Day 2180

Our U-Verse service has gone out again. Whenever I deal with cable company customer service representatives I understand road rage a little better. It is infuriating to pay so much for a service that is so unreliable. Whenever U-Verse goes down I'm tempted to go back to Time Warner Cable. Then I remember that their service was even worse. The last time I had reliable internet service was in the Internet dark ages when I had a dedicated DSL line pulled to the house. The old DSL line was faster and more reliable than the fancy WiFi network I have now. Everything was connected by Ethernet and I rarely had an outage. The phone company doesn't even offer DSL lines anymore. Times have changed.

So, how am I posting this if I don't have Internet service? I have a backup connection with another phone company. You have to have a back up for everything these days, especially if you're a website developer. It's frustrating to be at the mercy of the phone company. Nothing is dependable anymore. U-Verse won't even come out to look at the problem until Monday. They told me that they had no technicians available. Really? I saw a U-Verse technician in the ally behind my neighbor's house about thirty minutes after I got off the phone with customer service. I told him that my service was out too, and asked if he'd check my line while he was in the neighborhood. He must have done absolutely nothing, because the line is still dead.

The only productive thing I did today was get a haircut. The mall is already packed with Christmas shoppers. I had trouble finding a parking place. Every time I get a haircut, I look at the clippings on the floor and am amazed at how white my hair has become. My hair used to be curly and now it is perfectly straight. What's that all about? The stylist was complaining about having bags under her eyes. I looked at myself in the mirror and said, "That's nothing. Look at me. I look like a racoon." Basically, every aspect of growing old sucks. Especially looking in the mirror.

On the way back to the car, I stopped in the Apple store. I really like the new larger iPad Pro. This thing has a great screen and could easily serve as a laptop substitute if it was paired with a wireless keyboard. It would also make a great little teleprompter for video shoots. Unfortunately, I can't afford one of these seductive gadgets at the moment. I can't even afford the WiFi scale that also caught my eye.

It's weird not having a TV. There's almost always a TV on in some part of the house, even if nobody is watching it. The house seems unnaturally quiet. If I listen carefully, I can hear the dehumidifier running in the living room, but that's about it. As you've probably guessed, the dogs have gone to sleep already.

I'm still dreading tomorrows photo shoot. Nobody scheduled a break for lunch, so we're booked solid from early morning until mid-afternoon. I'm tired already. I've got all the batteries charged. I've packed up the equipment in various nylon bags and I'm ready to go. I'm thinking that this is the last year I'm going to do this, but that was what I thought last year as well.

Today's Dalmatian of the Day passed away yesterday. He was always one of my favorites. RIP Camp!

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day