Monthly Archives: August 2007

Gave up the good life for me…

Song Blog,

Oh boy – you’re in for it now…

I found a stack of LPs and a few 45’s from my childhood and just purchased an ION USB turntable so I can upload all those old songs to my web space (at least until the RIAA yells at me, or worse) and allow you to listen to them while you read my stories.

The most embarrassing of the finds is one I’d completely forgotten about, but remembered immediately upon finding it. (Ok, the B-side was a little worse — maybe I’ll upload that one if I run out of stories)

Glen Campbell released The Dreams of the Everyday Housewife in 1968. I was 12. Somehow I became the owner of the 45 with this song on it. Because I remember the song, I think I may have been older when I liked it, but who knows… Perhaps I was really 12.

I found a 45 of The Dreams of the Everyday Housewife on a closet shelf in my mother’s vacation home in Hazelhurst, Wisconsin.


Comcast Blues

Technology

The mere fact I’m writing about Comcast indicates a problem. I don’t think I ever mentioned RCN when we had it for an Internet Service Provider – because it actually worked most of the time. Comcast, on the other hand, goes out regularly – including the phone service. The latest issue was with a dead phone. A call to Comcast resulted in a pair of technicians visiting us the next day and announcing that we had “too many splits” to the modem. That we needed to phone Comcast for a “change of service” and get an “independent line” to the modem.

I immediately phoned Comcast. It took 5 calls and 45 minutes to find someone who

  1. Understood the problem
  2. Was not “cut off” when being transferred to
  3. Was not “cut off” when looking at my records
  4. Agreed to not charge me $30 for the recommended solution

However, he couldn’t help me yesterday because there was a 2 hour block on the account. He gave me his extension and said to call back.

When I called back this afternoon I was again sent on a circuitous route – this time pushing buttons in response to the automated questions which kept on leading back to the main one. I eventually spoke to the same person who informed me that the reason some people charge is because they get commission points. It all makes sense and reminds me of the conflicting information given to me when my mom was being set up for Comcast.

So Thursday they will come and maybe solve the problem of dropped dial tones, telephone calls and spotty Internet service.

Back to normal

Life,

After three weeks of either vacation or house guests, our life is finally nearly normal again.

We left for Illinois on July 28 and visited with family in the Elgin area. My mother had been in the hospital with a severe case of pneumonia just prior to our visit, so things were a little unusual in that regard.

Then we headed to Wisconsin where we spent a week blissfully unconnected. No cell phone, no internet, only one channel on the television. The weather was perfect. It could not have been much better – perhaps a little longer. We went back to Elgin for more visiting. We even got a chance to see Wicked in Chicago.

We headed back to Maryland on Friday, August 10 and on August 11 welcomed three visitors from Japan. They remained with us for a week, and left this morning. While all of the experiences were really only minor changes, because they were in tandem, made for a bit more stress. While the visitors couldn’t have been less obtrusive, the mere fact we had to clean house, cook breakfast, a few dinners and some lunches and ferry them around the area was time-consuming and tiring. I got no work (for pay) done while they were here.

I’m glad we had the guests, but also glad to get our lives back to normal.