service

sheesh... two hours on the phone with att and counting... on hold on what should be the last call, so i am finally feeling like maybe i accomplished something... i cancelled my dsl service as of 8/31, so i am saving that cost each month, which was higher than the new service, so that is a good thing... one drawback is i can only connect one computer at a time as it is a wireless card... i am not sure if it can be connected to some sort of router for multiple computers or a home network... so living alone costs more cuz i am not sharing the bills, but that's not news, aye?... i am in the process of setting up my new wireless... it is basically another cellphone account that is strictly data and provides computer compatibility at a 3g speed... it should not surprise me that corporate america is marketing yet another service for a completely separate cost through the same company when it could easily be combined in the technology and cost of the existing service... only people in denial wonder why those who did not buy into capitalism would see capitalists as greedy...

speaking of incompetent uncaring capitalists, i am beginning to wonder if all apartment management teams completely unaware of the concept of, no less actual practice of service... i moved out of the last place due to the lack of, and often uncaring, and sometimes simply rude service... i stayed there seven years (or more) because i liked the location and property so much... maintenance was very good too, which is important... but service, in terms of the little things that let you know the office staff care, non-existent...

so here i am paying more in what is supposed to be an upscale place, but they shut down the pool/lanai area at 10pm and they don't allow clubhouse access unless the office is open, so once again the fancy wood and carpets and furniture and tables and such that are all around when coming in to the clubhouse and office area are for show, not for actual practical use after you actually pay to live here... of course you can reserve the outdoor lanai and movie room for the evening, but i am not sure if you have to be out at 10pm or not... would be kind of ridiculous and you have to give them a $500 security deposit...

but that's not the service i am talking about... first, i left a list of things that needed to be done with the office staff on the second day after moving in and while maintenance did show up within 48 hours, some of the things itemized on a clearly written list were not done... like one bulb was replaced when two were listed... like one caulking was done when several were on the list... and the visible gap in the weatherstripping at the front door, still there... and so i took it upon myself to do a few things, but after i did a preliminary exterminating of the roachs (in the upscale place, no less... seven years in the other place and maybe a few bugs a year) and saw some seriously resistant roaches still crawling out of gaps in the corner of the baseboard of the kitchen cabinet, i called (because i had gotten home after they closed on friday night) to itemize the list again on a recorded tape so they had a handwritten list and a voice list... i concluded that message with two simple statements, that i'd be away until today and that i would not live in the apartment until the roach problem was taken care of and i repeated this is notice that i have yet to unpack and that i will move out it this is not addressed (we have a thirty day satisfaction clause in the contract)...

i figured since they didn't pay much attention to the written list, maybe hearing a tenet say they were moving out within 30 days might wake them up... but i returned from miami and nothing was done, no note saying the orkin man came by to address the resistent roach problem, no gaps in the baseboards or front door sealed, so now fourteen days of rent paid, but i've still not unpacked, moved in, and i am paying a much higher electric bill because all the air is escaping through the gap at the front door... the good news is my killer treatment seems to have discouraged the roaches as there are none to be seen, but that means they have escape access to the outside (otherwise you'd find them dead all over the place) which means as soon as the poisons wear off, they'll be right back... so the cost of continued treatment might be mine... but we can hope for the best...

still, we were addressing service... so they paid little attention to the note... and the voice message, well, i went down to the office and waited while two other people who came in behind me were hugged and chatted with and got to see the manager and finally the my leasing agent got off the phone and asked me to wait and when she got back, i explained the poor attention to detail i've experienced referring to the note and voice message... there was no awareness of the voice message and i had to help write the maintenance request as she struggled with just how to convey the gaps in the baseboard and front door in writing... i repeated my concern that my friday phone call was not addressed five times before i got acknowledgement that she was not aware of the phone call... they claim it must have been accidentally deleted and apologized six ways to sunday and called to apologize again and assure me the services they missed would be taken care of before the weekend (at first i was told that maintenance is busy and it might have to wait until monday - i asked if they were going to payt the electric bill for the month and just got stared at...i was, by the time i left the office, repeating myself loudly (not shouting though) enough for the manager, not to mention the other people (tenants and prospectic tenants), to hear my concerns about the roaches and service and my clearly stated formal notification that i was in the process of looking for another place even though the inconvenience and cost of another move is the last think i wanted... that is what probably prompted the quick phone call apology...

meanwhile, i am typing all this while waiting for att wireless to figure out why i am not connecting using their att air card wireless internet service... it's been over three hours closing in on four... along the way, i felt rather satisfied as i will have my bellsouth dsl email extended until the 30th of the month for free so i will have an auto-reply sent out to anyone emailing me with a temporary email address and my telephone number so anyone who actually wants to contact me can (side effect may be to eliminate SPAM too)... and the att worldnet people tell me that my att email addresses and website will remain available to me for free with no shut down (free for life?... somehow i don't believe it, but that's kind of what was suggested... i'll work on moving the website one of these days - months - years)... and so things sounded good, but then, the shoe dropped... i finally did connect with the att air card and i feel like i am back on dial up... this will not work, it is way too slow... so i will probably be heading to cable shortly... i have a couple of weeks to decide...

worse yet, my phone keeps dropping calls... this does not help me in my decision to stay here, yet i so do not want to move again in the next two weeks... apparently, i am in an att dead zone, kind of like i was when i first moved into the other apartment four years ago... it got better there... but i do not want to be locked into a service contract for two years on the hope it will get better while at the same time have no backup internet or phone service other than the poor office wireless... how unlucky is this, i choose one of the places in the area that does not have home/dsl service by att and worse, has horrible att wireless service as well...

i wonder if it is because the orlando phone company has a bunch of satellite dishes outside that they use to provide phone, internet, and tv services... could they be inadvertently (or even deliberately) jamming signals, if that's possible... at least i have a little extremely slow internet for the moment... seems the universe is rather strongly urging me to spend less time in the house on the net for at least the next year... meanwhile, i've gotta get ready for softball tonight (if the rain stops long enough)... and lisa loeb is in town and i really wanted to see her but she's playing right around softball time and, well, we can use the rain...

so i guess i may be stuck with the orlando phone company who nobody's ever heard of) if i stay here, and after investing more than $100 in bug killing products, hundreds in admin costs, more hundreds in moving costs, i probably will... of course it really isn't a monetary decision, it's mostly laziness... and though it is not exactly a way to choose a company, but again, that seems typical for the service in this country, nring the entry full circle... capitalism is set up for the businesses, not for the consumers... kind of like dairy farms are set up for the farmers, not for the cows...

moooo...

locks and gates and security protection

james taylor - sweet baby james
stevie nicks - bella donna
cream - gold v1

but are we really secure?... ah, the fools we mortals be thinking we have some meaningful control over the course of our lives or, in even more grandiose delusional spectre, the world around us as if our decisions are worth the stress and energy invested... as if i can really maintain a bug free zone without killing myself and others in some way and further, as if the struggle against the bugs matter at all in the universal flow of matter and energy... we all have some nocpdjavcff in us after all, even me (especially when i am passing for human... can the land of the mostly dead be far behind?)...

ah, the ludicrous sense of absurdity i sometimes call my sense of humor really does love those pity party antics now and then... while i don't recommend it daily or even more often than perhaps every few months and it certainly should not perk up your day nor should it be the easiest thing to relate to amidst the myriad of things to relate to in your day (telltale sign of lingering depression # 6), the occasional slink into pathetic poor me slouching is a strange deliverance from the depths of hell we can create in the bowels of our psyches (especially when we're not looking)... yes, so, all good advice aside, i'll just stuff my face with more chocolate and ignore the belly one more day...

he sets, he shoots, he scores!... self-mockery wins another round of who's life is this anyway... giggles are not optional... ok so we stepped up the testosterone and manned-up, as the bandit of my dreams would say (remind me to check that kink... yeah, and that link too)... ah, if she only knew me as i know me, or you, even... meanwhile, i men, meanwhile, the kitchen and bedroom got a serious dose of the potent mixture of poison that is not recommended for indoor use (but necessary), especially not in the ratio i mixed... but i am a professional, or at least i played one in high school, so don't try this at home... yeah, at home, get it...

so i went out to meet raspy and precious at the local outback (they came all the way over to around the corner from my place cuz raspy wasn't sure any others were still open and serviing after ten pm... or maybe they just missed me... i said i was too tired at first and i did already fill myself to the gills here, but i realized the pity party i was throwing in the half-assed exterminating job i was doing was counterproductive for killing the bugs and for keeping me alive, so i kicked up the energy, massive dosed the bedroom and kitchen, opened the windows, turned on the air-fan full blast, and went out the meet them... after we sat and talked till midnight, i headed to the hub of american consumerism, walmart, and spent another hundred plus on bug stuff and a few food items... a fane to fit the bedroom window started exhaling the poisons while i wandered down to the office area to search for an internet signal...

once down there, i had to figure out how to get in... the offices and clubhouse is locked up... the pool area is locked up... the 24 hour gym was open, but access was denied until i got to the one door that was openable and then, the search for comfort and the internet began... there are only kiddie chairs in the gym in the kiddie room, so i set the laptop up in there on the kiddie table and away we went... almost... the kiddie room is apparently just out of reach of the wireless connection that management provides, so i had to move to a kiddie chair at the door of the gym closest to the office area and with the hot heavy laptop on my lap (and the gym temperature set for a hot humid 75 degrees), after an hour or so i was sweaty sticky achy and frustrated with the distractions the environs and the online experience was presenting...

the wireless connections sucked, to be precise... it was intermittent, two bars at best, and slow... is that the fate of wireless, to be maxed out at 3G?... i've been used to 6G and higher and i hear cable is pushing 15G, so why would anyone stay with 3G wireless unless there was no choice?... no choice?... oh yeah, that seems to be where i am... a major league strike two against this apartment (the roaches and the cost of controlling them count as a big strike one)... shucks, that really does suck that i have been here about ten days and am already planning to look for a more suitable and satisfying place... i certainly hope the pool/office wireless is better when sitting at the pool or in the clubhouse because what good is free wireless when it's two bars at best and very inconsistent... so on the next apartment search (or house serach) i must questions phone and cable companies about services before signing and further, check the quality of the free amenities...

always learning, that's the ticket...

i've got to be away to meet the sunday softball team at ten am tomorrow so i ought to consider sleep... of course the airborne chemical poisoning possibility is a good insentive to staying awake, as if i needed one... just for the record, two entries were uploaded, but ironically, one was not in thereal blog... that was because of the frustration with the internet connection... i spent most of my internet time on the ATT website... i somehow did find my way to read my mail, however i might have confused a certain mexican hat dance by responding to his email because the name on my email may be somebody else... att amazes me with their incompetence and lack of attention to detail... how can they every produce quality products with such gross errors as having the wrong name (not mine) associated with my account... a moment at meetup, a moment at my blog world, and poof, the internet is gone again...

so you see, i am not ignoring you, i am just floating around in a world without internet or tv or unpacking or settling in or any of the normal human things and the alien in me is coming out to play some more... but it's ok if you feel ignored, i mean, i am the most important thing that's ever happened to you and you wait baited breathed for my every glance, ever hungry for the next bit of attention i may toss your way... so even though i am not deliberately ignoring you, it's ok, due to the vital importance of my very being, whenever i am not around, you can feel ignored... maybe today i'll load all these pages so we can all feel ignored...

oh nyuk, oh mergatroid, exit stage backhand on the south side...

but i didn't mean to move...

layers, aye?... well, i didn't actually mean to move out of the apartment i've been in for almost four years, but then, i didn't mean to move from the preveious apartment just across the parking lot from this one, that was Charlie's idea, along with his hurricane family that visited us in 2004, though i suppose i did mean to move from the two bedroom to the three when Precious came to live with Raspy and they both moved in with me, but i didn't mean to move from here to there and back and forth many times in this life... sometimes there just seems no choice (like when immigration says leave or we have a nice room with bars for you, nyuk, nyuk, ouch)...

and i didn't mean to move blogs, but it appears i've been blogging elsewhere for some time now and i'll tell you about it when i have more time, but the link has been on the long list to the right there, somewhere amidst the old and new additions...

it's not an actual official move, really, and there's been fill in (and more fill-in to come) to give the appearance of daily updates, and lately i've been actually daily updating, but it's still not the actual move to a new blog that i have been toying with for months now and there's still plenty of babble waiting for formatting for this place and now we are almost caught up in real time here...

almost...

moving has been preoccupying my thoughts and time... and there's just today and tomorrow left on the old place where i can connect to the internet and then...

dunno...

the Orlando Phone Company is the only provider according to the office staff at the new place and the ATT DSL people told me they do not pump ATT DSL into the place, so ten years of connection with email addresses and web pages may go up in smoke at the strike of some random hour sometime tomorrow (the heck with what Dougie Adams says, PANIC!.. ok, not really, i mean, it wouldn't be the end of the world if everything i've put on the web on my personal websites was suddenly lost, after all, i've lost more precious things than words and i've lost lots of words along the way, but it sure would be a major bummer though... must find time to move the pages... as for email, must find a way to keep email addresses and access)... ATT did offer some sort of universal wireless card i supposedly can plug into my laptop somewhere (if it's USB, oops, the USB ports are quite iffy... wonder if anybody i know owns a soldering gun and knows how to use it on USB ports inside a computer)... anyway, ATT is sending me that card and signing me up for the service at $100 for the card and $60 a month for the service (which is about $15 a month more than i pay for the family network service on DSL) and they say i'll get a rebate to pay for the card and hopefully it'll work and i'll have anywhere internet and ATT will not insist on taking over my laptop with their software... am i still in that parentheses that started with what Dougie Adams didn't say?)...

in any case, if i disappear for a few days, it'll be just like the last few weeks where i'm hardly here, but i do need to check emails for softball and meetup a lot so i need to keep access to my ATT emails until i decide if i am going to change all my email addresses at seventy gazillion different places i am signed up for, including all the serious monthly bills and stuff) which is a full time job i don't have time for or something like that...

i'm late for tonight's game night, so i'm going now... but i wanted you to know... email, less reliable than ever... blogging, more haphazard than ever... phone remains 407-325-1482 (they can't take that away from me, likethe way you wear your hat or something)...

i feel very alone in the world right now, so feel free to remind me of how much you love me and how many people love me and how you'll miss me and i am foolish to feel alone even in an empty apartment where i could die and nobody would know until the smell brought raccoons scratching at my door and they broke down the door and were overwhelmed by the odor of decay and unrecognizable body that used to contain me and they wonder how someone got to be so alone in the world that they could die like that, wait, what were you going to be reminding me i was foolish to feel about?...

yeah, i love you too :)

i hope i am not gone long, cuz even though i'm already gone, i still want to keep in touch and return to that dream of daily blogging for the many masses of fans and followers who wake up each day just to see what i rambled on about the night before so they can make it through their day until the fall asleep, exhausted, but euphoric cuz they have my wonderful dauly babbling to look forward to the next morning...

see, cuz i'm saving the world, on blog entry at a time...

hope you enjoy life too :)

almost slept

so there i was sitting in the big green chair immediately after work and eyes were closing and i kicked back and slipped into the wonderful world of sleep... about three hours later, Rasputin and Precious and her friend come in and the lights go on and the cooking starts and the TV goes on and we're watching My Cousin Vinnie...

sleep would have been wiser...

how cool might it have been to find myself fully refreshed from a full night's sleep sometime in the morning, waking feeling so refreshed from a full night's sleep that running was the only option to start the day and then a nice relaxing shower and no rushing to work half asleep... wouldn't it be nice (huh?... music?... yeah, and music too)...

but here i am stringing words together instead, which is, of course, like torture for me being that i so loath the process of writing or, heaven forbid, balling on as if there's some point to bve gotten to that never actually arrives (but then, if it's to be gotten to, it wouldn't be arriving, i'd be getting to it, no doubt... something about the laws of physics and grammar and conjugations or what not, aye?)...

meanwhile, they are not really watching the movie, they are eating junk food, drinking pepsi, and playing some game they have not played since middle school... she really hasn't gotten into college life much yet, probably because her best friend is still in high school and life is way too easy (can we sy spoiled?)... of course I have a big hand in that, so who am i to complain or judge... there i go, self-mocking again... i'd rather be sleeping...

ah, grimgles (or gruggles, i suppose, which are grumbling giggles or giggling grumbles, in case you forgot)... just wish a little more responsibility would show up so i could stop paying interest on the couple of thousand plus i laid out for her car... i remember hearing $25 a week and i've not seen it yet... laptop, vacation, home that would foster a more intimate social life, wouldn't it be nice (what beach boys?)... on the other hand, yesterday Rasputin left me a $300 check towards the money he owes me, which is a great step forward...

am i thinking about how cool it would be to live by myself in a clean house on my own schedule in a space i created for myself to inspire comfort and creativity and healthiness and intimacy?...

could be...

meanwhile, i didn't eat dinner...

famous last words...

later?