Category: FWIW

You can tell by the title whether you want to read on or not.

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Another hour on the phone (most just to get to a level 2 tech), because *drum roll with brass flourish*–Ta-Da! Cable ISP is acting flaky again. When it’s good? Well, when it’s good, it’s very, very good, but sporadically, pfzzt! it’s gone. Middle of a page load (or beginning or end), middle (or beginning or end): connection dies.

Two-and-a-half months of this kinda crap. Now, I didn’t complain when there was an 8.75 hour outage because some doofus cut soem fiber by digging where he shouldn’t have. Idiots just do things like that, and since it wasn’t an ISP idiot (as I verified) and I know how hard it can be to locate such improper digs and repair fiber while it’s coming down gully-washers (as it was yesterday), I had no complaint.

But thius intermittent service issue has been ongoing for 2.5 months now, and every service tech who’s come out has verified that the problem’s on the ISP end, not my end.

But. When it works, an 8+mbs download speed with a 700kbs upload speed beats my other “high speed” option, DSL.

Monthly charges for the ONLY DSL available from my location (from a lil mom n pop, 2-exchange POTS “service”):

DSL (128 kbps) w/o [Third World County] Long Distance* $ 55.00 per month with no contract
DSL (256 kbps) w/o [Third World County] Long Distance* $ 60.00 per month with no contract
DSL (512 kbps) w/o [Third World County] Long Distance* $ 67.50 per month with no contract
DSL (1 Meg) w/o [Third World County] Long Distance* $130.00 per month with no contract
DSL (1.5 Meg) w/o [Third World County] Long Distance* $180.00 per month with no contract
Static IP address $ 10.00 per month

*Installation Fee of $50.00 applies

With a one-year contract, those prices drop all the way down to $37.50, $43, $50, $80, & $130.

Notice that the fastest potential download “speed” is only about 18% of my usual (when actually connected) download “speed” and the maximum upload “speed” (not listed here) is about 10% of my normal (when actually connected) upload speed. The kicker? When I used to have dialup with the POTS service (again, the only place to get it w/o long distance charges at the time), I had frequent disconnects caused by the POTS lines/telco ISP, and folks I know locally who use ’em for DSL have similar experiences with the (almost non-existant) “technical” expertise exhibited by those implementing the telco’s DSL servicve, so the connection woes I’m experiencing with my curent ISP and what I can in that regard expect were I to get DSL are pretty much a wash.

Oh, my costs with cable internet plus TV service? About what the 1mbs DSL service is alone, in fact, less.

Still, my tightwad’s heart says I’m not getting such a great deal unless I actually get what I pay for. Several days (or maybe just two) in a row of decent service, followed by a week of cutting in and out? Not what I pay for.

*sigh*

Oh. Well. Have to reorder my day AGAIN to be here “between 8:00 and Noon” tomorrow so the tech can come and tell me what they’ve told me over and over and over again… and someday, when I’m old and gray(er) and my beard’s reached my knees, someone will drop by to holler in my then-deaf ears, “It’s all fixed now.”

I hope.

Yeh, I’m back griping about my ISP again. *sigh*

So, service had been “fair to partly cloudy” since about late Sunday evening/early Monday AM. Not stellar, but mostly up and mostly adequate. Then I got this in my email:

We appreciate that you have chosen Xxxxxxxxx Online High-Speed Internet service, and we constantly look to bring you a better service
with new improvements.

We have just increased your download speed from 8 Mbps to 12 Mbps, and your upload speed from 52 Kbps to 1 Mbps.

All you need to do to get the faster speed is unplug the power cord from your cable modem, and then plug it back in to the outlet. That’s it!

“Really?” methought. “OK, I’ll just do that lil thing, since service seems slow today.”

Cycled my “modem” (it’s NOT a modem–“MOdulator/DEModulator”; it’s a specialized router, but who’s keeping score? Oh, I am, that’s who). Checked my connection. Yep. Still slow. In fact, checking with SpeedTest, the latency test timed out three times with three different servers before I could get a SpeedTest started. Then, when the download “speed” refused to go above 190kbps (WHAT?!?!), I canceled the thing and tried again. Yep. No matter what server I chose to test my connection with, the touted “12mbs” download “speed” was nowhere, mon frere.

So I called. Eight times. Seriously. And that doesn’t count the times the correctly dialed phone number refused to connect–either one of them. Why eight times? Disconnected when put on hold twice. Got a rude $%^&* named “Champale” (sp? What mother would name a child that?) once and hung up myself. The other five were cycling through attempting to find someone who would escalate the call to someone who knew something beyond just the first level diag chart, cos I’d covered all those bases in spades more times than the doofuses on the other end of the line have (and actually know what those things are meant to accomplish).

Once again I was told an upper level tech would contact me within 24 hours. Of course, when I’ve been told that before, it’s turned out to be false. In fact, the last person I talked to confessed to me that my record does not indicate an escalation has ever taken place.

Now? I’m back to a nominal download/upload speed–for now!–that is acceptable, but 1/3 less than the lying email I recieved today. And I’ll have an acceptable connection until… I don’t, if the record of the past couple of months is any indication.

Oh. Well.

…but invoking the shade of John Denver, it’s “almost heaven”–for now–after a couple of months of poor service from my ISP (which shall go unnamed to protect the guilty *heh*). I had a real difficulty getting up to full curmudgeonly “gripe ’em out” mode, since the last couple of months of on again-off again service from my ISP was the first time in six years with this ISP that I’ve had cause to really gripe. Finally, six business days after my full mode “take no prisoners” assault on my ISP’s support, another tech came out, metered the input on my line and got a definitive number on the poor feed from them–same as ALL THE OTHERS he’d tested in town that day–and someone apparently kicked some a$$ back up the line, cos my numbers for the past couple of days’ service have been consistently better, and service has been–apart from a complete outage early this a.m. around 1:00, when I suppose someone may have scheduled some additional service, and I ought to have been sleeping anyway–better since Saturday.

(Heck, for much of the past couple of months, SpeedTest.net, when it would load at all, would time out testing my connection. That’s not good. And yes, I redacted the ISP’s name and the location of the test.)

It’s nice to–for now–have service that’s more like what I’ve been paying for. Nice that my repeated, pointed remarks about the ISP not investing enough in service (having too few service techs, as an example) seems to have resulted in TWO techs working the multiple calls in town last week, instead of the usual one, hugely over worked guy (it may have helped that I encouraged others that I know have the same ISP to list that in their gripes as well, ya think? *heh*). Also nice that, my repeated pressing for my ISP to “make me whole” also resulted in a rebate on at least a portion of the past two months’ service charges. Lesson: in today’s economy where companies are cutting back in the wrong places (not laying off or at least re-tasking useless management pukes but laying off, or not hiring, enough “boots on the ground” for example), rattling the cages of increasingly higher layers of support personel is sometimes the only way to get what you pay for.

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Update: well after a mini-outage late last night and again this a.m., my current connection speed’s a slight improvement over yesterday… for now.

I recalled today my first “real” job where I was paid an hourly wage. I’ll not say when it was or what the wage was, but at minimum wage, my part time, after school job brought me enough to buy my first car, a new musical, pretty darned pricey instrument and to save enough to take me all the way through my senior year in high school. In today’s dollar, my hourly wage was over $9.00 and hour, simply because a dollar had that much more purchasing power in that economy.

The car wasn’t much to look at. A used 1953 Chevy 4 door with worn front seat covers, a cloumn three-speed and a six cylinder engine that ate up everything I could throw at it. (It took my brother, several years later when I was on the road touring with a group, to kill that car by simply refusing to ever check the oil. Oh, well. What are brothers for anyway, right? *sigh*) But it was a dependable ride that was mine, bought and paid for with the sweat of my own brow.

The musical instrument, which I still own and still play from time to time when the house is quiet, cost almost twice what the car did, and was worth every dime. It’s not my fav instrument–that I got much later for only $75 in much devalued currency, but that’s another memory–but I still enjoy it.

No computers. Rotary dial phone–by the time I was in high school we had TWO phones in the house! and one of ’em wasn’t a rotary phone!–but no longer on party lines. I knew what a typewriter looked like, but since I didn’t plan on becoming a secretary, I didn’t learn how to type. *heh* My sophomore year in high school, my older sister won a color tv in an essay contest with the subject, “Why I Am Proud to Be an American”. The black and white TV, complete with rabbit ears and tin foil, went to my parents’ bedroom (for my brother to shoot the glass out of with a BB gun later–yeh, that brother–but it was OK, because it was just the flat piece of glass covering the TV tube that he shot out… )

Memories are funny that way. I started off having a memory of my first hourly job–there were more on through college–and that spurred all kindsa anciliary things. Olde Pharte Syndrome, eh?

Well, there ya go. Another trip (and stumble? 🙂 ) down memory lane.

Son&Heir’s dogs are 16 (or 17*) and 13 years old. The older one’s a medium sized mutt that looks like a Heinz 57 that’s predominantly some sort of herding dog and beagle. Weighs maybe 45 pounds. The younger is a German Shepherd/Yellow Lab mix. And there lies the tale…

Saw “young fella”–Leo–“rabbit hopping” when running the other day, and I’d already noticed that he’s become more clumsy on our vinyl tile floor in the kitchen (where we feed “the boys”). Yep. Weakened back legs, probable hip dysplasia exacerbated by arthritis. Immediately changed the boys’ diet. Since the older guy (Buttons) was still very energetic (I think “bouncy” is the word I’m looking for :-)) but just taking longer to start getting moving, after checking some dog health sites manned by veterinarians, I made up a batch of supplements for them to be fed in some canned food mixed with their dry. (Note: I know both dog foods we feed have some C, D and other supplementation but dogs do not synthesize D-3 and get it from prey in the wild, and C&D do work together in dogs, as in humans, in joint and bone maintenance, soooo… just keeping things within the general guidelines here )

• some canine-allowed pain meds apportioned according to their weight/size
• some glucosamine supplements for Leo
• vitamin C (yeh, I checked to be sure it was a calcium ascorbate form and in very small amounts)
• vitamin D (again, much smaller doses than for a human of their respective sizes)

So far–three days in, well before I could get a non-emergency vet appointment–I think the pain meds have had the most immediate effect. Leo’s pretty much stopped dragging his back legs and rabbit hopping. Buttons is just as energetic, but still takes about as much to get him started moving. We’ll see what the vet has to say as this progresses, but to this point I’m very pleased with Leo’s response. Oh, I also have started “brewing” some relatively weak decaffeinated green tea for their water dishes. COX2 inhibitors and anti-oxidants, you know. Weak as it is, even though “decaffeinated” does not mean “cafeine free” it doesn’t seem to have caused any problems in the last three days, and from mmy own joint pain experiences, I know the COX2 inhibitors aren’t hurting…

I just wonder if Leo could use a beer now and then… 🙂

Continue reading “Geriatrics for Dogs”

A quick drive by post…

Over at Moonbattery, I ran into this hopeful comment:

…if Jimmy Carter could create a big enough backlash to give us Reagan, four years of Comrade Obama should be sufficient to bring James Madison back from the grave.

By jove, I think there’s some hope there! *heh* (Heck, I’d “settle for” John Hanson)