Broken, overpriced, scared, surprised, security reasons

So this weekend felt like it flew by.  There were so many things wedged into the two days I am unlikely to be able to recall all of it with much detail.  On my way home from work on Friday I stopped at Costco to pick up a few items .  I was sort of dreading the experience due to the normal mob scene I experience at the store.   I was pleasantly surprised that the  crowd was only moderate at worse.

Saturday morning the cool temperatures and low humidity felt incredible.  Doing yard chores like weeding and weed whacking was almost pleasant because the air felt so refreshing.  I only started to sweat a little bit after being out there a couple hours.  Cindy and I had to head out late morning to get some stuff.

One of those things was a new cable modem.  On Friday I called Comcast to ask why HBO magically disappeared from my channel line up.  They said the promotional period had expired so the channel was removed. They said they would be happy to add it back in for $15 a month which is crazy.  I told the rep as much, $15 for a single channel is just silly.  I asked if they could do me a favor and either reduce the price of adding HBO or dropping something from my line up I don’t really need like Starz and swapping in HBO.

I was doing all of this through an online chat session.  In total I spent over 45 minutes on this interaction and it accomplished absolutely nothing.  The online rep said they were not authorized to give me any promotional pricing and if I wanted to pursue it further I needed to call their “customer retention department” who is able to give better deals.  Of course this annoyed me and I shared my annoyance with the rep, asking if they understood why it is circle jerks like this that are responsible for Comcast having such a low customer satisfaction reputation? They had no answer for me.

So I jumped through the next hoop and called the number.  I briefly reviewed my situation and expressed my displeasure with it.  The end result of another long block of time was me being moved onto a “Triple Play” package which includes all the premium channels and internet phone service that I won’t be using, for roughly the price I am paying now.  That price is locked in for two years.  I still have a feeling when I get my first bill on the new package there will be more landmines waiting for me.

So anyway, one of the attractive things about this package was it included Blast EXTREME internet which is 150 mbps down and 25-35 up, almost double my current service level.  The rep said the new speed should be immediately available.  Well when I did a speed test, my speeds were identical as before, requiring yet another contact with Comcast.  That interaction determined that if I want the new speeds I needed to upgrade my cable modem, the Surfboard modem that I only bought a couple years ago evidently is “end of life”.  Of course when the package was sold to me a thorough representative would have looked at the modem on my account and identified it was an issue up front.  So anyway, these few paragraphs established why I needed to make Best Buy one of my stops on Saturday to get a new modem.  Once I got it installed my speeds were now as advertised.

One of the other things we bought was garden soil to amend the garden.  We bought 11 two cubic foot bags of soil.  These were the heaviest two cubic foot bags of dirt I ever lifted in my life.  I guess the dirt had a ton of moisture in it.  I have no doubt each bag weighed at least 75 pounds.  They required a major effort to lug around.  I had all of them stacked on one cart.  I had to have my body nearly parallel to the ground as I slowly pushed the cart to the truck in order to have enough power to move it.  It was really, really, heavy. One of the other things we bought was a blow up, animated, illuminated spider for Halloween.  It looks awesome at night.

So I had yet another piece of tech “break” Saturday, my Iphone 6.  During the afternoon I pulled it out for something and noticed it was locked up.  Hmm that’s odd, I have had the phone lock up once or twice in the past but it is normally very reliable.  No big deal, I’ll force it off by holding the power and home button and it will reboot, clearing whatever ailed it.  Well for the first time ever, this did not work.  Sure I got it to turn off but when I turned it back on it would be eternally stuck on the Apple logo and go no further, awesome…

So I did some online research and tried a number of solutions to no avail.  I finally had to blow away the phone and do a fresh OS install on it which of course removed EVERYTHING on the phone.  To get the stuff back I needed to restore my most recent back up.  The bad news was my latest full back up lived on my workstation at the office.  Well I didn’t want to go all weekend with a blank phone so I told Cindy I had to drive into the office to get the phone restored.  She was surprised my back up was on my work pc.  I probably should back it up occasionally at home as well to avoid this scenario in the future.

So I was in the office until almost 7PM getting the restore done.  I then hustled home as Cindy, her brother, his kids, and Katie were all going to the “Haunted and Gross Walk” that is held at the fairgrounds right down the street.  Even though this event has been going on every Halloween for six or seven years I never bothered to check it out.

When we approached the fairgrounds we weren’t sure if the event was going on or not.  The driveway was dark with nobody directing vehicles.  We found our way into a parking space and headed into the main area, a place we normally only visit during the annual county fair.  We immediately got a low budget feel for the event which was not unexpected.  Because of my being late to get home we hadn’t eaten dinner, forcing us to rely on the food vendors there.  There was absolutely no vegetarian sandwiches so I dined on french fries with cheese while picking at some of Cindy’s baked beans and cole slaw.  It was fine.

Despite the low budget feel of the event I was sort of surprised at the kind of high budget ticket pricing.  To go through the haunted walk cost 15 bucks a head.  Cindy’s brother and his young son decided to lay back and not do the walk as Owen was scared.  Cindy, Katie, Taylor and myself entered into the rather long line waiting to get in.

Standing in line was not exactly an enjoyable experience.  The air was quite chilly by Florida standards, in the low 60’s.  The structure the walk was housed in is normally occupied by livestock in warm Florida conditions.  It had a number of these monster ceiling fans to promote airflow.  They were running at full speed creating a constant cold wind on the people standing in line which was not a great thing.

There were cast members patrolling the line trying to scare people the best they could.  The one evil clown was nice enough to pose for a picture with the girls.  The line moved rather slowly as they would insert six people at a time into the walk with several minutes in between groups.  When we finally got let inside I sort of expected it to be kind of lame based on the experience up to that point.

The walk was surprisingly well done with cast members that did their best to scare you.  I was also surprised just how long the walk was.  For a good portion of it I lead our group so I could “protect” the girls.   Most of the cast would sort of ignore me and concentrate on the girls, especially Cindy, who scares easily.  Later in the walk I let the girls lead so they could get more of the experience.  When we finally emerged I was surprised that I actually felt I almost got my money’s worth out of the experience.  It was good enough that I will look to go back next year, I’ll just make sure to eat dinner first next time.

Sunday morning I got up early to get out and run in the gloriously cool weather.  By the time I got to the track the Prius showed an air temperature of 55 degrees which is just about perfect for me.  I had a very solid run for my current endurance level, breaking into the high 8 minute mile pace for only the second time this year, covering about four and a quarter miles along the way.

When I got home we were playing with the neighbors new puppy named Shadow.  He is super cute but of course we are concerned with his interaction with the chickens.  Later in the day Cindy had him in the yard with the chickens, he seemed scared of the chickens and the chickens weren’t too thrilled with him either.

I wanted to get the oil changed on Cindy’s Prius before Katie came over to ride Segways.  I headed out to the newly opened AutoZone location that is now only 8 miles from the house.  In addition to the oil/filter I grabbed a number of other things like new windshield wipers, shop towels, disposable gloves, and an oil catch basin that won’t leak. The price of oil seems to have sky rocketed lately.  Adding those items pushed the bill right to the $100 mark which I had to pay with my Costco Visa since Chase has not been very urgent with getting a replacement card in my hand after last weeks fraud.  I headed home and had the oil changed in the car with time to spare before Katie’s arrival.

I suggested that we take the wheels out to Ave Maria.  I had ridden my Ninebot One out there a couple times already but Cindy and Katie never had.  It was absolutely beautiful weather to be out and about.  Katie is a real pro on riding the Minipro at this point.  We had a very enjoyable six mile plus ride around the grounds.  If I didn’t want to get home for the Eagles game at one I would have been happy to cruise around even longer.

Speaking of the Eagles, I did not think they had much of a shot going into the game.  The Vikings were 5-0 and people were acting like Sam Bradford was now Joe Montana, not throwing an interception this season so far.  Well the game that unfolded was quite interesting with BOTH teams committing an incredible amount of turnovers.  The Eagles also still seemed to be mired in penalty purgatory, hurting themselves again and again.

Despite these set backs, the defense laid a whipping on Bradford, not only forcing him into his first interception of the year but also causing him to fumble two times.  They were smacking him around the entire game.  The game certainly pulled back the curtain on how good Bradford actually is.  He is an average NFL QB playing on a team with a stellar defense.

The game left me even more unsure of if the Eagles are actually a good team or not.  The 3-0 start had a team that seemed to have their shit together in all facets of the game.  The Detroit and much more the Washington game made think opposing coaches had figured out whatever the Birds were doing early on to be successful and taken it away.  Now, after beating the 5-0 Vikings I am hopeful the team has some confidence as they enter a BRUTAL portion of their schedule.  Time will tell but it’s all gravy to me at this point.  I’m just glad Wentz looks to be the type of QB we can actually build the team around going forward.

So while I was watching the game Cindy was busy in the back yard doing an unusual art project, spray painting TRUMP SUCKS in the yard behind the chicken coop.  Her hope was the republican candidate might just catch a glympse of it as he flew in to his rally at the county fairgrounds on his personal helicopter.  During the afternoon there were multiple copters circling the area.  I’m not sure if it was media or security copters, possibly both.  I am sure someone saw Cindy’s aerial message.

We decided to head out on the PTV’s around 5:30, a half hour before the 6PM rally.  We hoped to witness what was sure to be a mob scene.  We first went down 10th street that dead ends to the rear of the county fairgrounds.  As we approached we could hear the PA system booming with somebody warming up the crowd.  As we got closer we could see two sheriff deputies on the other side of the fence at the dead end street.  As we stopped I waved to the one officer who was maybe 50 feet away and he waved back.  Cindy I just hung there, trying to listen to what was being said.  We got to do so for less than 30 seconds before the deputy said we couldn’t stay there.

Even though I anticipated we would get this response, we asked why we couldn’t stay there.  We got the catch all “security reasons” response.  Cindy explained that we lived near by and we were standing on a public road.  The deputy didn’t care and reiterated we couldn’t stay there.  Although it was not worth a constitutional argument I said to the deputy “So we aren’t allowed to be on this side of the fence because of security concerns but we are allowed to be on the other side of the fence?” “That’s right” he said.  Cindy and I rode off laughing at the lack of common sense being applied, joking that perhaps we looked threatening in some manner.

We decided to ride down Immokalee Road to see what the crowd looked like trying to get into the event.  As we approached we saw what we assume was Trump’s helicopter swooping in.  Unfortunately it appeared their flight path did not include Cindy’s backyard welcome message.  When we got to the fairgrounds entrance we saw a massive amount of vehicles lined up trying to get into the event, hoping to catch a glimpse of the most controversial, divisive and ill equipped presidential candidate in modern history.

We rode down the length of the traffic jam, it was just under a mile in length.  The people stuck in line seemed to be interested in what the two weirdos were riding down the sidewalk.  When we got back to the entrance we could hear Trump was starting his speech that I am sure he repeated a few hours earlier in another part of the state.

I was trying to understand the logic of why they would hold another Trump rally in SW Florida.  The area is already heavily conservative, it’s not like he is going to win over any new voters in the area with the visit.  However when I thought about it further and combined it with the visual from the speech that included 80% women in the field of view behind Trump, I realized it is just all about mental manipulation, a classic bi-partisan tactic.  Filling the tv with women, the demographic that should be most disgusted with a Trump presidency is a transparent effort to manipulate the weak minded.  The rally itself is another calculated move where the Trump campaign can broadcast clips of their BIG LEAGUE support in Florida, an important swing state in the election.

I am so tired of all of this mess. The name calling, the accusations, the ignorance, I just want it behind us.  It seems like in the end Hilary will still prevail in the election which is not an ideal outcome in the majority of American’s minds but really the only viable choice to left to us since big money steered the democratic nomination into her lap.  I hope to cast my early voting ballot this week so my participation in the election can come to an end.  I can only hope that someway, somehow, the general populace realizes that American politics is truly all about smoke and mirrors where candidates are tasked with distracting voters and creating divisive, explosive environments that keeps their puppet masters, big money, safely behind the curtains, pulling all the strings.

I recorded some of our Trump rally experience as well.