As you know, money around here at the Grove is very tight, so tight it is nearly non-existent. So I’ve been looking at all the bills that pile up each month to look for places I could trim the fat. One of those places turned out to be our DSL bill. I looked at what we were paying each month and noticed that for that price, we were only getting speeds of 1.5Mbps. A quick check on the interwebs showed for the money I was spending, I should be getting speeds in the neighborhood of 12-20Mbps. So I contacted AT&T to see what the deal was. After jumping through many, many hoops, I finally got through to them and it turned out we were paying for a plan rate from the 1990’s. They, of course, wanted me to package everything in the house together, internet, phone and TV. I told them all I wanted was internet as we are happy with our trimmed down satellite package, our land line was good for this area because, with my experience with VoIP, any loss of power meant we would also lose our phone. At least with a POTS line, in the event of another major hurricane, at least we could plug our old fashioned phone from the garage into the jack and communicate with friends and family (sometimes it’s good to be a pack rat and save our old, plain, vanilla telephone).

The service rep from AT&T finally listened and said she would just give us a new package deal, but unfortunately, our DSL was no longer available in our area (what?! You mean I’ve been using a broadband service for years that isn’t available?! Did I just lose someone their job that was kept on because we were the last person in South Florida to keep DSL going?) and we would have to switch to Uverse. I asked what was involved in that, if we would just be able to switch modems, she, of course, said yes (lie number 1). She arranged for it to be installed somewhere between the hours of 1:30pm and 4pm and I asked if we would have any interruption of service or would we still have internet right up until they swap out the modems. She said we would have internet right up until they swapped out modems (lie number 2).

This morning at 8:30am, I received a call from AT&T service that they were going to be working on the switch over, and that we would have intermittent outages of internet (lie number 3). Intermittent turned out to mean all freakin’ day! At 1:35pm, the installation dude showed up and said he would start the installation and asked where I wanted the power unit to be set up. Power unit?! Yes, power unit, to power the modem (actually to feed the signal from a cable to the modem wirelessly…how many tumors are we going to get from that?!) with internet magic. I said, well, I have this wireless router that handles my network and it has to stay right where it was because it’s centrally located and the whole house has access to it. I said if I moved the new modem anywhere else, I was going to need a long ethernet cable to reach my router. So he ran the cable, from the box out back around the side of the house, stapling it into place in odd runs. One run would end up, instead of going down in a corner, where it would be less obvious, going straight down the middle of the wall. I may have to plant something to grow and cover the thing! Then it goes right through the wall under a large window and plugs into the worst plug in the house. If someone farts next to something plugged in there, it falls out. He said he would leave plenty of extra cable coiled up behind it in case we needed to move it (lie number 4). He also told me I couldn’t install the modem myself because it was far more complicated than my old DSL modem, that we would now be using ADSL (which actually, even though he denied it, is what we have been using for years and years. When he said I was wrong, I went and pulled out my original DSL modem box and showed him the lettering on it that plainly showed ADSL on it. He said he didn’t know where I got that (I said in 1999) but it hasn’t been ADSL until Uverse started…whatever, dude, I’ve been in the IT field since 1986, so I know what I am talking about). He also said we wouldn’t be using our normal, standard phone line to supply the internet to the modem, he would have to use a special cable (lie number 5). So, after putting the power unit on the floor by the shoddy plug, he pulled the modem out of the box, plugged it in to power and then plugged the phone line in…wait a tick?….you just plugged in the existing phone lie I’ve been using since the stone age, into the new spiffy modem? Where’s the special cable? He pointed to the cable going into the power thing-a-ma-jig. I said, okay, let me set up the modem from my laptop. He said, no, it is too complicated (lie number 6) and proceeded to pull out his ipad, connect to the modem wirelessly, go through a prepackaged app, checked a few boxes and it was good to go. He was so right, I would have never been able to check all those boxes!

So after all this, he then said I should be able to connect to my router…attempt 1, no go. He said, oh, your router is old (it is 12 months old, so I guess that is old compared to the brand new modem he pulled out) and all we would have to do is power it off and on. He couldn’t find the power switch so he took a pen and hit the reset button…NOOOOOOOOO! Well, there goes all my security settings as well as all the IP settings. I ushered him out the door and simmered for a second, knowing my next task was to try and remember all those settings. Luckily for him, I had saved the settings to my laptop and was able to reload them, reboot the router and I was good to go.

Wow, talk about fast internet! Going from 1.5Mbps to 12.0Mbps was a huge jump! Youtube.com is still slow, but everything else is extraordinary! I was happy, even after all the lies and aggravation and for losing an entire day not being able to get email or service client sites (true, I can get some email on my phone, but lately, that thing has been doing nothing but rebooting when I overtax it. With the battery fully charged, I made two calls, wrote two emails, checked into foursquare and boom, reboot, comes back up and tells me the battery is dead. Plug in the phone to charge and in 15 minutes, it showed fully charged again, made a phone call, started to write an email and BOOM! reboot again and showing me battery is dead!) or upload finished comics. Went out to pick up some groceries for my son who is home for spring break to take back with him Sunday and the mother in law calls the wife on her cell phone asking why we weren’t answering our home phone. Whaaat?

When we get home, I check the phone and it says check telephone line, click the make a call button and no dial tone. Wonderful. I head outside with the old style phone and a screwdriver, open the old box and see the jacks are gone. I open the brand new box and see there’s spaghetti (wires everywhere), so I pull out the cable from the line 1 port, plug the old style phone into it, dead, no dial tone. On to the next port, line 2. I plug in the old style phone into it, dialtone! Just to be sure, I use my cellphone, call our home number and the old phone rings! So, even though the lines are color coded, I swapped them out so we would have our land line, no biggie. Come inside, go to check on a website, internet is down. I check the modem, yep, the light for service is not on. Back outside I go, putting the lines in their proper ports, internet back, phones out again. So this technical expert put the new box up, and with all his technical prowess, installed the lines wrong.

Picking up my cell phone, I start a call to AT&T and then the fully charged phone died. On to the next cell phone, my wife’s and surprisingly, I get a gentleman with a southern accent who, after hearing our problem, transfers me to the Uverse desk…and Uverse Bob and his Uverse troubleshooting flowchart. Explaining the problem to him, he says he sees what’s wrong, the tech wasn’t supposed to work on the land line, just install the Uverse…wait, rewind Bob, let’s try this again. I explain to him he HAD to install a new box on the wall, or else it wouldn’t work. Oh, he says, let me transfer you to the right department…on comes Uverse Steve, I have to give my phone number, address, passcode for the third time, but he can’t find my account, under my land line phone number, that has been my account forever. Is there perhaps some other number you gave as a contact number? Sure, my cell phone number. What is it sir? I tell him and hear him ticky-tack away on his Uverse keyboard, and sure enough, AT&T made my cell phone number the account number for Uverse (even though my cell phone isn’t an AT&T phone). Telling Steve my problem and what needs to be fixed (again) he says that they will have to check the line and shuts down my internet. He says there is a definite problem, really? you think?!? and that a service tech will be out to resolve it sometime between noon and 4pm on Saturday and it could take anywhere from 2 to 5 hours to resolve (you’re kidding me right? All he has to do is pull out the wires from lines 1 & 2 and swap them and this could take 5 hours?!)…great, another day lost waiting for them to bumble around my house.

So much for me giving the guy who installed it a glowing review like he said to do to help him keep his job. I somehow don’t think bad reviews are going to be the cause of him losing his job…perhaps not installing equipment right would do him in.

At least I now have very fast internet and successfully trimmed $35 off our monthly phone bill.

Long ago, when man began to lose what made them man, the gods chose four brothers, who once existed as myth, beasts of terror, to bring about peace to a society that favored war and destruction.

In the long, rich story of The War of Winds, an epic fantasy by Kez, we find a young man named Talon has taken a flat, blue-steeled ring from a woman who is dying. He discovers he now has the ability to recover from mortal wounds, making him nearly immortal. But this immortality comes with a twist. Even though he can heal, he is actually dying at a faster rate than if he had never been granted these powers.

When Talon encounters a race of half-beasts, half-humans called the “Ayenroki,” who claims what he stole rightfully belongs to them to guard and protect from man, he has little choice but run, always having to look over his shoulder as the Ayenroki try to hunt him down.

Talon is on the run, looking for someone, anyone to help him because the Ayenroki are not the only ones hunting him; his time and fate are also on his heels, trying to catch up with him.

Saving the world is never easy. Saving yourself from your fate is even harder. If you enjoy sci-fi/fantasy comics, then do yourself a favor and head over to The War of Winds.

Well, it’s over…I tried to come up with a quirky way of getting people to buy my book, but in the end, it only sold 9 of them. I knew it wasn’t working, but yet I soldiered on, refusing to get my hair cut. But today, I ended it, unceremoniously, by letting my wife grab the scissors and lop off the pony tail. Truth be told, I was actually growing tired of that it. It was becoming a hassle and a literal pain in the neck as, when I would sit on my recliner, my back would pull on the hair as it fell between the chair back and my literal back, yanking my head backwards. It would also happen when I slept, or attempted to sleep, my hair covering the pillow and when I would turn, it was like someone pulling my hair. So now it’s gone. At least 6 inches were lopped off today by those shears. While technically it wasn’t a true hair cut, it was cutting of the hair and cutting of the failed sales gimmick, one year later, the plug has been pulled. What was once hair down to the middle of my shoulder blades, now barely touches my shoulders. R.I.P. pony tail…good riddance!