Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Grrr Where is my Modem

I was going to post a picture of what I made my brother for his birthday but alas I am still fighting with the old internet so it's a no go for now.

It rained all weekend here, I'm not complaining cause I love the rain and it just means that it's almost August and almost time for the Alaska State Fair. Gosh I love going to the fair, I just have such a great time there. It's the same every year, a few things change but other than that it's been the same as long as a can remember. It's the last big thing to do before the snow flies.

I finally got my hearing back in my left ear, it's not 100% back but I would say about 95% back. This happened yesterday I realized it only when a friend sent me a text message and I thought that the ringer on the phone sounded loud. It took me a bit but I got used to things being "loud" again. I am just glad that I can finally hear better I was getting annoyed with having to make sure people were on my right side so I could hear them.

In other news I am now reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. So I am making my way through the books. After I finish the Potter books I am going back to reading ones I haven't read cause I have a few more new ones coming out that I need to catch up on.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Not funny Mom!

We took mom to the airport last night so she could catch her flight down to Spokane WA. She is just going down for the weekend cause of her I believe 40th high school reunion. I woke up at 9am this morning and heard my cell phone beeping like I had a missed call and also doing its scream of death because the battery was almost dead. I look to see who the missed call is from and it says Dixie (mom's sister). I freaked out, first thing that came to mind was "oh my god, mom died in a plane crash". I hurry and call my voice mail to hear the message only to find out that it's mom and she made it there safely. I have no idea why she used her sisters cell phone instead of her own because she brought it with her. I promptly called her cell and left a message saying she scared me to death calling with Dixie's phone and to have a fun trip.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Back 100%

I have some great news, Richard is now 100% healed and is back to his regular job at Lowe's! He had a physical therapy appointment today and was able to lift over 40 lbs with no pain and so the physical therapist said he was healed and didn't need to come back. Richard then went to the other doctors office and got a release saying he can go back to work with out restrictions. Totally made my day.

In other good news, We will have our phone line tomorrow and then internet by Tuesday. So I only have a couple more days of fighting with clearwire then it's so long crappy internet hello great internet.

Clearwire, not so clear after all

About 3 years ago Richard and I got Clearwire internet, at the time it worked really well and we had no complaints and would happily recommend them to anyone looking for a good internet provider. Mind you that was three years ago and we were living in a different apartment with 7 foot tall windows and on the second floor. We had great service, now mind you the apartment was crap but the internet rocked, mostly just cause of the location of the building, turns out it is like smack dab in the middle of 3 towers of clearwires so its well covered. Didn't find that out till yesterday. Anyways I am jumping ahead of myself. As most know, we moved from that prime internet location because we couldn't stand living there anymore. We moved up the road about maybe a mile or possible two. And the internet worked great, or so we thought.

Shortly after moving to where we are now we had problem and lost the net, we called up clearwire and they said our tower that we have in the apartment wasn't working and they would send us a new one. Ok no problems there, new one came, we sent the broke one back all was good. till about April of this year. We started having issues with the internet not working, it would work and call up pages then all of the sudden we were getting booted off of the net and then it would work fine again. I called up and asked what was up and they said that they were having problems and it should be fixed shortly. Well they fixed their problems but we were still having problems of our own with it. We were lucky if it worked and prayed that it would last long enough to let us do what we needed to do online. We also figured out that it worked better on partly cloudy days, only partly cloudy. It wouldn't work on Sunny days or days where all you see is clouds and it rains (which has been mostly this summer). Mind you this Started in April, it is now the Middle of July and we are still having issues.

Last week Richard got sick of it not working and called clearwire to see what was going on cause it wasn't just us having problems, cause before all the problems started mom asked me what internet provider I used and if I would recommend them and I said yes, she gets clearwire and BAM it goes to shit. He is on the phone with them for like an hour, he does everything they say take the tower to a different window, how about a different room? Still only one bar of service huh? not holding, rotating through all five lights you say? weird ok we will have a tech support guy come to your apartment on Monday July 19th between the hours of 10am-1pm. After that phone call we got really great service, it worked as long as we were on it no problems at all, us thinking that wow maybe we don't have to worry about this tech support guy coming out cause I mean what is he going to do walk in and go oh there is a loose wire on the tower let me fix that.

So Yesterday I gave up my laundry day cause tech support was coming out, which worked out fine anyways cause I was able to get the apartment clean. A little bit before 11am I get a phone call saying that the guy would be here in less than 15 minutes, Bonus Points to the tech guy for not making me wait forever. He shows up comes in and we start talking about the problems that Richard and I were having with the net. The guy works on his laptop for a couple of minutes, moves the tower around asks when we noticed having problems I guestamated about April, he goes back to the laptop looks at it some more then goes yup it was April and huh. I'm sorry but you never want to hear HUH come out of a tech support guy. Because that means that you have just stumped him.

He calls me over to his laptop and shows me the coverage area and says see you guys are covered but you are the the edge of 3 towers which shouldn't make a difference cause you shouldn't be having any problems at all. He then explained it to me as dropped calls and showed me how many "dropped calls" we have been getting with our service. Lets just say that last year we had only a few like maybe 5-10 a month which is normal, they went from that to 80-100 and just this month alone to over 1500 "dropped calls" which is bad. THen told us to cancel our internet through them cause he can't fix the problem we are having and that there is no point in paying them money. For a tech support to say that means a lot.

When Richard got home from work I told him what the guy said, and we went to go see how much dsl through ACS was going to cost us. There is no start up fee since we had at one point a phone through them so it's basically $89.00 a month for internet and phone. SO we will once again have a home phone again. Plus it will have caller id, call waiting and 100 interstate long distant minutes. All of that is included in the 89 bucks a month. So we signed up yesterday and now just have to wait for our modem to show up in the mail and for our phone line to be turned back on and to get a piece of paper in the mail with our new phone number on it.

So I do not recommend clearwire to anyone! they are a horrible company that doesn't know their head from the hole in the ground. All I got to say is thank god we never got a home phone threw them like they were pushing us to do cause it wouldn't of been working since April. WE still are putting up with clearwire till our modem shows up then we are canceling and never looking back and we are going to tell people not to go with them if they live in this area at all cause they would just be throwing their money down the toilet. Oh the tech guy even told me to tell mom how to get out of her 2 year contract with them, which is basically having her call and ask for tech support to come out and since it's just this guy he will come out and go yeah I can't help and the kill the contract for her so she can call and cancel with out being charged for ending the contract early.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Movie Madness!

Richard and I only made it to Toy Story 3 and Eclipse, his back was starting to bug him during Eclipse so we decided to call it a night and will see Despicable Me some other time. We had fun seeing the two we did see though. I have to admit I like the way they ended Toy Story,don't worry for those of you who haven't seen it I'm not saying a word about what goes on in it. I don't do that to people cause I hate when it happens to me.

On a funny note, while waiting for the second movie to start I ran off to the bathroom walked in and had no problems. Which in all honesty surprised me cause there is usually always a line for the woman's restroom at the movie theater at least when I go. I went back to the theater and Richard said he would be right back cause he too had to use the restroom, he comes back about 10 minutes later sits down next to me and told me there was a line to use the men's restroom. I about died laughing just cause I couldn't believe it. Richard even said himself that he was shocked and thought it was amusing.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Nose out of the book and into the Movies

Yesterday Richard & I went and had breakfast with my friends Larry and Judy form CA. It was so great to see them again. We went to Snow City Cafe and had like an hour and a half wait to be seated, but we waited it out cause we were catching up. Mary Rita another friend of theirs was there to and it was great to see her as well. She used to work at my high school while I was there. I had really good French toast there that was so sweet and nummy I want to go back and have them again, I just think it will be a while since they are always so freaking busy.

I am Half way through Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (year 4). Since my friend Tara hasn't been able to be online during the day, I have been reading more. I am still enjoying the books. I can see myself reading them to our kids if we ever have any.

Other than that Richard and I are doing a movie date night tonight. We are going and seeing Toy Story 3, Twilight Saga: Eclipse (second time) and depending on how we feel after those two possibly Despicable Me as well. I always love when we go to movies. It's something we don't do very often anymore so we are treating ourselves. Plus it's dark and raining so what better to do then go to the movies!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Magical Me

I have started rereading the Harry Potter Books, I am now on year 3. I started rereading them because Richard and I bought the Lego Harry Potter video game which made us both want to watch the movies so we sat down over 2 days and watched all 6 of the movies. This however just made us want to read the books so, there ya go.

In other news, I start job hunting in a couple of weeks. I have to have a meeting with my counselor from DVR and the lady I don't like before the job hunt begins. This is just to go over what is expected and so on and so forth. It's at least 3 weeks away if not longer cause my counselor at DVR is very busy. SO I am sitting around waiting for the phone call to set up the appointment.

We got permission to go back to the gym as long as Richard takes it easy, no working up a sweat for him. But both him and I are happy that we can go back and start working out again.

In other news, two of my dear friends from California are in Alaska and I get to see them on Saturday! I'm looking forward to seeing them. THey are getting together with a bunch of people on Saturday for breakfast and then possibly all going to the Saturday market afterwords depending on the weather. Should be fun.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Another Year Older with a little back pain

Today I am 27 years old. WOW! I remember thinking when I was little that I would never make it to the age of 18, for some weird reason I believe that the world would end in 2000. Little did I know that the belief is that in 2012 the world ends, so I guess if you want to believe it then I was about 12 years off. That and I thought by now we would be living in the sky like the Jetsons. I'm still waiting.

I had a great day today, I lounged around the apartment for most of it, I read a little more of the first Harry Potter book (3rd time through the series), did some dishes, watched Avatar, and then went up to mom's house so we could go out for my birthday dinner. Josh, mom, Richard and I went to FireTap for dinner and man o man was it good. I had this dish that is made with eggplant and was only able to eat maybe half of it. Then back to moms we went for cake and so I could pick up my gifts from her, she surprised me with 2 puzzles. So all and all it turned out to be a very good day for me.

Richard isn't nearly in as much pain as he was. He still hurts but can move a lot easier than what he was and that thrills me. this is the second day of him not having that much pain so things are looking good. He has the next 2 days off work and a physical therapy appointment on Tuesday where we are going to ask about going to the gym. We haven't gone at all this last week cause he was in so much pain and we didn't want to make things worse.

The only thing I really can complain about is the doc in the box doc, She just didn't listen to us when we went there Friday. Richard was in a lot of pain and wanted something for it, but we wanted to make sure that he could still work while on the pain killers. She said if she gave him something that he wouldn't be able to drive but could still work. I told her how can he work if he can't drive and she said well he has to sit down to work, no power equipment, then I said if he can't drive can you give him a note saying that he can't work cause I can't drive. Then she says well what do you guys want to do? and we are sitting there looking at her going I dunno doc what do you want us to do? She leaves to call Richards physical therapy doc, and when she comes back I asked well how about an anti inflammatory, she agrees then says I will give you prescription strength advil. Which by the way is 4 regular advil combined into one pill. Advil wasn't helping him to begin with and he was taking 5 advil with no effect at all. We tell her this and says well this is different. NO IT'S NOT! My mom is a nurse, it's the same damn thing as the over the counter shit! Then she gives Richard a script for a pain killer, just enough for the weekend and tells him to keep taking the muscle relaxers that he has. SO she wanted him on advil, a pain killer that has Tylenol in it (which all pain kills have in them) and the Formula 303's which is the natural muscle relaxer. Richard and I both agreed that this wasn't a good combination so he hasn't done it. To make matters worse, the physical therapy doc told him to just relax this weekend and do pretty much nothing, the other doc says that the best thing to do for lower back pain is to use your back! Excuse me? you tell us to take him to physical therapy then you tell us to ignore what the doc says and do what you say? I called her on it and she back pedals and says well don't have him just sitting on the couch and you bringing him everything he wants make him get up and get stuff and go to the bathroom is what I mean.

Ok, Richard and I aren't the thinnest people out there, well scratch that we are just plain fat we get this. We are trying to do something about it, not as hard as we could be but we are trying. Now mind you at this point in the doc visit Richard has given up talking to her cause he is frustrated and just wants to leave, so I am doing all the talking and he can tell that I'm about 5 seconds away from getting up and slapping this lady cause she just isn't listening and stuff, She looks me straight in the eyes and says you guys need to join weight watchers. WTF? umm yeah with what money? I was about to give her what she had coming but I bit my tongue and said, are we through here cause I would like to get him home so he can rest. Thus ends the visit. I'm sorry but come on like we don't know we are fat? we don't need to be reminded of it, and the way she said it was quite rude.

Anyways, we have to go back to the doc in the box on Tuesday but luckily for us she wont be there and a different doc will be. I hope it's the main doc there cause if it is I am going to lodge a complaint about her.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Mini Melt Down

Richard hurt his back at work on Monday. He was out on a delivery and hurt it moving carpets and carpet pads into an apartment that is being remodeled. He went to the doctor and she told him to go to physical therapy 3-4 times a week for 5 weeks, and to check back with her Tomorrow to see how he is doing. He was released to work but just sitting down only so he is making phone calls for Lowe's. Thankfully all of this is covered under workman's comp so none of this is coming out of pocket.

Richard is in a lot of pain, I have never seen him hurt like this before and it scares me. The pain is mostly in his lower back but says that occasionally it radiates down to his knees. That's what is freaking me out the most, cause mom said if its radiating down to his knees it means he injured his spinal cord. So now I am all freaked out because of this and jumped to the worse possible thing which is, what if he can't work at Lowe's anymore? What if he can't work at all period, what are we going to do then? We can't afford to not have him working, I'm not working yet and if he can't work we are screwed and deff can't live in our apartment cause we won't be able to afford it. What do we do then, cause living with his parents again is deff out of the question, and we can't live with mom cause it just wouldn't be good to have all of us under one roof like that.

All of that caused me to have a mini melt down last night, I just got too overwhelmed with those thoughts. Richard went to bed and I came out here to the computer and about 10 minutes later he came out because he knew I was upset and made me tell him what was wrong. I broke down started crying and confessed all my fears to him. Then felt bad about doing so cause I know he is worried about it too, but I felt a bit better about him now knowing what was bugging me so bad. I tried to hide it from him cause I didn't want him to worry about me and how I am handling it. I want him to focus on getting better.

As far as I know, he could make a full recovery and all will be fine. Which is what I am hoping for. But right now we are playing that nasty game of wait and see. I hate that game cause it makes me play the what if game and that does us no good.

In other news I have an appointment at DVR today that I'm not looking forward to cause I know what she is going to say to me. She is going to tell me to start looking for a job because CHD isn't going to hire me. At least that's what I am thinking she is going to say to me, that and that I have to start working with that lady that I don't really like.