Spring Break

Why do they call it "break"? There is no "break" during that week or let alone the week before the "break"! I hate getting ready for a trip and I enjoy the actual trip after I'm to my destination, but it is the before that wears me out! Let me explain the night before we left for Spring Break..................

I worked hard all week, doing a little bit everyday so I wouldn't be rushed. And everything was going as planned. You know, stuff like laundry, getting the bags out, I enjoy coming home to a clean house, so I did a little touch up here and there........nothing major. Everything was going just fine.................until....................Thursday morning when I woke up. (we were leaving Friday around noon)

I woke up to no phone and no internet! No internet people! My lifeline! Anyone who uses the computer to do a lot of tasks and communicating, I felt lost! I can live without the phone, but not my computer! The weird thing was we had TV and since we have Time Warner, it is all hooked together, so if one goes out, they all go out. So...................wuz up?????

I called the cable company, one of my least favorite things to do, because it involves a lot of "phone menus" before you actually get to talk to a human! First call at about 7:00 AM. The response, "yes, we are aware of the problem and are working on it." Okay, no problem. I was going to be gone all day playing bunko and going to my quilt group (I am a VERY busy woman!). 4:00 PM.............no internet. Next phone call, "They expect everything to be on by 5:00 PM." Okay...............................7:45 PM...................no phone..................no internet. Now, I'm upset. Remember, we are leaving the next day. I need my internet. And our phone is hooked to our security system, so if the house caught fire or an alarm went off, no fire department, no police. I wasn't going to leave without the peace of mind that things were the way they were supposed to be!

So I call again, but since everyone is home, the lines are very busy. Time Warner has a call back option, so you don't have to sit with the phone to your ear..............forever! So I chose call back. At 8:15 PM the "call back" comes through and I talk to a very nice lady that told me she didn't have any outages reported.............hhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........"well, I have an outage." I explained the situation and she decided that I should talk to someone in the Technical Department. "SUPER." ....................................AN HOUR LATER........................a Techno Geek answers the phone. Keep in mind that Glenn is supposed to call around 9:00 PM, so while I am waiting for Techno Geek I text Glenn to say that the phone isn't working and I am on hold with the cable company. He then calls his cell phone (which is here with me). So, picture this.........on hold with my cell phone in my right ear..............talking with Glenn on his cell phone in my left ear.........not exactly how I wanted to spend the evening before we were to depart on our "break".

Back to Techno Geek..........I tell Glenn that I will call him back..............I first begin the conversation with Techno Geek by saying, "First let me apologize for any hostility that this conversation may bring. I've been without internet and phone for over 12 hours and have been getting the run around all day. And I know that you are not the cause of all of this, but you happened to answer the phone. So, I'm sorry." I'm not sure how he took that. But, he was patient, because he and I were on the phone for almost an hour!

I am not techno savvy; I do understand some things. I choose not to know about it all. All I know is that Glenn hooks everything up and it works. Now, I have to fix it! So, I am under the computer desk looking at wires and cables trying to understand Techno Geek. And because I had been playing with the cables on and off all day, I kind of understood which wires were what. With Time Warner everything runs through the TV cable. That would be the short, fat, black cable that comes out of the wall. We had to find a cable outlet that was working, which meant that I had to unhook the cable modem from it's existing happy place and take it to another room. Meanwhile, Techno Geek is listening to me cuss, because the cable wires are hard to untwist! I was tired and just wanted to go to sleep! So, we move to another room, me, the cable modem and Techno Geek on my cell phone. It works in another room!!!!! What is up with that?

So then I make a mistake by asking him a question as to why it would work in one room and not another................oh my! I didn't know what he was talking about, but I just said, "really, oh, okay." Talk about deer in the headlights! So, while Techno Geek is rambling, I move back to the original location, because I thought of something! I remembered that Glenn had attached a cable wire extension cord to the cable outlet, which led to the cable modem. I unhooked the extension and connected the cable modem to the outlet and..................magic! All of the pretty green lights began to twinkle!!!! I told Techno Geek what I did and he said that the cable extension went bad. Problem fixed!!!!! Well.............almost. We scheduled a technician to come out the following week anyway.

The cable modem and the phone jack are on opposite sides of the room, of course. AND I had to move some furniture!!! And the phone jack AND the internet cable needed to plug into the damn cable modem!!!! The wires that I had were NOT long enough to reach the cable modem, of course! Thankfully I have an OCD husband that keeps multiple cables, wires and extension cords in a box in the garage. I just knew that there would be something out there! I thanked the Techno Geek for his time and his patience. I called Glenn back and he did confirm that there were some cables in the garage. So, while he and I were on the phone I plugged everything up. Now remember that the outlets are on opposite sides of the room, which meant that I had two cables running down the middle of the room! and tahdah!!!! (Cue angels singing and harps) It was all working.

Man, was I tired after that! I slept very well. The next morning I did call our security company to run a test on the system to make sure everything was in sync............and it was.......let the "break" begin!

PS Next blog will be about me dropping off our cats at the beautiful pet hotel!