All in Fall

Again we are enjoying a variety of weather days. Some days are really warm, some are cool and many are in between and quite fallish. We actually had two or three days when we did not put on the a/c and still felt comfortable.

The news of this week is that Dino turned six years old. He is still like a pup to us in many ways and we enjoy that. For his birthday we made a big deal of the day including numerous guests and of course more gifts than we could count -- NOT. We actually wished him well and made sure that the day fell into his normal routine, which is what he really enjoys as well.

The far left photo is the most recent, the remainders are at various times. One of his favorite activities is, of course, napping during the day.  At one point he looks like he woke from a daymare and was bracing himself for impact. Later that evening he crawled well into his nighttime bed and just his nose and one paw were showing.

Usually, I have a huge amount of research progress to report, but this week, while I did do some researching, unfortunately, my time got used up elsewhere.

Our washer (of the washer/dryer duo) was acting up so I made an urgent call to the Sears repair department. During the wash cycle, the machine goes into what sounds like a failing jet engine and nothing stops the noise until it winds down after unplugging.

We made a date of Thursday, the 28th between the hours of 8 -- Noon. I was not happy about a 4-hour window, but went ahead and bit the bullet.

I confirmed the appointment on Tuesday and was told that all was set for Thursday. On Thursday I called again at 9:30 am just to see if I could narrow down the time when I could expect to see the repair folks. I was told that unfortunately there was a "scheduling error" and they would not be coming out today . . .

I was then told that they made a new appointment for us on the coming Monday from 1-5. I could not believe what I was hearing after I had made every attempt to be sure that all was on time. I asked to have the situation escalated and after many transfers and delays was essentially given the same information that I already had -- I asked to speak with the manager in charge and was told that "he doesn't take phone calls".

I went online and got the email address of Sears "Corporate" to register a complaint. While online I read countless complaints about essentially the same issues that  I had. I did get a note back from a corporate group asking that I give them another chance to do their job and to live up to their commitment.

Bottomline -- I arranged for another company to come repair the washer and I canceled the Monday Sears appointment -- "never again" . . .

Now, the other encounter that used up so much of my research time came about from adding a new router extender to my existing home network. I know from past experiences that anytime I mess with the router, that it is going to be a nosebleed -- and was it ever.

I was confident that "this" time it would all go smoothly and all be up and running in a relatively short time.

At first, I thought that I succeeded but then I started getting an indication that the new extender was not being recognized and then the devices supposedly relying on it were not connecting to the web.

Several hours later, after going through the plugging and unplugging of equipment and trying to decipher the accent of the technician, I think it is working although I am not totally sure yet.

There were many statements that I never did understand for sure but got very tired of asking them to repeat what they just had said. So for parts of three days, I was exhausted from being so frustrated.
I am not sure what the answer is, but giving up "tech" should not be a solution, instead something should be done to fix the communication problems that exist in almost every tech support call or request.

I do have to say though that I had to call two other companies for tech support and I received absolutely great support and was exactly what I needed to fix the problem -- those two companies were Apple and Ring. Both were outstanding.

Our "poor" Giants -- at least one thing good happened due to their win last night over the Padres -- they are not in jeopardy to lose 100 games this season.

With the win, they at most can only lose 99 games this year. There is a game going on right now -- Matt Cain, is pitching his final game before retiring and we'll watch it a bit later.

With the way Matt Cain is performing lately, it would not be out of the realm for loss number 98 to be there . . . just saying.





Something to look forward to . . .!

This is one of the best genealogical programs ever. While I am not thrilled with some of the folks being featured, I know that a thorough job will be done detailing their family trees.

Often too, I change my opinion of folks once I see them on the show and learn a lot about their family and circumstances.


So, I look forward to Tuesday evening when PBS runs this program.

And lastly,

I hope to catch up on some of the time that I had to spend dealing with unresponsive companies and with way over complex products -- just to make things work the way that they should anyway.

I'm putting off the housework this weekend, but I'll still do some cooking, cause we enjoy eating. But once that is over, I hope that it'll be back to genealogical researching . . .

That is a bit of our week. See you all "in a few"!