Network outages are so rare that when they happen I tend to spend an hour or more trying to fix my hardware, figuring that it’s gotta be me (or the cat). That’s what happened the other day, when Verizon went out for a bit.
I finally called the company (on this old-fashioned thing called a tele-phone), and got the recording "There appears to be a network outage in your area…"
That was actually fine. I can do enough stuff offline to keep myself busy, and it popped back up an hour later. And I really don’t mind because I’m loving my Fios:
A beautiful Sunday is a good day for getting some car work done. The Wife mentioned that her Check Engine light was on, and the last couple of times that happened it was for the same reason: a dirty sensor that took five minutes to clean.
She also needed an oil change, so I figured I’d get some Sea Foam and clean the engine and the intake.
Sea Foam, for those of you who don’t know, is one of those products that a huge number of people who hang out in auto-repair forums swear by. You can add it to your gas tank to clean out your injectors, to your crankcase (i.e., your oil) to de-sludge your engine before an oil change, and even to your engine’s air intake to clean the valves.
First of all, there is no auto parts store in Short Pump. Well, nothing good. The Carquest on Broad is great for getting a part or two, but it can’t complete with the selection at an AutoZone or Advance Auto.
So I poured my existing Sea Foam into my crankcase, I looked up the "A" stores, and drove there, grumbling about wanting to open a franchise closer to me. Picked up what I needed and headed home. That would give my engine a nice cleaning; next I would change both our oil.
That was a quick and easy job.
Next, the fun part: putting the Sea Foam into the air intake. I read the instructions from several different people online, and they all agreed where to pour the stuff.
I warned the Wife: "In a few minutes there’s going to be an, er, event outside."
"What kind of ‘event’?"
"The kind that will make you raise your eyebrows and say ‘What the heck is he doing now?’," I said. (Note: These are actual quotes.)
So I started the engine, disconnected the proper hose, carefully poured the Sea Foam in, and let it do its stuff for a few moments. Then I shut the engine to let it soak, and repeated it with the Wife’s car.
I called her out. "Come see."
"Come see what?"
"Come see all the junk that’s in your engine."
While she stood on the porch I started her engine. Clouds of white smoke billowed out of the tailpipe as the Sea Foam — and a whole lotta engine crap — burned off and out.
She went inside to avoid the cloud, which was spreading quickly. I shut her engine, then put all my tools and such away.
"Tomorrow you get to drive to work James Bond style," I said. "There’s more junk that needs burning off.
"Wonderful."
The Boy comes running to where the Wife and I were talking.
"Let’s go to the garden shoe!" he says.
"The what?" asks the Wife. (Did he say "Gun show"?)
"The garden shoe!" said the Boy again.
Then he explained as only a five year old can: "We get to go to the garden shoe. It’s a really great place where you get to hang up your puppy and watch a movie!"
I’ve had DirecTV for a long time now (close to 10 years). Once I left New York it was the only way to watch Giants games. Plus, they have some kids channels the cable companies don’t.
In the myriad places I’ve lived — Cincinnati, Columbus, and Roanoke notably — weather has rarely had an effect on the signal. We’ve lost it occasionally and briefly during a heavy snowfall, but that’s it.
Well, here in Richmond we lost it during Saturday’s light snow. "Searching for satellite," it read. Grr. But then it wouldn’t come back at all, even when the skies cleared. It got stuck on "Receiving satellite info."
Worse, we couldn’t access the recorded shows for some reason. This was bad.
I called DirecTV and talked to a tech. She had me go through all the usual stuff, but no joy. "Is there any kind of hidden menu that will let me get to the recorded stuff?" I asked.
She laughed. "No, nothing like that."
I pointed out that I had been a customer for 10 years and really wanted quicker service than waiting two days for repair. She tried to get it sooner, but couldn’t. "My supervisor says that, as a one-time courtesy, we’ll waive the repair charge on this."
"Um, thanks," I said. So as a "courtesy" they won’t charge me to repair their equipment. Hmph.
Continue reading “More fun with DirecTV”
Just a tip: If you’re gonna put up signs advertising something, it pays to tell people what it is you’re selling. That’s probably more important than offering people a “Free Recorded Message.” I can get one of those anywhere.
Seen on Patterson Ave.:
Go, Giants! (Rather… Going, Giants!)
I just checked the calendar. Here I thought it was Washington’s Birthday (commonly and incorrectly called Presidents’ Day) coming up. Silly me.
I mentioned before how fast traffic usually moves on Chippenham Parkway. Today was a fast day, but apparently not fast enough for a local UPS driver. We were all cruising between about 50 and 55, and he blew past us, a good 15 MPH or more over the 45 limit. He changed lanes a lot but never bothered with a signal, of course.
But he picked the wrong lane, and soon a line of us passed him. He got behind me, then stayed on my tail at 45-50 until I finally slowed down and let him pass. With The Boy in the car I wasn’t gonna take chances.
Well, one sort-of chance. I shot a picture over my shoulder.
Here he is, about a car length behind me at 45 MPH. That’s close for a car, let alone a truck!
I couldn’t shoot his face, but I did get the plate, just because.
I’m not a huge fan of UPS — they’ve lost too many packages of mine (delivered down the block and so on), and their tracking system is always several hours behind, but you’d think with guys like this zipping along they’d at least be on time.
I’ve been getting a lot of "legit" spam lately. By that I mean junk e-mail from companies I have never done business with, offering products I don’t care about, but that are real companies. We’re talking about seminars, audio courses, and the like.
These people give an 800 (or 877) number to call, and an 800 (or 877) number to fax for more info.
I plan to take advantage of them. (I tried the unsubscribe link in the e-mail, but it generates a message "Unable to connect to database server. Please try again later.Host ‘healthcareaudioinfo.com’ is not allowed to connect to this MySQL server."
So here’s the plan: I’m going to fax them a letter telling them, politely, how I feel. Politely, and detailed. And, just to be sure they can read it, I’m going to send it in a large font. Sure, that may add some pages, but I want to be sure they get the message.
And, so they understand why I don’t like this, I’ll include the full text of the CAN-SPAM act (also in large print). And to be extra sure, I’ll include translations in several languages.
This is no problem for me because I’m just cutting and pasting into a Word document that I’ll send via WinFax overnight. (Gosh, I hope I don’t screw up with WinFax and accidentally send it over and over. But it’s been a while since I dusted off my fax-modem.)
Finally, as I can’t receive faxes, I’ll make sure the transmit ID on the ones I send is a working number: That of another spammer. Let them keep one another busy.
If you’re interested, here are the phone and fax numbers of these spammers:
Phone
800-223-8720 (multiple spam)
800-474-1994 (multiple spam)
800-561-5736
800-223-8720
Fax
800-508-2592 (multiple spam)
If you like your blog reading to be all sweetness and light, you should probably skip this post.
I was at a local playground with The Boy, when I noticed someone who looked out of place among the two-to-10 year old set (and their parents). There was one kid who had to be in his teens.
Of course there are plenty of older people there. But this guy was playing on all the playground stuff with the little kids. And not playing nice.
The Boy came up to me complaining that this big kid bumped him. No big deal — he gets bumped all the time. But he got bumped because this jerk was climbing in this castle thing and blocking the slide — he was obviously too big for it.
He went from there to some of the other equipment where he was playing pretty darned rough. He was jumping on one end of the spring-cushioned see-saw, bouncing the kids on the other side pretty high… until they left.
This wasn’t a case of an older kid being a big more bump and tumble than the little ones. This guy had obviously outgrown the playground a few years ago. (My guess is that he was brought there was siblings and was stuck. Still no excuse for being a jerk.)
If there had been a handful of kids there, it would have been one thing. But the place was packed. And he was clearly getting in the way of the little kids and abusing the equipment — certainly people had to keep away from him.
Let’s take a look.
Here he is, squeezed into the tower. Why "squeezed"? You can’t quite see it, but he’s sitting on a bar that goes across the opening. Little kids can easily get under it, but he had a lot of trouble getting down the slide because he was too big for it.
Here he takes He took one of the bouncy horses that are made for three and four year olds and stands stood on it (he can’t sit), bending it way back and forth. I don’t know if he was with that girl or not — I suspect so. She was trying to get him to stop.
Then he got on one end of the see-saw and started jumping until the other kids on it left.
Finally, why sit on the see-saw when you can jump on it to the point that everyone else leaves because you’re too frakking big?
So if you know this guy, tell him to find a place to play that’s more his size — a bike path, basketball court, hiking trail, whatever. Or sit on the side like the rest of the big people.
[Note: Post edited following polite requests; three photos removed as overkill.]
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