The Dog Days of August
The dog days of August are in full swing here in the DC area. Temperatures are in the high 90’s and the humidity is also in the 90% range. I really am glad that I have a reliable central air conditioner.You know, of course, that this is going to lead in to a discourse on "when I was young …", don’t you? Well, all of you college kids should know that central air conditioning was not a standard item in homes even 30 years ago. Most homes back then had window air conditioning units that would cool a room or two and then most of the house had to rely on a floor fan. That was only about 30 years ago and if you go back 45 years, homes only had the floor fans that blew the hot air around. The electric bill for the central air is going to be sky high but I am not going to complain too much – except for the initial shock.
I have been having trouble with my new DSL. I finally joined the late 20th century and got DSL instead of the dial up service. The DSL and Internet have been disconnecting intermittently but this only happens at night. The problem, of course, is too much traffic on the lines. The real problem is trying to find out who will take the blame for it. AOL says it is not their problem since they do not provide the lines. Verizon will not take the blame for it since I use a competitor instead of their DSL. I am going to probably disconnect from AOL and go with the fiber optic service from Verizon – even though I really hate to do that since I dislike Verizon so much.
Why do I dislike Verizon? Well, last fall they installed the new fiber optic cables in the community. This meant that they dug trenches in the lawns – including mine. The contractor was not careful about putting the cut turf back in place and just seeded the areas with some real cheap grass seed. It was nothing but weeds! I had made several phone calls to Verizon to have them come and take a look at the grass and they finally re-sodded with good sod. Sometimes you just have to take a stand and stick up for it until the situation is fixed.
If this sounds like I have a lot of free time, I do! I am RETIRED and I love it. I do not spend all my days complaining to utilities but if I was still working, this would be left undone. RETIREMENT is GREAT. Do it as soon as humanly possible.
posted by Ex-Fed @ 5:10 PM
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