very simple

The cable guy finally showed up yesterday, after I had been without service for a week and a half (no such luck having my service mysteriously pop back on this time without intervention).  He ran some tests though, and discovered that it wasn’t that I got no signal, but that the signal was coming through at way too high a frequency (one which was OK for the TV/cable service, but not for internet).  So began the process of checking every connection all the way back to the junction box in the stairwell.

Which he opened up, took a deep breath, and noted that the connections in there looked like they hadn’t been updated in over 20 years.  I laughed and pointed out that I knew the previous tenant in my apartment (being that she’s my stepmom), and she moved in in 1978.  So she probably had cable installed around the same time that cable was installed in the building.  So he replaced all of the connections, and now I have shiny shiny internet again, and it’s actually much faster than it was before.  Like, near-instantaneous.  So I highly recommend that if you live in a really old building, you find out the last time your trunk line was updated, and if it’s before the internet existed, maybe see about getting that fixed!

Also, I didn’t even realize that there was a problem before, but when we put the TV back on to test it out with some high-def olympic coverage, I could swear that my picture was clearer than it had been in the morning.  I could just be imagining things, but I was actually taken aback (I think the non-word “whoa” might have been uttered).  

The third thing I have, of course, is a neckache, because I had to put all of the furniture back after the cable guy left and something went wonky in the middle of that process.  

Still managed to get a bike ride with my brother in afterwards. Although “with” is somewhat misleading as a significant portion of our ride involved me watching his red backpack get smaller and smaller, and him having to periodically stop and wait for me.  The best part about the ride?  The realization that I’m not actually that slow.  I’m only the slowest cyclist on the road at 6:30 in the morning.  At 5 in the afternoon on a Saturday, there are plenty of people who are more than willing to suck and get in my way while I quietly seethe about how slow they all are.

Tags: cycling, family, home improvement, technology