I have NEVER abused any technicians that have come out here save the person yesterday from Cox that changed their story 3 times and I finally got fed up with it.  I didn't get abusive, either, I just called him out on all 3 different version of his story and informed him in a very blunt manner that they were NOT going to be drilling a hole in the front of my house since there were legitimate, viable alternatives and that was that.  Those 2 individuals were from COX, not Century Link. I have never had a negative exchange with Century Link techs coming out here, I don't want to do that, it would serve no useful purpose.

I have gotten into it with Century Link managers because of their constant interrupting me and cutting me off in the middle of a sentence, a thing I don't take too well, especially from a company I am paying my hard-earned money to for their so-called "services".  Hey, Mike, what's your supervisor's phone number?  He started back-pedaling then, but it was too late. This guy is NOT coming onto my property.  If he can start such s*** on the phone, what on earth is going to happen when he comes into my house?!!

He hangs up on me, then calls me back 5 minutes later and gives me the number.  Okay? He states, as if he is going to end the call. Umm, no, Mike, actually, you can stay on the line while I call your supervisor.  I wanted Mike to here the entire phone call.  I called his supervisor and explained, verbatim, the exchange between Mike and I and then I hung up on Mike.  I explained to his supervisor that I would be happy to sit down with all 3 of us if Mike decided to offer a different story and I would happy to look Mike square in the eye while I give my recounting of what he said to me.  His supervisor  said no, let me deal with that, thanks.  Yes, I didn't expect him to take me up on the offer, just attempting to solidify my standing on the recounting of Mike's words to me on the phone.  Mike should have just answered my question and then he would have already been in here and hopefully done.

Instead, this supervisor and another allegedly experienced tech are coming out here to find the problem in about an hour from now.  I made a lot of phone calls before I finally was given an 800 number for a customer care center in Century Link.  I'm going to post it in it's own entry on here so as to have it handy.  I can always Google it, lol.  Umnm, posted it before posting this entry : )

As for Cox - well besides everything else yesterday, they left my yard in a shambles.  I mean, dumping river rock - must have been underground when they dug out the trench - on top of my landscaping rock.  It will take some time to pick, piece by piece, those rocks out of there and they did NOT install the line inside of conduit, as not only their own company's guidelines require, but also the city of Phoenix regulations.

I may address that situation, well I probably will after the altercation yesterday between those 2 "against" George and I.  I want to get this CenturyLink crap dealt with first.

I must be offa here.  Gotta go out and check some more things with the Cox setup.

ben

CenturyLink's Customer Care 800 Number

If you have been having problems with CenturyLink's service - or usually lack of service - have been treated poorly on the phone by their incoming call associates and have not been able to get your situation resolved, then this is the department/division/whatever they call it within their company to call.  I am a CenturyLink customer, I would only ask that you try all other options before calling this number. But, I can ascribe that after months of having technicians coming out to "fix" the problem with my internet service - and it never getting fixed - and having Centurylink management promising me that they would once-and-for-all get the problem fixed - which it wasn't on any of those occasions - I can totally understand anyone else's desire to escalate the urgency of the situation and get with someone who can actually do something about it.

Here's the number:
800-238-3095

Good luck!

Between Cox Cable and Centurylink today, I became extremely agitated.

Centurylink sent out a person that is NOT the 2cd tier person they said they were going to send out.  Just another technician who couldn't figure out what was going on.  He comes in after his "investigation" and tells me that there is nothing wrong with the lines.  I sit him down at my kitchen table and do the speed tests on both my wired desktop and my non-wired laptop and show him  CenturyLink's "approved" speed test.  On both of them, they show around 5,000 mbps.  Then, the number started going up as I kept refreshing.  Then back down. And up. And down. 

He went outside to make a phone call and came back in and told me of some "division" in their company that keeps a running log of my speeds - according to their system anyway.  I said thanks, obviously, he wasn't going to be able to do anything.  I informed I would be calling CenturyLink again and discussing this with them.

Meanwhile, Cox cable comes out.  The supervisor ends up coming out and bypassing the worthless worker who obviously just wants the easy way out - drilling a hole through my front wall - and we discuss this situation.  It's for George's work and his work is paying for it, yes, but it's MY house and I don't want a hole drilled through the front wall of my house.  

So the guy walks around and suggest to run a trench along the side wall in front of my house through the block fence and then under the house, to the rear of the house and install an interface there.  Sure, I said, that sounds great.  But remember, I tell him, that you are going to have to crawl underneath the house and feed the line up through the bottom of the house through the wall. Okay, he says and that's that.

Back to Century Link.  I call them back and just go for the throat: the manager this morning tells me that they are sending out a 2cd level tech and that they WILL take care of this situation and they do not.  I go through the Philippines yet again and then to an American operator who wants to argue.  Your manager, please.  She rambles on. Manager, thanks.  I'm just not going to go into the extreme amount of talk that went back and forth, too much and after having to have had deal with 2 of the same kind of company at my property today?  I'm just done.  

I was very blunt with the manager that I got on the phone, I will say that.  Promises not kept.  The same things stated from every manager, every time: it's GOING to be fixed.  The same outcome: it ISN'T fixed.  It turned into an ugly conversation, but only because she was hedging and hawing.  Blame shifting, I told her to her ear she didn't care and it was obvious.  It was too  late to call corporate, they had already closed, but rest assured they WILL be getting a phone call first thing in the morning.  This woman claims both a high level tech and a supervisor are showing up tomorrow morning at 11:00 am.  Yes, lady, that's all I have to do in life: spend quality time with your freaking employees. I'm on VACATION.

Back to Cox.  The worker comes back several hours later.  Like about 6 hours.  He obviously does not want to get under the house to do the install.  George is telling them no, it has to be under the house.  Time passage.  Supervisor shows up, they are in his bedroom and George is speaking loudly enough for me to hear the conversation, he eventually directs them to me.  I am already peeved about this on-going, non-abating situation with Century Link and now I have to deal with THIS?  

They come out and start talking.  No, I am not going to allow you to drill a hole through the wall in front of my house, that's that.  We go through the options.  We agree that they can run a line through the side of the house where there is already a hole, but the line is still going to have to run through the floor from underneath the house.  We have this discussion for 10 minutes and then they look at me blankly.  Huh? We don't understand, we are running a hole through the front of your house, right?

I will admit that I became hostile at that point.  I have JUST discussed with them - PLAINLY - that the line is going through the side of the house.  I pointed to the side of the house when I said that and I asked them if they understood that means by the gate? Yes, we get it, over there.  I had had this SAME discussion with this supervisor 6 hours earlier, we did a walk-around the entire house.  We both saw the places where this was going to be done.  Now they are attempting to talk me into having a hole in the front of my house again!

FREAKING MORONS.  I must have told them 10 times - NO HOLES THROUGH THE FRONT WALL OF MY HOUSE.  George told them several times over as well.  Unbelievable!!!  I got up out of my chair and looked the supervisor in the eye: There are not going to be ANY holes drilled through the front wall of my house, do you UNDERSTAND this?!!  IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THE JOB, WE'LL BE HAPPY TO CALL COX CABLE AND ASK THEM TO SEND SOMEONE OUT THAT WILL!!  

That was the end of it.  Their tones changed completely.  They are subcontractors.  They work for Cox, that is their life-blood. They lose that they are screwed.  They don't want people calling Cox telling them that their subcontractors don't want to do the required work.  They want to take the easy way out and don't care what the homeowner wants. 

Yup, the worker eventually crawled under the house - it's a 65 foot crawl - drilled the hole, pushed the cable through, done.  Was it that hard?  I have been under there numerous times, all the way to the front. Fun, no, doable, yes, but miserable? No.  The guy was standing there attempting to tell George that it would be at least 130 degrees underneath my house.  I just laughed. It's WAY cooler under my house than it is outside!

It's done. Cox is anyway. I guess.  I'll have to go out front and inspect the damage and see if they screwed up any of my plants with their install. 

Century Link?  Ongoing story.

You wanna know what blew my mind? I had my Verizon Hotspot out here while they had internet shut down checking whatever.  I ran a speed test on it, the first one came back at over 16,000 mgps!! The second went  down to 12,000, the 3rd went clear up to the 17,000 range.  NO, it doesn't always work that well, but yes, I was pressing buttons and it was moving right along from one site to another.