Catching Up and Rewiring

I haven't posted much this week. Been busy. Which is a shame because there has been so much going on to write about. Congress plans to bar all foreign nations from port operations, the Dubai company backs out of the ports deal, idiot radical islamists are still threatening or carrying out violence over some stupid cartoons and our city is still contemplating misusing eminent domain.

With all that happening I decide to take a week off blogging. Actually I didn't decide to take a week off. It's just that everytime I sat down to try and write anything I feel asleep. I've been really tired this week. Do you think maybe not getting to be before midnight any single night might have something to do with that?

It was a good week. I made some pretty good progress with my project at work. I bowled well on wednesday and my team has moved into first place in the league. I don't know the final results from city tournament yet. Hopefully they will have the results posted by next wednesday. On Friday my dear wife and I were treated to lunch at the kids school. The lunch was a thank you to the technology committee for all the work we have done in getting all the classrooms in the school and the parish offices networked and connected to the internet. They served salad, shrimp creole and dessert. The lunch the delicious. Then of course since we are the technology committee we had to spend at least an hour trouble shooting one of the computers that was acting up.

Then thursday night my DVR died. I turned it on to catch up on a couple shows I had recorded. It unit told me that it had detected a hardware error and that I needed to call Directv to get it fixed. So I called them. After finally getting through to a human, then another human I was finally told that I had to reset the system. This would wipe out all my programs, plus all settings. I didn't like this idea but didn't have a choice. So I reset the system. Directv said that this reset takes between 2 and 4 hours. It took four.

Once the system was reset I started through the set up routine. I got about 5 steps into the guided setup routine and the system suddenly restarted itself. It repeated this 5 more times at the same spot. So I called Directv back. Once I got through to a human, and then to another human I started to explain my problem. According to the tech support person I should not have been getting to the screen that kept crashing. He said that screen only happens on aftermarket DVRs and not on Directv specifc DVRs. I explained that my DVR is a Directv DVR, it says Directv right on the front of it and that I got it from Directv. The tech support told me that he couldn't verify that because their system was updating and it would be several hours before he could find out exactly which system I had. I told the guy on the phone what my model and serial number were and asked what I should do next. His reply was that without his system to verify what system I had he couldn't help me. Again I told him which system I had and that it had come from Directv so what should I do next. His reply again was "Since I can't verify which system you are using I'm not sure what I can do for you." My reply was "You could try the novel appoach of believing what your customers are telling you and not keep insisting that they are lying to you, Asshole!" Then I hung up.

Several hours later I called again. This time the first human I talked to told me that their system was updating and they wouldn't be able to assist me until after 6 AM on friday. So I thanked her and headed to bed.

On Friday morning I called again, eventually I spoke to a human and then another human. This tech support person listened to my problem and without even questioning which system I had, told me that it would have to be replaced. She murmered something about an apparent dustup with tech support that I couldn't understand completely but apparently there must have been some record of my phone call from the night before. The tech support told me that a new DVR would be shipped out and I should have it in 2-5 days.

My new DVR arrived today. I like this kind of service. The company promises 2-5 day delivery and delivers it the next day. I don't know if the trouble I had with their tech support on thursday night had anything to do with it and I don't care. I ws just glad to have my recorder back.

So today I rewired the entertainment center. Since I had to pull it out from the wall to get the old unit out I figured I should take care of some wiring troubles that I have been having. My old receiver is failing. It seems each year that another function stops working. I should replace it but just havn't bothered yet. Also I still had two VCRs in the system which I don't need anymore. I still want one so I can continue coping my old tapes to DVD but I no longer needed two.

So I rewired the system. I took the old DVD player that wouldn't play home recorded DVDs out. I took one of the VCRs out. I put the DVR and my DVD recorder back into the system and got everything rewired. Once done, I actually had room left in the entertainment center to set my laptop there. So I can get it off the endtable where I normally set it.

Well time to stop writing. Dinner is here and we're watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire during dinner.