Haven't done a Ketchup post in a while. I thought maybe it was a good time to do one, since we were not able to get online last week. I did take my laptop to work a couple of days and did quick posts, but they were just that: quick. This one won't be, don't say you weren't warned. :)
The last time the internet connection actually worked last week was Monday morning. I checked my email before I left for work, just as I was getting ready to turn the computer off the connection died but that happens fairly frequently so I wasn't worried. Otter was home that morning, she got up around the time I was leaving and she tried to get online about 8:30 with no luck. I had to come home at lunch to get her (Bill got his wires crossed about the fact that she needed the car and he was to take the El Camino that day so he took the Impala) so she could get to work at noon. I checked the connection then, and that was the first call I made to the unsmart carrier we use. The answer was "Thursday" even though it was only Monday when I called. Tuesday evening, I called them again to see if there was any way they could move us up on the schedule due to the internet-bases business Bill has. No luck, and the person I talked to was even more clueless than the Monday person!
Bill arranged Thursday off, since all they could say was that it would be between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. I was on the way to Otter's store to look at a toy/tool/log splitter for Bill about 3:45 when I got an automated call that told me the repair had been done. Which it hadn't, they hadn't even been out to our house. That caused the first of the really serious RHTW* calls to them, which She enjoyed (and so did Otter because I was walking into her store when I finally got connected to a person) but the company representative did NOT enjoy. She was helpful, but it took her a while to figure out why I was upset. Let's see, maybe the fact that they hadn't even been out but had already closed out the work order and said it was repaired? I came home to get Bill since I really wasn't sure which of the two log splitters he wanted, and we saw a couple of cable-line repair crews a few houses up from ours so we were thinking that maybe they were working on the "area-wide problem" that our carrier claimed to be the issue and that maybe it would actually be fixed this time.
Well, they were part of the issue but not the repair crew! Bill took Friday off as well, since they hadn't gotten it fixed by Friday morning, it was still out and that was the 2nd RHTW* call and the most "extreme" shall we say. This time, I really let them have it. The repair call had been cancelled again Thursday evening AFTER RHTW* talked to them, and that is what really made me let Her out of the fence. And she came out of the fence with both barrels blazing, just in case there was any doubt! The upshot was that they gave the repair crew my cell phone number and Bill's, and the lead repair called us both. When I got home, he was standing in my living room and he looked a little on the terrified side when I walked in the door. Guess RHTW* made an impression!
The crew we saw up the street Thursday evening was working at a neighbor's house, on some work in his yard. This was a company, not just an individual digging around in his yard. Whatever they were doing, they had never gotten the line markers out and they cut the line when they were digging - which was apparent to the company we have Monday but they didn't decide until Thursday that it was a neighborhood issue and not just us? Something RHTW* asked them about and got a stammering "I Know Nuzzing" type answer to. The line was repaired, we have phone service again and the internet is back - it still has a lot of issues and cuts out at strange times, but that was what it was doing before.
Bill had several orders that came in during the time we were unable to get to the internet, he was in the middle of a couple of repair jobs and was unable to continue until he got input from the customers, there was a repair job machine delivered last week that was damaged in transit and he was unable to contact the customer/shipper about how to handle it, etc.
I will be calling them tomorrow morning. As I told the rep on Thursday, they WILL be adjusting my bill. Originally, I was going to tell them that I wanted at least the entire month free but since the problem was not their fault, we're going to ask for at least the week we missed and maybe a little more, considering that we lost 5 days of business because of it. That's mostly because of their bad attitude towards fixing the problem, especially the fact that they kept reporting it as fixed when they had not even been out here. RHTW* is ready to be deployed if need be.
Other stuff did happen last week. Bill got a log splitter, which is actually a cool and amazingly simple tool to use. Yes, Froggy - he could hurt himself on it, but he would have to try really hard to do that. I took the last of his stitches out of his hand on Monday evening. The doctor said that this week would be good, that it would have had enough time to heal and that we could take them out. We were thinking Thursday, because that would be exactly 4 weeks but by Monday it was obvious that some of the incision area was healing over the stitches, so I took them out then. Bill was happy, he was going to go to work the next day and tell his co-workers that we got to Play Doctor! He's easily amused... Anyway, his hand looks really good.
Thursday, as we were attempting to leave the parking lot where Otter's store is with the log splitter in the back seat of my car (it's long and heavy), it was just before 6:00 and the traffic was kind of heavy. There was a terrible accident, which we witnessed, involving an older driver who made a left turn into a residential street and he apparently didn't even look because he turned directly in to 2 oncoming lanes of cars moving fast. It was an almost complete head-on wreck, both cars were severely damaged, one of them was spun around a few times and while it was apparently not a fatality, both drivers had to be hurt pretty badly. I actually saw it out of the corner of my eye just as I was turning my head to look back in that direction and I saw more of it than Bill did. I had just decided to turn right and go to the next intersection when it happened (I was hoping to turn left out of the parking lot), so I turned out to the right and immediately back in to the parking lot at the next entrance so we could call 911. We were not where we could get back to the accident easily, but there were several other people who saw it and were running to both cars to help until the police got there. The police go there less than a minute after my call, and the ambulances and fire truck were right after that. It took us a while to get home, we had to go to the next intersection and then turned back to go through the parking lot across the street to get back south of the accident so we could head home. We got in the door about 5:50, just as Otter texted me that she was on her way home and I told her about it. She went what we call the back way home, and got home safely. But I was kind of a basket case for a while!
It has been pretty warm the last few days. We've had Heat Alerts so we've spent a lot of time indoors. The high temperature is just over 100, which is more or less the environment I grew up in, south TEXAS after all, but it's been very humid. Which is odd because we haven't had rain in a couple of weeks. But the humidity is there and it is bad. It will be hot this week, but it is late summer and August after all. However, September is just in a few days and that means that Fall is not too far away. We're starting to stock up on firewood and I'm going to start redoing our winter storm supplies. It's basically the same as the Spring storm supplies, I just take a few things out to use up and replace them to store for winter weather housebound times.
We went to the post office before Church this morning to clear the box. And found a notice that my car is part of the Chevy recall about the ignition issues with the keys falling out. I'm actually not surprised. I am taking it in for an oil change this week, I'll ask the department manager when I talk to him in the morning to get my appointment. I had asked him about it when the car was in for one of the big repairs we had done recently, at the time it was not showing up as being in the recalled group but he said it could be added at any time and I expected it to be. I took the key off of the key chain I have it on, and even took the remote fob off. Which is what Chevy said to do, but I would have done it anyway. Hopefully, it can be fixed soon but Chevy's letter said that they might not have the right parts in stock due to the number of cars in this recall and it might be a while.
The dogs are still goofy, Frasier likes to play with their blankets and he will frequently stick his head underneath them. Sometimes, he'll pull them over his head with his front feet. No idea why he does this. This morning, he was sticking his head under the blankets when I called his name. He popped his head up and looked at me, ears up and with his head completely covered by the blanket! Goofy boy. Maggie is still being herself, little fluffy bellied baby.
*RHTW: She does not play well with others!
OK, I guess that's it for now. I did warn you that this would be long!
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