My day started in the country club area. I was greeted at the door by an old well dressed man. His wife was in a bathrobe. He wasn't getting a whole bunch of channels on the one TV with the cable box and the other TVs were getting bad reception. I thought it might be the line to the house, so I went ahead and replaced it. While I was working in the alleyway on two occasions someone drove up and asked me to move my van. In any other part of town people will see that I'm working respect that and find a different path. Only in the wealthy part of town am I expected to drop everything and get out of the way. When I finished the line it turned out to not fix the problem. The problem for the TV with the cable box was a connector behind the wall plate. To fix the other TV that had reception problem I needed to get on the roof of a sun-room. When I had finally finished this job I was late for my next job.
The next job was in resort town. The door was answered by a frail old woman. She was watching The View and Tony Bennett was on. She complained about the box flickering in and out. I never saw this happen, but I went ahead and replaced the box. At one point her daughter came out of the bathroom in a bathrobe brushing her teeth. She then went into her room and laid on her bed. At which point she complained that the box in her room was doing the same thing, so I replaced it as well.
When I took off I headed to a very poor neighborhood. This apartment building I had never been to before. There was a playground in the courtyard and a sign in front saying that kids can only play on it until 7 p.m. A black woman opened the door and said everything was working. I checked it out and agreed. So I canceled the job and moved on.
The next job was an apartment building near prostitute row. The guy here spoke in a slow deliberate manner that reminded me of my grandfather in North Dakota. I needed to replace his box. I asked if he had the day off from work. He said he doesn't work anymore, he's disabled. Then he said that everyone in the building is disabled, it's all HUD housing. I asked him what happened. He said that he is mentally unstable. About 20 years ago he had his own business then one day he ended up in a hospital and lost his business, his wife and family. He's lived in this place ever since.
Afterwards I ran some errands and headed to my first afternoon job. A woman answered the door. There were a couple of cats about. I asked what happened she pointed to the cat currently sitting on top of the cable box and said that it puked in the cable box, it hasn't worked since. So I replaced it.
The next job was a house by the hospitals. A young guy answered the door. He had two dogs. One was a puppy and wouldn't quit jumping all over me. He was missing a few HD channels. One shows a lot of Hockey, which I could tell the guy was really into. I replaced a couple connectors but could not find what the problem was, everything looked fine. I called a couple guys, but could not figure it out. Then I went to replace a splitter and everything looked fine. I wasn't quite confident that it fixed the problem, but I had spent too much time here already, so I left.
The next job was at an apartment building. As I approached the apartment I could smell marijuana. Really good marijuana. There was a gay guy here rearranging his apartment. He said his roommate was gone at work and he was going to rearrange the place before he had to go to work. Nothing was working, so I replaced the box.
My last job was at another apartment building. A young guy met me in the hallway, he was very nice and friendly. His girlfriend had an English accent. They weren't getting some channels. I replaced the connector behind the wall plate but that didn't fix it. So I went outside and saw some old lines to the building. I moved the customer to a different drop and the channels came back. I then called dispatch and set up an appointment for someone to come and replace the lines to the building.

Tuesday

Today I started at a town home complex. I was supposed to call ahead but had forgot, so I called and left a message. Then I headed to the next job which was in a gated community. I was here to replace their box. They complained about the picture being a little fuzzy and would brake up on occasion. So I replaced the box. I think they wanted a smaller box but I had none. I got called by dispatch who dumped another job on me for the morning.
This job was in an apartment building on one of the main thoroughfares in town. This place is run down. A black woman answered the door and said her box wasn't working. She then took a shower to get ready for work. I hooked the box up and it was working fine. So I watched TV and waited for her to get out of the shower.
Next I finally headed to the first job. The guy was not too much older than me. He spent the whole time sitting at the kitchen table watching a DVD on his computer and drinking vodka out of a bottle. He said he has gone through several cable boxes with the same problem. It would keep blacking out on all the channels. I called a line tech and he said he could meet me down there latter. So I told the guy I would be back latter with some help.
I went to my next job which was back in the gated community. I was greeted by a woman on the phone. It seemed she was trying to set up a medical appointment for her kid. Every connector in the place was bad, which took me a while to replace. Afterwards the TV in her kids room would still not get Toon Disney. It took me a while but I figured out it was the TV its self.
Then I headed to a town-home complex. A woman answered the door. She said her Internet was not working and she had to get to work in about an hour. Everything looked fine, so I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. So I just replaced the modem. Which turned out to be a problem. It turned out she was a masseuse. The basement had a massage table and had all sorts of lovely aromatherapy type odors. As I was finishing up she came down and started to light some candles and play some Indian/New Age music.
Then I went back to the first job again. The line tech was already there and watching TV outside. We determined the problem was not outside, so we headed back in. Sure enough the guy was still watching movies and drinking vodka. We tracked it back to the box. I don't know what the odds are that he got four bad boxes. But if you look inside the box you can see what looks like a brown substance had been spilled inside. I showed the customer this and he said he couldn't have done it, he doesn't drink anything brown.
Next I went to a house. The door was answered by a black guy. He seemed very slow. Like burnout slow. He wasn't getting some channels, and he asked me to move the box into the other room. I decided to move the box first, in case that killed two birds with one stone. Which it did. When I brought the box into the other room there was another black guy there. He didn't say much.
I headed out of there quick, because I was running behind. I then headed to a retirement complex. This was actually a problem I had already been out here for about a month ago. Nothing had been done since then, so I had been sent back. I explained to people in charge again what they needed to do to fix this. Then I explained it to the actual resident with the problem.
Then I headed to a town-home complex. This was the actually the neighbor of my friend. He couldn't get all of channels to work on his new box. I replaced everything. It turned out to be the line going to the unit, which required me to get on the roof to replace. The guy would not stop asking me questions the whole time. Most of the questions were stupid. He would also follow me around and observe my every action. It was very annoying. Afterwards I talked to my friend a bit and headed home.

monday

My first job of the day was in a high rise apartment complex. There was a bunch of police and fire trucks down the road at the 7/11. I had to park a block away. The door was answered by a short Hispanic guy. His wife was cooking and it smelled nice. He complained that his phone didn't sound right, though of course it sounded fine at the moment. I checked the levels and everything looked fine. So I ended up canceling the job and moving on.
The next job was another apartment building. No one answered at first, I was still a little early. As I was heading back to my van a lady yelled out to me, so I headed back to the building and I was buzzed in. A black lady opened the door. She apologized for the delayed reaction, I had woke her up. She said she worked a sporting event last night, and was mad that the local team didn't win. She mentioned that she was working another sporting event tonight. The only problem I found was a low signal. I rearranged some things to get things within spec.
I then headed into one of the poorer neighborhoods I work. I called when I got there and left a message. Then I waited for a while. I was about to call it not at home, when I got a call from dispatch saying the customer would be there in a couple minutes. A black woman finally showed up, she let me in and the place was a mess. She said she had just moved back here and and didn't know how to hook everything back up. It didn't take too long, she hit me up for some batteries as well. I had a job this afternoon on the same block with the exact same phone number, I asked her about it and she said it was her aunt.
I took an early lunch and then headed to my first afternoon job early. There was an elderly Jewish couple here. The wife wanted new boxes because supposedly they work better. I'm really not sure of that, but I only had one of the newer boxes on me so I only replaced one. They also wanted me to hook up their equipment through their surround system. I was able to get it all working.
Next I headed to a house in a part of town I never thought too highly of. This house was actually very nice, it made me wonder if this neighborhood might be on the way up. I called and a young woman answered and said she would be there in about 15 minutes. When I showed up her phone and Internet and phone were not working. I reset her EMTA and it started to work again. But I went ahead and replaced it just in case.
Then I headed back into the poorer neighborhoods. I was greeted by an old black guy, he said he was really tires. He just got off work, driving trucks all day. He pointed me towards the phone. I was able to figure out right away what was wrong. I found some other things that were wrong which I fixed. We talked a little, he was nice. His wife came home from work as well. The two of them together were almost a caricature, like the Jeffersons.
At this point it was too early to go home, so I picked up one more job. This was in the country club part of town. This place was pretty large. I was greeted by a woman who said she was a cleaning lady and she said that I should be able to do the job outside. Which it looked like I should. I went up the pole and found nothing wrong. Which meant I needed to get inside. When I got back down the woman who lived here had finally arrived. She said off the bat she knew little about my job. Yet every time I tried to explain what was wrong to her, she refuted it. She would not listen to my explanations. It was so frustrating. Her phone were not working because of a splitter that I could not find. It was in a wall. Whoever remodeled this place had done a shitty job. I tried to convince her to let me move it. But she wouldn't, so eventually I had to run a new outlet. When I had this finished the TVs ended up worse. At this point it was dark outside and she was obviously frustrated with me, so she wanted me to reschedule the job for tomorrow which I did.

My first job of the day was a little duplex. A lanky guy answered the door. It looked like he lives here alone. He was switching from satellite to cable. These jobs are always pretty easy. I just had to run a new line to the unit, which was right next to the pole. After that point I just had to put a couple of DVRs to install. We talked a little bit about the World Series game the night before.
The next job was switching out an HD box for a DVR. An old man greeted me at the door. He started to ask me if it records DVDs, I told him no. He then asked me to set up his DVD recorder so that he can record stuff. It took me a little while to figure out, but I got it going. He has two TVs set up so he could watch several sports teams at once. HE kept talking and talking to me, it took me a while to get out.
The next job was at an apartment complex. This was a verify service, which meant I go to box on the outside where everything is hooked up and make sure that it all looks exactly as it should. Which I did. The weird thing is I had been to this particular unit not too long ago. It was the one where I needed to set up a VCR/DVD combo but it wasn't compatible. I told him to get some new equipment. I wonder if this job was somehow mis-booked. Either way it was set up so I don't have to make contact, so I didn't.
After this I wanted to go straight to my next job, but no one was home. So I took a lunch. After lunch I went to this house, it was on a busy street. There was a young guy here, I guess he just bought the place. He said a previous tech had been here and said he couldn't do the job. All it required was to drill a hole through the floor in a closet. Granted I had to run a bunch of cable, but it wasn't too difficult. Just time consuming. The guy left me to my work, which was nice. He did mention that he worked with my company once a while back, probably as a contractor. He seemed to know a lot about cable.
The last job was at a new town-home complex. No one was there when I showed up. I called and a woman answered. She said she had just gotten out of pre-op and would be there in 5 minutes. I did what I could from the outside and waited for her. The woman showed up with her wrist in a brace. She said she broke a wrist bone and needed surgery. I asked if she needed to go back and she said no, but she did need to get to a Girl Scout function for her daughter. She had a really old, cool looking typewriter in her place. They were still unpacking. Her TV was a piece of shit, you had to jiggle the connection in the back to get the picture to show up right. She said she got the worse of the two TVs in the divorce, but she was happy with that arrangement. Anyways I worked fast to get out of there and get home.

We had no meeting today, though I still had to get up early. It just meant I got an early start on my day. My first job was at a nice large house. I had to wake the people up. I figure if you schedule an appointment for 7 am, I get to wake your ass up at 7 am. I just had to swap a cable box for an HD box. Which I did very quickly. At one point while I was working I got up and turned around and a little kid was behind me. She proceeded to cry and run away.
The next job was up north in a neighborhood I don't find myself too often. At first no one answered, but I was a little early so I waited in my van a while. When it came time I knocked on the door again and a black guy answered and let me in. He then went to the basement and came back up with a woman. She said her husband had set up the appointment for tomorrow, because he wanted to be there and currently he was in a meeting. So I rescheduled the job.
This left me with most of my morning free. So I picked up a bunch of disconnects to keep myself busy. These were very uneventful, since you don't go into people's home's to do this. The last one was near my place, so I went home and had some lunch.
Afterwards I went to my next job. It was an install. It was a scrape off, which wasn't even finished. The place was huge. It had a wine cellar and a theater. There was an army of A/V guys here. The guy in charge showed me what was going on. They had everything done for me. I was given all afternoon for this job, and it only took me about an hour.
Once finished I called into dispatch and picked up one more job. The guy here was complaining about his phone having been down in the morning. He said he was told that one of his neighbors was also down. This told me it was an outage, which I told him. He was also having trouble viewing our web page. I knew it had changed recently. It turned out that his Linksys router wouldn't let us view it. I wonder how widespread of a problem this is.

It took me forever to wake up today. I tried my hardest not to fall asleep at the wheel on the way into the shop. My first job was in plasticland. This place was in a series of town homes. A woman answered the door. She told me she just wanted me to move the EMTA into a room upstairs. She had a a couple of dogs that wouldn't quit barking at me and a very friendly cat. The job didn't take too long which was nice, because I had got a late jump on the day.
The next job was in the resort town. A skinny white trash looking guy opened the door. He showed me to his modem. He was getting a very low signal. He seemed to understand cable theory a bit, but he used some low quality stuff to rig his apartment. I went around to all the outlets to try and improve the signal. I went into another room and his daughter was on the bed in her PJ's. She looked about 18. She quickly got up and left the room. She then went outside to smoke. I wondered if she should be in school right now. I couldn't figure out what would cause so much signal loss unless it's just bad cables in the walls. The only thing I could do was go outside and boost the signal from out there.
The next job was at a large house. An asian guy answered the door and explained the problems he was having. I checked out the signal and it seemed abnormally low. I went outside and up to the tap. The signal seemed low up there as well so I turned it over to our line tech.
Next I headed to another house a few blocks away. No one was there. I had a note to repair the line to the house from the outside. the pole was in the neighbor's yard. It looked like someone had taken out the cable line and a phone line at the same time. I'm not entirely sure how though. I fixed the line and then canceled the job, because I had no way of verifying that everything was working correctly.
I skipped lunch in order to jump ahead. I went to a apartment complex. The door was answered by a large Muslim fellow. The place had almost no furniture in it. I was there to fix his phones. His EMTA had de-provisioned itself, so I just needed to make a simple phone call to tech support and have them fix that. I also rerouted some stuff because he had the place set up for at least 3 different TV's, even though he only had one.
Next I headed to a house. The guy here showed me the TV and said he was getting sound but no picture. I couldn't even change the inputs or access the menu on the TV so I told him the problem was his TV. He seemed to take that pretty well. You never know when it comes to flat screens, how someone will react to that news.
Next I headed to another house. Here I had to fix their internet and activate a phone outlet in their bedroom. I had actually been to this house before. I spent a couple hours here in May. I remember the hail storm that hit while I was there. The woman here remembered me as well. The problem with the internet was that their ethernet card quit working, so I routed it through USB. The phone was another problem. I spent a couple hours trying to get this one outlet to work. It kept disrupting the whole system. Eventually I narrowed it down to the phone itself. I just wish it didn't take so long.
Next I headed to a retirement community. There was a very frail woman here who asked me to program her universal controller, get her phone working, amongst other things. As for her phone, it wasn't plugged in. The remote was easy to program. She then asked me to change her answering machine message which I did. She then started to ask me about some random problem with her TV. But it was nothing I had heard of before and everything looked fine, so I convinced her it was a freak accident. She kept talking and talking to me. At this point I was running late and desperately wanted to move on to my last job, but it took me a while to get out the door.
My last job was a house. A guy answered the door and started throwing some attitude my way. I frankly didn't care. I just wanted to go home. He started to ask me all sorts of computer questions, it turned out he's a computer nerd. Everything was working fine at the moment and he was content to leave it that way. So was I, but then he asked me about the fact that he was missing discovery channel. This mean I would have to go up the pole. Unfortunately the pole was in his neighbor;s yard on the opposite side. I ran over there and got the job done as quickly as possible, then came back. Once finished I canceled the job. This was due to the fact that the internal wiring of the place was a mess. Apparently he doesn't live here, this is his girlfriend's place. Her ex-husband had decided to wire the place and used the cheapest stuff possible, so it's all a mess. Which is why I canceled it, to avoid a repeat.

Thursday

My first job today was at a huge house. The guy here slowly made his way to let me in. He said he just had surgery and was still recovering. For some reason it didn't occur to me at the time to ask exactly where he had surgery. But he didn't want to go up the stairs, so he told me where to go to find the telephone. He was having issues with his phone. But there wasn't anything I could do about it. I called my tech support and they fixed it. There was no reason for my having to show up here.
I was called by dispatch. Another tech was running late so they asked me to pick up another job. I picked up a job that wasn't too far away. This was an apartment building I've been in before. This building is largely occupied by retirees. The particular room I went to was a guest room, for I guess when family is in town. The TV was hooked up to the antennae and not cable. The cable wasn't hooked up either. All in all, it was an easy job.
Next I headed to plasticland. When I arrived there was a note on the door saying I should call a number. When I called the woman was out of breathe saying she would be up in a second. She was working out in the basement. She showed me where her phone was and described what had happened. She moved the phone and unplugged the EMTA. Which set off the alarm. She didn't realize that the EMTA is what actually works the phone, so she thought it was alright to disconnect it. I just made a splitter for her so that both could be hooked up.
Next I headed to an apartment building not too far from where I live. In fact my next three jobs were within a one block radius. And the one after that is only 3 blocks away. This apartment was cluttered. They had both a dog and a cat. A gay couple lived here, though only one was here. They were having phone troubles. It looked like the EMTA needed to be replaced. Which didn't take too long.
Afterwards I called my first afternoon job which was up the block. They said someone was there for three hours earlier and got everything fixed. So I cancelled the job and headed to my next afternoon job. This was also up the block. There was a woman here with her kid, I got the impression there was no guy around, that she was raising the kid by herself. The place smelled like shit when I walked in. She apologized and said the puppy shat everywhere while she was in the shower and she has been trying to clean it up. She was having Internet problems. I was there for about 2 hours. I replaced the modem and messed with all sorts of settings, but I could not get it to work. There was something wrong with her computer. The whole time I was there her kid kept trying to get in my face and ask me questions. He would not stop talking the whole time either. She even offered to make me a latte at one point.
Afterwards I headed to my last job. This was a duplex about two blocks from where I live. There was a woman here, I could tell she had a child as well, who was probably napping. She explained what the problem was, but it sounded weird from the way she described it. I called tech support to see if everything was correct on their side. They said it was so I switched out the EMTA. The whole time I was there the woman insisted on talking. I don't know if she was little lonely or what.
Once I was finished it was about 3 p.m. and there was no work left to do so I went home and hung out for a while before going back to the shop to drop off my equipment. Only to go back home again.

Wednesday

After the morning meeting I was given a rider. He was a cool guy, he works at the call center. He was itching to help out, but there wasn't much I was comfortable in giving him, without any proper training.
I only had one job this morning, it was an install. The house was a scrape off. This meant I had to run a new line to the house, which wasn't too bad. They were still moving into the house. The wife was clueless. She would talk about the round white thingy with the one part sticking out (her wireless router). So talking to her was a little frustrating. In the main room the TV was on one side of the fireplace and there was conduit running wires behind the fireplace to the other side where the cable box and other electronics like the DVD and the stereo. But none of the cables had ends. Not only that but there was no electrical outlet there at all. Which made the cables useless. I told the couple they should complain about this, but the husband said that he got the place kind of cheap actually because whoever built it abandoned the project (probably ran out of money). The job wasn't very difficult. When I was done we were able to take our time with lunch and get to the next job early.
The next job was a house right on one of the busier streets in town. The woman here didn't really care about anything. Whenever I asked her about anything she would just responded with, I don't know. She was watching Sex and the City for most of the time we were there. Her kid was running around the whole time as well. She had a dog in the yard. It was an ugly dog but it was avery rambunctious, excited dog. To do the job I had to go into the neighbor's yard. The whole time I was in the neighbor's yard the dog would jump up and I could see it's head rise above the fence. The job took a while because she had a dish, so I had to try a figure out which lines, went where. Not only that but the boxes I brought in weren't working, so I had to replace those. I hate when I get bad equipment from the warehouse.
The last job was at an apartment complex. There was an older woman here. She is an optometrist who just moved here from Maryland. She was from Sweden originally. There were all sorts of little gnomes around her apartment. She said she was looking forward to the snow. The job was pretty easy. I was trying to rush through it so that I could go home. She was trying to be talkative by I wasn't too receptive, so I let the rider do the talking. Afterwards I had to go back to the shop to drop the rider off.

Tuesday

My day started at an apartment building. There was a carriage in the entry way/lounge. There was an older woman here. She didn't have much furniture. To hook her up I had to get on the roof. The roof had a puddle of standing water that was about an inch to two inches thick. To the north I could see a brown cloud hovering over the city. The woman was nice. She manages a fancy fusion style restaurant in town. I asked her what exactly fusion is and she proceeded to list off what is on their menu, but I didn't feel that she answered my question. As I was hooking up her Internet she proceeded to exclaim that a lot has change since she's been gone. I asked how long she had been gone and she said 6 years. At this point I assumed she had been out of the country working at restaurants in Asia or something. I asked where she had been and she said she was in jail. At this point I felt like asking what for, but it felt a little rude to do so. It also occurred to me that no one serves their full term in prison anymore, so to actually have been away for 6 years seems rather serious.
The next job was a condo in a nice building. When I arrived I couldn't get in contact with the customer to let me in. So I had to call it not at home. I read a while in the park then I headed to my one afternoon install early. There was a young couple here, they were just moving in. They seemed really nice and accommodating. To do the job I would have to run a new line to the house. This involved getting into the neighbor's yard and the neighbor had two rather mean looking dogs that would not stop barking at me. I talked to the customer and basically we were going to have to reschedule the job for when the neighbor could put their dogs away.
So I had to pick up a bunch more jobs. The next one was the last job I was at the day before. The woman was complaining about the fact that her channels were not changing. The problem was a setting on the box that must have been changed somehow. She seemed really frustrated by the past two days. So I replaced the box to make her think that it was the problem, then I left.
The next job was a house. In front of the house there was a glass table, the kind with an umbrella that sticks out, but no umbrella. On it was a brown ash tray full of water and a bungee chord. There was a cat in the window which I played with a bit. No one answered the door so I called it not at home.
The next job was at an apartment building to the east. No one answered the door so I called the woman. She said she thought the appointment was later, so we had to reschedule it.
Next I headed to some apartments a little west right next to the Interstate. A couple of young woman were here. One of them had a kitten in her hoodie she was holding like a child. The just sat there silently. Neither of them talked to me. I was there to install the TV. It wasn't a difficult job, so I wasn't there very long.
Next I headed east again. No answered at this apartment either so I called it not at home as well. I picked up one last job at an apartment building on the way home. There was a woman a younger man and someone who seemed trans-gendered her. The guy hardly talked at all. There was an air of akwardness/conspicuous silence about him that made me wonder if he was stoned. They had a very cute little kitten running around the whole time. I was there to give them picture in picture, which was very easy. I finished and headed home.

My day started at a house that had been divided into two units. There was a young woman here. I asked her if she got the morning off of work, she said she was a student and had class later in the day. She is a Political Science major and this is her last semester. I asked what she was going to do next, and she said she didn't know. I was there to replace her DVR. She had one of the crappy ones. I didn't really feel like having a conversation but it was too quiet not too. This was actually a very nice place, especially for a student.
The next job was at an apartment complex. I actually did the original install for this unit. He was getting some strange distortion on the digital channels. Everything else was fine. The guy worked from home, but was doing nothing. He had no work for the day. That's one hell of a Monday! The problem turned out to be in the network which was out of my hands, so I turned it over to a line tech.
The next job was in the retirement community. But no one answered the door so I called it not at home and headed to the next job which was at an apartment complex. A dirty looking white guy answered the door. The place was kind of filthy and a complete mess. He pointed me towards the bedroom where his TV is. He asked me to set up his VCR, because the previous tech who had replaced the box didn't do it. He had one of those DVD/VCR combos. The problem was that the DVD/VCR combo did not have a coax hookup and the TV only had coax. So I couldn't help the guy at all. I asked if this was the same VCR he had before the previous tech had shown up. He tried to tell me yes, but he was a terrible liar. He had obviously just bought this. I tried to explain to him what needed to happen to get it hooked up, but I don't think he understood at all.
At this point I took a long lunch and then headed to my next job. This place I was at last week. This place is in the country club area. It has the nanny which took off. Thankfully all their shit was still there but they were still having the same problem. Apparently a tech showed up the very next day and repeated me, but did nothing. The only way I could fix this problem was by drilling a hole into the crawl space and running a new line. The crawl space was pretty clean but there was no room, I literally had to crawl around on my belly.
My next job was at a house a just off of prostitute row. There was a hispanic woman here. She spent most of the time that I was there on the phone. I looked around and saw that the cable was damaged on the outside of the house. It looked like someone had grabbed a hold of the cable and yanked on it. I told the woman this and she said she had no clue who could have done that. She was obviously full of shit. What's with people lying today?
The next job was up in the poorer neighborhoods. A woman answered the door and showed me her TV. She said it was making this horrible buzzing noise. It was obviously the cable box, so I replaced it. At some point a guy came in and said hi then left.
I was out of work so I picked up one more job. This was at the polo grounds. It was an area I hadn't been too yet. There was an old woman here, which seemed to be typical of these gated communities. She led me to a TV and began to explain what happened. But it was something I have never heard before. I was tempted to say it was her TV but she said it happened to her TV in the kitchen as well. But it never happened the whole time I was there. We sat there and watched the TV for a while, and then I told someone must have been working in the area. Nothing was definitely happening now though, so I cancelled the job.

My day started at a town-home complex. It's a very rainy and cold day so I waited a little while in my van while listening to Will Short's puzzles on NPR. Eventually I went up to the door. No one answered and the phone number on my paper work was disconnected. So I called it in as not at home.
The next job was at an apartment building. I actually did the install on this unit. Though at the time it looked like it was just a woman with her child it now seems she has a boyfriend. The only thing I really remember from the install was that she was smoking while her child was there. Her boyfriend was very nice, in fact they all were. They were missing some channels. They had a really low signal, I think I remember this being a problem last time. I tried to turn over to our post-wire team, but the supervisor said it might need to go to line. So I had to pull out my ladder and get up the pole. I wasn't too happy about this fact considering the weather, but I did it anyway. As I was up there I saw some squirrel chew and water damage, so I fixed the line, which cleared up their TV. But I turned it over to line anyways. In fact I don't think the line technician was too happy about this either, because he kept calling me about it. I kept telling him that the sup told me to turn it over.
The next job was at a retirement complex. There was an old guy here watching "Miller's Crossing." His TV wasn't loud enough and he wanted me to give him a better signal. His TV was turned up all the way and admittedly it wasn't loud at all. It was about as aloud as I have my TV. I knew I couldn't explain to him that signal level has nothing to do with volume so I decided to humor him. I went outside and gave him a better signal and then I told him it was his TV. He didn't like this at all. He refused to sign my paperwork because the problem wasn't solved.
The next job was at an apartment complex. There was a young guy here. He had one of our bad DVR's, so I switched it out. We talked a little about the local sports teams. At some point a woman appeared from the bedroom and then went back. Afterwards I called in to dispatch to see if there were extra jobs out there and they said there were two jobs on the other side of town.
So I went to lunch and read a bit. Then I called my afternoon jobs to see where I could go to early. The next job was another little town-home complex. There was a woman here and her DVR wasn't working properly. I switched it out with a new DVR. But it turned out it was an HD box not a DVR. I asked for four DVR's this morning and was given four HD boxes. This means that the last place I had been to I most likely gave an HD box to not a DVR. Which will be a repeat on me. I wonder how long it's going to take him to figure it out? Luckily I have two DVR's on me. So I was able to get her one.
The next job was up in the poorer neighborhoods. This house was very unkept. Everything was overgrown with tons of weeds. The front porch was falling apart. Inside the place was extremely cluttered. The woman apologized and mentioned something about somebody moving. I wasn't sure if that was moving in or moving out. But the place was chaotic. The woman showed me a DVR in the bedroom. It would record a show but not play it back. So I used my last actual DVR here. She was doing something somewhere else in the house the whole time. This job didn't take long either.
My last job was a house over by the hospitals. The place was nice. It looked like it had been recently remodeled. The guy here was watching the Dallas/New England game which had recently started. He said he had been out of town and when he got back his HD box wasn't working. So I replaced the box and made his picture look better in the process. I called in to dispatch to see if there was any work left because it was only a little after 3 p.m.. But there was no work left so I went home early.

My day started with a job I was at two days ago. The one that not only I wasn't able to fix, but I actually made worse. Apparently there was some miscommunication so I spoke to the wife and their electrician. We talked about it and devised a plan on how to get their TV working, so now I have to go there tomorrow morning and help the electrician to do the job.
The next job was a fancy apartment building that I had yet to have been to. It bordered one of the larger parks in town. Each floor is divided into two units. There is another building on the north side of this park that is the same way, but this one is much nicer. I was here to replace their router. They had this porch with a magnificent view of the mountains. But as I looked to the north I saw a giant brown cloud. I had no idea the pollution was so bad in this town. She said that it was worse than usual. I guess there is no breeze today to blow it away. It took me forever to get her laptop to sync up with the router. I spent way too much time dealing with it. The lady was nice though.
Afterwards I headed to a town-home near one of my favorite coffee shops. The guy answered the door and said that nothing was working. I went out back and saw a mess of wires. I quickly figured out what was going on. Someone was messing with the wires and reconnected them wrong. I just had to reconfigure it all. I saw a bunch of connectors that looked old, that I should probably replace them, but there was no way I could replace it all and get to my next job on time. The customer said that his services have always worked fine other than this. He was ok with my leaving things as they are, so I took off. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
The next job was and old house converted into apartments. An effeminate man met me at the door. His TV wasn't working and hasn't been since yesterday. I went outside and sure enough he had been disconnected. I found two other units in the building that were hooked up but were not paying for cable. I disconnected them and hooked this customer back up.
I ate a quick lunch and headed to the next job. This place I had also been to before recently. I spent a whole morning there replacing everything. Only for someone to show up the next day and cause me what we call a repeat. I was not happy about this at all. The problem each time turned out to be their puppy that kept chewing on the cable. So this time I was here to drill a new hole to move where the cable goes into the basement, to keep it away from the puppy. Unfortunately my drill bits were not long enough to get through because I had to approach it at an angle. I explained it to the woman and she seemed ok with just running a long line to the basement through the bomb-shelter like entry way. When I was finished I made sure her TV's were working and I showed her how to use her computer.
The next job was at an apartment building on one of the major streets in town. As I was walking down the hallway towards this customer's apartment he stuck his head out and asked if I gave him a couple minutes because he just got out of the shower. When he finally opened the door his hair was still wet, and his apartment was very humid. My paperwork already told me what to expect, so I went right to work. The whole building is set up with cable, so I had to fix a cut line within the apartment, which took no time at all.
The next job was a house not very far away. There was a bald man with glasses and an impressive amount of facial hair. He had an accent that I couldn't quite make out. The problem was obviously the box, but it was something I had never seen before. The image would turn into a rainbow, but only sporadically. The problem was that there was only enough room for one of our small boxes, but I only had big cable boxes which would not fit in the entertainment stand. So I rescheduled the job for the next day.
My last job was at an apartment complex I'm at frequently. There was a large black man at this apartment. He had a dog that kept growling and barking at me. He wasn't getting a whole bunch of channels, actually they were jumbled and broken up. It was largely due to a crappy splitter and chord. But also he had a low signal because he had all 7 outlets activated, when he was only using two. this guy worked for Nike. He goes around explaining to retailers the technical aspects of the shoes, so they can do a better job of selling. He said he was at the Chicago Marathon. We talked about how much of a debacle that turned out and how they had to call it off. It sounds like an interesting job. Afterwards I went home.

Today started with an install in the neighborhood for retirees. This particular apartment had an small hispanic woman and her daughter who looked to have down syndrome. I was here for an install. It was an easy install, so I took my time about it.
The next job was close to where I live. It was a very nice house. There was a woman here with her puppy. She said she was renting the place, she had just moved into town from the mountains. I had to create an extra outlet, but other wise the job was easy. She spent the time unpacking, so we didn't talk much at all. She had this really awesome antique clock on a dresser, that I wanted to take a closer look at, but people tend to get weirded out if your ogling their stuff. They think you may be casing the place.
I ran a couple errands for lunch and headed to the next job. I was met outside by a guy who said he was remodeling the place. They had laid down new concrete for the walkway up to the house and the driveway behind it. Inside there was no furniture, they were painting. The guy told me where they wanted everything. This involved running two new outlets through the crawl-space. The crawl-space was rocky and very rough on the knees. Eventually a woman showed up to help the guy paint. It seemed like he was doing everything by himself. He was talking about doing some hardwood floors at another house. The house was easy but time consuming.
My last job was the easiest of the day. There was a couple of lesbians living in this apartment. I was just here to switch out their box with a DVR. They had a cat whose eyes were two different colors. The one woman said the only reason she was getting this was to record Grey's Anatomy, because she works Thursday nights.

Tuesday

My day started at a town-home complex. The man who answered the door was arabic. He began to explain all sorts of problems he's been having. The problem is that everything he listed didn't coincide. Usually if someone is having all sorts of problems it emanates from one thing. But none of this was connected. It didn't help that his TV's were working fine. He was really splitting hairs. One TV he kept complaining about lines and I tried to tell him it was his TV but he wasn't hearing it. I told him I would replace the box, but I only had the larger boxes and he only wanted a smaller one. He also wanted me to fix his phones. I made a phone call and 15 minutes later that was fixed. He was shocked. He said he called at least 6 times and every time he got someone different who would tell him something different. Then I went to check his other TV. Which was working fine. I told him I would replace that one as well, but it was a DVR and he would lose his recordings. So in the end I didn't do anything and left.
The next job was in the fancy shopping district. It was part of a series of town-homes. The door was answered by an old gentleman with a very red eye. He had surgery recently. The place had a lot of fancy artwork. I was there for one TV which was not getting about half of it's channels. I was running through out this house replacing things in order to fix it but it was all to no avail. It finally got a little better. But as I was replacing something I ended up cutting off the signal to that TV completely. The only thing I could figure out is that there must have been a connector in the wall that had come apart as Iw as working. Which would explain the other problems as well. So I explained to the guy that he needed to get an electrician to replace the cable wiring within the wall. He seemed alright with that. But then he wanted to get compensated for the fact that this TV never really worked right for at least 3 years. So he insisted that I stay there while he called customer service. They didn't really budge even though he stuck to his position. Eventually I was able to leave but at this point it was past noon and I still had a morning job left.
The next job was north near the highway. This was a quaint little house. I was met by a kid in the yard who said that his mom was on the way. A woman came out of the house walking like a midget. She didn't look like a midget so much she just moved like the midget in Willow. She showed me the box in her daughter's room and explained the problem. the room had a lot of religious icons. It seems to me that the poor are the most religious. I see little to no religious icons in the houses of the wealthy, but when I am in poor neighborhoods I see them all over the place. I switched out the box and headed on my way.
Next I went to the country club part of town. This was a very modest home, especially for this part of town. There was a nanny here. She let me in and showed me the TV. They weren't getting TBS. I've been hearing this quite a bit since the baseball playoffs have started. After a little while she said she needed to pick up the kid. He goes to school out in the suburbs. So I had her sign the paperwork, in case I was done before she got back. Which turned out to be the case. As I was leaving Iw as afraid to lock the door, she did say to just close it. I hope everything was still there when she got back.
Next I headed to plastic land. The next job was at an apartment. A young woman let me in. She had two dogs a very beautiful Macaw. I knew from the paperwork that I was there to replace the box, so I wasn't there for very long.
The next job was in plasticland as well. The woman who answered the door seemed a little flushed when I showed up. She explained to me the problem and I asked to see the splitter. She then apologized because it's in her garage and that's where she keeps her dogs. The place was a veritable mine field and smelled horrible. She proceeded to clean the place up. She said she wanted to clean it up before I showed up but their car broke down, so she's been dealing with that. I inspected everything and I couldn't find a single problem. So I cancelled the job.
The next job was a motel on prostitute row. I had to ring a doorbell and a round woman with bloodshot eyes came out and let me in. She showed me to her unit and showed me the TV which wasn't working very well. The cable was braided together with another cable coming out of the wall. If I didn't know any better I would have thought they were stealing cable upon seeing this. But when I fixed it, it did not fix the problem. I looked all over to try and find the place where all the units are hooked up. I asked if there was a basement. The basement went the whole length of the building. They kept a kitten in here, that would keep stepping in front of me as I walked. I was constantly weary of stepping on it. I don't know why they purposely kept the cat in here. They had three more cats upstairs in their unit. I replaced a bunch of stuff and cleaned up their TV image.
My last job was closer to where I live. It was a large duplex. I may have been a single house at some point. There was a black woman here with her mother and two kids. One of the kids was a boy of about 6 who spent the whole time running around in his underwear, making unintelligible sounds. I didn't hear the kid say a single word, I wonder if he could even talk. Their TV would periodically go black and white or would lose picture all together, but the sound would remain. I told them it was their TV. Then I went home.

My day started at a house that has been divided into three units. It's by the hospitals. A grumpy guy yelled at me through the wall asking me who I was and what I wanted. I told him and he opened the door and apologized, I just woke him up. He was a old wiry guy in a wheelchair. He reached for a pack of Kools. The place was dark, all the windows were closed. It seemed quite messy, like there were cigarette ashes everywhere. His bed was in the same room with his TV and computer. He had a dog that just laid around while he slept but got active when he was awake. I stepped outside and saw that the line to the place needed to be replaced. I started to curse whoever the last tech there was. I told him I needed to do some work outside, he crawled into bed and went back to sleep. I came back in when I was finished and he was sound asleep. I finished hooking up his TV, then I started messing with his internet. The modem he had needed to be replaced. When I got it all working I had to wake him back up to sign my paperwork. At this point I'm running late.
I then went to a apartment complex down south. This apartment was inhabited by an Indian woman and her child. I don't think she spoke much English at all. I didn't speak to her since I was running late. I just came in and installed the TV. I do have to say though, they had a fancy flat screen TV and practically nothing else in the living room. Not even a couch.
The next job was another apartment complex not too far away. I had to call the woman here to let me in. She said she needed to put on some pants and shoes. It surprises me when people make appointments and then forget about them. I was still moving furiously to catch up so I really didn't speak to her.
The next job was right off of prostitute row. This was an oddly shaped run down house. A black man came around the side of the house eating something, asking if I was the cable guy. I said yes, he led me around to the back of the house. The place was a mess there was a rickety scaffolding looking structure. As well as a bunch of scraps of wood throughout the yard. There was also a couple of rusty cars back there as well. The hook that the cable line was attached to on the house had been ripped out by the wind over the weekend. I used one of the guy's ladders that were already there, because I was lazy. I just installed a brand new hook. The guy asked me if I went to a local high school. I told him I went to high school out in the suburbs. He said he asked because he used to teach high school. I wonder if he thought he recognized me or something.
I skipped lunch which put me back on time. I went to a house right next to a fancy local tennis club. I went up to the house and there was no doorbell. I just saw an intercom. I pushed the button and a woman answered. I could hear a kid in the background. She acted like she had no clue I why I was there and said the gate is unlocked. I checked around and could find no reason why I was there. Then I noticed a phone number on my paperwork, which I called. I guy said he was about 5 minutes away and would meet me there. So I waited in my van. After about 20 minutes he called me an asked where I was at. It turned out that I was on the wrong side of the block. So I headed to the house on the other side. I was met by a guy with a poodle. This dog was very rambunctious. In the backyard was a fountain and the dog kept playing in it running around. The guy was a developer and said he wanted a pole removed. he already had a new pole set up he just wanted the services moved over. So I called my supervisor and worked it out for our construction team to come out and do the job. This put me ahead of schedule.
The next job was in resort town. There was an old woman here. She was actually the mother of the woman who lived there. There was also a very spastic dog. I was there to install the TV. I took my time now that I was running ahead. I even played catch with the dog some before taking off.
The next job w was a house, but I was just switching the cable box for an HD/DVR. Which was quick and easy. I showed her how to use it and moved on.
My last job was at some dorm for a local art institute. When I showed up there was a couple guys watching Girls Gone Wild listening to rap. I don't understand the appeal of these movies. Why not just watch porn? There is no real difference. You might as well just go all the way. Anyways I did the install, I didn't talk to these guys much either. Then I left.

On my way to my first job I was driving down one of the biggest roads in town, when I noticed a whole cavalcade of police vehicles at an apartment building. As I approached I saw a dead body covered with a bloody sheet. They had a barrier up to try and block the scene, but I guess it wasn't doing it's job.
The first job was at a very nice house. I ended up waking a woman up. She apologized and said that the whole family had slept in. They were up late watching the baseball playoffs. I was here to upgrade their phones. This required me to go up on the pole. It's funny how seeing a dead person can make one a little less confidant when your over 20 ft. in the air. Perhaps it's the reminder of how fragile and finite life is. I was glad when I was done up there and glad that this was the only time I had to be on a ladder today. The job was not too difficult but I realized I was lacking some materials, which meant I had to get through this day being rather resourceful. The woman spent most of her time in the kitchen fixing breakfast. I didn't see the rest of the family. After I had finished with my ladder the woman asked if we don't go up the pole anymore. She was asking whether or not us techs actually climb the pole. I told her we mainly use ladders. Then she referred to an accident that happened about a year ago, where a tech had fallen and died. I hadn't thought about that in a while. It's weird that she brought it up today of all days.
The next job was at an apartment complex, in a rather sketchy part of my area. The building had no intercom or means of contacting the residents inside and the only phone number I could find was disconnected. So the odds are that the person was actually home, but I couldn't contact them so I had to call it not at home.
The next job was at an apartment building that is largely occupied by immigrants. The particular people here I believe are Ethiopian. The place smelled great. There was a woman and her daughter here. I was here to install phones as well. She didn't seem to understand how our phone works. She asked me if she could move it if she wanted to. To keep it away from her daughter. The job was easy. Afterwards I ate some lunch and read in the park.
After lunch I headed to an apartment complex for an install. These people were literally moving in when I showed up. The install went smoothly. Their TV's were on cardboard boxes. She said she had to wait a couple weeks to get her furniture delivered. She had a little dog that would growl and bark at me the whole time I was there. When I finished I found a bathroom and started heading to the next job early when I got called back to the last one. It turned out one of the cable boxes was bad so I had to replace it.
I got to the next job right on time but no one was there. I called and they were at Target shopping. They had forgotten about the appointment. I waited for them. I just sat in my van and listened to football. They eventually showed up. they were very apologetic about the whole thing. There wasn't very much furniture in the place. That's some of what they were buying. The woman said they had just moved in. They already had our TV service,I was just adding phones. Which was a very quick and easy job. The guy was assembling the new furniture while I worked.
Afterwards I called in to see if there was more work. I picked up a job downtown. As I was heading there it started raining. When I got there it was an empty lot. There was a trailer up front that was advertising lofts/condos for a building not yet built. There was a woman inside. She said her TV wasn't working, but everything else was. There was a signal, but no picture. It must have been the TV or some setting on the TV I couldn't figure out.
On my way home I got a call from dispatch to pick up a job on the other side of town. I pointed out that it was the other side of town, hinting I wasn't gong to pick it up. She said that she wasn't gong to talk to me again. She sounded kind of serious, I wasn't sure if it was or not. But considering that she is nothing more than a voice to me, I frankly didn't care. She needs to be harassing people who work on the west side of town. Not me.

Today was the only day I had installs this week. I started off in a apartment building near plasticland. There was a black man here. I looked around the apartment and saw that they already had a signal. Then I saw a couple cable boxes and asked him about it. He said that those belong to the previous resident, his girlfriends ex-boyfriend. This guy must have moved in real quick! As I was installing we talked and he mentioned that he just moved here from Michigan. He works for Wallmart and apparently gets paid more for doing the same thing here versus there. But the whole time I was trying to piece together the timeline of his being here. I almost asked exactly how long has he been here. To be shacked up with a woman and her ex-boyfriend's shit is still there. The rest of the time we just talked about sports. I got through the job quickly.
The next job was a house a little to the west. I don't like this neighborhood, because it usually causes me a lot of work. There was a black family here. The guy was really nice. I assume he's religious, because when I meet people who area this nice and humble they tend to be very religious. They had this really old phone there that looks like it was probably made by Alexander Graham Bell. They also had this really awesome antique rotary phone. In the back room there was a drum set a reel to reel and some synthesizers. I wonder if he has a band, I didn't ask. I was there to install the phones. It didn't take me long. At one point there kid was in the living room and his wife asked if the kid wanted to go to school and the kid said no, it wanted to watch Dora the Explorer.
At this point I went to the park and read a while. Then I headed to my next job a little early. This was an apartment complex to the south. There was a black woman here with a child and a teenager. At first I thought the teenager was her daughter, but I guess it was her sister. The place smelled faintly of marijuana when I entered. Shortly thereafter I started coughing and I could feel my throat close up, I could barely talk. I had a headache too. It was like an allergic reaction to something. I had to leave and drink some water and come back. The kid kept getting in my way while I was trying to install. I realize he was just curious but it got old quick. The mom was a bit of a neat freak. She didn't get on me, but kept getting on the kid about dropping crumbs and wearing his shoes in the house. A tone point I looked down and saw that my thumb was covered in blood. I had a scab there that had been torn off. I didn't notice it when it happened but it sure was bleeding profusely. This job was pretty easy.
The next job was in resort town. I went there and no one answered so I hung out and listened to the baseball game. Eventually I called it not at home and headed to my last job. This was a fancy high rise apartment. It was right next to a park in a part of town I think most people forget about. The building was really nice it looked to towards the mountains. I had to wait for the guy a bit but I didn't mind because it was my last job. He was upgrading to an HD/DVR, partly for the HD channels. He wasn't thrilled with the way his TV looked. Once I got the HD going he was thrilled we watched the baseball game a while then I left.

Wednesday

My day started at a duplex. It is actually two duplexes with a nice courtyard between them. This is in the fancy shopping district part of town. When I rang the doorbell I could see a dog inside running in a circle and barking until a lady showed up. I was here to replace her DVR. Her place was filled with a bunch of Native American stuff. There was a lot of cradle-boards on the walls in various shapes and sizes. There was also a bunch of pottery of the expensive variety. It didn't take me long to do the job.
The next job was in an apartment complex to the east. There was an attractive young woman here. She spent the whole time I was there on the phone with someone from work. It sounded like there was a lot of drama there. I just had to reset her box, so I wasn't there very long.
The next job was in the same complex, but I was a little early so hung out in the parking lot and read a bit. I finally went to the guy's apartment. I had to wake him up. When I looked at the TV everything was fine, so I cancelled the job.
Then I headed to the retirement neighborhood. Every time I'm in this neighborhood I see a man walking around in sunglasses but no shirt. He's always power-walking through the complex. There was an old woman in the place. She showed me the problems she was having and it turned out to be a loose connector. I was checking out the channels and came across an old Clint Eastwood movie. She told me I was too young to know it. I told her it was Hang 'em High. Which I've seen many times.
After this I decided to try and get some of my afternoon jobs done. The next job was in a complex in the same area. There was an older black woman here. She was cooking what looked like breakfast. I was there to check out her TV and phones. It turned out that she was disconnected due to not paying her bills. So I was really there to reconnect her. I went to check out the TV in the other room, which I guess her grandson's were staying. The room smelled like a bathroom. I couldn't stand to be in there. I got her hooked back up and split.
The next job was another apartment complex farther east. The door was answered by a russian man wearing only underwear and his face was all lathered up. He went into a back room and put some clothes on and then went into the bathroom to finish shaving. I was here because he didn't have a signal. In these buildings everyone gets cable. So I had to go to the box and find which one was not connected and connected it. As I was leaving his wife showed up. She asked me about their remote, which was not working. I told her she needs to buy a new remote.
I couldn't get a hold of my last tow jobs, so I took a lunch and just read in a parking lot while listening to the baseball game. Eventually I got a hold of one of my jobs. This one was easy, I just had to replace the guy's ethernet cable and his Internet was working fine. As I was leaving my last job cancelled so I picked up one more job.
This was at the new retirement complex that I was at recently. The woman was getting terrible reception. But everything was hooked up right. I replaced all I could just incase, but to no avail. I eventually narrowed it down to the wires in the walls. Perhaps they were damaged in construction. Anyways I had to track down a maintenance worker and show them the problem and how I deduced that the lines in the walls need to be replaced, because they need to replace it. I just wanted to make sure it didn't come back on me.

100 posts, is there a plaque or something for this?

So I was back in the southeast again. I rolled up to the house and as I entered I caught a wiff of marijuana. The guy told me that the last tech said that the signal was really low and the line needed to be replaced. At this point I thought, why the fuck didn't that tech do it? So I took a look around and noticed that the previous tech had hooked up the splitter backwards. I set it up right and now everything was getting a good signal. But the HD box was not working. I didn't see a HD box on the work order so I didn't bring any extras. This meant I had to drive back to the shop and get one. It was at this point that I knew my day was hosed. When I got back I caught yet another wiff of marijuana, like this guy had been smoking up the whole time I was gone. It must be nice to work from home. So I replaced the box and headed to my next job.
The next job was huge. The woman was on her front porch, she greeted me right away and led me inside. She showed me that her channel 6 had lines through it and channel 9 was flashing and had ghost images. So I proceeded to replace everything. I needed some splitters and saw a fellow technician down the street so I bummed some splitters from him. After a while he came over and helped me out, because I couldn't figure out the problem. Eventually I was able to eliminate everything in the house as the problem which means the problem was further up the network. So I had to turn it over to line. At this point it was about noon and I still had two morning jobs left.
At this point the day was just flying by. The next job was on the other side of the block. It was a very nice ranch style home, that you don't normally see around here. Most have been scraped off for something bigger. The guy here said he left for the weekend and when her got back he was missing a bunch of channels. I went out to the tap and found a basic filter out there. I removed and his channels were back. But he had lines on channel 6 and flashing and the ghost images on 9. So I told him that there were already people working on this.
Then I headed to another home in the same area. The guy works for Sprint / Nextel and was curious about how I use my work phone, since my company uses their products. He also told me about a new idea that they are supposed to rollout next year. The ability to control your DVR with your phone. That sounds interesting. The guy here was having a problem making his new DVR work. It turned out to be the HDMI chord he was using, which I felt a little bad about because those things are expensive. He also mentioned some problems he was having with his other DVR which was one of the really crappy ones I'm always replacing. So I replaced it. Then I split.
The next job was in a high rise in the fancy shopping district. I had actually been in this building before, I played poker here once. In fact when I stepped in the apartment I felt like it may have been the same one, but I'm sure they all look the same. He had an autographed poster of Neil Diamond on the wall. The audio on his TV would drop out. I reset the box and it came back. I told him this was typical from that model of box. I have the same one, but I haven't bothered to replaced it, partly because I don't want to lose my recordings. I told him I could replace the box, but he didn't want to make me go out and get a new box. He considered it a minor inconvenience. I told him the ways to get the sound back and left.
At this point I was starting to catch up on time so I found myself a bathroom. Then I headed to my next job. This was at an apartment on the university. No one was there at first. I called and the guy said he was 10 minutes and that the door was open if I wanted to just go in. I waited outside. The guy finally showed up after about 25 minutes. The guy said he has lived here for about 2 years and everything has been fine until recently. Now their signal was horrible. unfortunately the splitter is in the attic. The only way into the attic is through a vent that is screwed into the ceiling. Three of the screws were stripped so I just peeled it back. Then there was a rather large heavy fan above it that I had to remove, just to get into the ceiling. Once up there I had to literally dig through the insulation to find the cables and the splitter. I'm still coughing because of it. It took me a while to get through all this. Then once done I had to put the fan back and try to peel the vent back into place. But it fixed nothing. So I turned it over to post-wire. I think someone else in the building may have been tampering with the line.
The next job was at an apartment building on a really busy street. There was a short older gentlemen here. He went to the TV and turned it on but it didn't turn on. Then he told me about how it quit working. I told him bluntly that the problem was his TV. I was running behind so I didn't want to stay. He talked about watching the stock market. He didn't take the news about his TV too well. Then he started quoting Star Trek, which I thought was a weird transition from talking about the Stock Market.
The last job was further south. A very attractive woman answered the door. She had her daughters there and three little dogs. One of the dogs was limping around the whole time. It had a torn ACL. It was going for surgery tomorrow, and the surgery was going to cost $1500. She was not getting Nickelodeon or Disney. I went outside and found a bunch of old traps and removed them. I rearranged the splitter and everything was working fine. She asked me about the phones. There was static over some of her phones. I turned out that it got worse the farther you got from the base station. Having solved that I went home.

I was back in my usual area today. My first job was actually on my block. I wished I could just go over there before heading into the office. But I had to go and pick up my paperwork first. This was an apartment. There was a woman here, who was small and round. She would just sit and make Christmas ornaments the whole time I was there, from scratch. She said she needed to make 200 and she was up to 80. She's been making about 20 a day before going into work. She worked at a healthcare place, I believe for children. The goal was to give them to the little ones. Then she said she was running out of ideas. She was trying to have each one be unique. The problem was that her TV wasn't receiving a signal. I went outside and noticed that a splitter was hooked up backwards. Some tech was hooking someone else up in the building and hooked up the splitter wrong. So I fixed it and headed on.
The next job was further east, just off of prostitute row. This was a house. A small round hispanic woman with a lazy eye opened the door. She proceeded to say something in Spanish. I just gave her the look of, I don't know what the hell you just said. The she asked if I was here for the TV. I said yes and she showed me the TV. She told me the problems they were having, none of which were occurring now of course. She went back to cleaning the house and washing the dishes. So I looked around and replaced a couple connectors and rearranged a splitter and told her I was done.
The next job was over by the fancy shopping district. An attractive woman answered the door in her pj's. She apologized for not shaking my hand, for she was sick. The place was amazing. There were wooden religious sculptures all over the house. Of the Spanish Catholic variety. Some were as tall as 4 ft. Most were of Christ, some Virgin Mary and some of St. Francis. There was also paintings and various other art works as well. All very old. I asked her about them, she said that the guy she was with (I suspect she just recently moved in here) knows al the families in a valley to the south that has a very deep hispanic history and whenever a church (she actually had a different name for it, but sadly I don't remember it) closed and none of the elders wanted to retain these items they would call him. So he has amassed quite the collection. These were all very old, she didn't even know. Any museum would love to have these things. I was here because she did not have a signal going to the TV in the bedroom. All I had to do was find where all the outlets come together, which was in the basement. Then I just hooked that outlet up.
Next I headed to an apartment complex further south. There was a young guy here. He was playing football on his Weii. His HD box wasn't working right so I replaced it. He told me works at Target. I wondered how he could have a flat screen TV and all these other nice things working at Target. I wasn't there for very long.
I started to call my afternoon jobs because I was overbooked for the afternoon. I got ahold of one of my jobs. A woman answered the phone and it sounded like I just woke her up. When I got to the apartment building she waved to me from her balcony and told me she would be down to let me in. She was short and maybe a little younger than me. She had a thick New York accent. not quite as annoying as Fran Drescher but grating none the less. She said it was a lazy day, but she has to go to class later on. She said she is studying radiology. I was just here to replace her DVR. So wasn't here very long either.
I called another one of my afternoon jobs and the guy told me he didn't schedule an appointment and that I could cancel it. Having only three jobs left I decided to have a lunch.
After lunch I went to my next job. I was a retirement community that I had not been to yet. It was really fancy, easily the nicest I seen so far on this job. The woman here started listing off a multitude of problems, but little of what she was saying was making sense. She mentioned that someone had said she was getting the wrong signal. I have no clue what that means. Everything looked fine to me. She said I was third person here this week, which is always a bad sign. The only problem was that the remote we gave her for the cable box wasn't working quite right, so I gave her a new one and moved on.
I then headed to resort town. There was a woman here a bit younger than me. She complained about her Internet constantly shutting down. I looked around and found a bad splitter in the wall, which I replaced. I ended up fixing her TV problems as well, which she was grateful of.
The next job was in an apartment building. There was an old jewish couple here. They were getting terrible reception. I replaced a couple things to no avail. I went up to the penthouse, because everyone in this building gets hooked up to cable in the stair well of the penthouse. The penthouse was full of old ladies playing cards. Several tables worth. I unhooked some things and hooked them back up, then went down stairs. Everything was working, which was remarkable because really I changed nothing.
Afterwards I called dispatch and picked up an extra job. This was an apartment building. This place has a bulk account where everyone in the building is supposed to get cable, but I guess someone doesn't. But the information I got is for the bulk account so I didn't know who wasn't getting cable. When I got there everything looked hooked up so I had to find a way to get in touch with the specific tenant. After a couple phone calls I got in touch with the company that owns the building who contacted the tenant who came down to let me in. He was a young guy, probably in college. Eventually I was able to figure it out and get his TV working.