I started my day in plastic land. The door was answered by a black man who seemed very out of it. At first I thought he had just woken up but after a while I got the impression that he was a little slow. As I was trying to solve the problem he mentioned two other people who live there, but I only saw two rooms which had me wondering if they a couple of them might be shacked up together. While I was in his room I saw some gay porno magazines in the corner which confirmed this suspicion. All the while the guy just kept talking to me. First about the movie Pride, which he highly recommends, then about the game Resident Evil which he apparently owns every copy of, then about the Simpsons, which he collects, and about Yosemite Sam which he used to collect. He mentioned that once he went to a theme park and got drunk and kept harassing people about where he can find Yosemite Sam until somebody had to finally tell him there wasn't one there, because they couldn't find someone to fill the three foot high costume. I finally found the problem which turned out to be a splitter in the closet. As I was leaving he stood in the door way blocking me. I kind of had to force my way out.
Next I headed to a very poor part of town. Though across the street from this particular house was a bunch of fancy new houses next to a golf course. It's amazing how much difference lies in such a short distance. how one road can literally mark the difference between a rather affluent neighborhood and a destitute one. There was a nice black woman who lived in the house. There was someone else there (daughter?) whom I never saw but heard shuffling around and using a hair dryer. Everything was working fine while I was there, and I couldn't find anything wrong. So I swapped the box and headed to the next job.
The next job was not too far away actually. The house looked a little nicer, but no one answered the door, so I headed to the job after that. This one was closer to downtown. I've been in this building once before. The door was answered by a very frail old woman. From the way she described the problem I knew she had the TV on the wrong channel. She spent most of the time talking about how she had only recently moved into here, since her husband died. I didn't spend much time there.
Afterwards I had lunch and read some.
I then went to my first afternoon job. The door was answered by a nice gentleman who was apparently here to deal with this for his mother. He does not live here. He had set up the box by himself, but did it backwards which was the problem. So I easily fixed it. After I was done I was walking around back to check the line coming to the house. The road along the house was in the middle of being paved so I was collecting rocks on my boots. I tried knocking them off on the curb but some guy from their yard started yelling at me for knocking the rocks into their yard. He told me to stay off the grass. When I got to the pole, I noticed the line needed to be replaced. So I had to go back there, which i wasn't looking forward to. The guy apologized for snapping at me, then got real social. He started talking to me about watching the British open this weekend. Then he mentioned that those who area so willing to send others to war really need to go themselves. I assumed he must be a vet. the He talked about how he and his buddies from the service all used to drink when they got back and how it has ruined their lives. He said some now go to AA or NA, but he says he keeps control. As I was leaving he told me to always maintain control and have fun without hurting other people.
After this I headed to a nice little gaited community that I've been to once before. A rather short jewish man met me at the door. As I entered his wife was complaining that he had put dirty dishes in the dishwasher which was full of clean dishes. The gentleman explained that they had just got back this morning from a trip to St. Martin. That must have been nice. He said that as soon as he had it installed he took it apart to move the TV and couldn't figure out how to put it back together. So I set it up for him. his wife was more happy than he was, because she couldn't miss her favorite show Big Love which is on tonight.
Next I went to an apartment complex. No one answered the door so I called. A woman answered and said she didn't need me to be there so I cancelled the job. I picked up another job farther north. This was part of some row houses, that I had been to before. I just needed to re-connect her. Everything else was already set up. The place was absolutely trashed. There was someone else there in a back room that I didn't not see (roommate?). I finished the job and headed home.