It was hot today. We tried not to move too much, and my watch tells me I was successful at staying put – I expect to miss my calorie goal for the first time in nearly two weeks.

I decided I was finished with the server rebuild I’ve been doing over the past few days, so, just for fun, I tried running the do-release-upgrade command on the old system. An hour or so after issuing the command, I had a mostly functional Ubuntu 20.04 system – but it was still cluttered with old versions of PHP and Python that I’d installed over the past three years. It also was running a different version of the Linux kernel and of Apache than the Ubuntu 20.04 system I’d installed from scratch. I’m glad I chose to start fresh.

Did I mention it was hot today? PG&E was looking at the possibility of rotating power outages. Our house is in an outage block that would be in the first batch of outages, so PG&E wanted to let me know of the possibility. They called and texted my cell, called the house, and sent email – and then they did it all again a couple of hours later when they decided they definitely wouldn’t need to turn off our power today.

I bet they call again tomorrow.

I’d been dreading today. It had been two years since I’d “renegotiated” my Comcast deal, and the special pricing was expiring, raising my Internet bill by $30/month.

It’s always possible to get a better deal, but it requires a call to Comcast and a threat to cancel. If you don’t get the right agent, it can take several calls. I decided today was the day and dialed 1-800-XFINITY.

The voice response system that answered wasn’t horrible, but it did insist on texting me a code so I could use their self-service webpage to navigate the menus to get to the right department. I wanted to deal with my Account; I wanted to Change or Cancel Service; I wanted to cancel ALL my service; yes, I was willing to talk to an agent before cancelling.

Ring, ring…”hi, it’s Kristen from Comcast. How can I help you?” Me: “My rate just jumped by $30 and I want to reduce it.” Her: “Ok, let me see what I can do.”

About two minutes later, “I can keep you on the same package at the same price; you’ll still have phone, TV, your premium channels, and gigabit Internet.” Me: “I didn’t think I had gigabit Internet.” Her: “Oh, you’re right – now you’ll have it. And your upstream speed will go from 15mbps to 40 or so.”

I said “yes, do it!” And it was done – for the next two years, when I’ll have to play agent roulette again.

And I even finished my server migration today. Finally!

Shabbat Shalom!