They had me in the southeast part of town again. I started at an apartment complex that might actually be in the suburbs. There was an Indian family living here. A man with his parents. They had almost no furniture. It's actually very interesting how little furniture I see in the residences of immigrants. They probably just don't buy into our consumer culture. I bet it would be interesting to see how little you could get by on. Anyways they were having Internet problems. I was certain it was the modem, but the guy told me that someone mentioned over the phone that there were other people in the area having problems. So he was convinced that the problem was the signal. I hate it when the customer service people tell people what they think the problem is, because it's always wrong and the customer takes their word for it. So I end up getting in arguments with customers in which I just want to say, "Excuse me, but who is the cable guy?" So he eventually just let me do my thing, which was replace the modem. But because of some strange settings it took me a while to get everything working.
My next job was at an apartment building right next to the University. But when I got there no one answered so I called it not at home. Then I went to a house not too far away. A guy answered the door. He was confused about my being there . I was there to install phone. The woman who lives here set up the appointment but never told him. He said he was in no position to have me install the phones and told me to reschedule it which I did. So I picked up another job to the north. This was near where I live, over by the fancy shopping district. The guy's internet wasn't working. It was obviously the modem. I didn't spend much time there.
I skipped lunch and headed to my next job, which was all the way back towards the suburbs. when I showed up no one was there. I called and the guy said that he still needed to move in, so I had to reschedule the job. So I picked up a job at an apartment complex in the same area. When I showed up the box that works the phone wasn't working. There was a guy there who apparently used to work as a contractor for my company, so he was trying to help her out. He had rearranged how the place was hooked up in order to try and troubleshoot the problem. I put everything back the way it should be and it was working fine. I couldn't find any cause to the problems that the woman was explaining to me, but it was working now so I left.
Next I headed to a job back by the university. This was a house. There was a young woman moving in here. She said that her parents own the place. Nothing was working. She said the tech had been here for three hours yesterday and then left telling her that everything would come on in 15 minutes. But it never came on. He had hooked it up wrong in the back of the house. Personally I don't leave until it's working. I had to replace her modem as well, because that was hooked up right but not working.
Next I headed east to another apartment complex. In this place there was a couple. They were not getting a bunch of their channels. So I went outside and saw that someone had rigged one of the apartments in a way that took from the others so I put things back the way they should be and it was fixed.
Dispatch gave me a couple more jobs, but I had to go back to the office for some more supplies. I finally got to the next job. This was yet another apartment complex. The guy here works at a restaurant. He said he worked 70 hours in the past week. And he looked it. He said the the head chef is on maternity leave, so everyone is working overtime to cover. I've been in similar buildings to this and know that the place where I hook up the individual units is in the electrical room. But there was no one in the leasing office to let me in. So I had to reschedule the job. I got the job rescheduled for the next day, which the guy was ok with. As I was in my van about to leave I noticed that the place to hook the units up was in fact on the outside of the building, so I could do the job. But I had already rescheduled it for tomorrow and since the customer was ok with it I took off. Hell with some of the shit I've seen my fellow coworkers get away with, I think I should be allowed to get away with this little bit of laziness.
So I headed to my last job which was to pick up some equipment on the way home. This was an apartment. They people here were moving out and they had some friends over. I just picked up the box and went home.

My day started at a really nice house. The line to the guys house had been taken out by a construction vehicle. they took out the phone line as well. He wanted it so they would quit knocking the line out. Apparently this is the fifth time this year. Unfortunately because of the position of our line I couldn't get it too high. Besides he didn't want it too high on his house because it would obstruct the view of his window. So I moved it up a little but the odds are, it didn't help much.
Next I headed to an apartment complex. The woman here was having a problem with her Internet, of course it was working now that I was there. I checked things out and figured what the problem was. As I was getting up from her computer I noticed an infant was sleeping in the bed behind me. I'm not sure how I didn't notice it before. I realized how to fix the problem quickly so I wasn't there for long.
Next I headed to the apartment building for retirees I was at yesterday. I was here for an equipment pickup. But nobody answered the door and we couldn't get ahold of the resident so I headed to the next job.
So I headed to resort town. I had an install here. There was a hispanic woman who knew very little english. She would call her husband and have me talk to him if there were any problems. They had a poodle they kept trying to bite me. It would run up behind me an bite the back of my calves. The place was very cluttered. There was a ton of angel figurines all over the place. The job was pretty routine other than the dog. Due to the language barrier there was very little talking going on.
Afterwards I headed to a house not too far away. It was right on the corner of a very busy street. The house was large and rather nice. There was a black couple here. The guy wanted me to fix his fax. It turned out it was plugged into the wrong space in the back of the fax machine. But he had all sorts of questions about the Internet and a router he recently purchased. I set up the router for him and answered all his questions. In the end he tipped me $10.
Next I headed into town. This job was at a house that had been converted into a law office. The place did not have a pleasant smell at all. A woman appeared and said that the appointment was for tomorrow not today. She then went into the details of what needed to happen. They needed a wireless router installed, so that they can network the three computers they have here. But they also need the three computers here to talk to two other computers at a different office. This I did not know how to do and was very relieved to have to reschedule this job.
The next job was at a apartment building for old folks. The work order was for me to set up a VCR. But it turned out I needed to set up her surround sound. She said the tech who was here the other day had no clue what he was doing. It isn't that hard to hook up a surround sound system. It didn't take that long either, so I have no clue why he didn't. Anyways this was my last job so I helped another tech out a bit and then went home.

My day started at a house towards the extreme north of my area. This is a bad neighborhood lodged amongst the warehouses. When I knocked a women appeared wearing a nightgown she told me to wait a second and came back out with a bathrobe. She complained about how cold it was and mentioned that she slept in late. She told me her TV's were not working and that her e-mail wasn't working either. She also mentioned that I was the third tech out there in a month. So I tired to work with her computer which was an old mac. The real problem here was she didn't know how to use her computer. So I had to set it up for her so that there was little margin for error. She would keep asking me questions about stuff that had no bearing on the issues. After a while this was getting very annoying. Largely because I don't have the time for this. The whole time I was trying to help her with her computer I was trying to fix the TV's as well. The other problem with her computer was that Safari wouldn't let her login to anything. It kept saying that it didn't have a secure connection and I had no clue how to deal with this. So I used Internet Explorer to get around this. As far as the TV's go, I decided to replace the line to the house. This only helped partially, so I had to keep looking for the problem. On the side of the house was the cutest little puppy and in his little pen was where the cable went into the house. It turned out that the puppy had been chewing on the cable line and this is what had been causing their problems. I was happy to have finally figured it out. When I had finished it was about 11:30. One of my morning jobs had cancelled, but I still had two more.
The next job was about as far as I could get away within my area. This was an apartment complex. I had notes which said that the woman at the apartment was deaf and I needed to go to the leasing office to get their assistance. Which I did. There was an attractive woman in the office who told me that they do no go to her apartment anymore. They went over there about a month ago and they were there for 45 minutes. This seemed pretty cold hearted to me. Who can't spare 45 minutes? So I went to the apartment and there was music blaring loud through the door. I tried to pound on the door knowing she wouldn't answer, then I had to call it not at home. I had no other choice.
I went to another apartment complex. An old man with either a severe speech impediment or an accent that I am unfamiliar with opened the door. He pointed me towards the TV. His wife was on the couch. She had a thick Eastern European accent. The Cable box was unplugged which is why it wasn't working. So I plugged it back in and explained to them that it needed to stay plugged in. Then I went into a bit of education which apparently the person who installed them never did. As I was leaving a guy flagged me down and said his cable wasn't working. He lived down the hall. I was reluctant at first but followed him into his apartment. He showed me his TV, which was on the wrong input. So I turned it to the right one and everything was working fine.
I skipped my lunch so that I could run on time. The next job was an apartment complex a little to the north. A woman with a couple facial piercings opened the door. For some reason she looked familiar. I felt as though she may have felt the same way. She told me to hold on as she went into a back room. There was a couple kids there. They never said a thing to me, they just did dished and cleaned the apartment the whole time I was there (isn't that like every parents dream?). Two men followed the woman out from the back. One of them introduced himself to me, the other guy left with the girl. The guy who stayed said his brother is dating the babysitter, eluding to the two who just left and pointing to the makeshift bed in the living room. The place was a mess. Like they never really unpacked. The guy mentioned he was looking to move into a house. It didn't take me long to figure out the problem and fix it.
Next I headed to an apartment complex to the west. The door was answered by a woman in her forties. There was another woman here as well. They were just about to have lunch. She said neither TV was working. We looked at the TV in the living room and it turned out the plug on the flat screen had come out, so we plugged it back in and the TV was fine. The TV in the other room took up half the room. The other half was a fold out bed with a mattress, so there was no room to maneuver. I guess the other woman was staying here. I just don't know if she was living here or just visiting. The box in this room was actually not working so I needed to replace it.
The next job was a house. There was a very attractive woman here with her kid they were tossing a ball back and forth. She greeted me as I approached. The house was being renovated. There was a guy there working on the hardwood floors and the walls had been recently painted. She showed me the TV with the problem, though she wasn't entirely sure what the problem was. She had to call her husband. She mentioned she doesn't watch TV so she has no clue. The room was filled with just about every text from ancient Greece and Rome. There was also a lot of Sci-Fi and fantasy stuff too. It turned out there was a splitter in the attic of course, so I had to go up there. For having a company policy about not going into attics I seem to find myself in attics a lot. Thankfully the splitter was right next to the entrance. Of course my ladder left a lovely mark on the wall, which I'm sure they will enjoy.
My last job was in a retirement apartment complex. There was an old guy here with scabs on the top of his head. The place was full of boxes, he hadn't unpacked yet. He said when he showed up there was already a cable box in the room. But there was no signal to the room. The tech also plugged it into the antennae. I'm going to find this dipshit and make sure he gets an earful. It was probably a fucking contractor. Anyways I got it all set up for the guy. At one point a lawyer showed up. They were talking about a living will with a do not resuscitate clause. That's a pretty serious conversation to listen in on.

Tue Sep.25th

This day started with a nice house. It's in a neighborhood that I'm very trepidatious about. Because often it requires extra work. This particular house had been renovated. There was a beautiful garden, that I eventually trampled. It turned out that this customer used to have satellite. The cable line to the house had been removed during the renovation so I had run a new line. The backyard on this place was literally a mine field of dog shit. It was treacherous walking around back there, especially since I had to carry my 70 lb. ladder. This is also led to my trampling of the garden. I also had to run a new install in one of the rooms. The guy here had it all figured out he told me exactly where to drill. I told him I wasn't sure if this lined up at all, but he was very confident so I went ahead and sure enough it ended up coming through the ceiling of the spare bedroom about 2 feet from where it should have been according to his calculations. So we had to rethink the placement of that as well. About this point he had to go to work, so his fiancee had showed up. The outlet had to be run through a storage room which meant climbing all over a bunch of boxes and rugs and hoping it doesn't all collapse or cut out underneath me. I had to explain everything to the woman in detail when I had finally got everything set up. The job ended up taking all morning.
My first job of the afternoon was in an a apartment complex I'm in all the time. The guy seemed pretty well moved in. He was about the same age as me. He said he just moved from Washington D.C., he now works for a government consulting firm. He said he grew up ion D.C. and needed to get out. He was burnt out. He had everything set up when I showed up, so my job was incredibly easy it took me less than an hour.
My next job was in resort town. I got there before the customer so I started doing what I could outside. They showed up before I finished outside. This was a young couple with their kid. The whole time I was there their kid was making the cutest sounds possible. It was ridiculous. The couple pretty much just stayed out of my way and let me work, which made my job easy. I was out of there quick.
Having finished up early I called in and picked up an extra job. This was in a apartment complex. At first no one was there and right as I was about to call it not at home, the guy showed up. Apparently he was out walking his dog. He let me in and showed me to his phone that wasn't working. I looked around and saw that it was plugged into the wrong hole on the back of the box. Of course the guy was embarrassed and tried to come up with an excuse but couldn't really. Then I went home.

Monday Sep. 24th

My first job of the day was in a huge house. The couple moving in were not much older than me. The wife answered the door and tried to explain things, but her husband eventually showed up and explained things better. The house had never had cable, it had been fitted for satellite. In the basement there was a three TV rig that the previous owner had left. I guess each TV went to a different receiver so you can watch three different things at the same time. How opulent is that! It took me quite a while to get everything hooked up and figured out. They had a Tivo as well, but I had no clue how to hook that up. I left that to them. This was my only job of the morning and it took most of the morning.
My first job of the afternoon was an old house. The couple here was interesting. The husband was an author. It looked like his most recent book was about the BTK killer. He had several copies around. There was a bookshelf full of his books. Books about various people. One of his books was apparently used for an Oliver Stone movie. He seemed to be very interested in the Warren Jeffs case. The wife I believe is a doctor. On the Kitchen table I saw some envelopes, the kind you usually see x-rays and other medical documents in. This job was an upgrade and I expected it to be very easy. But I was installing both phone and internet, and the computer was ancient (Windows 98) and the phone lines in the house were turn of the century. I was getting this horrible noise over the phone lines and it took me forever to fix this problem. Every time a phone call came the wife had to take the phone into the other room. Whatever it was she couldn't have the conversation in front of me. The husband kept checking up on me. There was a very clandestine air about the place. On a side note you would think that a published author might be able to afford a better computer than one with windows 98. I personally cringe every time I see one of these machines. His machine wouldn't even recognize the modem. I had serious doubts about getting it to work. But eventually I figured it out.
My last job of the day was in an apartment building closer to downtown. I showed up to install phone, but it turned out the place was already set up for phone. The woman said it was under a different account (a man who is no longer living here, I didn't inquire further), while the video service was in her name. So she wanted the phone in her name. I tried to get dispatch to just move it over, but they couldn't so I needed to replace the box. Either way the place was already set up, so the job was one of the easiest I've ever had.

My day started off with a full schedule. Actually I was overbooked. And considering that I was extremely tired, because I got home late last night, I was not in the best mood. But I could use a little overtime, I'm short on funds.
The first job was behind a hospital. It was a series of row apartments. A black guy answered the door. He and his kid were watching "Waterboy." The guy explained to me that he spilled soda on the EMTA and his modem and neither of them work. He got his modem switched out at one of our offices but he was told he would need a tech to come out and replace that. I went out to get a new box and when I came back his wife was there. She had no ankles or feet really for that matter. It was like her calves just kept going all the way down. She asked me to hook up her phone jacks that apparently were never hooked up by the previous tech. This sent me in a bad mood. I replaced the box and then went out to my van to get some stuff to hook up the phone jacks. When I came back she asked me if I could get the Internet working. At this point I started getting really mad that they kept stringing this shit along. I did not have the time. I eventually got all that fixed and headed on my way.
The next job was at an apartment building to the south. The guy looks like he just woke up. The place had a bunch of dragon and skeleton stuff. Dragon incense burners, dragon floor mat, some skulls around his computer. I was there to fix his Internet and it was obvious he had been accidentally disconnected. It didn't take long.
The next job was in a high rise apartment building, that seems to be mainly full of retirees. This apartment had an old Jewish couple. They couldn't get their mail to work. Apparently they spoke to three different people over the phone and none of them could figure it out. The worst part is that as far as I could tell, none of the people on the phone did anything in regards to the email. Basically the people in my tech support are fucking useless. I spoke with them for about an hour before figuring it out. I deleted all the old accounts which deleted all their old emails as well. Which they weren't pleased with. I guess there was some important information in there. So I had to find the old emails and bring them back.
Next I went to a very nice house next to a park. There was a woman here who explained all that was going wrong. Basically I needed to replace the router. When I replaced it she said I had saved her marriage by doing so. I've been hearing this quite a bit lately but usually with an air of jocularity. With her there was definitely an air of gravity and she became very thankful when I was finished.
I skipped lunch and went straight to the next job. This was a house farther north. It took a little while for the guy to answer the door. He had a serious case of behead going on, worse than I ever look. He took me downstairs to where the computer is. There was a couple kids playing with toys in front of a TV. He kept talking to me about computers and it seemed like he was making no sense. Like he either knew a lot more about computers than me or talking out his ass to make it look like he knew what he was talking about. Either way I felt he was talking way too much and did my best to seem focused on my work and not interested in talking. He did mention that this was keeping him from looking for a job. He said he works at the Hyatt part time. I couldn't help but wonder how long this marriage was going to last.
Next I headed south to another house. There was a couple here that didn't look too much older than me. The woman looked a little pregnant. They were having people over and these people began to show up as I was there. They had a problem with a box. Which I replaced, but they were complaining about other issues as well. I knew there was going to be a splitter in the attic. And I did not want to go up there. Our company policy is that we don't go up into attics so I fought going up there as much as possible. But in the end I'm too damn nice. In fact it's exactly this part of me I've come to hate every now and then. Since it seems to always cause more grief and trouble than it's worth. So I went up there and sure enough there was a splitter which needed to be replaced. Fortunately while I was at this job one of my remaining jobs cancelled.
The next job was at an apartment complex down south. A Korean man answered the door. He tried to explain that everything was working, but then asked if I could fix a setting. Which I did easily and cancelled the job. The apartment itself was very minimalist, he had very little furniture.
Afterwards I went to a house up north again. They really had me going everywhere today. I was greeted by a black woman. She seemed on guard about me from the beginning probably because I wasn't being very personable. I just wanted to finish. There were two black girls playing on a trampoline in the back. I was here to upgrade them to a cable box. Which was easy. A couple of male teenagers were running around as well. I tired to get out of there as quickly as possible. I just wanted the day over.
As I was trying to clock out for the day, dispatch called me and begged me to pick up an extra job. Me being the nice guy I am, I took the job. Like I said earlier, I need the money. This was a house in a very quiet neighborhood. The woman took a while to answer the door. She was very nice and laid back. She had two dogs that must have been some sort of chow mix, because they had those teddy bear like faces. I needed to move an outlet from one side of a room to the other. Wanting to get home, I hurried to get the job done. So I didn't talk much.

My first job was on one of the busiest streets in town. But the address was wrong. That address didn't exist. I sat around a while trying to call the customer, when finally she showed up. It turned out that the actual address of the house is the next street over. But all the utilities have it wrong. She was nice, she just moved from out in the boondocks. She was very relieved to be living in the city. While I was outside working I saw one of the biggest spiders I've seen in a long time. When I was back inside she told me about how the local phone company has been screwing her over. She has her own business from home and her customers thought she had gone out of business, because the phone line had been disconnected. The worst part about the job was having to set up my ladder in the street to get to the pole. So I had to worry about cars taking out my ladder while I was up in the air.
The next job was a little north. it was an apartment building right on a park. The guy had a shit ton of vinyl. In fact there wasn't much here except the vinyl. So we talked a lot about records. He was way into metal. So we talked about Slayer and Mastodon. He played for me some Swedish metal band called Witchcraft. He wasn't that much older than me. The install was very easy. He mentioned that he was moving from the west side of town, where some friends of mine live. He was tired of that part of town because of it's increasing gentrification.
After reading a while I went to my next job. This was a large house that has been converted into two apartments, upstairs and downstairs. I was here for the upstairs. The upstairs had an upstairs. It was like a loft, but the attic had been totally removed so the loft part was as big as my apartment. It was only a couple blocks from where I live too. There was a middle aged woman here moving in. Her husband was probably at work. She was nice. She just kept quiet the whole time and watched me work. It was pretty uneventful.
My last job was over by my second job. This was a u shaped building that had been divided into apartments. The guy already had Internet so I just needed to install video. He wanted to use a particular outlet. I had to go into the basement to figure out which line that was. This took forever, because there was all sorts of lines down there. I had to get into the crawl space to figure it out, and once I got in there I almost couldn't get out. The guy mentioned he was nurse and had to go into work in two hours. He said He'll get home at like 7:30 a.m. and crack open a beer and watch TV before going to bed. I asked if he was able to have much of a social life because of his job. He said he hangs out with a bunch of other nurses with the same schedule.

At our meeting today one of the bosses decided to read off all the accidents of the past month and half. It was pretty hilarious the shit some people have done. One person ran into a beer truck. A lot of people have rear ended other cars. All in all he was reading these of for almost half and hour.
I finally got to my first job. It was in resort town. There was a woman living here. You know those women who are in their twenties but still look like they are 15. This woman looked like what those women will look like when they are in their 40's. She had braces and a lot of wrinkles. She would run around and talk a lot. She said she is so tired that she is delirious. Shortly after I showed up she asked how long it would take. I told her about an hour, she said she needed to be at work in about 15 minutes. Exactly ho wrong did she think this would take? She had two little dogs. They didn't look like any dog I had seen before. Kind of like pugs but uglier. Anyways I tried to hurry up to accommodate her, so I kept the talking to a minimum.
Next I headed closer to downtown. I hung around the apartment building for a while but no one showed so I called it a not at home.
I picked up an extra job at a house to the east. It was actually row housing. There was a black guy here. He was pretty jolly. The TV's weren't acting up at all when I was there. He did have a really crappy DVR though. This particular brand of DVR we replace all the time because it is crap. But I didn't have an extra DVR, so I had to call another tech to give me a DVR. While I was waiting for this tech to show up the guy who didn't show up called me. He left a message saying he had an emergency and apologized for not being there.
After I finished that job I skipped my lunch and headed to the next job. This was a house up north in a bad part of town. I called the guy ahead of time. His voice was so low and gruff, I wasn't sure if maybe I had woken him up. when I got there it turned out that it was his actual voice. He was a tall black man, and something about him seemed familiar but I couldn't place where. The upstairs had a bunch of model ships and strange pottery. He led me to the basement. On the way down to the basement we passed by the back door. The door was wedged closed using a baseball bat. I noticed there is no fence around the yard. I wonder how much of a problem they have with people barging in. I had to set up the basement with a cable box as well as Internet and phone. It looked almost like the basement was an apartment in and of itself. The guy pretty much left me to my own devices. His computer wouldn't turn on at all.
The next job wasn't going to be there early, so I took my lunch and read. A woman showed up with her teenage daughter. She apologized for not being there earlier. She then asked me to completely install her computer. Apparently she got one from a friend and had no clue how to hook it up. When I had hooked it up I took levels there and they were off, so I went out back to inspect it and I found a gold chain bracelet. I asked the woman if she was missing it, she said yes. Later she said she spent over 20 years working for Energizer and is now a substitute teacher. She said it was so much easier. No planning, no PDA, she was genuinely happy. As I was working here dispatch called and said I needed to go back to my first job. This ruined my day. I had plans this evening and really wanted to get home.
As I was heading back to the first job I went to clean my glasses and the lens popped out. The framed was cracked and now broken because of this. I got back to the first job. There was another guy here. It seems all the windows were taped shut with duct tape. So this guy was here removing the tape and cleaning the windows. The woman would not stop talking and the both of them were joking around. I was in a terrible mood at this point and was hoping it would be fairly obvious. One of the cable boxes was bad, so I went to replace it and the one remaining box on my truck was also bad, so I couldn't even fix it. The woman caught on to my mood and kept calling me honey at this point. Which is creepy from a stranger. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

The day started at a apartment complex. There was a hispanic woman here, with an older woman and a child. The older woman left shortly after I showed up. The woman who lived here was rather attractive. They had three cable boxes from their previous residence, but they were missing the power chord to one of them. I didn't have any replacement for them, so I told the woman that she would have to go to one of our offices to get one. As I was working the kid couldn't sit still. One minute he's playing with toy trains in one room, the next he's in his bedroom to watch James and the Giant Peach. If I was in his way he would politely ask me to move. I was there to set up the phones as well as TV. It turned out that none of the wallplates were hooked up, so I had to fix all the wallplates. Around this point a guy showed up. I doubt he was her husband, maybe a friend or brother. I finished up and moved on.
Next I headed to a apartment building to the north. I ran into a guy in the parking lot who was packing to leave town. He asked a question about our HD services that I didn't know the answer to. The guy here was on crutches. He said he broke his foot biking. I noticed he's a soccer fan, so we talked a lot about soccer. I mentioned he currently isn't getting the soccer channel. We also talked about the Women's World Cup which is currently going on and the new stadium in town. He was going to do the install himself, which made my job easy.
After scarfing down some PB&J sandwiches I headed to the next job. This is an apartment complex I hadn't yet been in. There was a young black woman living here with her child. She was always smiling and laughing. To the point where I wondered if it was a nervous tick. She said she was going to school for nursing and the only reason she chose this school was because they gave her a free laptop. That's the first I've heard of anything like that. She really wanted all the music channels ( the MTV's and the VH1's)as well as HBO. I got her a deal on the HBO but not the others. She spent most of the time with her kid. She said her kid has a heart condition.
The last job was on the edge of town. A SUV pulled up as I showed up. It turned out to be the brother of the guy. Their mother met me at the garage. They explained that I just had to set the Internet up in the garage. To get to the pole I had to go through the neighbors yard. They weren't there, so I had to let myself in, which is always fun. As I was working on the Internet, the mom kept coming into the garage and talking to me. At one point she started talking about how Doctors are full of shit. she said she passed out two weeks ago and now the doctors are saying she has cancer. She said she feels fine, she doesn't have cancer. Ironically he was at the vet when it happen, the family dog had just been diagnosed with cancer in it's foot. She ended up breaking her foot when she passed out. She started to ask me about green chili at one point because she assumed I was hispanic. I told her I was Native American and she started to ask me what it is that I eat. I told her the same things as everyone else. She asked if I was married and when I said I wasn't, she told me not to get married. The brother was in a wheel chair. After a while he cut into the conversation in order to let me leave, because she wasn't about to stop.

My day started at an apartment building. The guy dropped his wife off at work and was on his way back so I ended up waiting a while. Once I was finally let into the apartment it turned out to be very nice. The guy was very nice and very talkative. He said he used to work for political campaigns but got tired of it, because politicians never keep their promises. He quit that job about 6 months ago and he has been just staying home. His wife loves it because everything is clean and dinner is cooked when she gets home, but he is stir crazy. He was asking me about working at my company. Apparently he used to do cable before he worked for politicians. He also used to be in the air force. There were two cats there. One fat and very loud one and one smaller and quieter one. He told me that they found the smaller one in Houston, it had been hit by a car. It was still a kitten and could fit in his hand. Fortunately the vet was able to save it. The problem was the modem, so I replaced it. I really enjoyed talking to the guy, but eventually I had to leave.
The next job was in resort town. But the guy told me everything was working. it was only a temporary outage. So I headed to the next job.
So I headed to a retirement community. This job was booked as a failed self install, but it turned out I was there to install the internet. The place was crowded. An elderly black woman lives here. There were three kids here, probably her grandchildren. Two boys played video games the whole time and a little girl would wander around. They all pretty much left me alone while I worked. The bedroom where the computer was at, was filled with all sorts of plants. I guess that's the upside to retirement, you have a lot of free time. There was very little room to move around.
Afterwards I headed over towards where I live. I headed to this high rise right next to one of the really nice parks in town. This is s a really fancy place I have been to before. Each floor is divided in half, so it is either the east or west unit. This was the west unit which had the most amazing view of the city and the mountains. There was an old couple here. The gentleman mentioned that they spend most of their time in California. But I guess they are planning on spending more time here, since their daughter and grand children now live here. I was here to get their boxes working, since they were gone for so long, and add a new one. I noticed they were not getting all their services and the guy mentioned an amplifier. I cut out the amplifier and everything stopped working. I worked on it a while but eventually I realized that it wasn't going to get any better than this. So I told the guy this and took off.
At this point I had to skip lunch and head to my next job. This was about two blocks from where I live. The building looks a lot like the one I live in, but nicer. I asked the guy here how much it was and it was about $150 more than what I'm spending. The guy was nice. Probably about the same age as me. he just moved out here from San Francisco. He started his own psychiatry practice here in town. He told me a place of comparable size in San Francisco was about $1500. That's ridiculous. I love that city, but I don't think I could live there. The problem turned out to be a connector that wasn't properly attached. I told him about some places he should visit then we watched She's All That.
Next I headed north to a house right next to a golf course. There was a black guy here who was nice but confused about my presence. He figured his wife set up the appointment. He said his internet hasn't been working right ever since an electrical storm a few weeks back. He said he's owned the house for ten years. I asked him about the gold course. he said he constantly finds balls on his lawn. I just needed to replace the router. He was cleaning house and watching the various daytime court shows. We laughed at the people. He said it was his turn to host monday night football, which was why he was cleaning. He also told me about his son-in-law who he recently kicked out of the house. The kid is 22 and needed to start providing for himself. I fully agreed with him.
My last job was a little to the east. When I got there there was a kid in the front lawn strapping on a helmet and some elbow pads. He was about to go skateboarding. The mother met me at the door and showed me the computer. She explained some troubles they were have with the TV as well. She had a younger kid there as well who kept calling me intruder. I snooped around outside and found some old filters in the back. I removed them and everything was working fine.

Had a dream I wanted to lick your knees

They had me in the nether regions again today. i wonder if I pissed someone off. My first job was a house. A round black woman answered the door after I stood there ringing the doorbell for about 5 minutes. She said she completely forgot that I was coming. She had a couple kids there as well. She was helping her kid do homework while she was flipping between MTV and BET. I was there to install the Internet. She already had our other services. Of course there was no outlet where her computer was so I had to run a new one. There was the smallest backyard I had ever seen here and it was completely unkept. At least most of the neighbors had bothered to landscape their yards. I could also see a pond of standing water across the street so the place was infested with mosquitos (Yeah for West Nile!). I was there for about an hour. Afterwards the woman apologized for me having to work.
That was the only job I had in the morning so I got to hang out and read for a couple hours. After a while I finally called one of my afternoon jobs and it turned out they were home early. As I was heading to this job "Take the Skinheads Bowling" by Camper Van Beethoven came on the radio so I cranked it up and sang along (Some people say that bowling alley's got big lanes. GOT BIG LANES! GOT BIG LANES!).
So when I showed up the woman had to put her dogs up so they wouldn't harass me. She had a friend there. I was there to replace the cable box. The whole time I was there she was talking to her friend about her daughter who got a DUI. She said that her daughter, instead of plea bargaining and being done with it, keeps asking for extensions. Then her daughter called and I got the impression she was AWOL. There was something about not being in school and a general confusion about where she even is. All being said her mom was taking it rather lightly. Or I should say she at least wasn't showing any displeasure over this. Sometimes I wonder about exactly where our culture is headed. I realize this girl's in college but some of the shit I see especially among the youth these days makes me wonder. Just head downtown on a weekend night and you'll see what I mean. So I left and headed to my next job. (Some people say that bowling alley's all look the same. LOOK THE SAME! LOOK THE SAME!)
The next job sent me into what I've always considered one of the worst parts of town. This particular household had a hispanic woman and about five kids running around. There was a trampoline outside with clothes all over it left to dry. As well as random articles of clothing all over the ground. I was going around trying to find the problem and decided it must be the line to the house. So I had to go next door to get to the box in their back yard. It took at least 5 minutes just to get someone to answer the door and I knew they were home. Eventually a man answered the door and said he needed to go to work. I just asked to be let in the back. He took off and his wife eventually let me come in. As I was in there I noticed someone was stealing cable. I couldn't tell off hand but I'm sure it was this residence. I'm glad the man of the house left. So I disconnected them and connected the new line. When I got back to the customer still nothing was working. It turned out to be a bad amplifier in the basement. I guess I didn't even need to go next door. Eventually I got everything working right. (There's not a rhyme that goes here that rhymes with anything. ANYTHING! ANYTHING!)
The next job was in the same neighborhood. The woman here said that the electric company was in her backyard digging. They had obviously cut the line, the dipshits! She was out cutting her lawn before the rain comes. I had to into the neighbor's yard to get to the box. No one was home so I had to do a little B & E to get back there and check it out. While I was there the neighbor came home. I went out and knocked on the door. There was a black woman here, who was fortunately rather nice. I explained to her what I was doing and at first she gave me shit about jimmying my way into her backyard, but was fine about it. Her biggest concern was when are they going to bury the new line I was laying down. She said that once she starts wedding she doesn't care what's in her path. The weird thing was that there was nothing in her back yard. Not even weeds, so I wasn't too sure what the hell she was talking about. I went back and finished the job. The customer was concerned about the impact on her garden, which was already trampled by the electric company. So I wasn't too sure what she was talking about. When I was finished she asked me if I could give her a ride. Apparently she doesn't drive. Thoroughly creeped out by this point I told her no and left. (Had a dream last night but I forget what it was. WHAT IT WAS! WHAT IT WAS!)
At this point there was no more work in this part of town, so I picked up a job on the way home. This was in the ritzy shopping district part of town. This apartment building I've been in before. I walked in and the guy was watching football. His phone service wasn't working. I looked at it and it was plugged into the wrong slot in the back. He proceeded to explain about how he has been trying everything for the past four days to get it to work. He was obviously embarrassed about the simplicity of the solution. So I humored him so he would feel a little better about himself, then went home. (TAKE THE SKINHEADS BOWLING! TAKE THEM BOWLING!)

Today they had me in the southeast part of town. They didn't give me any 8 - 10 jobs either, so I really took my time getting out there. i showed up to my first job early. The door was answered by a very skinny woman. She was having problems with the remote. I just had to program it to the TV. She said she works at one of the local colleges. I had caught her before she was going to work, which was good, cause her boyfriend, who was going to have to be here for the appointment didn't need to come.
I parked under a tree at the park and read a bit. Then I headed to the next job which was at an apartment complex down south. I had just woken the woman up and she was in a bad mood. She said everything was working fine now, but nothing was working last night. She's been having this problem on and off for 9 months and when ever a tech shows up it's working so the job gets cancelled. The place was cluttered. There was a porcelain cowboys and indians chess set. There was also this large antique piano from the early 19th century in the middle of the room. She tried to sell it to me. I don't think it could even fit in my apartment. She said she's an oboe player and a music teacher, but doesn't know how to play the piano. She just bought it in hopes of being able to flip it. But she hasn't been able to find a buyer. I've never seen a piano like it. It was a cross between an upright and a baby grand. The inside was beautifully hand painted. I wish I had the money to buy it and a house to put it in. I ended up having to replace the line to the apartment. But I got it working and she was the happiest I've ever seen anyone. Why doesn't it take 9 months and a parade of technicians to fix this shit. I must be the only person in this town actually doing their job.
I headed to my first afternoon job early. This was a house further north. There was a short hispanic woman here in her nightgown. I got the impression that she was possibly in ill health. She was watching court TV the whole time, and she never really got off the couch. The place was cluttered. She had a small dog that would stare at me with only one eye open the whole time. I was there to replace the cable box, but I noticed the line to the house needed to be replaced. Her backyard was completely overgrown. Nobody's done anything back here in years. It was a veritable forrest. I couldn't even see the ground, I was stepping in holes the whole time. There was cobwebs over most of the plants. It took me a while to do the job.
The next job was in the same neighborhood. The guy's Internet and phone weren't working. It was obviously the box. So I replaced that. We didn't talk much. He works from home, and wasn't too happy about not having these things working. So we watched some new show on the USA network as I got everything up and running again.
Next I headed to an apartment complex on the eastern border of town. The guy here was an effeminate chain smoker with a strangely shaped head. The apartment was littered with unicorns (most of which were porcelain) and teddy bears. He was going through old porno mags (mostly playboy). He apologized for this and insisted that he was not a pervert. He said he collected these for the Stephen King stories and interviews. He's going through them now so that he could sell them. He said he was a huge Stephen King fan. This guy must have just walked off a David Lynch set. He had obviously been disconnected accidentally. So the job was pretty easy.
The next job was a little further south. This was in a town home complex. The neighbor was supposed to let me in but it took him about 15 minuets just to find the keys. The whole while I was watching this cat who was laying in a concrete gutter in the shade. When I finally was let in, I noticed the place was littered with all sorts of Native American paraphernalia all over the place. The problem was that the box was hooked up all sorts wrong, which was why she wasn't getting HD TV. Yet another easy job.
I hard a lot of time so I picked up an extra job. This was an apartment complex a little to the north. There was a guy here about the same age as me. he was watching a Simpsons DVD. His modem wasn't working at all. So I replaced the modem. We sat there and watched a cooking show on PBS. The guy was making egg rolls but with seaweed instead. It looked really good. Then i went home.

My first day back from my little vacation was rather uneventful. I was able to work what is supposed to be my area. The morning started with a meeting and my applying for a new job within the company. Eventually I left to tackle my days work. The first job was in the Jewish part of town. There was an elderly couple in the house. The wife looked much older than the husband. The husband was asking me questions about how long I worked for the company and where I worked before that. He had me look at the TV in the bedroom. He said it hasn't worked right for about 6 months. He's too lazy to do anything about it, but his wife said she'll divorce him if he doesn't get it fixed. I changed a setting on the TV and that brought back most of the channels. But some of them still did not work. I told him that the problem was the TV, he needed a new one.
The next job was in resort town. There was an attractive young woman here. Neither her TV or Internet were working. I knew right away she had been disconnected. Though I could find no rhyme or reason for why this happened. We talked a while. She's a nurse. She had just moved out here from Ohio. We talked about her hospital which had just moved to a new location.
The next job was in a high rise apartment building that seems to be mainly resided in by retirees. I called to be let in, but the guy who answered got pissy with me. he said the appointment was for tomorrow. So I got it rescheduled.
The next job was over near a friends place. The second I got in the place I knew exactly what was going wrong. The color red was completely out of control on her TV. You couldn't watch the Price Is Right. I told her it was her TV. Then I took off.
I called my afternoon jobs and and started to go to those ahead of time. My first job was an elderly couple further north. I took one look at their TV and saw that they had it on the wrong Input. So I headed to the next job.
This was easily the most interesting job of the day. There was a black guy who answered the door in his bathrobe wearing a bluetooth phone earpiece. He had a lazy eye as well which made it completely impossible to tell whether or not he was talking to me. In fact at one point he came in and started talking about the Discovery Channel I told him I love that channel, shortly afterwards I realized that he was on the phone. Shortly after my arrival he got dressed. He said he owns his own company chaffering drivers. He had a couple Lincolns in the drive way. Other people began arriving. One was a driver, he said the landscaper and the maid were here as well. There was also some kid selling a local newspaper. He came into the room talking about how he got tickets to go see the baseball team, for subscribing to the paper. Then he tried to get me to sign up. He said he works all the time and particularly nights so he only gets like one day a month to get everything done. It was a circus. I even saw a midget on a unicycle. Though he thoroughly denied the midget's existence, I know what I saw. After I switched out the box he asked me to install an outlet in another room. I went into the basement to see how everything was routed. And it turned out there was already an outlet in that room. The guy offered me coffee. He also gave me his business card. It was like he didn't want me to leave.
The next job was at a house a little to the East. The woman here runs a certified daycare out of her house. Though the whole time I was there I only saw one kid. The kid looked exactly like Dora the Explorer. I just gave her a new remote.
The last job was at a town home complex towards the south. The reception on her TV was horribly. So I chanted and did some divination rites and it was made clear to me that the problem was the cable going from the VHS machine to the TV. I replaced that and everything was fixed. Afterwards I headed home.

Today I went to place called the nether regions. I had yet to have been there. Maybe I wasn't ready. This place is on the other side of the eastern suburbs. It's extremely quite out there, eerily so. An area I considered to be rather new. But someone told me they moved there 10 years ago. I didn't even know this place even existed then. I always considered this place to be as affluent as Plastic Land, since I considered it new. But in fact it isn't. The cars and trucks are all 20 to 30 years old and the lawns are unkept. It's not unlike just about anywhere else in town really. Consequentially both time and space end about 5 miles to the east. I had a friend who considered himself some sort of Columbus and tried to see how far he could go. I haven't seen or heard from him since.
The first house I went to was answered by a Hawaiian woman. She complained about a crackling noise over the phone and that her phone calls would drop out. i told her that it was the government listening to her phone calls. Those incompetent fucks can't even do that without it being blatantly obvious. So I eliminated the outside phone line thus clearing up the problem. She also asked me about one of her cable boxes. It wasn't getting a couple of the HBO channels. So I swapped the box as well.
Afterwards I picked up a couple more jobs. The first was a little further south. I opened the door to a women with a facial piercing and a Bob Marley shirt. There were at least 5 kids running around. One white and the others hispanic. She must babysit these kids. The modem was in the basement. There was a bed down there next to the computer as well as a mostly empty Jack Daniel's bottle, some make up. I was looking for a web cam or something, it just looked like the perfect setting for an online sex show of some sort. I saw a porno mag sticking out as well. The whole time I was there she would sit behind me watching my every movement, while the kids were upstairs doing god knows what. All I needed to do was replace the modem, which I did rather quickly, for I didn't necessarily feel too comfortable in the situation. The whole time I was there she kept getting closer and closer to me. As I finished up she put her hand on my shoulder and asked if I needed to be anywhere at the moment. Freaked out, I mentioned that she should be watching the kids. She said they pretty much just watch themselves. At which point I told her I really needed to get going and took off.
The next job was only a few blocks north. There was an older black couple here. At first I only saw the wife. But as I was working on the phone the husband snuck up behind me. As I turned around I noticed he quickly hid something behind his back. The problem was a fairly quick fix. But I noticed other problems as well, so I tried to fix them as well. The husband followed me around as I worked inside and out. I had to keep an eye on him. Above the computer I noticed a piece of paper that looked like an admittance of previous drug use, maybe from NA or something. We tested the alarm as well. Everyone out here has alarms. But it is so isolated out here I'm not sure why. Unless maybe they've seen or read "In Cold Blood." As I was leaving the alarm announced my opening the door. At which point the husband made a joke that he installed the alarm so that it would announce his kids coming home in the wee hours of the evening.
Afterwards I called in to dispatch and there was no jobs left in the area, so I was able to go back into town. I picked up a job in my part town. This was a nice house, newly refurbished. The guy her began complaining right away, that three other techs as well as our network technicians have all been to his place to no avail. I asked him how the place was wired and he mentioned a splitter in the wall. I opened the wall up and sure enough that was the problem. I don't know who these other people were, but what a bunch of fucking idiots. It was the first thing I looked at. The worst part is I get this often. Customers will say I'm the second or third tech to have showed up. How the hell does nobody else catch this shit.
At the next job Iw as greeted at the door by a large black woman. She apologized for the mess and mentioned she had a kid who just took off for college. Then she led me to the basement. There was a furnished room with it's own bathroom there. It must have been her kids room. this is where the computer is. The place wreaked of shit. Like there is sewage blockage or something. I could see a porno in the top drawer of the dresser and wondered who that belonged too. Her or her kid? The levels looked fine, but for some reason I couldn't get the modem to work. Everything looked fine, I had to go into the neighbor's backyard to look at the pole. I knocked at the neighbor's door and nobody answered so I just went into the backyard. From there I noticed the line to the house needed to be replaced. I was setting up my ladder in the customers backyard between a tree and an old rusty metal pole once used for a clothes line. I noticed a yellow jacket sitting on the pole, sitting perfectly still. I knew right away he was guarding a nest in the pole. Then I saw a second one. they were both staring at me, watching my every move. So I went back to my van and got the wasp killer, and took them out (I think I heard a guitar and solitary trumpet in the distance). But they were tough. They would fly away and come back a few minutes later. Then I would spay them again. To replace the line I had to go through a tree and over a garage. Normally I would splice the old line to the new one and pull it through, but it fell apart halfway through, so I had to get on the roof of the garage. As I was at the pole in the neighbors yard, the police showed up. They asked why I didn't notify the person living there as to what I was doing, I told them I knocked. They knocked and a frail old lady answered the door. They tried talking to her but she was obviously hard of hearing, so they kept having to shout. They stopped after not too long out of frustration and left. I went back to work. Once I had all that finished I went back inside to make sure that the modem was finally working, then I went on my way.
Dispatch gave me a job from some tech who was running behind. This house was only a block or two from the last one. There was a lanky old man here. He must live here alone. The place was extremely quiet. Everything about the place was very old. The TVs the fan. The guy himself just sat there quietly and watched me. I knew from the way the dispatcher described them problem that I needed to replace the cable box. I had one more job to do so I tried to finish this as quickly as possible.
The last job was further north. There was a nice lady here. She had a very friendly dog. I got the impression from looking around that she is a teacher. It took me a long time to figure out what exactly the problem was. I was there so long she offered me dinner at one point. She kept talking about having had someone come out to fix the electrical circuit in the laundry room. I told her it would have no effect on the phone at all. But she wouldn't shut up about it. I think she could sense my annoyance about this. Her roommate came home eventually, but I didn't really talk to her. She seemed rather shy. In the end it turned out to be a phone line that someone ran over with a lawn mower leaving it exposed to the elements. This caused the system to short. Of course I didn't figure this out until I had been there at least and hour. It would have saved me a lot of time to have figured that out earlier. I wouldn't have had to go into that crawl space either. I got bit by some spider down there. I never did see the offending party. I hope it won't be a problem. It does itch a bit. I think it's swelling too.

My first job was at an apartment building in the southeast part of town. I did an install here once months ago. Outside the air was filled with the scent of bagels. It actually smelled like an everything bagel to be more precise. I got up to the unit and no one answered the door. I called and stilled no one answered so I was about to call it a not at home, when a guy finally answered the door. He obviously just woke up, he had no shirt on. Something about him made me think he is samoan. The place was a complete mess. I saw several screens and video games laying about. He must seriously be into video games. I quickly realized he must have been disconnected. When I got to the box outside I his line had been cut and there was a note on it. Some other cable guy put a note saying that who ever was helping this guy steal cable is going to be found and fired. But if I'm here on a trouble call this account is legitimate so I don't know what the hell that guy was talking about. So I hooked it back up and put a note saying that the account was legit and people need to quit fucking cutting it.
The next job was further north. It was an apartment complex. The woman here was not getting Internet. She said normally she wouldn't even notice it because she's working all the time, but she's been sick lately, so she was homebound. At which point I thought to myself, "Exactly how sick?" and "Should I be concerned?" But I said nothing. Everything looked fine and all the levels looked good. So I looked around for a possible problem. When I was outside near our box I almost walked into a large intricate spider web. It was a beautiful design. It reminded me of when I was kid in California. Me and my mom lived in this one house with a pine tree in the front yard. A wolf spider living in that tree would make these large intricate webs. On the weekends when I would mow the lawn I would always end up walking through it. Anyways I found nothing wrong outside. The only problem was this one connector that looked old but was in the wall. So I had to spend a little time replacing it from the outside.
The next job was back near where the first one was. The woman who answered the door was beautiful. We talked a while and it turned out that she worked at an urban development firm with some people I know from playing trivia with at the bar. Her computer wasn't getting a good IP address. I looked all over the place and found a litany of things wrong. But none of it worked. Eventually her boyfriend showed up. I was there for a long while trying everything I could think of, but eventually the problem turned out to be her computer. She was not very happy at this news. She said she really needed to get some things done today. I felt bad. But at the same time I was there for a long time and needed to get moving along.
I found a bathroom and headed to the next job. There was a woman here and her son. She wasn't getting any TV in one room. I replaced a connector outside and that fixed most of the problem but not all of it. At this point the lady noticed my last name and started getting worked up about it. Apparently it's her maiden name. She asked me if I was Jewish which I thought was weird because I usually get asked that in regards to my first name not my last. But her Father told her that if she ever ran into any Jews of Polish or Russian descent with the same last name then they are related. The thing is it's a French name. She honestly thought for a second I might be a long lost relative. So I then replaced the whole line to that room which took a long while and produced no avail. I tried a couple other things, which did not work and finally replaced the cable box. That finally did it. She admitted to me that she didn't even know she had those channels. In fact she didn't even realize she had HBO until her son moved back in with her. She said he moved back in because he didn't realize that life costs money.
Next I hurriedly headed west. This was a nice house little house. They were still moving in. In fact they were putting together furniture when I arrived. The guy here was very laid back and personable, in fact he reminded me of my Uncle Joe. The Internet wasn't working at all. I looked and found all sorts of bad connectors and unnecessary splitters. This install must have been done by a contractor. So I went around and made everything right and got it working again.
Afterwards I headed down south to another house that was recently installed. The first thing to grab my attention when I walked in was a very interesting cubist style painting laying on the ground in the hallway. It was pretty obvious right away that the problem was the box, so I didn't waste any time in replacing it. In the back corner of the living room was a case for antiques full of porcelain heads of women. Nobody in particular. Some looked 50's, some look British victorian era. I thought that was an odd thing to collect for a guy that didn't look any older than me.
The last job was towards the University. This was a very nice house as they all are in this area. The door was answered by a nervous kid. I wasn't even sure if he was 18. His sister was there too. She looked young as well, maybe a little older than him. The place was oddly quiet and immaculate, like a museum. I began to wonder if they lived here alone. Just about all the pictures I saw was just the two of them. I asked the boy whether he was going to the University, he said he was in some art program at the minute but wanted to go to a different school university in the area next year. This answer didn't satisfy my curiosity at all, but something held me back from just straight up asking them about their parents. I guess I was scared it might be a touchy subject. The only logons to the computer was theirs. It definitely seemed that they were living there by themselves. This was an awfully big and fancy place for a couple of kids to live in by themselves.

My first job of the day was at an apartment complex. The address looked familiar but once I got inside the apartment it didn't look familiar. There was a young woman who answered the door. She was wearing a Einstein Bros. uniform. She said nothing was working and that a tech had been out there a couple months ago told her he was going to look for a splitter and never came back. I went to the internet and saw it was disconnected and when I hooked it up the TV in the living room started working. I knew right away that there was a splitter that was hooked up backwards. But I could not find it. I spent about an hour looking for it and exhausted all avenues. The only reasonable explanation was that it was behind a wall. The woman told me that the place belonged to her roommates grandmother who is senile and in a nursing home. I looked back at my paperwork and saw that I was actually there back in January. I remember clearly that there was an old woman here. She had changed the channel on her TV so she was getting cable through the box. I had to leave this job without being able to complete it. But the Internet was working when I left, which was the main reason i was there.
The next job was at a town home complex. It took a while for the gentleman to answer the door. He complained about his hip when he did. He said that the box went out and missed most of the college games yesterday. As I was looking into the problem he proceeded to tell me about his hip problems. He said he used to have a steel hip. He went elk hunting. He shot one and as he was prepping it he started getting terrible pains. Once he got back into town he was diagnosed with a staph infection so they had to remove it. So now he has nothing but something to keep the bones from grinding up against each other as he tries to get around. He said he sells ceramic things for gardens to wall mart and such. He didn't go into detail, perhaps he was talking about lawn ornaments. It turned out I needed to get up into the attic to solve the problem.
One of my afternoon jobs was only a few doors down. I went there and the lady said she wanted to be a router and asked if I would help her install it. I said I would but that meant I couldn't work on her place now, I would have to come back latter. So I went to lunch.
After lunch I went to an apartment near the hospitals. The door was answered by a man who doesn't look older than me but has been salt and pepper hair. He led me upstairs to the bedroom where the modem is. I noticed on the way up the other room was full of DJ gear. In the bedroom I noticed a picture of his girlfriend naked wearing a collar. There was another picture of the two of them naked and kissing. The problem was the modem, so I didn't spend a lot of time there. The girlfriend came out of the shower and said hi to me. I think she looked more attractive in the picture.
The next job was an apartment that I did the install on a couple weeks ago. There is an attractive woman here. Her mom was there as well. She showed me where the modem is. It turned out to be the modem as well, so I helped her set up her router and we talked a while. She's about to graduate with a Bachelor's in Economics. Though she is really a dancer. She spends her free time with a local dance group that does modern dance performances. Though she recognizes that she can't really earn a living doing that. I though about asking her out but remembered that the last time I was here there was a guy here who I assume is her boyfriend so I decided against it.
I went back to the town homes. The woman was here with her kid. The place was a disaster. Like a hurricane ripped through here. I got the impression she was raising the kid alone. The kid was in the back filling a tire, that was lying on its side, with water so he could play in it. The modem was in the basement. It became apartment that to fix this I would have to get in the attic again, which I really did not want to do. I thought about it for a while and realized that I could do something to get around going in the attic. So I did that and set up her router.
The last job was in one of the poorest neighborhoods in town. A man opened the door. The house looks like it has been let go a bit, but he is fixing it up. He has obviously put a lot of work in the place and it looked nice. He put cable outlets in every room, so his signal was way to low. When he told me it was all going through the attic my heart sank. I went up there and there was a bit of work to be done. The longer I stayed up there it was harder to breathe, because the heat got more and more oppressive. In fact it reminds me of a sweat lodge in this regards. At first you think it isn't too bad. Then your sweating profusely. Next your breathing becomes more and more labored. I was drenched in sweat by the end. Once I was finished I headed straight home.