I'm Back... I'm back... I'm Back!!

I'm back... I've returned... I'm here!!! LOL! Why have I been gone? Well, the usual answer... technology attacked! ROFL!

This has not been a good year for me staying connected has it? Last year at this time we were moving and I had SUCH a time finding a good way to connect to the Internet causing me to be gone for many weeks, then in December/January we had the whole laptop must visit the repair shop several times with the final result being me getting a new (almost free... I had to pay for insurance on it) laptop. Then we had the problem with my satellite dish (which I use to connect to the Internet) being slightly out of line and needing to be put on a different kind of post..... Well, this story actually starts THERE.

The problem earlier this spring was that my original installer put my -very- heavy satellite dish on a wooden post. This worked just fine for several months until...  Until the continuous getting wet/drying out of the post and the weight of the dish caused the dish to pull just a tiny bit off of the signal. Now, for those of you with satellite TV... this wouldn't have affected you hardly at all, but I, in order to send a signal back to the satellite, need to be much more specifically aimed. So, I called the nice person in India (yep, it always seems to be India, doesn't it LOL!) and was finally sent back to a person in the States and an appointment was set up for someone to come out and take a look at what was going on.

This is how we met Mark. Mark is about the nicest repair guy you could imagine. Anyway, he took one look, asked me if a local guy installed me, and, when I said yes, he just smiled. Seems that a lot of people you contact locally (not thru the actual company) are 'representatives' and pay a fee to be allowed to install the dishes. They are NOT techs. AND, a lot of them install on wooden posts or other places that eventually don't work out. Mark let me know that a metal post was what I needed, but that he didn't have one with him. He would get me back on line, but it would eventually do the same thing again. He fixed me up and we made arrangements for him to come back out and put me in a metal post. This he did for me a few days later. Problem solved!

Yeah, Right! Not if you have my luck. A few weeks later I am again on the phone with India and eventually gotten into contact with Mark. Why not call Mark directly? Well, because he actually works for the Large Company that supports my dish he has to have a work order so he won't have to charge me (I'm under warranty still). In fact, that is what he told me when I did call him first. Sigh! So I have to talk to India first LOL!

Mark shows up in one day (not the 4 to 5 I was told to expect, I told you he was the best!) and he checks me out and it turns out my transmitter on the dish was bad. This was the middle of May. He fixes it, looks at the tree (which is now in full leaf) and says. "Geez, I can't believe I put your pole there... that tree is -almost- in your path. You may have to trim it back a little, or I could move the pole....."

"Naw" I say..."Don't worry about it... We'll just trim the tree when we get back from Vacation!"

So, we went on vacation 2 days later and when we returned in 2 weeks we had a messed up signal. Figuring it was the tree, we trimmed the tree.... And we trimmed it again... And THEN G went after limbs with a saw! We cut a huge 'hole' in the tree and still had no access. This all went on over a period of about 2 weeks. All this time I had no access most of the time. Sometimes I would catch a signal for a couple of hours, just enough time to check e-mail (maybe!) and then it would be gone again! :(   At this point I again call India! They put me in contact with Mark who feels terrible. He comes out and apologizes and apologizes. Like it was his fault... which it wasn't... technology sometimes doesn't work! He thought at first the piece he had replaced had also failed, but after testing we decided it was probably still the tree.

Long story short (o.k., not really short LOL!) instead of moving the pole, which would have been a PAIN! He got the company to let him move us to a different satellite. This puts our signal coming in over the huge field next to us, and missing the tree entirely AND I actually ended up with a better signal! Alls well that ends well, and I spent all of yesterday catching up with my mail and everyone's blogs from the last -3- weeks! Which took a while let me tell you!

Now that I have a (hopefully) reliable connection, and a (hopefully) reliable computer, what do you have to look forward to? Well, a nice post (with pictures) of our vacation. Pictures of the new barn going up. We have a trip to the zoo planned for next week (which will, of course, have lots of pictures), and lots of just silly things. I'm thrilled to have my connection back. You don't realize how much you depend on it till you don't have it! I don't know how many times I said, "I'll just check on that" and then realize I couldn't just pop on the Internet for the information. Oh, and our new friend, Mark? He and his wife (who we met when she accompanied him on a call) invited us to their house for a Halloween party. See, if I hadn't had problems with my connection we wouldn't have met two very nice people who are now our friends! So every cloud does have a silver lining!