I'm sitting at my computer desk in my kitchen. Well, you can call it next to the kitchen but part of the kitchen?  Whatever.  I hear the click of the rear door - meaning someone is coming in.  It's the only entrance we use in and out of the house - excepting I use the east door to get to the east side of the property to enjoy my ponds and such.

There is also a sliding glass door right next to where my desk is, but I banished the use of that a long time ago.

I mostly ignore people coming in and out of that door, it's about 30 feet behind me, if I'm on the net or doing something on the computer, I rarely even look up until the person gets into the kitchen itself.  Well when no-one came into the kitchen, I started to turn my head to look up and at the same time, Duke and Prince started growling.

Those dogs never growl at anyone coming through that back door. The door clicked again, also at the same time I was turning my head and by the time I got my eyes on the back door, I caught a fleeting glimpse of someone in a t-shirt - they took off.  Duke was already up and running towards the back door, I was much more motivated and had to move him out of my way.  By the time I got out the back door, no-one in sight.  I was out there too fast for anyone to have run all they to the front gate, so I started looking over fences.

Nothing.

This was broad daylight and someone had the gall to open my back door and apparently come into my house with me sitting there.  I decided to get my friend - SW40VE - and keep her at bit closer.  Scared? No. Worried? A bit. What was that person doing? What was their intent? Were they armed? Were they burglars/thieves?

This happened about an hour ago.

I am too tired to fool with it further.  I'm going to sleep.  Someone wants to mess with me in my bedroom, they are not going to like the outcome is all I can say.

ben

Ma Bell Has Been Disconnected/Goodbye (read: GOOD RIDDANCE) to Centurylink

After..decades..a lifetime..of business with what was originally Bell Telephone company and then going through several of it's offshoots, I have finally severed my ties with a company that at one time was above reproach, had the best customer service around and was a pleasure to deal with.

It isn't so anymore and after 6 phone calls, having one person hang up on me and several others put me on hold, I am done with it - Centurylink.  I am not going to go into the details of today's phone calls excepting to say that I was interrupted countless times; talked over the top of numerous times and basically treated like a piece of dog dung.

Is Cox going to be any better?  Well right off the bat, I am paying the same as I was with Centurylink but I have 32 average mbps compared to around 5.3 mbps with Centurylink.  Thanks for playing.  That alone is enough.  I am sure Cox Communications incoming call centers are probably no better than anyone else's, but Centurylink's management  is atrocious.  Beyond the incoming call center, up to the executive offices, it is the most abhorrent company around.  They are, absolutely, worse than Direct TV.  I can't stress enough to you the fact that Direct TV's customer service is absolutely abysmal, but usually, when you talk to upper level management, you are treated much better and you are usually happy with the results.

Centurylink?  The treatment of their customers is the same: bottom-of-the-barrel, whether talking to the first person or talking to whoever, wherever, with whatever title.  I can only give kudos to the field tech supervisor, he was top-notch and he did the best with what he had available to work with. What he had to work with is underground wiring that has needed upgrading for quite a long time now.

Enough.  I did not know that Independence Day falls on a Thursday this year.  Gag.  I can't even tell you how it is to go get a day off in the middle of a work week and then have to go to work the next day after that holiday.  I should have checked.  Take the day off.  But, it's too late and I will just eat that one,.

I stopped at a QT today for my version of an energy drink. I don't do RedBull and the like, I have NEVER had any of them, save one I think once and I did not like the feeling it gave me.  QT has fruit smoothies and has various additives you can put in them, one of which is an energy addition.  I do it occasionally, it also has yogurt in it.  I was going through the entrance door and noticed a man walking up to the trash can.  I stopped and watched him remove the lid off the can, rummage around and pull out a QT beverage cup that still had something in it.  He put the straw that was still in the cup's lid up to his mouth and took a deep draw off of it.

He then went inside the store, refilled the thing and walked out.  I said nothing, just watched while ordering my smoothie.  I would have bought him something to eat, but he walked away, not asking anyone for anything.

I'll tell you something that gets me, completely changing the subject, really - well burns and fumes would be words I would use but since I am referring to campfires, well anyway.

The Tonto Forest has a complete ban on campfires. Well, on all kinds of things:

The following are prohibited: 

1.      1.      Building, maintaining, attending or using a fire, campfire, charcoal, coal, or wood stove, anywhere on the forest, including fires in developed campgrounds.

2.      2.      Smoking, except within an enclosed vehicle or building.

3.      3.      Discharging or using any kind of firework or other pyrotechnic device.

4.      4.      Discharging a firearm, except while engaged in a lawful hunt.

5.      5.      Using an explosive.  An explosive is defined as any chemical compound, mixture, or device, the primary or common purpose of which is to function by explosion.

6.      6.      Operating a chainsaw, or other equipment powered by an internal combustion engine. 

7.      7.      Welding or operating acetylene or other torch with an open flame.

  I remember the days when there were no bans.  People didn't fires unattended and in several cases, end up burning down hundreds of thousands of acres of forest.  We cared and we knew what we were doing.  We put our fires out and that was that.  It didn't matter if the forest was bone dry, as long as we had an effective fire pit and we were monitoring it, there was never a problem.

Those days are long gone. I understand the Forest Service need to to ban all of that, they tried everything else for years and years and it didn't work, some people simply don't care.  The forest and it's magnificent beauty if meaningless to them. It's just another place to go get drunk.  Or get into the cool weather.  Whatever.  It just sucks that even on private property up there, if you have an open fire in a very well-built pit, the forest rangers will come along and make you put them out and yes, issue citations.

Oh well.  Hopefully the "Monsoon Season" will bring some rain up north and the severe restrictions will be lifted, even if only temporarily.  When we get enough rain and the forest is wet, then and only then will they lift the bans.  But summertime in Arizona, it's pretty much automatic: get int June and that's it. Too many morons out there.

Done. Another work week drags on. Very little to do. I did spend half of today running doing returns and pickups, but the only delivery I made was in the pickup and it was worth less than $400.  

Time to head to the bedroom and get ready for early sleep.  I didn't sleep well last night and if there is a repeat, I figure to go to bed early enough so that when/if I wake up in the middle of the night, I will already have a handful of hours of sleep accomplished.

ben

I waited all day long to hear from my son.

Selfish? I dunno, I'm his dad, I want to hear from him on Father's day.  If that's selfish, then I confess.  Actually, I just want to hear from him, regardless of the excuse to get him to call.

But I didn't give up hope.  When he is up at that camp, if I do get a call from him, it is usually on Sundays and usually late afternoon.

So, when the phone rang, I gave it 99% chance it was him - I do not talk on the phone much and mostly only get calls at work from salesmen and such.  I don't much care to talk on the phone with anyone but friends/people I like or people with opposing views that can actually engage in a civil conversation, live, without getting into name-calling and such.

It was my son! Yes.  Very nice conversation, not about me, either, I was asking him all about what's going on up there and he was convenient to tell me such. They take an entire week to prepare for the campers arrival.  That starts tomorrow.  I don't remember the age groups, they range throughout the summer from something like 7 to 17.

And so it was.  I am so proud of my son.  I could care less if he becomes "successful" in the worldly meaning of it if it means that his life is spent serving the Lord.  But God isn't broke, lol.  Eternity is forever and that has more meaning in THIS life than whatever else happens in this life.  I'm preaching to myself, to be honest.  Why do I care so much about a retirement account and having money in the end?  I ask myself that question and the only answer I can come up with is that I don't want to be broke in my old age.

Not really a bad answer, really, but not sufficient in and of itself, alone.  There is more and I am hungry for it.  God has the destiny for our lives, each one of us and that is what I am seeking after.  The message at church today was incredible.  It was a love message unlike anything I have ever heard and it was completely backed up by Scripture, which, really, was what moved me so.

Speaking of my son, I moved Sebastion - that's the name he gave the old Buick - from the other side of the street to in front of my house today.  I will start the car and run it for a while once a week.  Should be sufficient to ensure it isn't going to get old and die on me.  It's a 1994 Buick LeSabre, old but fired right up and idled without any hesitation.  Ever since I had that car towed into an old-style electrical shop and had that guy figure out what's wrong with it, I have had NO problems with it whatsoever.

The sad part?  I think that he figured out was wrong with it was the problem with it all along.  I spent a lot of money getting that thing "figured out" at 3 different places.  Well whatever.  I intend on keeping it as long as my son says he wants it.  Unless I get something else for me, a truck preferably, then I will get rid of that car and keep the Buick I am currently driving for him.  Just like his bedroom.  It will stay empty for whenever he may want to come home for a visit.  Well, it's not empty, it has everything in it the way he left it.  A keyboard on a stand, a large TV and other things.

Whatever. It made my day to hear from my son. That's all I really need to say.

ben

Finally Friday.
This is the longest, most drawn-out work week I have endured in quite a long time.  Only one day  have I been "minimally" busy.  The rest of it has been inventing things to do at the shop to keep busy.  Even if it were acceptable to sit around doing nothing, I just couldn't do that.  I would go insane attempting to not just fall asleep.  I have to keep busy at work with something to keep me engaged and moving around.

I have no plans for this weekend, either.  I am not going up north, I am not going to do much of anything.  At least that's what I'm thinking right now, lol.  The house is almost empty.  My son is gone, George is gone for the weekend and the tenant that is never here? Isn't here!  Mark and Lynnette the only ones around.

Abysmal paycheck.  That's what I call it. It's a paycheck without any OT on it at all. Down more then $300 from what my checks were before this retraction in work started.  A loss of $600 per month? That will be hard to swallow.  Especially during summer months when my electric bill more than doubles what it is during winter months.  I hardly have to use heat during the winter so the only electric expense is just TV's, computers, refrigerators and such.

I can only hope that business will pick back up and I will get at least some OT.

That's it.  Off to work. There is enough work in the system to keep me busy for about 3 hours and then?  Gag.

G'day.

ben

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.  

I just checked my credit score.  I do so about once every 6 months.  I don't figure it's going to change that fast either for good or worse.  It's up about 50 points from the last time I checked it - but it's still bad.  That because it is still showing that I am late on my mortgage payment and it also doesn't show that I paid the car off or the credit card that I paid off. It has one credit card flagged because I was late on a payment.  The late payment? July of 2008.  Are you seriously going to tell me that a late payment some 5 years ago should negatively affect my credit?

And then there's the medical thing I forgot about.  It's on there.  Less than $100, but any negative on there regardless of how much affects your score. I'm going to pay that one off and get rid of it, but I am going to try to convince them to remove it off of my files completely if I agree to pay off the full amount.

They may not do that, but I am going to ask anyway.

I don't know how long it takes for companies to update the thing to show the activity that has been made.  Paying off the car loan should be a very good thing.  Must take longer than a month, apparently, so next month I am going to check again.  To think that at one point, I had my score up to almost 700.  Oh well.  Just keep working at it and bring it back up again.
_________________________________________________________________________
George's company is paying to have Cox internet installed. Here's the problem with people nowadays: You can tell them facts and things that are extremely relevant to a situation and it will go over their head like they never heard it.  George told everyone - Cox, his company - that there is no Cox cable coming into the house and neither has their even been.  There is no cable running from the street.  George told them all of that, repeatedly according to George, but, of course, it falls on deaf ears.

So, they show up today.  Before they get here, I'm thinking: running conduit from the street to the house.  Blue stake will have to be called and a very long trench will have to be run.  Blue stake hasn't been out there and the dude that showed up?  NO way was he digging any trenches.  This guy was neatly dressed with a more-than-casual shirt on, tucked in, hair neatly kept: this guy is not a trench-digger.  And so it was.  I was standing there listening to him, he switched to Spanish.  He intoned the words: "no se puede".  It can't be done, I can't do it, whatever, that's what it means, non-happening event.

So, his supervisor is coming out in an hour to do - what - tell George that a trench has to be dug and conduit installed? lol  Okay, arrange for that, please, if not, I have contacts from work to get it done.  I am not doing that.  Well, I would have if I were going to have Cox installed for my own personal use - not paying a construction company some unbelievable rate to bring a Ditch-Witch out and churn out a trench.

I can rent my own Ditch-Witch if it came down to that and have it delivered to the house and picked up.  But, this is part of the reason I don't have Cox cable internet - yet.  Lol.  Cox isn't going to say they won't do it.  They're just going to say it's going to cost more money to have it installed, is my guess.  I am sure they have a company or companies they contract out to to have come over and do the trenching and conduit laid.

So, in the end, this is actually going to help me out quite a bit.  I won't have to pay for any of this, it will be done and I will be one step closer to having Cox internet in my house.

Speaking of internet.  Century Link is coming out yet again. I called them again today - the speed has been down for a week, I finally got tired of the length of time it takes to access any site - and told them I had run 7 speed tests on fully 7 different test sites.  The results were anywhere from 3.8 to 5.6 mpbs.  Yeah, unacceptable.

The first lady on the phone? Philippines.  They don't argue anymore when you ask them to be switched to America, they just do it.  As I figured, the first lady I got in the U.S. was going to argue with me about the speed.  She informed me that none of those sites were not "legitimate", of which I balked out.  She then said the only site they take as proof is their site.  Yep, I responded, I don't doubt that.  So I went to their site while on the phone and it came up as 6.5.  Closer, but still not 7.7.  Doesn't matter, the woman intoned, it's within 20% and our guarantee is within 20% of the target speed.  Bunk again. Let me speak to your manager.

The manager gets on and starts giving me the same rap.  While she is doing that, I sit back down at the computer and run the test again.  This time, 5.3.  That is NOT within 20% and I told her I just ran it again and from the verbiage of the first lady I talked to, it IS on YOUR computer screen, you can see it for yourself.

I then began running the test over and over, it came up with wildly fluctuating results varying from 3.8 to 9.6. I left the last one on the screen showing 3.490, less than half the speed I am supposed to be getting.  So, yes, a tech is coming over again.  I was assured that they would fix it this time.  I replied that that is exactly what your company told me last time.  And the time before that, and before that, look it up how many times service techs have been out here for the same, exact reason and all of them have never been able to identify what, exactly, the problem is.

I left it at that. They are coming out today to "finally" figure out what is going on by allegedly sending out a "higher tier" level technician.  I'll be asking that technician about that when he arrives.  But in reality? Once George gets this Cox thing squared away and the line - well I am going to ask them to run 2 lines while they are at it - is installed, I am definitely going to find myself a good router and modem and switch to the greener side of the fence.  Okay, who knows if it is or not, but I have endured Century Link long enough.  They have sent out over a dozen techs over the years with the same problem arising every single time.  They either fix it temporarily or nothing changes.  The last time the guy put in a new router - for free of course - which at least fixed the problem of the signal being completely dropped and having NO internet feed at all.

I'm just going to tell the guy that he is one in a line of many techs that have been out here "figuring" out the problem and that whatever the problem is, it has never identified.  Not in an abusing tone, just a simple challenge: can you please figure out what's going on here?  When I have the full 7.7 going, it's fast enough.  It's not mega speed but it does the job well enough. If they could actually figure out what's going on and fix it once and for all, I would probably stay with the company.  I have my rate reduced to $25 per month for a year and after that back to normal rate which is $45, which is $10 cheaper than Cox.  However, the $55 tier for Cox is twice the speed, I think 15 mbps.  That would be blazing fast in my world and I know Cox has even faster speeds, up to 50.  But I am not paying over $100 per month for internet, no thanks.

And finally, a huge-joke-of-an-article explaining how to protect yourself against a home invasion. Taser guns.  So, a taser gun is going to stand up against a handgun?  Home invasions around these parts have been executed by people armed with handguns.  Your taser gun is going to be worthless against such.  I was laughing at this article by the time I got through with it.  It was all about everything but the use of lethal force. I guess if you are a person that simply won't use lethal force, be my guest.  Me?  I'm going to show up with my 12 gauge shotgun or my .40 caliber S&W40VE and they are going to get it right back in their face.  My first line of defense is no front door.  Second line of defense is a completely fenced property with only the very front of the house not fenced in.  3rd line of defense: surveillance cameras.  4th line of defense: large, loud dogs.  5th line of defense: only unlocked entrance in very rear of house, I would see someone walking by before they got there.  Last line of defense listed about: lethal force.

It ends the story with the following: "Finally, and perhaps most importantly, never try to be a hero — especially if the intruder has a gun.

As the National Crime Prevention Council says, "If someone tries to rob you, give up your property — don't give up your life."

Really? What about the robbers who don't care if you are submitting to them, doing everything they say and they still shoot you anyway?  I've seen it over and over again in the news.  Trusting the police are going to get there in time?  Good luck!  When are police around when something is actually going on or arrive in time to defuse a situation?  It happens, yes, but not that often.  You could be robbed, shot and killed and those people gone before they ever show up.  My best line of defense is to be prepared.  If someone came through the back door I would be out of the line of fire in a millisecond.  It's a utility room and I'm 40 feet away from it and the first 20 feet is a narrow enough walkway with limited line of sight.  Dive into the living room, head for my bedroom and yes, get out the shotgun.

Yeah, I have replayed that scenario over in my mind just a few times considering the amount of crime in this city.

And that's the name of that tune.

ben

I had a series of discussions that went on for several days some years ago with the boyfriend of a tenant that was living here.  He was/is a computer geek type of person.  One of his biggest pet-peeves is Microsoft Automatic Updates.  SHUT THEM OFF AND LEAVE THEM OFF PERMANENTLY, was his advice, with his adamant observation that such updates load up your computer with "junk" that slows it down.  The more of it you download, the slower your computer gets.

Just make sure, he advised, that you have good anti-virus software and you won't have to worry about the updates.  I had my doubts, aren't some of those updates put on there to fix glitches within the software?  We went back and forth, but I let him turn off updates and left it at that, running both Avast and Spybot.  

I didn't have them shut off before on this newer computer, but I did shut them off this time around with fresh install, leaving it at allowing me to install them whenever I wanted, if at all.  I turned the blooming thing on this morning and what pops up?  Don't turn off your computer, installing 1 of 2 updates, yada yada yada.  I KNOW I set that thing to not do that.  Well this freaking thing did it's up date, turned off the computer, turned it on, reconfigured and off and on and off and on and off and finally on again - about 15 minutes of this nonsense.  Accessing Security under Control Panel, sure enough, it reset it self to automatically downloading and installing updates. 

I just got out of that thing 10 minutes ago.  It said it had 38 optional updates but no "important" updates.  Now? Just 10 minutes and now the thing is saying 17 important updates.  So WHAT, exactly, qualifies them as important?  I went to a list of the updates, 95% of them are "security updates", which is exactly what the geek dude was referring to.  But what if some of these updates are fixing glitches for access to thieves from outside sources?

Onto other things.  Such as the suggestion that the minimum age for receiving Social Security should be raised, according to "experts".  Unless I win the lottery, which I don't even play except rarely, I won't be able to retire until at least age 62 to start receiving those benefits on top of whatever money I have saved in my retirement account.  What kind of work, pray tell, would I be able to do at say, the age of 65?  Still drive trucks? Many do, I know that for a fact, but that's as long as your health stays good.  No guarantees there in life.  Last year, a guy driving an LTL truck came into our yard.  He was 75 years old.  Do I envision myself driving trucks at the age of 75? NO.

Whatever.  They've raided that fund over the years and now we are going to be in trouble starting in the year 2033.  Now, is anything going to be done about it before then?  It's such an unpopular subject with many constituents  that most politicians want to steer clear of the subject.  But the estimates are that it will only be able to pay 77% of the benefits you are now supposed to be able to receive.  The reason it is unpopular are myriad, but for me, it's because I have PAID INTO THAT SYSTEM FOR DECADES NOW.  It is NOT an entitlement!  If it is, it's because I am entitled to the massive amount of money I have paid into it!  

What I want them to do is make whatever changes that need to be changed and get it done NOW, not 20 years from now.  But with most other things the government does, I am miffed and have been for some time that they have raided that trust to pay for things that - they simply should have found other ways to pay for or better, just get rid of it.  

Speaking of politicians, I am very enlightened to see the recall effort going on in Colorado.  More of this, not less!  When politicians do whatever they want that goes against the majority of that person's constituency, get rid of them!  We don't need rogue politicians - of which there are many - that simply vote to do things their way and not even give any credence whatsoever to the voice of the majority.  Government knows best, that's their thinking, they are 'doing it for our own good'.  That group turned in DOUBLE the number of signatures needed.  I'm sure they did that on purpose to ensure that any disqualifications won't undo their hard work of collecting all those signatures.  This concerning senator Morse's vote for much stricter gun control in the state of Colorado.  

Whatever.  I'm keeping my views on Obama and all of the crap that is going on with that administration in wraps for now.  Some of the liberal news media is finally coming around and it may get interesting to see how much more dirt they are going to turn up.  It is, after all, their job to do so and when that's your job, well, that's all the motivation one should need to execute the parameters of that job efficiently.  Of course, there is always the political bias, but if a reporter really wants to be a real reporter, facts should over-ride political leanings.  Just my view of it. This newest revelation that senior officials are using "secret" government email accounts could get quite interesting indeed.  These people are in public office and really shouldn't enjoy any kind of privacy in terms of whatever they are doing on paper or in email as the public should - which it doesn't anyway.  I read an article yesterday of a reporter that basically uncovered, through a government officials statements, that any email you have ever written can be brought back and up.  That's kinda scary, isn't it?  Does the government have the right to have access to every email account of every person that has one and everything they have ever written in those accounts?  I most certainly do not believe so. Talk about government intrusion.

Umm, changing the subject yet again, I ordered yet another tree online yesterday.  Strike that, I just ordered a bag of seeds to try and grow one of trees on my own.  I did, with the help of a facebook friend, find a live version of one of the trees available on line for $18 something plus $14 shipping.  I didn't want to pay that much, I don't mind planting all the seeds in various pots - indoors to start with I think - and see if I can get one or more growing.    

Vacation.  Day 2 off of work.  Tuesday morning.  Still undecided about going up north.  I am content to be here and do nothing.  I didn't think I would be that happy just sitting around doing nothing besides yard work and pond stuff, but so it is.  The only thing that I find somewhat annoying is one particular person that walks in and out and in and out and in and out all day long.  

The $350 check finally went through the bank. The last of the Mohicans.  Okay, the last of the big ones that I paid out with the loan I got.  There isn't anything else pressing - well that I have to get done now  that can't wait unless that fan motor goes out on the AC unit.  I dunno.  I do know that my paychecks are down - by about $250-$300 per check because OT hours are done and gone with.  Only if the work picks back up.  No idea.  I'm not a genie and I have no idea if/when we might start getting enough work back to be able to have OT hours.  It's a significant chunk of change per month to lose that much money.  At the same time, I no longer have a car payment and one credit card payment is done, gone and that card is cancelled.  Has been for a long time.  I just was paying the minimum payments.  Which didn't account for much since this particular company charges a $6 per month fee just to have their card, plus other fees plus high interest rates.  I was glad to have that money drain gone.  

Well whatever.  I need to get busy.  One pond filter left to go and other things out there to get done plus I am considering doing a major cleaning to my bedroom.  It needs it, lol. 

G'day.

ben

We're losing market share and we need to rectify that our we will have to address our head count.

This is something I heard at work and started pondering today.  They have hired a lot of new people - some of them completely worthless IMO I might add, no work ethic, have to be forced by their bosses to do anything and I just have no use for such people - and now I am wondering, if a head count reduction is initiated, who's going and who's staying.

Here's one thing about corporate America that is true the field over, that I have seen anyway: NO-ONE is irreplaceable.  That's from the head honcho on down to the dude pulling orders out in the yard.  One person might be harder to replace than another, but I have seen this over and over - they don't care.  When management makes up it's mind and they determine who's going out the door, the relevance of the contribution any given individual might have made and is making takes a back seat to other things, such as compensation and benefit and perks.

In other words, you have to wonder if you are going to lose your position to someone who is willing to take it for less money and benefits. They just came along and got rid of a guy who had been there for 17 years.  It was completely out of the blue - though I guess all lay-offs are, sort of - but there was no other indication within the company that they were getting rid of people.  He immediately found another job and something far less stressful, so good on him.

Well I'm not going to dwell to much on that, at least not during my vacation.  Just sitting there, though.
____________________________________________________________
UNBELIEVABLE.

I check my checking account every day.  Rarely do I miss checking it.  Too many thieves in this world, not to mention the fact of bank errors - hardly ever but it happens - and then checking to see if everything I have paid out has been deducted.  Which it hasn't - I gave my son a check over a week ago for my contribution towards his Hawaii Revolution and it hasn't been cashed yet. I do not like having checks floating around, but that has nothing to do with this and I consider it petty compared to what is going on here.

So, I am in there today, looking at a $155 Reverse Credit.  I knew exactly what this was as soon as I saw it - the dude in the Philippines that stole my money by somehow getting my debit card number and using it to send himself 2 Western Union (the preferred bank of thieves) checks in the amount of $155 each.  I immediately called the bank, as far as I knew, this situation was ended.  Heck, this happened on April 16th and it's now June 3rd?!!!  I only know the date cause' I posted my original entry with Western Union Fraud to make sure I could find it again in case I needed information from it.

I get a lady on the phone of whom I knew was going to be no use to me before I even dialed the number. Management, please.  I get connected to the claims department.    I get to talking with this man, asking him his title within the company, quickly became apparent he's just another incoming call operator for a different department.  I let him attempt to "fix" this situation - which he did not and told me that it would take at least 3 days before they hear back from Visa whether my "claim" is going to be accepted or not.

BUNK.  YOUR manager, please and right NOW.  I was on hold long enough to sit down, look up Chase Bank corporate number on Hoover's (if you ever want to find a corporate phone number, this is the place to go to!), call them, talk to someone including giving my name and what my issue is, get connected to the "executive department" or whatever they called it and have a long discussion with the lady on the phone.  This manager finally gets on the phone but I was in a discussion with this lady at this point.  I simply informed the man that he could wait 15 minutes just like I had to for him.

He started in on something, I put that phone away from my ear. I could hear him going on and on for a while while I was discussing this situation with this lady at corporate.  I put both phones up to my mouth while talking to the lady at some point - the man had no clue I was not talking to him.  Absolutely amazing.  I finally got done with the lady and then put that other phone back up to my ear.

I wasn't taking no for an answer.  This is their business and as far as I'm concerned, this is part of the risk they take, NOT me.  I have talked to several individuals that have gone through similar experiences whose banks just reimbursed them the money regardless of the outcome of any disputes with Visa or whoever. Visa must have a Pentagon sized building full of employees to deal with this kind of thing.  I did NOT give that guy my debit card number and according to the second person I talked to today, Visa stated that Western Union "confirmed" that I had given both my debit card number and my email address for verification.

Email address? THAT is a verification?  As if someone's email address is something hard to get like a social security number?!!!!  Another UNBELIEVABLE coming your way.

Okay. Well whatever.  The conversation turned a bit sour because I was already heated up: I had already been assured some month and a half ago that this situation, regardless of what happens with the bank and it's dealings with this situation, I wouldn't be losing my money. I distinctly remember the man telling me after I asked: NO.  My question? Since your bank hasn't paid Western Union yet, are you going to?

I also questioned them on why they would simply take that money out of my account without ANY kind of notification.  No email; no text; no snail mail.  Just eat it, buddy.  I don't just eat things, especially with thieves stealing from my account and banks that should just eat it. Here's another interesting factor acquired from today's conversations: Western Union was only disputing one of the charges, even though there were 2 for the exact same amount coming from the same person picked up at the same store at the same time.  The manager I was speaking to found that odd.  I didn't care, to be honest, I was just going to remain on the line until my money was refunded or he hung up on me.  Screw corporate, I have this guy now, let's get this over with.

This went on for quite a while until he gave me his "solution": he was going to resubmit a claim to Visa.  I couldn't have cared less. Submit all the claims you want, hope you win, but I want my freaking money back, right now, today! I don't care what you are going to do about it with Visa, this is NOT my problem!!
Finally, the man succumbed.  "I am going to credit that money back to your account".  Great, I replied, and then in 4 days, if Visa denies the claim, I am screwed again?  "No, he replies, this is a permanent credit to your account".

Full name, spell it out please letter by letter and a confirmation number, thanks.  That was, finally, it after a long conversation with this individual.

Welcome to vacation.  Here I was, about to go outside and deal with the pond filters I was supposed to do yesterday.  This has been a couple of hours now in terms of phone calls.  I cannot believe Western Union can just get away with all of this nonsense.  As far as I"m concerned, if legally possible, banks should just refuse to do any business with them at all.  Let them know that they will not honor any credits to anyone's account and let it be done.  But that's just me.

1 pond filter done.  Think I'll let the other go until tomorrow.

G'day

ben

Finally )(*&(&_)(*&^(%^__*(*(*)&*)&) - almost - done

The blooming thing was pissing me off yesterday.  All the things I knew to do to find the reformat the computer option were ending up with nothing.  After trying endlessly, I finally went online.  Guess I should have done that in the first place, but I didn't think they would make it so blooming difficult to find how to format the partition.  Well, turns out, Windows 7 has a program that you access IN Windows.  I've never seen or heard of that before - but will certainly remember it the next time I have to do this.

Well whatever.  After I finally figured that out, I then moved on with fresh installation.  It was after getting fresh Windows 7 on my computer that I remembered that I would need the ASUS CD - for the ASUS motherboard - to get the network adapter.  Well, I keep all my CD's in one of 2 places so they are easily findable.

I spent 2 hours looking for that blooming CD. I finally gave up and just got on my laptop to get my stuff done online and then went to bed.  Enough exasperation for one day, but I was laying there thinking gee, I'm going to spend my whole vacation without a working desktop computer.  I got up early this morning - around 5:30 and came out with fresh resolve to find that CD. I do NOT throw away software CD's, it's simply something I don't do.  I went through every freaking drawer and couldn't find it.

I sat down and thought about it for a while.  I must have put it somewhere safe so it wouldn't get scratched up and destroyed.  I saw a pile of CD's that I thought were blanks.  Picked the whole pile up and sure enough: ASUS software CD, happily packed inside one of those cases for safekeeping. Dumb me.  I did find the video driver disc, another thing I would have to have and installed that.  Well, got all that done and then started the process of installing everything else.  Lots of "everything else" that you have to do once you get online.  Avast; Spybot; Glary Utilities first up at bats.  Spy and malware protection plus a utility to easily clean up your hard drive without having to click on a bunch of stuff - that would be Glary, it's free and it works swimmingly well.

Now?  I am processing a whitelist on Spybot.   Spybot just blocked me from going to a site that I have been on before that it says has "malicious" software awaiting me.  Realllllly?  Well that's interesting.  I don't know if I had an old version of Spybot on before or what, cause' it never blocked me from going there before.  It gave me the option of continuing on, which I just clicked off.  Perhaps that is where I was getting the problems from.

Well, there it is. Problems I was having with my computer that I could not fix are now gone.  How those problems arose, I have no idea.  Some of it was very annoying, especially this thing where I would start to type and nothing would happen.  I would have to keep typing for a while before it would start to show up on the screen.  If nothing else good came out of this, THAT in ITSELF was worth all this trouble.

Mark just walked in complaining about the heat and said it's 103 degrees outside already.  I had serious doubts of that, it cooled down pretty good last night and it's only 9:40 am, probably not heating up that fast this early. It's only 93 degrees outside but looking at today's forecast? WOW!! 109 forecast high temp!! YIKES!

I was about to have several herds of cows when I went to my Photobucket account and could not find all those pics I uploaded yesterday anywhere on there.  Click click click click until I found a file named "BEN-PC".  Yes!! Safely stored on Photobucket, all the pics I really wanted to save - quite a few of them actually - very relieved.  Eveyone was telling me to just use an external hard drive. Well, if any of my files are infected, then it will just be transferred to that hard-drive and then back to my fresh copy of Windows and then back to square 1!  No thanks.

I'm taking a break from church today.  I just plain didn't feel like going, which is hardly a good excuse, I guess, but it's my excuse regardless.  And no, I'm not taking a "vacation from God".

Anyway, now that I have this thing up and running - maybe a few minor quirks to deal with but otherwise good to go - I'm going to go outside and get some stuff done just before the melting, 109 heat comes here and then?  I won't be going outside to do ANYTHING!

G'day.

ben

Uploading........uploading........uploading.............

I was going to start backing up my files - when was it last week sometime? - and got sidetracked with whatever took my attention away from the task - an arduous one at that - at hand. The task is to save whatever files and photos I want to save, cause' honey, this copy of Windows 7 is going to be ejected into cyberspace and I won't ever want to see it again.

Well, mostly what I want to save are the hundreds of pictures I have taken over the last couple of years and definitely the Christmas some 3 years ago where everyone was over at my house.  It was one of the best Christmas's that I can remember in recent times.  Not because it was at my house, just because for some odd reason, everyone was happy, no-one was fighting and there were a lot of people over here creating a noisy atmosphere and one where the "awkward silent moments" never even occurred.  It helped that I had cooked a ham and a Standing Rib Roast, of which the ham was hardly touched and the roast almost completely disappeared.  Considering it was a 16 pound roast, yes that was incredible.

Well anyway, Photobucket has this neat new option - well I don't know how new it is, I haven't been on my Photobucket account in a while - to upload entire folders at the click of a button.  Instead of the old method of having to select each photo, individually, you just upload the entire album regardless of how many photos are in it.  I also did not know Photobucket also allows to upload videos, so I am doing that as well.  I have 800 plus photos uploading right now.  Yup, it's going to be quite a while.  But I'm done, I don't have to do any more clicking, I just have to wait it out.  Once those are done, I am going to go through my files and save whichever I want to save.  Usually, that just means copying and pasting into an email.  That shouldn't take long as I don't believe I have that many files that I need to keep.

So there.  In the next couple of days, I do hope to have this all done and have formatted the computer hard drive and then re-installed Windows 7.  This file saving was the thing that was holding me back from wanting to do this "project", if you want to call it that. As many bug finders and spyware scans as I have done, I did find a Trojan Horse through the use of Glary Utilities - which I thought strange that neither Avast nor Spybot found - got rid of that but I still don't think my computer is cleared.  I have been wanting to do this for a while now, I can only say that I have finally started and hopefully soon enough I can report back on here how my new operating system is functioning.

Ummm, but this software uploading these photos? Consuming a large amount of my computer's resources, so no "heavy-lifting" online until it's done.

Well whatever.  Lynnette just walked by - in a very bad mood.  I said good morning to her and she just mumbled something unintelligible.  She goes through some serious mood swings at time.  The things she is confronted with in life are not enviable, to say the least.  But it dawned on me that it is the beginning of the month and they are probably out of food or very low on it.  In fact, I know so because George told me they were eating whatever scraps they could find out of their collection.  Ummm, yeah.  I don't know about the rest of her situation, but I will help with the food portion of it.  I'll go get some Chinese today from a place whose food they absolutely love.  Buy it by the pound, I usually get about 5 of those large, styrofoam containers of it - around $25 worth.  It's a lot of food and can last a couple of days.

I'd go right now, but it's not even 8am and that place doesn't open until 11am.  I like to get there shortly after they open because all the buffet tables are filled with food and there is no waiting for them to bring out replenishment food.  I pretty much clean them out on certain dishes when I go in there.  The guy that runs the place recognizes me now when I walk in and he immediately goes and gets his microphone and starts blaring out directives - in Chinese I am guessing since it's a Chinese food restaurant but who knows for sure, lol.  That microphone broadcasts through speakers in the kitchen.  Interesting setup they have, but it seems to work for them.

Okay, the first file is almost done, lol.  I am uploading out of something like 20 files, ha!  This computer has slowed down in recent times to the point that whatever is causing it, it must go.  I can't wait to get this all done.

Goodness gracious, this file uploading is causing this thing to not even want to access the simplest of sites to get onto, such as craigslist or Ebay.  Time to get out the laptop.
________________________________
Long interlude.  Took George up to Fry's to get groceries.  He can't drive and his girlfriend - who lives about 35 miles or more from here - is laid up in bed and has been for 3 weeks now.  Pics are still uploading.  Dogs were frying out there.  Lol.  Well, they have plenty of cool water and shade is all I can say about that, they are in the house when I'm home.  It's getting warm/hot.

The grass killer I used the other day - which seemed to have done nothing initially - is slowly working.  Apparently it takes a while.  The grass is slowly turning brown while, thankfully and so far, the plants that they are surrounding/invading are not visibly affected.  Time will tell, but if the stuff works without killing plants, I will be using a lot more of it out front.

Well enough for one entry.

ben