Worst. Date. Ever.

That has been the topic on FM 100.3 this week as they are giving away tickets to the Eagles concert. They have had some pretty bad dates and ironically many of them were had with a future spouse. But that got me thinking back on all of the dates I went on in high school and after my mission. Man, I was a dating machine. My wife would probably like some of that part of me back. :)

Anyway, as I thinking back trying to remember my worst date so I could call in because I like winning stuff, I came a wonderful realization: Even my "worst" date was really pretty good. So I decided I wanted to send a big Thank You! to all of the girls I went on a date with for not giving me a story I could share. Thank you for the good memories and the fun.

Internet death, great neighbors, freedom!

It happened out of the blue last Wednesday while I was at work. The internet at our house died. Not the usual playing dead where a good kick in the ribs will bring it back to life, but full on blood everywhere, no pulse dead. I called our provider which is run by a room full of monkeys flinging their crap at each other. The unsupportive tech person said I needed to be in front of my connection at my house because she couldn't send the ticket to the next level if she doesn't go through her 3 steps. We go through two of them every time it plays dead. I couldn't be there because I was at work. I had class that night. By the time I got home I had forgotten that I needed to call them because I was tired. So Thursday Michelle called and went through the whole 3-step process. Then a level 2 tech called to say we were definitely broken and he would have the scheduler call to schedule a tech. Then hours of silence. I called when I got home to find out that they are idiots and the monkeys were still covered in excrement and loving it. The scheduler wasn't in the office on Thursday. He would be back on Friday. Nobody else there did his job when he wasn't in. Good thing customer's don't have problems on a regular basis apparently. So we weren't going to hear anything from these yahoo's until Friday.

Fridays are special. I get to work from home on Fridays and that helps with Michelle's sanity as she can go shopping or rest or whatever without having to take or worry about all of the kids. Well, without internet, I can't work from home. Without internet there were a lot of things we couldn't do that we wanted to. After confirming that they don't know what good customer service is, I called our next door neighbors to see if we could 'borrow' their signal for a few days. I'd like to say we have the best neighbors in the world...but I don't have to because if you know them, you already know that they are! He came over and helped me get on their internet and I was able to work from home the next day. Well Friday came and went with no phone call from the primates. Maybe they were overwhelmed by the stench of their own idiocy. No word all weekend.

Today I called and asked what the heck was going on. Well apparently the scheduler lied in the notes and said he called but the number was disconnected or no longer in service. I verified the number she had for us and confirmed that I had just talked my wife on that same number less than 5 minutes earlier. I came as close to calling the guy a bald-faced liar as I could without using those words. The tech did in fact come out, did nothing with our equipment on our roof and left declaring it was fixed. Michelle still couldn't get on and my night post-class will be figuring out why. I of course demanded a credit for all of my down-time. And hopefully on Friday, our local carrier will show up and install better internet. Then I will finally be free of the missing link that has been our ISP.

I will not name them but feel free to ask me. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. Unless of course you like dealing with stinky monkeys.