Ranting and Raving

Last week saw me in the Water-downed version of Vegas known as Atlantic City helping to run the regional conference for my company. Granted, I didn’t ask to get dragged into helping, it was sort of just dropped in my lap half-ass-ed-ly (is that even a word) about a week and a half beforehand.

To say it was exhausting would be an understatement. Not only did NO ONE hand in their PowerPoint presentations the Friday before like I asked (nicely even) them to do, but certain people were making corrections UP UNTIL THE MOMENT they went up on stage to present. This of course led to working 15 hour days. Add to that the fact that the curtains in my LOBBY FACING ROOM did nothing to block out the miniature sun that they use to illuminate said lobby I also didn’t get much sleep.

Needless to say, I told my regional manager that I would be taking the next day off. He was fine with that and very appreciative of the effort.

/Tangent
I would like to state that although this event was crazy, I was constantly told how much of a good job I did by the management all the way up to the global level folks that were there. It did feel good to be appreciated.
/Tangent

I stayed home on Thursday to relax a bit and leisurely answer the 100+ relevant emails (and delete the 100+ irrelevant ones) I had sitting in my mailbox. This would not come to fruition as Verizon decided that I did not need internet that day, when in fact I did. So begins my tale of tech support hell. I won’t bore you with that story and just tell you the following:

1. Verizon Tech Support Sucks
2. They think AV software affects network connectivity

It came to the point where I had to unplug my modem so that they would not detect it AT ALL, which in their ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ tech support script forces them to escalate to a technician visit. Once I was transferred to dispatch and told that someone would be there between 10:30am and 6pm I proceeded to sit around watching boring daytime TV waiting for the guy to show up and not having the wonders of the internet to amuse me. I tell you this now…I truly know what Hell is.

Once he did show up (at 4:30pm) and saw the issue he proceeded to do all his tests and make all his support calls. His conclusion, after 2 hours, was that the modem was the problem. I highly doubt this, as the evidence pointed to Verizon’s network being BORKED. Basically DNS would resolve and the page would begin to load and then just sit there. The tech even SAW THIS while trying to use his own web-based testing tools which were basic enough to load instantly if their damn network was working.

In the end, I received a new modem last night. I will be installing it tonight in the hopes that this shit doesn’t happen again. If it does, I will be making the trek into the fancy pants world of Cable Internet. Sorry Dad 🙁

The one bright spot to this whole story is unrelated to the internet at all!

We had some last minute family guests stop in for the weekend. It was an great time filled with good food, some walking around Central Park on a beautiful fall day, and a copious amount of booze! HERE, HERE!!

So now I am hoping that the rest of this week shall be quiet enough for me to finally relax and unclench a bit. That should free up the creative juices (pun TOTALLY intended) and I should be posting a bit to make up for the lack of content.

At least that’s the plan……