Today’s Business: 2010-06-10
Thursday, June 10th, 2010Today’s Activities
- Shower. DONE.
- Cat duty. DONE.
- Balance all checking accounts.
Log
05:30 AM: I’m up. Looks to be a sunny day coming up.
07:00 AM: [Emmy] just boarded the train to Lancaster, PA. Neither of us slept well overnight; she because she’s worried about the visit home, and me because I ate at nephew Trey’s graduation party too late last night. But she’ll nap on the train, and I’ll nap here in my bed once the cable company comes and goes this afternoon. Mom scheduled a visit from them to check out our phones. Some calls are garbled, and they want to rule out any equipment failures in the house here before they investigate the external network.
11:30 AM: Wrote an additional 2000 words into the Last Time With Emeebee piece on the Tom’s Love Quest blog. Again, this work is still under construction. But you’re welcome to check it out while it’s still in progress if you wish.
12:20 PM: [Emmy's] train is almost to Harrisburg. She called to say that she’s getting more nervous by the mile as her reunion with her ex foster parents grows nearer. She’s not seen them in a few years, ans is likely anxious over what might have changed there and how she’ll get along in the new environment. I comforted her as best I could, remembering how Dad used to calm me down when I got nervous over traveling to Pittsburgh forty years ago.
03:30 PM: The cable guy came this afternoon to further investigate the garbled calls problem on our phones. While he found nothing specific that, when removed actually fixed the issue, he did shorten the cable run from the pole into the house by 20 to 30 feet by rerouting. This gave us a few more DB of both up- and downstream signals, which may improve picture quality on our televisions. Some Misc. tid bits he shared with me during the work were:
- At no point during any call do our phone signals go over the Internet. In fact, our system differs from companies like Vonage and Magic Jack in just this way. This, he said, is why our phones can sound so much better than theirs.
- This company has dedicated fiber lines that connect them to Verizon, AT&T, and other big-name carriers. So they do not need the Internet to route calls to people on other phone systems.
- This phone system uses an upstream channel and a downstream channel.
- The upstream channel, AKA the return channel is lower in frequency than analog television channel two.
- When the signal on the return channel is compromised, such as happens with loose cable connections, faulty coax, and so on, this can cause people we talk to, to hear garbled audio. However, they may sound fine to us.
- The garbling may be due to an extremely busy phone network. However, he informed me that this company just purchased a new switch at a cost of 2 million dollars. Once they bring it online and “re fence” some customers, network contention will be markedly reduced.
04:30 PM: Watched today’s episode of The Young and the Restless on the DVR.
05:00 PM: I learned a few moments ago that [Mom] loaned out my roofing ladder, again, without my approval. She did this last fall and I waited over a month to get it back; and its return came only after my placing several calls to the borrower. After that incident, I’d asked her never to loan my stuff again to anyone without my express permission. But she’s gone and done it again. I’m not sure what leverage I actually have to make her stop short of moving away from here. I guess I could put all my tools under lock and key. Hmmm. Perhaps that makes the most sense; for it’s not as drastic as moving; for I know that if I was forced to leave, once gone I doubt I would speak to her much anymore. So, I’ll get a big chain and lock and secure the ladder with it, and hopefully, this will nip this problem in the bud.
08:20 PM: Worked the Lawn Maintenance: 2010 project. Grass cutting #4 for this year is complete.
10:20 PM: Talked to brother-in-law Rich. He needs an Ethernet cable. I placed a 50 footer in the kitchen for him, should he decide to stop by on the morrow.
10:25 PM: Bed time. Take care. I’m beat. So catch you tomorrow? I hope. 
Good night.
Received Mail and Shipments
None today.