Yesterday the installer came to look at my house to get a feel for installing my speakers and wire. He was recommended by my dad and my dad’s pretty picky, so he should be OK. However, some of the things he said didn’t install confidence in me. First off, the tallest A frame ladder they have is 8 feet; I have vaulted ceilings and to be safe, a 10 feet A frame will be needed; he said that he can use an extension ladder and rest it against the beam (the beam is exposed). Second, he tried to tell me to place the speakers somewhere where it would be easier to install. Third, he told me that the installation in 2 of the rooms would be hard; those rooms are the easiest as when we had ceiling fans put in, the electricians had no problems in there…they just cut a hole for the fan and fished the wires to the attic. Fourth, he told me that in his own house we just notched the drywall and ran wires in the notches instead of drilling holes through the floor joists which seems to me the cleaner way to go; granted my way is more time consuming, but I’d prefer not to have drywall patches all over the place. I guess we’ll see tomorrow when they come to do the install. I’m just going to have them put in the speakers and run the wires; I’m not even going to have them run the wires to my termination panel, just to the attic area and tack on an extra 10-12 feet of cable and I’ll fish the rest. I’ll be around for the install and will show them the easy
Sprint PCS
I have my ups and downs with Sprint PCS. I’ve had coverage with them for 6 years and am on a decent rate plan with plenty of minutes. I’ve added my whole family to the plan and they share my minutes. It works out well for everyone except for me as I have to fight Sprint almost every month. Recently I noticed that 2 of my phones had contracts that I didn’t agree to adding. After calling Sprint to get the contracts corrected and getting very frustrated, I put the issue aside and said forget about it. I don’t plan on leaving Sprint, but I don’t like contracts on principal. The other day I sent Sprint email and they “corrected” the contracts, but they were still wrong. On the second try, they managed to get the contract correct on 1 phone (I forgot that we had rebates on the last new phone we got for that line, so there is 1 year left in the contract) and removed the contract on the other phone. Amazing that they finally got it right; I always thought email was less effective than phone, but I guess threatening legal action and threatening to contact the attorney general got that issue resolved quickly. It’s kind of amazing that they were able to remove the contract on one line, but still haven’t been able to remove the contract on my primary line when someone at Sprint switched my plan without my knowledge (they switched it back, but couldn’t remove the contract).
If my rate plan wasn’t so good, I’d switch in a minute. However, I hear that everyone has problems with their carriers. What can we do other than not use mobile phones.
Customer service?
We use MCI for our phone service including their voicemail. When we have voicemail, we get the stutter dial tone and our phone blinks an LED indicating we have messages. Well, this light and stutter tone are stuck on. I called MCI and explained the situation. While I was on the line, I also brought up an issue where I’m no longer receiving email notification when we receive voicemail (very handy when we’re out as I have my server send a text message to my phone). After spending a few minutes trying to explain about the email feature (it’s a feature of the phone service), I gave up and said just to solve the first problem. I was then transferred to the “technical department” (which was where I thought I was when I navigated through the menus) and after being on hold for awhile was told that this issue would be resolved in 24-72 hours. To top it off, the first person asked if I was calling about our old phone number. You’d think by now they’d know that we cancelled that number over a year ago. It would be nice if customer service folks actually had some clue about the products/services they offer.
I guess we’ll wait and see what happens with this issue and then I’ll see if I want to battle the other issue.
My dog was a termite
My wife swears that our dog was a termite in another life. We keep finding him chewing wood that he finds in our yard. The wood is left over from an old fence or something like that; not sticks, woods. Why he eats it, we have no idea. I also think he was an earthworm as he eats dirt as well.
Bit the bullet
I spent some time today (after fixing my server and repairing the stupid TestTrack database) calling installers to find someone to finish the install on my audio system. I bit the bullet and arranged for a company to come out on Friday to finish pulling the wire and putting in the speakers. I say “bit the bullet” because it isn’t cheap to have them come out. However, based on the time it has taken me and how frustrating it has been so far, it will be worth every penny. After the wires are pulled and speakers connected, I still have to terminate the controls (easy), solder the speaker wires at my panel (harder), make speaker patch cords from wall to distribution panel (easy), mount my outdoor speakers (2 pair), and install the volume control for one pair of the outdoor speakers. Hopefully I can finish the project this weekend (crossing my fingers).
Server crashed
When I went to check my email this morning, it failed which was odd. When I started investigating, my server said that the file system was mounted read-only. I lugged a monitor and keyboard into the other room and started taking a look at the server. I was unable to repair the file system, so I went down the path of reformatting the primary drive and restoring from the secondary drive. I’ve never restored the drive before, so I had to use my Mac to do a ‘man restore’ to figure out what I needed to do. The good news is that the corruption appears to have started around 6 am and my backup is done daily at 4 am. At most, I should only lose a few hours worth of stuff. However, this kind of file corruption is worrisome and I’ll have to keep an eye on things. Nothing like having to spend hours fixing a server on a Monday morning.
First speakers are in!
With the help of my patient wife, I was able to get the speakers and the control installed in our kitchen. Low and behold, it even worked! It only took 2 days and 15 or so hours. Whatever installers get is probably not enough. Today I’m going to attempt to find an installer to finish the 14 cable runs left.
Low Voltage Wiring Installers
My saga about getting my audio system installed continues. First, the installer I was going to use was in Florida doing hurricane repair work. Next he called a co-worker who was supposed to call me. A week later, I still hadn’t heard from the co-worker. Next, I called Dr. Electric and they pointed me to a company called Audio Impact. I called them and got a fax machine; they never returned my email. Next, I called Mastercraft where I bought all the equipment and one of their installers was going to help me out at night/weekends. He never called me back. The my original installer called back to apologize for his co-worker. He might be able to do the work in a week or two; OK, he’s a backup. Next I called Missions Hills TV & Radio Repair. They’re backlogged for about 2 weeks. However, they sound most promising. So next week I’ll call around and see if I can find someone. This project is just turning into a nightmare.
TiVo – How could we live without it?
Last year before we got TiVo, I told everyone that said it was great, that they must be crazy as it couldn’t be all that good. My wife and I watch our fair share of TV, but have watched a lot of junk in our couch potato time. In the year since we got TiVo, we can’t really watch TV without it. The summer has a lot of junk on and it allowed us to catch up on some stuff. Now that the new season has started, our TiVo is filled with shows that we want to watch. Being able to skip commercials is great and we now watch TV on our own time instead of when the networks say we want to watch it. We record the news every night and don’t have to be home at 5:30 pm and can walk the dog without having to rush back.
I know that every company and his neighbor is coming out with a DVR/PVR, but I’m quite happy with my TiVo. My wife has accepted the technology (she was reluctant at first) and we’re both hooked.
More audio wiring
I managed to run some more cable today; the runs were to outdoor speakers and quite straightforward, but time consuming. I need to remember to carefully label the wires at both ends. I ended up having to use an Ohm meter twice to get the correct labels on the wires. I felt real stupid as I already did this once before in my wiring project. I’m trying to find a professional to a bit more of the wiring as many of the remaining 17 runs are a bit complicated and a little more than I can handle.