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.

;-)