Linda Bonanno's Weblog

Things are really starting to come together around here. It’s not quite as bad as this anymore, but here’s another “what doesn’t belong” picture of the living room.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking… what the F is a toilet bowl doing in the living room. It’s new, I swear, never been used. We replaced two of our toilets with dual flush models to save water since it is so expensive here on the island. It isn’t still standing in the living room, it is installed.

Two of our guest bedrooms are finished. They have hardwoods, they have been painted, the new blinds are hung and they have been furnished. The only thing missing is the artwork – still in storage. One bedroom has a king bed in it, the other has a queen. I won’t add pictures of them because they are pretty boring. It is hard to take good pictures of bedrooms. A third bedroom has hardwood floors and the trim has been painted. The fourth has 2/3′s of a floor installed so far. We made a lot of progress on the bedrooms.

The really really big news is that the new range has arrived! It was delivered on Tuesday. I felt sorry for the poor guys who had to carry it up two flights of stairs. These professional ranges weigh a ton.

Hubby did the gas hookup and after a couple of redos to make sure the range could be pushed back into place we finally were able to cook breakfast on it this morning! We had grits and home fries. Finally! I could actually cook in my pots and pans again instead of the microwave and an electric skillet.

Here is the final product! One big project is now finished. Between cutting out and re-doing some of the backsplash tile, replacing the duct work and hanging a new hood, ordering and waiting for the range and installing it – my kitchen is a lot closer to being finished. (last step… maybe a new fridge??)To compare it to what the kitchen used to look like click here.

Last but not least, the office is almost finished. YAY!
This turned out to be a bit of a one step forward two steps back process, but the bookshelf over the desk has been hung. If you look very closely in the picture you’ll notice that is “just fits” on the wall. This shelf was built years ago for a wall in our old house in Raleigh. It is within 1/16″ of the size of the space here. Amazing – it looks like it was made for the room. Too bad we had to tear off the moulding on two doors in order to have a chance to get it into its place. Now, we can finally take all of those boxes of books we’ve been shuffling around in the storage unit and put them in their rightful place on the bookshelf!

In a nutshell, that was our very productive week. It was awesome!

Today I received a call from Time Warner Cable (TWC) about my dad’s Cable TV account, and let me tell you, it was infuriating. I hardly even know where to begin. It will take more self control than I probably have right now not to drop a few f-bombs in this post. Forgive me, someone is trying to take advantage of my daddy.

When I first signed up my dad for Cable TV they were running a special that required him to get a DVR. He didn’t need a DVR – and frankly we didn’t want him to get a DVR because with his dementia he could never figure it out. When that special offer ended we hastily traded that DVR in for a regular cable box. Over time, we downgraded his digital cable to regular cable because he just didn’t watch it much anyway. At that point a technician came to his room in assisted living and took back his cable box. This was about 2 YEARS ago. I vaguely remember being peeved at my dad for not getting a receipt for the box – but I also vaguely remember getting a receipt so I can’t say either way what really happened on those two transactions. It was a long time ago.

Fast forward to today. I got a call from “Tiffany” at Time Warner who claims that although the digital cable package was dropped from his account, his DVR(!!!) was never turned back in. Huh? When I mumbled something about probably having dropped it off, she replied – oh we don’t have a drop off location. Huh, that’s very odd. Every time I’ve tried to downgrade my service I’ve had to turn in a box BEFORE TWC would even consider adjusting my package. Now they’re just willy-nilly changing service without a tech coming to pick up a box? I highly doubt it.

“Tiffany” wants me to PROVE that we turned in the box by producing a receipt for it – or we’ll have to pay for it. I don’t know about you, but I go through my paperwork every year and shred things that don’t have long term tax implications. Sorry, TWC is not the IRS. Needless to say, that receipt probably has gone to the big shred box in the sky. The other option is that it is in storage with all of my other crap that hasn’t moved yet.

When I asked “Tiffany” how long I had to produce said receipt, she said I had a week. A WEEK??? Are you kidding me? It took you guys TWO YEARS to realize that your company didn’t properly close out the equipment for my dad’s account and I get one week to find ancient paperwork? I asked for two months and we got into a protracted argument that ended up with a 3 week time frame after I repeatedly asked to speak with her supervisor (which she refused!).

It gets better. I figured it would be impossible for me to find the receipt because of its age and the condition of our things in the move. So, I made the mistake of asking what we would be charged for this piece of equipment. $250 – $400! What the F@#$@#! That is about what my dad pays every month for his medications. Do I need to remind you that he’s on a small fixed income? “Tiffany”, I know that in your job you probably get measured by how many boxes you recover and how much additional revenue you generate, but sometimes you need to have some empathy.

He got this DVR in 2007, I’ll give TWC the benefit of the doubt that he actually got a new piece of equipment (HA!). It is at least 4 years old and in technology terms it is a piece of obsolete junk. Even if it is still used in their network the price should be reduced to its depreciated value. Funny thing is that equipment like this was probably depreciated by TWC within its first year of being in service. I highly doubt it has more than a 5 year depreciation schedule and that would be stretching things. Never mind that any company that can take immediate depreciation on equipment will do so – it is just good business sense.

I hate to say it, but most TWC installers that I’ve seen are contractors. I am sure that most of them are good honest upright folks. However, it would be one heck of a scam to take DVRs, not provide any documentation and resell them on ebay. Old folks in assisted living or nursing home facilities are the perfect target for something like this. Could this be what happened? I guess I’ll never know.

OK Time Warner – I have an idea for you regarding how you can find your DVR. This DVR has a MAC address associated with it – otherwise you wouldn’t be able to download software upgrades to it over your network. I’ve worked on Cable technology in a past life, I know… Why don’t you go out on your network and just disable it. I’m sure it will turn up through a service call sooner rather than later.

I know my dad enjoys watching TV, but I am probably going to cancel his TWC account. He has plenty of DVDs that he can watch instead. You might have won the battle, but in terms of long term recurring revenue you are about to lose the war unless someone in customer service will make this go away tomorrow. Heck, there’s a really good chance that you’ll lose my account too – and I pay for a lot more features than he does. As long as I can get high speed internet I don’t need cable TV anymore. In our move we got rid of all but 1 TV. It’s just not that important in our house.

Shame on you Time Warner Cable – stop picking on an old man. Since when are people in their 80′s with dementia a mark for corporations? It’s almost like dealing with a con man.

To see how this situation was resolved (YAY!), read this post: Social Media Saves the Day.

I had to share one picture of what my living room currently looks like. I think it can be used as one of those pictures I used to find in Highlights Magazine when I was a kid. “Identify what is out of place!”

I’ll give you one. There’s a queen mattress and box spring in the corner.

Hopefully this won’t last too much longer and I’ll finally get my couch out of storage.

I think I am going to be sick. As reported on the local Raleigh station’s website WRAL “The North Carolina House of Representatives voted Monday to put a ban on same-sex marriage before voters next year. After 3 1/2 hours of debate, 75 legislators voted in favor of the bill which would ask voters to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.”

Really? Do we have to come to this? What gives us the right to legislate what two consenting adults do in their own homes? I would argue that many gay and lesbian relationships are a lot more like a real marriage than some straight marriages I’ve seen. Why can’t we as a nation separate church and state and let people get on with their lives?

I’m tired of friends leaving the state – or even the country – to get married only to have their marriage be unrecognized by our government. Most of my gay and lesbian friends have been together for more than 10 years. They are in stable, happy, committed relationships. Some of them are raising children together. Their lives really aren’t any different than yours or mine. They love their partners. They cooperate with one another on the usual daily routines. Their relationships have the same ups and downs as anyone would expect. Why do we have to differentiate because of their gender?

My state embarrasses me with this bill. We need to vote it down.