It’s been several weeks since my first two encounters with CenturyTel, and there was still no sign of a DSL modem. Friday morning I took the initiative and called them up. “Oh, it’s been active since the first day you called, we just forgot to send the modem. We’ll overnight it. Just give us a call when it arrives and we’ll modify you’re activation date so you don’t get billed for service you didn’t receive”.

Of course in CenturyTel terms, overnighting it means it shows up Tuesday of the next week. I spent most of this evening trying to get it to work. Plugged it in with and without the line filter, at every outlet in my house. Opened a few up even to verify that all 4 wires are connected to the outlets. I bit the bullet and called tech support again. 24 minutes 52 seconds on hold before I finally got a real person. 2 innings in the game missed listening to hold music. Anyway, I fed the phone jockey the answers to her scripted questions before she even finished asking them, and get put on hold again. Tier 2 support picks up after 5 minutes. “You’re all on here, I’ll have to put in a repair ticket. They’ve got a 24-48 response time on repair calls, so you may be without DSL service for another day or two.”

Slow, overpriced DSL and no competent tech support! Yes sir may I have another?

Ugh. Why, oh why can’t I pick my local phone company? (rhetorical question, you don’t have to answer. I know why, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the local govt. regulated phone monopoly.)

The day star surprised me just now. It’s been dark when I arrive at work in the A.M., and when I go home it’s been cloudy/raining for the last week. I walked out into the hall (no window in my cube) and saw sunlight on the floor. For a second I mistook it for a new streetlight outside, until I realized it was too bright to be that. I walked over the glass portal between myself and the big blue room, and saw sky. It was good.

I win! I called in around 2pm and got someone competent. They too experienced problems with finding LSL, but had obviously worked at centurytel more than a day and new how to fix it. I should have phone service starting Monday, and my DSL modem is in the mail.

I attempted to set up local phone service for the first time yesterday. I’ve heard horror stories about SBC, but CenturyTel isn’t turning out the be any better. Man I wish I had a choice for local phone service.

5:00pm Call centurytel
5:05pm Get through automated menu system to a real person, request local phone service. He answers with “oh, I can do that!” Oy.
5:06pm Spell out my name and address, get put on hold.
5:15pm Come back from hold, he can’t find the city, much less the address in his system. Correct his spelling of Lake in Lake St. Louis. Correct his number on the address, 1225 instead of 2225. Get put on hold.
5:25pm Come back from hold, still can’t find it. Asked if it’s near Dardenne. Explain geography of area, get put on hold.
5:45pm No sign of ever coming back from hold, so I hung up out of frustration.

I’ll try again this afternoon, hopefully this time I’ll get someone with a clue, or maybe someone who’s been there more than a week.

My brand new truck’s check engine light came on last week. I thought it was bad gas, but that turned out incorrect. I made an appointment to take it in yesterday afternoon, and drove it around until then.

I got to Royal Gate Dodge yesterday evening around 5-ish, and spent a couple hours in their lobby waiting for them to finish. I didn’t mind it much, since they’ve got free donuts, a huge flat panel TV, and free Wifi. There’s nothing really I could do at home that I couldn’t do from their waiting room. After those couple hours, the service rep comes up to me and says they need to keep it overnight. The evening mechanic doesn’t know what’s wrong, but the day mechanic had seen the error codes before.

We walked over to the Cashier and they hooked me up with a free rental car for the evening/next day. A Chevy Aveo. Now, I thought it was cool they gave me a rental car even though I’m under 25, but did they have to give me the smallest, cheapest car made? It wasn’t that bad of a car, but it was not designed for someone who is 6’ 2”.

After work today I returned the rental car and picked up my truck. There was nothing physically wrong with it. There is a software error in the 2004 Dakota’s computer that causes it to spew random error codes, and Chrysler just contacted my dealer about it this morning. Chrysler told them they should have an update in a month or two, and until then I shouldn’t worry about the check engine light coming back on.

Overall, I’d have to say I’m pretty impressed with Royal Gate. The salesman didn’t pressure me at all, and I was able to talk him down a fair amount on the price, I’ve got free oil changes and tire rotations for life, The service dept. lobby has everything I need, and they were extremely helpful and courteous about performing the warranty covered work and free rental car. I’d recommend them to anyone looking for a new truck.

It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and it’s almost as dark as night. The rain is falling in buckets. There is CONSTANT lighting and thunder. My parents live in some wooded hills, so the the thunder is echoing between the hills, getting louder and louder as new claps are added. Oh! That last one looked (and felt) close. I’m glad my parents have an enclosed back porch so I can sit out and enjoy this since the stupid satellite is out.

NEWSFLASH: Bring your dog and truck inside before the storm gets really bad, because hail is painful otherwise!

It’s official, I am a new truck owner. I picked it up last night, drove home to show my mom and brother, and then went out with my fiancée and best friend for a late dinner. I originally drove this truck last month at Century Motors, and didn’t buy it then because the salesman I got stuck with was a dick.

I went down to Lou Fusz Mitsubishi on Manchester to look at a 2003 Dakota on Monday, only to find out they had sold it last week. On the way back we stopped at Royal Gate Dodge to see what they had in stock. Six acre lot of new cars and trucks, and not a single one with a manual transmission. The salesman we talked to was real nice though, so he did some searching to find what I wanted.

My dad and I went down there again Wednesday, and we decided to get my truck from Century, through Royal Gate. We managed to talk him down about a thousand below what he originally offered, so I felt good about it. We also got him to throw in a free spray-in bed liner, but I have to take it in next week to get that done.

Stats:

• 2004 Dodge Dakota Club Cab SXT 4x2
• Graphite Metallic Grey exterior, Slate Grey interior
• 3.7L V6 with 210 Horsepower
• 5-speed, manual transmission (my one “must-have” item)
• Sliding rear window
• tire and handling package (meaning of the SXT above)
  • wider (16x8) tires
  • various other stuff
• in-dash cdplayer

I’ll post some pictures later on this week when i get my camera back from Rolla.

It seems strangely appropriate that I got this:

I can see things slowly improving. I’ve accepted a job with Boeing. I’m getting email once or twice a week from the department and other outside companies about job opportunities. Two years ago when things tanked I decided I was definitely going to stay for my masters after graduation. Now here I am, a job lined up, turning down other opportunities, and ready to leave Rolla. Funny how stuff like that happens. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to get my masters, I’m just gonna let someone else pay for it :–)

No time to post in the blog right now, for I must continue playing with my shiny new PowerBook.

UPDATE: Okay, so I’ve got a little bit of a break right now while iTunes imports approximately 9GB of music. (what can I say? I like to rip all of my CDs at a high bit rate).

This is definitely the absolute best hardware purchase I have ever made. ever. It took about 10 minutes to learn every tiny facet in the OS X GUI with zero prior experience. Everything simply works. And it’s not like there’s nothing to tweak either. I’ve already customized the hell out of this machine. It’s just that they made it so damn simple to do. My new recommendation for anyone with a little spare cash is to go pick one up now. I put myself about $1200 into debt, but it’s worth every penny.

A few specs off the top of my head:

• 15.2” display
• 1.25 Ghz G4
• 512MB of RAM
• 80GB HDD
• 802.11g
• firewire 400, 800
• usb 2
• bluetooth
• dvd-r/-rw drive
• pccard slot
• ati radeon 9600 with 64MB RAM
• dvi and svideo out
• 10/100/1000 mbps ethernet
• and of course, the sweetest OS ever, OS X

I’ll probably post a screenshot sometime soon. The damn thing just works.