A very full Friday, Shorts, Feed me, The end of a 22 year relationship, Too Silly, Self Care, Cracked up, Taking Advantage
My Friday was stupid full. During my lunch hour I got another pickleball session in. My knee which was randomly painful on Thursday was less so on Friday, although I still could feel shots of ouch depending on what I did. When I got home I was thinking I needed to choose to either get a 10 mile bike ride in OR get the weeding done. I decided to do, BOTH. It was my first ride in awhile so I was looking to survive, not excel. As I was pumping the tires I decided to pull out my phone and film a YouTube Short, something they began pushing this year. They are short random videos designed to get attention. In my case I thought popping the pump off the valve pressurized to 100 PSI was something random to get attention. It did, over the weekend it amassed something like 7000 views.
I returned from my ride breathing heavy and sweating but motivated to immediately start weeding since daylight is decreasing nowadays. I talked to Gladys on my headset as I roamed the yard so it helped make the task go by faster. By the time I got back inside it was close to 8. Of course since it was Friday the pizza still needed to be made/eaten which I did, feeling like I definitely earned it that day.
Despite knocking the weeding out Friday it felt like I was spinning my wheels Saturday morning. I just had a number of tasks that kept popping up in my head. By the time I left to run errands it was basically the same time frame as a normal, weed on Saturday morning, day. One of my early stops was at Gladys’s families house. The 3D printed Hello Kitty I made for Gladys’s niece had lost a foot so I printed another one. While I was there I was given a bunch of Honduran style food to take home with me which I really appreciated. Gladys’s family is very kind to me which means a lot, especially since I have no family within 1200 miles of me otherwise. After stopping there Elsa and I went to Costco and Publix as well before returning home. I did not eat lunch until almost 3PM, it was just one of those days where I felt behind schedule, despite my best efforts.
So one of the things I had to deal with was Directv. The Eagles season opened this weekend so I was dreading the annual call where I have to explain to low level tech support how to get just the Sunday Ticket enabled for my account. I have never had a year where this did not consume at least two hours of frustration on the phone. So before I made the call I flipped on the receiver and noticed the picture quality was bad, like I had poor signal. It was overcast which never helps but the signal strength numbers were really low, 50-60 instead of 85-100 they used to be.
I have had an increasingly more problematic issue with the satellite dish since the oak tree in front of it has become so large. Repeatedly I have had to trim branches to clear my line of sight. So I went out and stood by the dish, looking up in the sky along the angle that I think the dish uses. I see some small branches down low that could be in the way. I get the ladder out and do some dangerous tree climbing to reach them. I get back down and check the signal meters again, they are basically unchanged, great. I go back out and eyeball some more. It looks like there could be more branches in the way but these are way up there, probably 30-40 feet or more, out of my reach, even if I throw all caution to the wind, great. The last thing I want to do is hire someone to cut these branches back, a problem that is only going to keep reoccurring over the years. I started to think about options.
After some googling I saw Directv has an option where you can STREAM just the Sunday Ticket, no dish required. That would be perfect, I thought. Well it has some bizarre requirements like you have to either be a college student or can not get Directv service any other way. I was trying to log into my Directv account but was stuck in a loop. I got on an online chat and discovered that ATT, who had bought Directv years ago evidently is undoing that, Directv is it’s own thing once again. Because of this a new account had to be created.
The chat rep I had seemed nice. I mentioned to him how it would be awesome if I could convert to just streaming the Sunday Ticket. He said he would look into if I could do it, he seemed to think I could. After about 15 minutes of back and forth he abruptly tells me he was going to transfer me to someone in the streaming department who should be able to get me going, great! So I get transferred to another rep who seems nice, they ask me a lot of the same questions but again seem confident they could get this going. However again, after a prolonged period of time I am transferred to a THIRD person that evidently is THE person for this request, ok great, I think. At this point I had already wasted around 45 minutes on this chat session.
So this third individual is VERY confident that they can accomplish this, they even wanted me to call to cancel my existing satellite service awhile. I told them I would rather wait to make sure the streaming option is available. Again there are a lot of delays but always assurance that we were almost done. However once again, suddenly, I am told that I would be moved to a supervisor that could assist me. I was now over an hour of time on this chat and losing my patience. I inform “Robert” the supervisor he was the fourth person I spoke to. He makes zero effort to help and just tells me to call a phone number. I was pissssssed.
Of course I had absolutely no recourse but to complain into nothingness. However the incident was finally the straw that broke the camel’s back. As I said, every year I have had this horrible experience trying to get the service activated for the privilege of giving Directv $450 or so. The Sunday Ticket only shows games if they are not nationally broadcast. With the Eagles, that means typically there were 4-6 games per year that the Sunday Ticket did nothing for. So I asked myself the question, “Do I really need it anymore….”
Lord knows the last year or so has been filled with things that I have done for a long time dropping to the wayside. I signed up for Directv almost immediately after moving to Florida. That first year I had the dish mounted inside of a Home Depot bucket on a 4×4 inside of cement on the south facing lanai. Seeing the Eagles was that important to me. Fast forward 22 years and although the Eagles are still important to me, with my Sirius XM subscription I already get the Eagles home radio broadcast for free which honestly is good enough most of the time. Having to block off 3 hours on a Sunday to lay on the sofa just is not a great fit for me anymore. Hell half the time I fall asleep for half the game or more. Listening to the broadcast would allow me to multi-task which I normally am a big fan of.
So it was decided, I was canceling Directv. Ironically when I called in to cancel, picking the correct menu item I was transferred to dead air. I had to call back a second time to get it done. The rep on the other line did not try very hard to keep me, he could tell I was pretty much done. I felt an odd sense of relief once the cancellation was finished, no more two hour calls, no more dish dictated tree trimming. I celebrated with another Short.
Saturday night I watched the latest Thor movie, Love and Thunder which recently released on Disney +. Much like the last Thor movie, it was a bit too silly for me. I love the sense of humor most Marvel movies employ but this one was a bit too much. As a result I can’t go higher than B+ on it.
Saturday evening I also worked in the time to do a review video on a percussion massager I was sent. I have had a percussion massager for awhile thanks to Randall’s recommendation. I actually like the unit I was sent a little more than what I have. The video is nothing spectacular but hey, it’s a massager, what do you expect….
My Sunday was decent. After grabbing coffee Elsa and I did our second 1 mile walk in the park in as many days. It’s funny how she acts terrified every single time when I leash her up and 60 seconds later she is fine. While I was there a took a picture of this insane crack that started to appear in the Tacoma last weekend. There is no impact mark, just a crack that started in the middle of the windshield and has grown another foot since then. I have an appointment to get the windshield replaced on Wednesday.
I took advantage of my new freedom from being in front of the TV for the Eagles game. I put on my bluetooth headphones and listened to the game as I mowed the grass, a perfect example of why I like to multitask. What I heard was the Eagles going up big and then begin gagging, with the game being decided by 3 points, fortunately in the Eagles favor. Oh well it’s win, and the grass is mowed….
Kathy is going downhill. Based on my unfortunately extensive experience with chickens demise, it would not surprise me me if she is gone in less than a couple weeks. Her weight continues to fall and her activity/energy level is really dropping off. It makes me sad because I know what is coming all too well, including my ultimate reaction to it.