Just the 4 of Us

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Why I Love Independence Day

I realize that this post is a little late. But I have a good excuse.

AT&T U-verse. If you haven't already heard me whining about this on Facebook, then read the post below.

But seriously: I love the 4th of July! It has long been my favorite holiday.

First, I love the nature of the holiday. Independence Day. Our Independence Day. I love our country, and though there are scads of things to fix, I love the idea of America. I love who we are and what we stand for.

John Adams said:

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

He was off by 2 days, but we won't worry about the details. (If you really are a history nerd, you already know that the separation of the American colonies from Great Britain really did occur on July 2, 1776.)

I love this day because there is no stress or worry or pressure associated with this holiday. No presents to buy, no parties to dress up for, no cards to send, no awkward office parties to attend, no decorations to put up - or take down, no special clothes or costumes to wear, no protocol.

Just pure fun. Hang out with your family. Eat summer foods like hot dogs and hamburgers and corn-on-the-cob and potato salad and watermelon. Run thru the sprinklers or lounge by the pool. Wear shorts and a t-shirt and a baseball cap. Relax! Enjoy your family and friends! Listen to big band patriotic music, attend a parade and watch fireworks displays.

This is why I love the Independence Day.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Time for a Rant, or "You Might Want To Think Twice Before Ordering AT&T Uverse"

**UPDATE #2** As of 7:30 pm on Tuesday, we have been re-connected. I shall say no more.

**UPDATE** OK, so I waited until 8:00 last night and finally the guy showed up. He asked me what the problem was. Um, I don't have TV or Internet! Don't you think he would know that? I escorted him to the room where the modem is, and he "tested" the line, while I explained what we had been told about the neighborhood box problem. He confirmed that we were not receiving data (duh). Then he went to test the cable on the outside of the house. Still nothing. "It must be a problem in the neighborhood box, " he said. No kidding, I thought. So he went to check the box, and wonder of wonders, there was a problem. And he couldn't fix this particular problem. So he told me he "called in a ticket" and someone would be out to fix it first thing in the morning. He said I did not have to be there, but when I got home, I should reset the modem and everything will be fine.

I am still skeptical. But I will do as I am told tonight when I get home from work. Heaven help me if we don't have service..............

We lost our TV and Internet connection on Thursday evening. We had a tech scheduled on Friday from 12 to 4 pm. We waited and nobody showed up. We called to see why they hadn’t and were told that the Tech was re-scheduled because they couldn’t get access. I was there the whole time, so I do not know why they couldn't get access! I think it was just an excuse. Anyway, when we told them that their tune changed and then they said that there was a cable cut in the neighborhood and that is why the tech was cancelled. We were told that we would be called back soon.

Saturday morning comes and we hadn’t received a call so we call in again. The customer service agent informs Dan that the cable had been repaired and sets us up with another tech appointment from 12 to 4 p.m., once again, a no show. We call in after 4:30 p.m. and the customer service agent informs me that the cable in our area is still down and we won’t see a tech until that is fixed, and they will call us to schedule (uhh Huh, where have I heard that before?). I was advised that they were working on the problem currently and it should be fixed soon. I then asked for a manager and was placed on hold for 20 min. Finally a manager came on, went through the same info and told me he would personally call me back Sunday morning after 8:00 a.m. With that information we decided to take a drive to see if we could see any AT&T crews were working in the neighborhood. Of course there weren’t any to be found. After the drive we realized that another home in our neighborhood has had programming since Friday morning, so I called in to inquire about that. After talking to a first line customer service agent I was transferred to the Level 2 service agents who (shockingly) were very informative and spent considerable time troubleshooting everything they could. I also gave him the address of the family we knew that had working service. He came back and said that there were several homes in the area without service and ours just happened to be one of them. He said that we needed to wait until the cable was corrected and that he would stay on top of it and call me back. I then told him that I have been told that before and that I was going to call back Sunday morning if it wasn’t corrected overnight.

Sunday morning comes and no call was received from management (as promised) or from the Level 2 techs. About 11:00 a.m. I decide to call in and see if I could get an update. The Level 2 tech I reached was nice and started off by stating that it looked like everything was OK with the line. I then stopped her and explained what had happened and what the status was the last time I called. As she starts to trouble shoot she sees that 6 homes in our area are without service and she was shocked that it had been so long that the service was down. She started to try to schedule a tech to come out as soon as possible but dispatch wouldn’t let her due to the fact that the cable was still cut and needed repair. (Mind you we haven’t seen any AT&T trucks in our neighborhood since we reported the outage.)

Once again I was told to wait and that dispatch would call. So we went about our day and when we got home from church we saw an AT&T truck pass us on our street and another AT&T van parked by the box that needed repair. Nobody was around the parked van but hope started to grow. Of course that hope was dashed when we got back inside the house and re-booted the modem/cable box, and once again, nothing. I walked outside to see if there was anyone working by or around the van and the van was gone.

Here we are Monday morning and I get a call at 11:12 am from AT&T asking me if I "was experiencing any trouble with my service." I told her yes, and proceeded to tell her the entire story about what had happened over the weekend. She told me she would call the tech office to see if the neighborhood issue had been resolved (wouldn't you think that she would check that before calling me??), and would call me back.

Lo and behold, she called back at 11:17 am to tell me that the neighborhood issue had been resolved and she would like to schedule the tech to come by and fix my modem box. Tomorrow. I asked if there was any way they could come today. She checked the schedule and was able to secure me an appointment from 4 to 9 pm tonight.

I don't know about you, but I'm not holding my breath.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Bad Blogger.

Somewhere in the past couple of weeks blogging has started to feel like a chore. Something I have to do. You know, to post my Photo-of-the-Day. Well, I've decided that just because I'm taking photos every day, doesn't mean I have to post them for all to see every day. Right? So I am changing things up around here.

Here are a few of the things that happened this week.

This past Sunday, my class had to present "Sharing Time" in Primary. These were a few of our props, symbolizing emotions we might need to rid ourselves of via forgiveness.