Oh, the agony of it!

We got a call this afternoon... the Spectrum guy is able to come earlier than scheduled.  Good news all around - we get our internet fixed in the daylight, and he can head for home earlier on a holiday evening.

The guy went right to work, checking the cable connection outside the house before he even checked in with us.  He told us: process of elimination... the signal is good coming to the house.  He then went to work... cutting the ends off of every cable coax cord in the house, and putting new ends of them.  Well, not just in the house, but we have a TV connection outside, too.

The "agony" of it: there were three new coax cords that came with the wifi modem; they had wonderful plastic covered ends on them - so easy to screw in!  Yep, he chopped off every single one of them.  Then, determined that the modem wasn't working properly because of the splitter that was supplied the modem.  The fix was: moving the modem to another room where it could have a cable connection all its own, without using a splitter.

Nice guy, hard working.  Efficient.  But, he cut those wonderful ends off the cords.  (Sigh)

On the bright side, we now have 70 meg speed; much faster than the hotspot from my iPhone... which will still be our internet connection when we are away from the house.

Joan is feeling a bit under the weather... I'll guess we'll spend our New Years Eve... online.  ;-)

I was getting a bit rusty on frustration...

Good way to sharpen that skill: deal with Time Warner; now called Spectrum... it's an old Indian word meaning: this shit sucks.

I spent a few hours on the phone with Time Warner yesterday, most of it with the various people on the phone trying to figure out our address (the mailing address doesn't match the physical address, we live on an island where the Postal System doesn't recognize our streets, etc, yadda, yadda, yadda)... "Do you have an account with us?"

"Well, we have Time Warner cable service, but it is part of our homeowners association fees."

After considerable explaining, they were able to figure out that we are part of a "bulk account," where every address in our village gets the same cable package; again, as part of our homeowners fees... "So, no, you won't have my name on file."

I got put on hold a couple times, call dropped a couple times, told: "If we don't have you in our system, you don't have Time Warner cable..."

We gave up and decided to visit one of the nearest Time Warner offices, which happened to be in Harlingen.  Hey, it has been 6 days since we were in Harlingen - we were over-due!

We opened the door of the TWC/Spectrum office and...OMG, the place is packed...

We just wanted to give them money and get a land-based wifi set up.  About an hour in line.  It didn't take long once it was our turn.  I asked, "Is it easy to set up?"

"Yes, very easy."

We had other shopping to do - every place we went was equally packed.  Yes, I know it is officially still the holiday season.  Even had a line to get out of Sam's Club.

Not far from Sam's is a new Hooter's breastaurant.  Yes, the girls are cute and attired in tank tops and snug short-shorts.  But, can you say: bacon wrapped chicken wings?  How did no one think of this before?  Instead of fries, pretzel bread with a beer cheese dip.  The place was, of course, packed.  Our timing was good - we got seated right away, by the time our food arrived, they were putting people on a waiting list.  For lunch.  No, I didn't take any photos, but our waitress was a little cutie named Stephanie.  She asked our names, then wrote them on our drink napkins... "Jim and Joan - that's so cute!"

Yeah, that's what we were going for.

After lunch, we swung by our motorhome storage unit to exercise the generator and start the engine.  All good.  A stop at Wally World because we didn't get quite enough crowds and lines, then home to set up the new wifi modem.

Hardly any instructions... one might take that as a good sign: it should be easy.  After an hour with no connection, I gave up and called their tech support.  My new friend Cherie gave it a shot... it wouldn't connect.  Well, it isn't just me.  She suggested I remove the splitter from the line (one line to the modem, one to the TV)... it took another 20 minutes, but the modem finally connected.  Slowly.

She suggested that I'd need a service call, for someone from Spectrum to come check our cable lines.  For a fee, of course.  All of a sudden, the speed kicked up: 70 megs of download speed!  Hoooowheeeee!  "Yeah, you're still going to need a service guy to come check out your lines."

Swell.

I disconnected the coax cable and hooked things back up through the splitter (supplied by Spectrum)... yep, an hour later and it still hasn't connected again.  The service guy is supposed to show up tomorrow.  New Years Eve.  Between 6 and 7pm.  Sucks for him.

The router is the famous Technicolor brand.  Must be good, because it has the word "Tech" in the name.  And, "ni"... and "color."  That is of Greek origin, meaning: cheap ass stuff that sucks.

Yep, I'm pretty much back up to speed on frustration now.

;-)

So, what happens when you go looking for some dolphin watching?

You see some dolphins!  Joan called Steph in the middle of our Dolphin-palooza; Steph said, "You see them almost every time you go out, don't you?"

Sometimes that is our whole reason for going out.  Other times, it might be to see the sunrise or sunset... maybe do a little sight-seeing... and then the dolphins pop up and make it even more fun.  At our jobs in the Pacific Northwest, our whale-sightings are about 90%... our average for seeing dolphins here is better than that.  ;-)

The weather weasels were calling today: "Thick fog in the morning, cloudy the rest of the day."  They had the first part right.  As for the second part - here's what it looked like when we headed out after noon...

It wasn't long before we got our first view of some dolphins...

Must have been some good fishing: the dolphins and the pelicans were vying for the best spots...

This pelican aborted his landing when a dolphin surfaced in that spot...

On with the dolphin show...

"How many photos did you shoot?" you ask.  Thanks for asking.  There was a lot going on.  Joan shot for a bit while I drove, then we swapped places.  I shot somewhere on the far side of 80 images, after tossing out the "missed that one" shots.

Coming right for us...

Some dolphin faces...

Other side of the boat.

You know those model shots where the girl whips her hair in the water?  Yeah, dolphins started that...

These mammals are smart and fast.  Not as fast as some of the fishing boats or wind-surfers, though...

Yes, those are scars on his back.

We had some great viewing - lots of fun activity.  Time to part company, though.  Bye-bye!

Joan needed a break after all that excitement - there is a reason they call these couch-looking things on the boat "lounges"...

From there, it was down and around: south to the ship channel, then west around our island.  We were planning some Italian for a late lunch, so I put the coals to it.  Well, I pushed the throttle a bit over half way to get us around 12 knots.

To bring this to a conclusion, we were rolling up to the restaurant just after 3:00.  Lunch was great.  So was the dolphin watching prior to that.

:-)

The weather is supposed to be windy and a good chance of rain tomorrow.  Nice to be able to go out on the boat when we want, for as long (or short) a time as we want.  I am enjoying this boat!

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A short video from today's interaction...

Clear and a million...

Pilot slang for: clear sky and unlimited visibility.  Not what we had most of the morning.  Around noon, Joan made that declaration from the title... the weather weasels were still calling for "fog and limited visibility at the coast."

It looked pretty clear as we headed out...

There was an unencumbered pusher tug as we came out our canal...

We tucked in behind him, heading east through our swingbridge...

Coming into the Laguna Madre, we could see spotty fog - definitely coming and going...

I had a cruise plan for today: go east to South Padre Island, then run up the small boat channel on the bay side of the island.  It is fun to check out the houses and condos on the waterfront - something we haven't done for a couple years.  Still going east...

The fog was getting thicker east and south; looking northwest, the sky and water were looking pretty...

Coming into the small boat channel...

Yep, the fog is getting thicker, the visibility dropping.  We watched dozens of pelicans diving into the water...

 It was odd how the fog rolled in and out...

The barge that fireworks are launched from...

Fireworks are a big deal around here - part of the culture to set off fireworks for New Years Eve.  The 4th of July.  Cinco de Mayo.  Flag Day.  Arbor Day.  Take Your Daughter To Work Day.  Summer Solstice.  The Day After the Summer Solstice.  Yeah, fireworks are a big deal.

Louie's Back Yard...

Yeah, hardly any fog.  Pelicans on the docks where Jim's Pier used to be...

Look at the upper right - high-rise condos in the fog.  Some houses along the channel...

The bay is mostly shallow; the water temp in the bay is back to the mid-70s; people out playing in the water...

There are some canals on SPI; heading into one...

Parrot Eyes...

Sounds like "paradise"... get it?  It's a bar, restaurant, and summertime water-stuff rentals and party-boats.  The houses across the canal from that property used to have peace and quiet... used to.

That was our turn-around point.  Heading back south, the fog had rolled in heavier...

There is a causeway south of there.  Somewhere.  It is a very distinct land-mark... when you can see it.  Or, if you have radar.  We don't.  Neither do these birds...

A clear spot...

Didn't last long...

Joan took this cool shot with a "fog-bow" (kinda like a rainbow) in that short-lived clear area behind us...

We ran under the causeway - time for picking the fork in the road... well, deciding which way to go via the water: we could go east and just miss the 3:00 bridge opening, or go south - into the heavier fog - and head home via the ship channel.  Joan said, "Maybe we'll see some dolphins in the ship channel?"  South, into the fog, it is.

We could hear some of the excursion boats on the radio, "Man, I can't see a thing!"  The visibility was down to about 100 feet; I had Joan pull up the AIS app on my phone.  Odds are pretty good the local excursion boats aren't running AIS, but any big ship or barge traffic will be.  We are very familiar with the local waters, and our small chartplotter has proven itself to be very accurate.  We sounded our horn and kept an eye out for other small boats (none of which were using their horns).

In the fog, I saw a HUGE dorsal fin!  I'm talking Orca Killer Whale huge!  OK, probably enhanced by the erie fog, and a close passing dolphin...

Quite a bonus!  I didn't count on seeing any dolphins along SPI, and it was just fortunate timing that we saw them in the thick fog.  Probably the fact I'm am living right, huh?

As we ran slowly east in the ship channel, the fog began to lift: it went from 100 feet to 100 yards to a half mile in just a couple minutes.  We did have "clear and a million"... if you were looking up into the blue sky above us.  Looking north towards the turning basin, the visibility opened up to where we could see the drilling ships...

Well, parts of the drilling ships.  By the time we got into the turning basin, it was beautifully sunny and locally clear...

Clear and sunny all the way to our dock.  I cleaned up the boat while Joan took our stuff into the house.  I topped off the fuel tank; we ran at speeds from 4 knots to 15 knots (visibility permitting) and used less than a gallon per hour.  This little boat continues to impress me.

By 5:30, the fog was rolling back in.  The TV weather weasels are calling for a "dense fog advisory" through the night, until 9:00 am tomorrow.