It's been a while since I've blogged. I know, my blogs of late start out that way more and more often, but what can I say, life has gotten waaaay too busy for me to keep up anymore.
Olivia of course is busy with her nursing home visits several times a month. Phoebe now attends obedience school twice a week, but should be done with all that by early March and will try for her Canine Good Citizens title within the next couple of months. She'll also be taking her therapy-pet test next week, so keep your fingers crossed that she passes (only 6 months ahead of schedule!).
Our old man Eliott continues to decline. He still has a playful personality, but physically, he has a hard time gettind around. He stumbles a lot, has a hard time standing up, and has such an awkward gait when he walks. But his appetite remains good, and he can still be enticed to play, sometimes bouncing thru the house on his own in pursuit of a toy he wants. He does get cranky with Phoebe quite a bit, and on the occasions we try to help him stand up, he gets upset with us, I think it's a matter of pride. While I feel his days are numbered, it's not quite time yet. He may not have a great quality of life, but experience has taught me to recognize when our fur babies are telling us they are ready, and since he does still enjoy his meals, going outside and play time and cuddle time, how can we say "it's time"?
I've come to the conclusion that the UFC is in cahoots with the cable company(ies). They recently ended their long relationship with SpikeTV and have moved their broadcast to Fox and the Fuel channel. Fox would have been okay, but I gotta say that music they play annoys the crap out of me because it's the same stuff they play during football games. Please, come up with something different for mma!
I've long bragged and been proud of our low, low, cable bill. Under $15 for basic cable and no complaints about our connection or service. But oh, how things have changed in the past week.
Our package didn't include the Fuel channel, nor ESPNU which had a lot of the basketball/football games my husband wanted to watch. I stopped by the Insight office last Monday morning and asked the girl what we would have to do to get the Fuel channel. Upgrade to the Classic package and then to HD. Needless to say, that almost quadrupled our bill. But I sucked it up and agreed to it. I told her we worked during the week and would need a late-day appointment. The best she could offer was between 2-4pm on Wednesday. I crossed my fingers and hoped John would be home in time. Also, I insisted on a phone call before they tech arrived. Needless to say, Wednesday arrived and things started to go down hill from the get-go.
The tech called mid-morning to ask if he could come early as he'd finished his current job early. I said "no" but to call back after his next job, as maybe my husband would be home by then. He agreed, but do you think he called like he was supposed to? No, of course not. I arrived home around 5pm to a husband that was very unhappy. The guy had arrived unannounced, installed the equipment, didn't program the remote to our tv's signal as he didn't have time to fool with it and left us the old remote to the mini-box as it was already programmed or said we could do it ourselves. Nice, eh? But that isn't what pissed my husband off. The service wasn't working properly. It was as if someone was standing there turning the cable box off and on, off and on, off and on. I tried to call him down and see what I could accomplish. We were left no manual on how to operate the new remote or box, only a pamphlet that listed all the channels and a service number. I called service and after pushing a multitude of numbers, was told to try unplugging the unit and plugging it back in and that would probably fix things. I tried it and it didn't work. I called back. This time the option I got to sent a "reset" signal to our box and I was told it could take 10 minutes to several hours (seriously, that vague of a time frame!) for the thing to populate. Several hours? What does that mean? 3 hours? 10 hours? 3 days??? I called back later after it still wasn't working and this time spoke to a real human being. She asked if I'd unplugged it?, yes, had I had it reset? yes, and then unplug it? no. No, I wasn't told to do it then. So we tried this again, still nothing. She was perplexed but suggested we'd gotten a faulty box and set up an appointment for a technician to bring us a new one. It would be after 5pm on Friday. Needless to say, the husband was getting unhappier by the moment. I again told them to have the tech call before coming over. Do you think he did? No, of course not. I happened to get home shortly after 4:30 that afternoon and needless to say, the tech was already there. New box installed, the cable now seemed to be working. But wait! We weren't getting the Fuel channel. I was informed by the tech that he had no control of what channels we got, he just installed equipment. I did my best (unsuccessfully) to hide my annoyance over the whole situation, and he immediately got on his cell phone and called the home office. Within a couple of minutes we had the Fuel channel. **smiles** The tech left, John left for a meeting he had, and I sat down to watch mma stuff. Less than 3 hours after the tech left, the cable went out. I tried everything, but nothing worked. I gave up and went to bed, then started again at 9am on Saturday. The person I reached was useless, unable to help. She wanted to send a tech out right then, but I explained that I had a class to be at by 10am, and that I couldn't guarantee anyone would be there 'til at least 4pm as my husband worked and I had volunteer work that afternoon. She couldn't guarantee someone would come that late, but noted it on the work-order. Shortly after 11, the tech called (now he calls???) and said he was on his way. I was livid! I told him there was nobody there and that I thought I'd made it clear there wouldn't be until 4pm. I was informed I'd have to call back on Monday and reschedule the appointment as he couldn't hold his schedule open to accomodate me.
This is their idea of customer service?????????????
So we now have another appointment for after 5pm on Tuesday. That's 7 days we've had to go without reception on our main tv. The little tv in the bedroom that is still hooked to a mini-box works great. It's the big, hd boxes that suck!! I'll be damned if I'm paying for those 5 days of service, and if they don't get if fixed this time, they can come get all of their equipment as we'll be switching to satellite. Insight sucks!!!!!
