Technology Fail

I was wondering why no one was calling me until I finally figured out that my phone(s) were not ringing. Had voice mail, had a dial tone, could make outgoing calls -- but the ringer would not sound. Called Verizon, set up an appointment for Thursday and then the Verizon guy showed up about an hour later saying he had a slow day and remembered me from a few months back.

This is George, Old School George, who tried everything and was stumped. He worked on it for about 30 minutes and decided it had to be the phones. Neither of us quite believed that, but we ran out of solutions.

Marilyn was here and went out and bought a phone -- in the meantime, George left and said he'd check back. When Marilyn plugged in the new phone (she only bought one) and it rang, I was so thrilled. But it's bizarre. What this means is that the ringer on two different phones, bought at two different times, failed simultaneously. Too hard to believe, too much of a coincidence but that's what it was. At least, the new phone solved it. I'll have to buy one more new phone. George called back and even he was surprised it was the phone -- said in 40 years, he's never seen anything like it. So the phone is back in business.

On to cable. Over the weekend, I lost audio on some channels, had others turn on their own from English to Spanish... just frustrating. Called Time Warner and after being annoyed of what they wanted me to do --- plug this, unplug this, do this, unhook that... no go. So I have an appointment tomorrow from noon to 1 pm.

Meanwhile my phone rings and it's "Advanced Technical Support" via India who says she can fix it and then I won't have to have an appointment. So I did what she wanted, then it got stuck rebooting... oh it was just a cluster you-know-what... but she takes me from a semi-working tv to a totally non-working TV... yeah, Great Advanced Technical Support!! Thanks for being worse than useless.

So I call back in the US and got my TV restored, another reboot, another screw/unscrew/count to 45, but at least I have something... but two hours later and I am where I was -- some stations with no audio.

Just this second got another annoying call from India from a supervisor all happy that my problem was fixed and he's checking in that I'm a happy Time Warner camper.. oh dear, that was like waving a red flag in front of a bull and I am the bull. Gave him an earfull. So we'll see what happens tomorrow.