And I’m ready for it.

And Torah Study and Minyan start tomorrow morning, which will be good.

And we have more schlepping to do on the decorating project (boxes and boxes of books to donate to the library, for one thing).

And I’ve got homework to do to get ready for the class I’m taking next week.

And to get to that class, I have to take a 6:30am flight on Monday (I decided that was better than losing Sunday; I don’t know if I’ll believe that on Monday morning!).

So it’s going to be a busy weekend. I’d better get started on it!

Shabbat Shalom!

After last night’s final entry, Verizon eventually answered the phone (note to self: Don’t try to read a book like Hyperion while listening to music on hold, even without continuous interruptions), and I spent half-an-hour with the technician, while he tried different things. Nothing helped much, not even when he “rebuilt my line”, but at the end of the session, my link was, once more, faster than dialup, and Verizon was going to dispatch someone to my house today to work on the problem from outside; if they wanted access, they’d call me. And they’d call me and let me know what was going on.

When I came home, there was a doortag from Verizon, saying that a tech had been there and hadn’t found any trouble, so they’d need access and to call them to arrange it. So we had dinner and ran some errands (including an emergency trip to Costco to replace our electric blanket, which failed sometime during the summer); then I came home, prepared for a long wait on hold.

I decided to call my DSL provider first, and much to my surprise, the phone was answered by a human being instead of the automated attendant. I resisted the urge to blast Touch-Tones in his ear, just out of habit, and told him what the current status was. He put me on hold (what a surprise!); while I was holding, my cellphone rang, and it was Verizon. I asked them to call back after 8pm (so I’d be on night-and-weekend minutes), figuring I’d be done with my provider by then.

They took me off hold and asked me to try a speed test. No joy. Back on hold.

Off hold — please try another speed test. No joy. “Wait a minute; we’re going to rebuild your line.” Try again. No joy. Try one more time…and suddenly, it’s fast again!

I have no idea what “rebuilding your line” really means, but it seems to be a magic cure.

So far, anyway.

So far today…

• I’ve been told “accounting can’t find that check”
• I’ve been told “your license plate application never got to us”
• My DSL download speed dropped to 9kb from its usual 1.5Mb (but the upload speed didn’t change)
• I got a new wireless phone, and the activation process isn’t working

I think I’ll do something non-technical the rest of the day.

Later…

I had a pleasant workout (talk about oxymorons) at the Y, a nice dinner, and now I’m waiting on hold for Verizon DSL support. Their system was courteous enough to warn me that I should expect a 40 minute hold, and their music-on-hold is not too bad — and it’s mercifully uninterrupted by “your call is important” announcements or other commercials. So I can do other things while I wait and not be distracted every 45 seconds by what might be (but isn’t) someone to help me.

And my wireless phone activated itself eventually, so I guess I’m making progress.

I was right, they shouldn’t have

So it’s already Tuesday, and I’m not nearly finished with Sunday’s New York Times. I did finish the puzzle, though I had to go to Google for some of the clues. And I haven’t even started the Iron Chef book yet.

Decorator’s orders

Our decorator came by on Saturday to show us fabrics and furniture possibilities; she noticed that we hadn’t done anything about clearing the books from the small bookshelves in the living room (the goal is to wind up with only large bookshelves in the living room, with nice books visible through the glass; the paperbacks and SFBC books will be elsewhere), and explained that we needed to get moving on the project. So I spent the rest of Saturday removing the junk which had settled on the bookshelves in the computer room, thereby making room for the books in the living room. And Diane spent all of Saturday clearing shelves in other rooms (and has continued working on the project since); we will have a lot of recycling this week.

The larger goal of this phase of the project is clearing out the living room and dining room so that we can have those floors refinished; time to call a furniture donation group and have them take our old sofas (and whatever else we decide we don’t need). After the floors are fixed, it’ll be time for window treatments (and new furniture). Then, it’s on to the bedrooms.