Once again they put me in a different area. My morning started off in an apartment building that look recently renovated. It looked nondescript from the outside, but it was nice on the inside. The couple had two cats, one was recently shaved. It's head was disproportionately large, because they don't shave that part. The guy told me it was a Himalayan, and they shave it once a year. It turned out the storm a couple of days ago knocked out the splitter outside that they were running through. I pulled their line off of the splitter and water started to pour out of it. So I replaced it all and they were fine.
Next I went to very poor part of town. The door was answered by two little girls. When they opened the door further there was a slightly older girl at the top of the stairs holding a small child and then the mother peeked out with yet another kid. The mother spoke little to no english and girls had to translate. The place had the odor of dirty diapers. The whole time I was working two of the girls sat behind me watching silently everything I do. Eventually I heard them whispering to each other. I finished up and got out of there.
Next I went a fancy high-rise downtown. The door was answered by a woman who obviously just woke up. I noticed empty bottles on the counters. I asked her what the problem was and she said she doesn't know, she doesn't live there. Then she went to wake up a guy. He told me what the problem was and I got to work. At some point I realized there was a completely different woman sitting on the couch behind me. From the conversation I gauged that she didn't live their either, which can bring about all sorts of assumptions in one's mind about what exactly is going on here. The conversations were ambiguous enough not to help either. They were talking about bars and friends of theirs and the guys roommate who was not there (especially his morning routine which apparently woke them all up, so they could go into detail about it). As far as I can tell, one of them was his girlfriend and the other crashed their after what was probably a long night of partying.
Afterwards I went to another complex downtown. This was answered by a midget. When I got in his girlfriend was listening to monster ballads . The place had various KISS posters. They started talking about Tesla at some point. I went outside to get some equipment and as I came back to the building another midget got off the elevator hunched over wearing a local sports jersey pushing a shopping cart full of memorabilia from that team, he asked how my day was going. As I was riding the elevator up my head filled with the proposition that perhaps all the tenants in this building were midgets. As it turns out I'm pretty sure that the residents in this building all had medical conditions, I eventually saw all sorts of people with wheelchairs and cains, some of them getting on the busses reserved for disabilities.
My next job was in a neighborhood that has become really nice over the years. The apartment in question is over a sandwich shop. It turned out that this guy had been accidentally disconnected. the place to hook him back up was in the attic of this building. This building was so huge that the attic was as big as a barn. It seemed like a waste of space actually. his apartment was very nice. The gentleman worked for a company that makes mints, he gave me some.
Afterwards I went to house not too far away with a huge front lawn. In fact the lawn was so big I don't think there is a back yard, the back of the house is probably right on the alleyway. The house looked new, like a scrape off, but I guess it is over 100 years old and it had only been re-stuccoed.
Afterwards I went to a rundown apartment building. It turned out nothing was wrong, but the guy was very talkative. I tried to show him how to get rid of messages, but I don't think he ever got it. He kept trying to justify how he accidentally ordered a pay per view movie and didn't mean to. At some point the conversation turned to punk kids and how he may have gotten in some trouble as a kid, but these punks and the graffiti, especially in bathrooms and that's why parents should be allowed to hit their kids and his parents showed him, and from there it went on to his upbringing in Nebraska and his mother (who is now dead). I wasn't sure if I was ever going to get out of there. As I was leaving I got flagged down by this guy in the street. I was in my van and a little freaked out so I rolled down my window, instead of actually getting out of my van. This guys features were surreal. He had a bulbous nose and these lips that look swollen protruding out amidst all his facial hair. He basically looked like a burned out muppet. He was wearing a tattered muscle shirt and some running shorts. He kept asking me about fluctuations in power. I think he was getting all the utilities confused it seemed like he thought they were all the same company. Eventually he wandered away, then i saw him grab a pack of cigarettes out of the gutter and look to see if there were any left.
After that I picked up a new job in my normal area. It was actually a bar not too far from where I live, but I have never been there. There was about 8 people at the bar drinking when I arrived. The problem was an easy fix. I noticed above the bar a sign the said no fighting (which is common), but then it went on to say drug dealing and prostitution, which I thought was humorous since this particular stretch of town is notorious for prostitution.
Next i went to a high-rise I've passed a bunch of times, but this is the first time I've been there. When I got there I saw one of my fellow workers. It turned out to be another splitter damaged by the last storm. We fixed it outside so I never went in just left.

Today was our meeting day but there was no meeting today. Because of this everyone was supposed to work their normal schedules, but nobody was informed of this. So I showed up at 6:30 a.m. (I normally come in at 8). When I found out that I could've slept in, I wasn't too happy. I also had plans this evening, so I wasn't too pleased to find out that I'm now supposed to work until 5 p.m. instead of 3:30 p.m. Anyways I headed out hoping to finish my work as early as possible.
My first morning job I was met at the door by a rather brusque woman, who informed that I can't show up yet. Her house is being renovated and whoever did the internal wiring screwed the place up and needed to come back and figure out where everything is going. So I left my phone number for her to call me when he's finished.
I then went to my next job which turned out to be not at home. I called the next job who was only a block away but he said he wasn't expecting me until the afternoon. So I agreed to show up at 1 p.m.
I called the next job and obviously woke the woman up. She was willing to have me come over. She lived in an old apartment building. Her two dogs were eager to great me. She had to take them out for a walk, so I went in and started working. I'm pretty sure the problem was the connection with her TV but that took some convincing. She spent the majority of the time talking about American Idol. She said she didn't miss a single episode. She doesn't quite look like someone who would be interested in that show, but I guess you never know.
Afterwards i called one of my afternoon jobs, which was actually only about 2 blocks away to see if I could come over early. She said she was only in her bathrobe but I could come over. This was a nice victorian house. She had a lot of African artwork around. She started talking about how she's had this problem ever since she had her roof replaced recently. This had me worried I was going to be climbing around in her attic. Fortunately it turned out to be a damaged cable on the outside of the house. But the line coming to her house was obviously old and needed to be replaced. This looked easy but turned out to be a little treacherous. Being strapped to a pole 20 feet in the air never feels comfortable.
After this I went back to the job where I started out, they had called me and said it was all figured out. This place look real new and fancy, lots of interesting artwork around. I'm not a fan of contemporary architecture, I like older buildings. I just feel they have more character. But this place had a lot of natural light which was nice. Anyways it took a while to hook everything up and figure out exactly what was going on.
I then went on to the other morning job that wanted me to come by later, but no one was there. I went to the next job, but there was nothing wrong. The job after that was cancelled as well.
I then went into one of the newest area in town. This place looked like a house but when you walk around to the side you notice a second door and address, so the place is a duplex. The lady was not there but her neighbor let me in while she raced down there from work. I was so focused on being finished with my day, I was done when she finally showed up. So she signed the paper and got back in her car to go back to work.
Lastly I went to a house with a gravel drive way. Actually it seems a few of the driveways in this neighborhood are gravel. A young hispanic man answered the door. He showed the problem which was obviously something wrong with the internal wiring. Wanting to be out of there as quickly as possible I decided to solve the situation by making it as simple as possible, I just plugged their phone into the back of our box that does the phone (we call it an EMTA) and the job was done. As I was leaving I noticed a nice brand new Escalade in the driveway which wasn't there before. One thing I've noticed over the years is that emigrants love to put there money into status symbols, especially cars. I used to work with a bunch of russians and they had to drive Mercedes-Benz.

Foreboding clouds to the west

My first job was at an apartment complex so of my coworkers lovingly refer to as "The Projects." The door was answered by a very small man (smaller than my 9 year old little brother), wearing a stained Italian soccer jersey. He had a thick accent, probably African. He said he had figured out the problem and forgot to cancel the appointment.
I then picked up a job from dispatch. This was at another apartment complex. When I showed up a chuck was taken out of the corner of one of the buildings. I'm assuming a car did this. The woman here had to leave when I showed up. She said her child was sick and needed to go to the hospital, so she needed to reschedule. Though this was over the phone, since no one answered the door. She insisted that she was actually there but I never saw her.
I then went on to a job in a retirement community. The woman who answered the door seemed a little young to be living there. It turned out the reason they were not getting phone service was because they had removed the cable that went to their phone and internet, and threw it away. I was extremely frustrated because of this, the woman was extremely embarrassed. I just can't believe that they didn't realize what they were doing.
Next I went to an apartment building that was right on one of the busiest roads in town. The man there was nice he was listening to R & B and had a picture of Janet Jackson on his desktop. Which had me thinking he was gay, but then I saw a book on his coffee-table that had a picture on the cover of two very muscular men holding each on a couch, which convinced me of his sexuality. I had to re-organize the way everything was routed outside and I kept getting shocked. There was electricity back-feeding from somebody's apartment in the building.
My first job of the afternoon was in a new part of town. I usually like this part of town, because you know the wiring is new and supposedly good. But I spent a couple of hours on this job trying to figure out why the phones weren't working. The was home with a couple of her kids, she was very patient over the ordeal. It turned out the previous tech had some of his tools, when he was out there, so she gave them to me. Lookout world I have a new staple-gun! As I was working on this job it started to hail.
The next job was a couple blocks away. A nice old lady answered the door. She kept calling me honey the whole time and touching my arm. In fact she reminds of someone I now, but she is from Albuquerque, so I doubt there is any relation. Anyways everything was working when I got there, she even said that whoever she spoke to on the phone had fixed the problem, so I wasn't sure why I was there. But she mentioned that she knew my bosses boss and had spoke to him personally about the matter. That's always good to know. Anyways, seeing nothing wrong I took off. She said I could come back and say hi anytime I wanted.
As I started to head north to my next job I noticed that the farther I headed north the more hail was on the ground. By the time I got to the next job there was enough of it to look like a fresh blanket of snow. This job was a unit in a series of row homes. No one was home.
I picked up another job even though it was close to closing time. This one wasn't even in my area, but I was well below quota for the day. This was a nice apartment building near one of the nicer parks in town. It turned out that the customer isn't even there but the door was unlocked and she wanted me to go in there a work on the place anyway. I agreed, even-though policy states I should not. I realize that this opens me up to all sorts of liability issues. I guess I'm just trusting (naive?) enough to have some faith in humanity. Anyways as I was waiting for the elevator a cute woman walked up carrying boxes, so I asked her if she was moving. She said she was. I turns out that no only is she moving into my neighborhood but onto my actual block. She got off on her floor and said that perhaps we'll see each other in the neighborhood then. Anyways, it was a very interesting conversation. I finished the job and took off.

My first job of the day was at an apartment complex, but no answered the door. So I called it in as a not at home.
After that I went to another apartment complex. The door was answered by a nice old lady. There was a teenage kid living there as well, which I assumed to be her grandson. But these days I guess you don't really know. She had a spastic little dog. The place seemed pretty average. Eventually she had to leave, she said she had volunteered at a local sporting event. The kid was nice. She assured me he is 18, but I was skeptical. There was a note granting permission to attend the football spring training of a local high school on his desk.
On my way to the next job I was called by my first job, saying that they were asleep and didn't hear the door. They asked if it was too late for me to come back. I told them it was. I'm sorry but if you make an appointment for 8 - 10 the least you can do is be awake by 8 a.m.
The next job was in a new area of town. I was getting close to calling this not at home as well until a woman and her mom who were walking their dog flagged me down. They said they had forgotten that I was coming. They had so many TV's hooked up in their loft it was hard to get everything working correctly. The woman had just moved in with her mom. She had just graduated from a local university. It seems I'm running into a lot of recent university graduates lately. Her mom is a school teacher in one of the worst neighborhoods in town. Though I don't know how a school teacher can afford a place like this. As I was working I accidentally knocked over one of their plants. I felt really bad. Some days I'm like a bull in a china shop.
I then went into another part of town. This place was owned by a young couple, probably about the same age as I am. Shortly after I knocked I heard a strange sound almost like screaming. It turned out to be a parrot. Every time I got near the bird it made some of the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. The bird was trying to get my attention the whole time. The gentleman said the bird wants to get on my shoulder. I wish women showed that much interest in me. This job turned into a nightmare. I spent about 3 hours there replacing everything and still not getting the problem fixed. In retrospect I should of let the bird climb on me, it would have been fun. I spent so mush time trying to fix the problem, I didn't even think about it until now.
Because of that job I was now late and trying to rush through the rest of my jobs to get home at a decent time. The next job was an old couple. The woman was on a chair that moves up the staircase. The place was a bit of a mess. They mentioned they were moving stuff around. It turned out that the channel needed to be changed to 3 on the TV.
I then went to a house in a different part of town. The woman who answered the door then got a black man to show me the problem. At first I thought maybe he was her husband, but when I got into the basement I began to think maybe he was just renting it out. His bend was in front of his brand new HDTV. The problem turned out to be that his TV was on the wrong input.
The last job was close to where I live. I showed up and knocked on the door, but no one answered. I could here a couple talking upstairs through an open window. So I called, and they said that the problem was fixed already. So in the end I got home on time.

Today started at a particular apartment complex that I've come to loathe. The apartment wreaked of cat shit. There was a couple living there. The boyfriend seemed very apologetic and submissive. The carpet had tons of stains all over it. As i was working on their cable box I noticed a porn DVD poking out from under the TV stand. The woman starting asking her boyfriend about some $20 purchase he made yesterday, which he explained was for gas. She was then shocked that so much money was spent and it didn't even fill up the car halfway.
After that I went to a very nice part of town. This place was a historical house, there was a plaque out front saying a former senator lived there, but apparently it's been turned into two units. One is currently vacant. The other lived a nice old woman. The problem she had was with the closed captioning, she is hard of hearing. In the back room there was all sorts of architectural plans on the wall. I guess she was and architect.
Next I went to a large house that has since been turned into apartments, which is very common around here. This apartment had two women living in there which I couldn't quite tell if they were samoan or asian, but they had hindu pictures on the wall. One of the ladies kept going on and on about the other people who live in the building and how she suspects they are stealing her cable. Apparently this is why I was called out. I fixed what I saw was wrong and left. I didn't feel like getting involved in apartment politics.
I went to another apartment complex, but this time it's one I like. In this apartment lived a nice old Jewish lady. She was looking forward to watching the Indy 500. Her son had gotten some tickets, but she couldn't go because she is still recovering from surgery. She had her rotator cuff removed, due to arthritis. It turned out she just needed someone to show her how to use her remote. We talked a while though about relationships, the war, education and various other topics. I could of stayed a while but I had more work to do.
The next job was in the same area. this was a young woman who just moved here about 5 months ago, amidst the terrible weather we had this winter. She said she spent her whole life in the same town, even went to college there. so when she graduated she chose a place randomly to move just to get out. she knew nobody here. That takes some courage. She was watching Real World (or as I like to call it "Real" World). I have a theory that the reason people watch shows like this is the same reason people watch NASCAR, for the crashes,
Afterwards I went to the only house I got today. The woman had just got back from riding her bike, she was still riding her biking clothes. There was nothing wrong with the place.
The next person turned out not to be home. As I was about 10 minuets away i got a call to head back but as I got there, no one was there. I had dispatch call the customer and it turned out they were in the mountains and said they could be back in an hour. We cancelled the job, there was no way I was going to hang out for a hour.
Last I went to a retirement community. The guy was just wondering where one of his channels went. It turned out his line up listing was wrong. He really wanted to watch Walk Texas Ranger. Why is it that old people love that show so much?

As Iw as driving to my first job today, my mom called me and said she wanted to have lunch today. After a little while it occurred to me why she might want to meet.
I proceeded on to the next job. This house was huge. It overlooks one of the larger parks in town. It's three stories tall and there are two different staircases in different parts of the house. The people were very nice and patient, because it took me a while. When I was asking her questions about her internet, she went to go wake up her son stating, "He took a class in C++." Then she came back and said I should probably start on the TV's, while he wakes up and puts some pants on. Anyways I took me a while to do the job, because a lot of it was out of code. This also put me so far back I was beginning to worry I wouldn't be able to have lunch with my mom. Dispatch for once helped me out and took some of my jobs, I guess there was a shortage of work.
I went to my second job which was a duplex. There was a young looking woman there with a child. I went out back to make sure everything looked go outside and when I got back inside there was an older woman there too. She seemed ill and spent most of her time in the bathroom. the younger woman spent most of her time while I was there on craigs list looking for various free furniture. Her child meanwhile insisted on showing me his various spider-man paraphernalia, his toy car, and his toothbrush. All the while asking me many questions about what I'm doing.
After this I went to lunch with my mom, where she informed me that she has gotten a job in Albuquerque and the family is moving. This put me in a a state of shell shock throughout the afternoon.
My first job of the afternoon was in a house, where the woman had two newborns. She kept referring to her partner in such a way that had me think she was gay perhaps. I had to reschedule the job because she needed to see the shows she had recorded on her DVR before I replaced it.
As I was walking up to the porch I realized I had been here before. In fact it was back in January when there was a ton of snow everywhere and it was the same exact problem. The phone line had been knocked down by a tree branch. It was just weird to be here again.
The next job was in a complex that was almost completely blocked off by construction. The woman was Hawaiian.
The next job was at a rather new area. This was a DVR problem and like the last one I had to reschedule it. this time it was because her husband was out of town and needed to see something recorded, before they switch out the DVR.
The last job was a nice house next to one of the worst roads in town. The woman was remodeling it in her free time I guess. She said she works two jobs and hasn't had a day off in a month, She had two dogs, one was a puppy and very spastic. The problem here was some loose phone wiring probably caused by the dogs. I took my time with this, because I had already decided this was going to be my last job. I was ready to be done with this week.

The woman at my first job today was waiting for me at the door. She was a nice lady. She works at the natural history museum. I've actually never been to the natural history museum, which I told her. We talked about it for a while. I need to go there someday.
My second job was at a very nice house, which I had actually been at before. This guy had moved here from Florida and was telling me how the women there were so much more better looking. This time he had me come out because the cable box was in such a place that he could not use his remote from this one spot on the couch. He never even bothered to try and move it himself, he said it was my job. Apparently I'm the 5th tech to show up here in the past three months. I cancelled the job afterwards because I didn't want my name on it.
The next job was for the manager of an apartment building. Her and her husband had some complicated rig of DVD recording devices, but couldn't quite figure out the cable. They were used to antennae. He was asking allot of questions which was really beginning to get on my nerves after a while.
After that I went to a little community. The kind of tucked away place that you normally wouldn't even know was there. The guy answered the door smoking a cigarette. In fact he had a cigarette in his had just about the whole time I was there. As soon as he finished one he lit up another. He had a Zebra rug. I asked him about it and he got really defensive. He said he got it from his Grandfather in-law who was apparently a big game hunter back in the day. His wall were littered with golf photos.
After lunch I went to a ritzy part of town. The woman who answered the door was very cute. Apparently she was the daughter just back home from college in Texas.
When I rolled up to the next job I noticed a classic Chevy in great condition. Then I was greeted by a man with crazy hair, who was toiling over an old VW bug. He started talking but couldn't seem to finish his thought, then he started to speak a bit of gibberish before explaining that he was fucked up. His wife showed me where the problem was then explained that he had a stroke. In fact he had caused the problem with the cable by rearranging things. He used to be great with cars, he has a convertible chevy in the garage. But apparently he has limited use of his left hand and gets confused very easily. I don't know if finished a single sentence the whole time I was there.
At the last job I was greeted by a woman was talking a mile a minute. She would even cut me of when I was asking questions, answering before I could finish. She told me she works 7 days a week as a waitress, I began to suspect maybe she was on something (cocaine?). She later told me she had roommates. I know she had at least one teenage son as well. I guess she was renting rooms to make ends meet.

Soaked

My first job today was in a dingy apartment building. The whole place smelled like a bathroom. All the windows were open in an attempt to air out the place. I woke the couple up. In fact the man never got up, he just laid in bed asleep the whole time (must be nice). The woman was nice.
The second job was at some row homes. A couple doors down there was a bunch of young black people just hanging out on the porch. In this place there was a woman missing a few of her teeth, her elderly mom and a child. They were watching religious programing. The one where the guy touches people and heals them. The woman was telling me the she had just given up smoking recently because she was getting sick. But now that she can smell her room smells terrible to her. She asked her mom if that she has smelled like all these years, and she said yes. So she is very determined to give up smoking.
The next job was in the worst neighborhood in my area. I was rather shocked at how clean and nice the place was, they had completely remodeled it. Admittedly it was wrong of me to make an assumption about how the place was going to look, but every other time I've been in this neighborhood the places looked horrible. This particular house had three trucks parked outside. When the door was answered there was a guy sleeping on the floor in the living room. The woman woke him up and had him move into one of the bedrooms. The woman spoke no english but eventually a fourth truck showed up and in it was someone I was able to talk to. Another woman showed up as well later on. The also had a small child there who pretty much just sat there silently.
After that I went to ranch house in a much nicer part of town. This house had some really nice metal sculptures in the front. There was a lot of interesting artwork throughout the house. I got the impression that the woman here stays at home to raise the child. Her kid kept calling me cable guy and showing me his Thomas the Train toys. At one point he presented me his little plastic toy drill and told me it might help fix the TV. I was able to solve most of the problems here, but there must have been something going on in the attic. Fortunately I couldn't quite fit in her attic safely to fix it. I think I've had my fill of attics for the week.
Next was another ranch house but in a very different neighborhood. The house was very clean. There was an elderly woman who sat silently facing the wall reading the yellow pages the whole time. The woman apologized for how the basement looked, said her daughter has taken over the place. I was surprised to see the place devoted to Final Fantasy. She had every game and posters dedicated to characters from the game. I can't say I've seen anything like that before. There was a lot of other anime paraphernalia as well, but it was all centered around Final Fantasy.
Next was at another run down apartment building. The woman there apologized for how messy her brothers room was as she was showing me in, but the place seemed bare. There was no furniture, except a boom box and a TV. there was some clothes in a pile in a corner. There was also a blanket on the floor, I guess that's where he slept.
After that I went to an extremely nice house in one of the wealthiest parts of town. You really can't get much more disparity than between these two jobs. The woman who answered the door was beautiful almost uncomfortably so. Her nanny was there with her child. As I working on one of her TVs I looked up and saw an autographed photo of her and her husband with Dick Cheney.
My last job was in another apartment building. This style of apartment I'm finding to be quite common around here, but this has been remodeled recently. The doors at least looked new. The gentleman was very nice. Apparently he's a cook. He said he's been working at the Holiday Inn downtown for like 30 years, but he quit. He's hoping to open his own restaurant here soon.

It's not an honest days work if I'm not bleeding

This morning my whole body hurt. I so did not want to work today. The first job was an install at an apartment. The man had just graduated from law school out in Oregon and decided to move to Denver. He grew up a military brat and spent a couple years in Colorado and liked it. Consequently the rest of his family has moved to Colorado as well. He was listening to an early 90's mix of Green Day, Soundgarden and Counting Crows.
My second job was at a jewish lady's place. She was wearing what looked like running gear like she just got back. She kept mispronouncing my name. Eventually I corrected her and informed her in the process that it is in fact a Jewish name from the old testament. Then she asked me if I knew yiddish. It was then that I realized that when I mentioned that my name was Jewish, she assumed that I was Jewish (which I'm not). For some reason I never bothered to correct her on that fact. she mentioned she spent the last 4 months in Hawaii. She said she writes fiction and children's stories.
I spent the rest of my morning going back to a couple jobs I had been to in the last couple weeks, because I had failed some QC's.
My first job of the afternoon was at the apartment of a gay man, who I was pretty sure was Native American. This was the most cluttered place I had ever seen. there was a cowboy theme to the place. He had a stained glass cowboy boot in the window and cowboy hats everywhere. His music collection was all contemporary country. He had a bunch of variations of cactus all over the place. As I was dealing with the cable near his VHS machine, I came across his stash of gay porn. There was a slight pause at first of ...is that what I think... On top of his boom box were three tiaras. I kind of wonder how he got them?
On a side note on the other side of the courtyard of this apartment building is another apartment building covered with Ivy. Where there was this cacophony of sparrows whom have all apparently made their nests amongst the ivy. It was quite impressive.
The next job was another apartment building. The guy there is a medical student. He had this cat then spent most of the time running furiously throughout the one room we were in. Eventually when it decided to stop the cat laid down on top of my clipboard and papers (of course).
The last job was in a fancy new part of town. The gentleman was a very large black man, who at one point put his hand on my back as he was leading to where the modem was. This was extremely weird to me. I'm just not used to any physical contact outside of handshakes when it comes to my job. He had his computer running through his large fancy television. He was having a meeting with a very attractive woman in the other room, so I never got to find out exactly what he does. Though it seems the two of them were talking about children. I didn't get any real sense of what they were talking about. He left at one point to pick up a kid and came back with a white kid, I wondered if he was perhaps adopted.

Why use a sauna when you can hang out in an attic?

I did not want to get up today. On the way into work there was a flock of geese strolling down the road blocking traffic.
My first job was a high rise next to one of the nicer parks in town. They were a very old couple. As I was fixing their cable I commented on their rather large classical selection. At which point the gentleman said, my son owns a record store. It turns out that i worked at this tore for a year before I started this job. I recognized the same last name before I started the job, but I thought it was a common enough name to not assume a connection. Anyways we continued to talk about his son and the store. His son used to teach at the High School I that I graduated from, though he left before I transfered there. I knew that already, but what I did not know was that his wife grew up in the same city I did. He said his son was coming over for dinner that night, so I asked him to say hello for me.
Afterwards I stayed in the same area. The next job was a young man in an empty apartment. He said he just moved here from Oklahoma. He has a 6 month internship doing sports reporting for the Associated Press. In the end he tipped me.
My third job was in a different high rise in the same area. There was a baby grand in the lobby, which made me wonder if anyone plays it or if it is just for show. I started to envision some guy in a tux playing on a snowy night, I immediately started to look around the lobby for a fireplace, unfortunately there was none. The problem was the customer's TV. It turned out he is an author, he said he was working on his third novel. Apparently his books are published in England, they haven't caught on in America. he said he was thinking about moving back out there because of this. Apparently he has a couple sons out there.
The fourth job was in a neighborhood, I don't normally work. The apartment smelt vaguely of throw-up, and seeing the pictures of children on the wall, I felt that probably wasn't too far off. The problem was that they were accidentally disconnected, because everything was labeled wrong outside. When I got back in the woman looked to the couch in way to lead my eyes there, where her daughter was now sleeping. As to say, try not to disturb her. But her kid got up and was alert. The rest of the time she just watched me silently, with very curious eyes. She would go to her mom and whisper something if she had something to say.
Afterwards I went to an old couple's house. It looked like the husband was asleep when I knocked. He got up (consequently the wife never got up once while I was there), and let me in. the upstairs looked like a stereotypical grandparents house. Little porcelain figurines and pictures of various critters all over the place (mostly dogs and farm animals). As I headed down to the basement there was a large deer head mounted on the wall of the staircase. In the basement there was a couple more deer heads and a stuffed pheasant. There were various paintings of ducks in flight on the wood-panel walls. He was extremely hard of hearing. I'm pretty sure he didn't hear anything I said, he just sort of nodded as if he heard everything.
On the way to the next job I took a detour through some factories to eat a couple of PB & J sandwiches, when Dinosaur Jr. "The wagon" came on which totally made my day, so I cranked it up and sang along. The next job was at a duplex. This place was absolutely filthy. I could hear her sons playing when I knocked. They had to wake her up, so she answered wearing pajamas. It turns out she works at a factory that makes aluminum pop cans, just outside of town. She works four 12 hour days backed by four days off, oscillating between four weeks of working days and four weeks of working nights.
At this point I was so ahead of schedule it was 1 p.m. and I only had one job left. This last one was a dozy though. The tech who was there the previous day did not check out the inside wiring of the house. It was a nightmare. Apparently the couples son did all the wiring a few years ago. But it was so fucked up I can't honestly believe that it has been working all this time. This job required me drilling a couple holes and spending the better part of the next 4 hours in their attic. Working in attics is very precarious. You have to perched on the cross beams, because the insulation looks like clouds and has the same amount of resilience, so one false move and your through the customer's ceiling. All the while you also have to avoid the hundreds of little nails jutting down like stalactites. As I was finishing up it turned out the husband works for the same company that the last customer I was at, worked for. Though he said he worked for the aeronautical division. He does security, which basically amounts to watching satellites all day and making sure nobody fucks with them. He told me last year they launched a satellite that monitors sea swells, but it also inadvertently tracks submarines as well, since they cause sea swells.

Tru

I had a rider today (I am beginning to see a trend). He was short, round and rather effeminate. In fact he reminded me of Truman Capote for some reason. He was very talkative, which wasn't quite to the point of being annoying but close. Ou first job was at a rather messy town-home. there appeared to be nothing wrong. Which happens often. So the best I can do is look around and try to find something wrong. In this case I didn't find much.
My next two jobs I should have never went to. Apparently there was an outage an everything was now working. Afterwards I went to the apartment of a very nice couple. The man had an almost creole accent. He was very chatty, he even followed us outside as we were looking at something out there. He was beginning to get on my nerves. Unfortunately I did not solve this problem right away, I ended up having to come back later, but I figured it out that time. In the end I was mad at myself for not catching it the first time.
The first job after lunch turned out not to be home. We then picked up an install. It was in one of my more favorite neighborhoods. They were remodeling the house, and it was looking very nice. The couple had foreign accents, I almost want to say African. They seem to be being doing well for themselves. He really wanted the soccer channels.
After that I went to a house that had been turned into two apartments. This specific one was missing a couple channels, but it looked like it came from farther up the system.
My last job turned out to be not at home. It seems strange that I did so little work, but it took up my full day.

Today we had our meeting in the morning which is nice, because then we don't work a full day. My first job was at an apartment. When I entered she was listening to Ray Charles, which I found refreshing (I don't listen to much mainstream music). The job was easy.
My next two jobs turned out to be right next to each other. The first one wasn't home but the other guy was home and told me that the lady to the other side of him also had no service. It turned out that two doors down someone had a dish installed and whoever installed it cut the lines going to the other residences, so I had to climb into that person's attic and fix all these connections which isn't very fun in May. I spent two hours there and ended up late to my next job.
The next job was pretty simple I just had to set up some boxes for them. The lady was in her late 30's early 40's and lives with her mom. She spoke to her teenage daughter on the phone, but I only saw two rooms in the place. Her mothers room had ashtrays and cigarette butts all over the place. I also saw a breathing apparatus in the living room.
My last job was an apartment for these two guys. Their box wasn't acting up so I couldn't do a whole lot for them, I wasn't even sure what the problem was. When I got there I could only see one of them, the other was in the bathroom washing up or something, but eventually he came out. He only had one leg and I couldn't tell but the other one seemed deformed he was getting around using only his arms. They were really nice.

A different part of town

Today they had me in a completely different area of town, which had me in parts I swear I haven't been in before. My first job I was let in by a rather attractive younger woman in her bathrobe. She went upstairs and about 10 minuets later came back down dressed with her screamo looking boyfriend in tow. The house was really weird, there were all these slopes going in different directions I even tripped at one point.
The second job was the house of a very old woman. She was very apologetic about how slow she answered the door, for she had only recently had her hip replaced. It was her brother's place and apparently he has Alzheimer's disease. He wasn't around at the time, but she was telling me that he has become very mean since he started suffering from this disease. It took me forever to figure out what the problem was, which unfortunately threw my whole day off.
After that I was in a neighborhood that didn't look all that great, but this house was nice. The was a young guy there with his girlfriend. They spent the time playing video games. Someone had cut their cable, which really pissed me off.
The next job was in a town home complex, nothing too out of the ordinary.
After that I had to pick up some equipment, from and old lady. Looks like she went with Dish.
I worked through my lunch so that I could get caught up. The next job was exactly the home I would want. I don't mean that in some unrealistic way, but someday when I buy a home I want it to look like that. It was just well decorated. Apparently the family had been working on it for 5 years, from scratch from the sound of it. They also had the friendliest, most beautiful chow I had ever seen.
My next job was cancelled so I went on to a this rather quaint home. The woman had an accent that was somewhere between Spanish and Native American. After a while I had found the problem to be behind the entertainment stand. Her husband came home shortly and began to move the entertainment stand but it broke and things came flying off. I felt really bad for asking him to move it, but sure enough that was the problem and I got their cable to work.
The last job was in another town home complex. The woman there was nice, she said she lives with her two cousins and nephew there. She told she works at the local mental hospital, while her two other cousins work for a lawyer and work with children who have emotional problems. So their dinnertime conversations are always interesting.

best comedy on on TV

My day started with an install that was scheduled before my day even started. So I was late by default, thankfully the woman was nice. She had an apartment that was strangely divided amongst two addresses. One apartment was one address and the other 3 addresses were another. The woman is a law student, which was the second law student from that school I've met in two days. The place was really nice.
The second job was an internet problem. It was a pretty typical household. They had a really beautiful little parakeet, noisy though.
The next job was an install for a lady in an apartment building for older people. She was a frail woman. She was watching divorce court and laughing her ass off, then she called it the best comedy on TV. We started talking about meeting the right person. She told me how she had met her husband who died a few years ago. She was living in Dallas at the time with some other women. Then one of her friends who was a stewardess brought over a coworker. She said she was wearing shorts and her hair was in curlers, and couldn't have looked worse. He was divorced and 18 years older. Apparently he lived down the street and had been asking about her for a while. Anyways she married him after dating about 2 years and stayed married for about 25 years.
My next job was an apartment for a woman and her child. She was nice but about half way through the install the light a cigarette in front of her kid. I wanted to just yell WTF!?!?!?!? But I am not allowed to say a thing. Then a little while later she mentioned that she had cancer. Which made me feel bad. Her kid was very outgoing at one point he came up behind me and grabbed my hand which freaked me out. i wasn't expecting it at all. I eventually warmed up to the kid, he was very curious and asked a lot of questions.
The next job was at this apartment that was extremely filthy and everything was covered in dog hair. She said she just got out of the hospital and her son was staying there. He was supposed to clean the place up, but he never did. He did pay any of the bills either, so everything got disconnected by the time she got out.
My last job was at an apartment, It was pretty uneventful. It was my last job of the day, so I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Mother's Day

My first job was was at a little duplex. A young couple were moving. The woman told me she was previously living in a mansion. I knew which one she was talking about, I had driven past it before in awe. Apparently she is a student at a local University which owns that property. She had a job which involved managing that property, which I guess was rented out for weddings and other events. The perk of the job was that she got to live on site. She then mentioned that she will probably never live in such a luxurious place again.
My second job was another duplex. The whole family was there. I didn't quite feel like making small talk, partly because I had family plans tonight (being Mathoer's day and all), so I was trying to speed through my jobs and not talk too much. There really wasn't much to notice about this family. Though the wife tipped me, which was nice.
My last job was a family of what seemed a single mother and her three teenage children. Got to give her alot of respect for that. The kids seemed pretty stereotypical. I guess the oldest one is 18 and just moved back in. I'm not too sure what led to his coming back to the nest, but he seemingly had nothing in the way of personal property. Eventually a whole bunch of her family showed up. She had been cooking the whole time. So by the time I left the place smelled great and there was all kinds of kids running around. She offered me some BBQ, but I had to politely decline since I already had plans.

Learning something new everyday

I had a rider today. Meaning I had to show someone the ropes. The guy was nice, he spent the day talking about conspiracy theories and technology.
The first job we went to was alright. The lady only had one TV, which for some reason seems strange to me. I am so used to seeing multiple TVs. Anyways it turned out that everything was pretty old and need to be replaced. She wanted to run an extra outlet which I wasn't too excited about, but decided not to in order to not disturb some birds that made a nest in her ivy.
The second job was in an apartment building that I am not too fond of. It's usually rather dirty and smells like urine. I can almost always find people stealing cable there as well. This particular job turned out easy. It was an older African gentleman, and we woke him up. He had to cover himself with a towel. He was grumpy, but we fixed his TV.
After that we went back to the first job, to replace the cable from the pole to her house.
After lunch we went to the house of a nice Jewish lady. She told us about a friend of hers who used to own a shop downtown. Apparently this shop was frequented by former first lady Mamie Eisenhower and apparently she was a kleptomaniac. The secret service would have to come back a return what she stole.
The next job was at an older gentleman's place, his place was pretty old and a lot needed to be replaced. After that we went to a gated community where a woman was accidentally disconnected. Lastly we went to a town-home complex. The lady there was a school teacher. We needed to fix her internet. Her place was nice, it was recently remodeled.

Stories of Berlin

I almost ran over a fox on the way into the office today. My first job was at a town home. It was a young couple with a newborn . I was there to fix their reception, which was pretty easy.
My second job was at the house of a rather old gentleman. He was probably retired. It was an easy job as well, but I took my time because I didn't have much to do today. It got frustrating though, because I had to explain in detail not only how to work the cable but also his VCR.
My next job was by far the most interesting of the day. I ended up at the house of a rather large Jewish man who works as a masseuse out of his house. He treats people who have rather messed up medical history. Not just bad backs but their internal organs are damaged as well. He said he prefers to actually try and heal people rather than just sooth and lull them to sleep. He told me he used to live in Berlin back in the sixties, then he proceeded to tell me this story:
He knew a woman from East Berlin who was visiting her boyfriend in West Berlin, when they started constructing the Berlin Wall. She got scared and didn't know what to do, because she had a child still in East Berlin. When she tried to cross back over they imprisoned her for 5 years, forcing her Mother to raise her child. After that she was stuck in West Berlin. She could see her child and Mother only once a year from opposite sides of the wall.
My last job was easy as well. It was a new development, where all the buildings look exactly the same. I can't stand that cookie cutter approach to house construction. I personally prefer a house with character and/or personality. Anyways as I was finishing this job I almost took out this light that was hanging from the ceiling. It was really low and the guy mentioned he used to have a pool table. That is until his girlfriend got rid of it. I found this humorous because of a conversation me and some friends were having recently about being whipped.

Day 2

My day started with an install at a relatively new looking house. Probably a scrape off. Couple were nice, install was pretty easy.
My second job today was at an empty apartment. The lady who met me was nice. She was hoping I could just drop off the equipment, because her roommate was sleeping. Maybe she works the nightshift or maybe she was just hung over. Either way I had a job to do and I tried to do it as quiet as possible. But her roommate woke up, and starting yelling at her. I felt bad for her, the situation couldn't be helped though. Anyways I got out of there as quick as possible.
My third job was house that was still being remolded, so it was empty. It is owned by a nice Irishman. I had to completely redo all the cable, because it was all so old.
Lastly I installed at a fellow employees house. She was nice. It was an easy install. All in all a rather uneventful day.

Jerry Springer

I started my day with an install at an apartment. The guy who answered the door has this crazy hair that reminded me of the that guy in the...I believe staples commercials, where he's in a office dancing around delivering office supplies to everyone. The install was easy.
After that was a town home. A man answered the door, apparently he was visiting from out of town. The lady who lives there had recently given birth. Her child was very adorable. As I was installing I could hear her complaining about how the guy who knocked her up took off when she told him she was pregnant. Sounded like a fling. She said it happened the first week she moved back into town. This was exactly the sort of thing you see on Jerry Springer or Maury (when you install TV all day, you become more familiar than you wish with daytime TV). In fact the way they talked to each other sounded so much like one of these shows, for an instant I thought they just had the TV up really loud in the other room. She was talking about paternity tests and how she new he was the father, about whatever woman he was living with now and how she knows that he's been spying on her. It always comes as a bit of a shock when you come across something in real life, which you are used to only seeing on TV. Though I think I've always wanted to believe that stuff is fake as well, partly out of some sort of hope for the human race and partly and partly because I find it hard to believe that they could find that many people like this to air five days a week 52 weeks a year. Anyways the place was quite the mess upstairs, which for me begs the question "Are they just moving in or have they been here for a while?" This time I gathered it was the latter. Of course it can be awkward to raise such a question. I usually don't broach the subject of messiness unless I know for a fact that they are moving in. I think once I got it wrong, and the persons place was generally that messy, talk about awkward.
My next job was at a house, a young woman answered the door. Her place was a mess but that was because she was moving in. The place faintly smelt of Marijuana, which was probably why it took her a while to answer the door. Often I find myself entering a place where someone was smoking up recently. It seem coconut is a pretty popular way to cover up the odor these days. It actually works pretty well, but eventually you still figure out what's going on. Anyways, as I started working she started furiously cleaning the place. The install was pretty uneventful other than that, though the wiring was pretty old and caused me some serious problems.
My last job was at a place I had been months ago. In fact I was doing a job that I had set up back then. Apparently at least 5 other techs have shown up and failed to do the job since then. That was pretty sad.