Oh Where, Oh Where Has Anita Gone...

Not that we were missed, but in case you were wondering where I've been since last Saturday...

So I'm going to rant for a teensy little moment. Prepare yourself.

I had a brilliant idea to bribe my husband to exercise. The easiest thing to bribe this man with (that I'm allowed to publish on the internet) is television. He loves his TV. I think it's a family thing. But anyway, there's certain television shows that come on that he just can't miss and I figured that if we had a DVR then he would actually be able to free himself from the contraints of public broadcasting he would therefore be able to spend time in the evening running, biking, or lifting weights and still be able to indulge in his perferred passtime. So I offered to Ben that if he would try running regularly (or biking) for 6 weeks then in return we could get a DVR. What does this have to do with our recent internet disappearance you may ask? Read on.

When we moved to Oklahoma we signed up with the local cable company (Cox) to get digital telephone, high speed internet, and cable. Our bill had recently increased, and to add a DVR to that would have cost about $20 per month more. In contrast, if we switched back to AT&T, not only would our bill be lower, but it included satellite with DVR and $300 cash back. And as a bonus, we could even keep our same phone number! No brainer, right? So we decided to switch back to AT&T and the big conversion was scheduled for last Thursday, sometime between 12 and 4 p.m.

Without boring you with all the crazy details, by 4:00 last Thursday I had seen the AT&T tech so I had a phone. I had received a phone call from the DirectTV installer saying he couldn't make it because he was tied up at another job, and sometime in the morning I had gotten a recorded message from the DSL folks saying they couldn't get my line switched on (umm... maybe because it wasn't being switched till the AFTERNOON?) Whatever. I had been advised not to cancel Cox until I was hooked up with AT&T, so I wasn't too stressed out. At least not until Saturday morning when the DirectTV people came out and disconnected my cable to install my satellite. Whoops! There went the internet! But I knew I only had to hold out till Tuesday and it was a holiday weekend - I could make it.

But as annoying as all of this is that I had to deal with THREE separate installers who didn't know what the other two were doing, it's really not what ticked me off the most. When we lived in SC we had DSL and I bought the $75 modem from AT&T and they sent the technician out to hook us up and log us in and register the thing so that by the time he left all I had to do what turn on my computer to get on the internet. Since our modem is less than 2 years old and is has wireless capabilities to boot, we wanted to use it here. Apparently, if you don't buy another modem from AT&T you are treated like the red-headed step child. The technician won't even come to your house - he just switches the line from up the street or something. It wasn't until I had spent 2 1/2 hours on the phone with about five different people (and yes, one of them was in India) that they FINALLY scheduled me to have a technician come out today and figure out what was going on and why I couldn't get on the internet. And it wasn't just that I didn't know what I was doing - I had all the little cords and plugs in the right places. It took the professional an hour to fix it and involved tools and filters and the like. So all in all my "easy" switchover took 6 days, SIX separate visits from installers/techs/repairmen and almost ALL of my patience!

Cox may be more expensive, but there's something to be said for having one guy come to your house and when he leaves, it is all hooked up and ready to go.