Wheres my Cable TV and Internet?

Today made me think of some of the changes in the world, some for the better, some for the worse and some that don’t make a whole lot of difference.

It started one day about Noon, all our Cable and Internet was out, “What the Heck”, I thought, it must be them, we didn’t do a thing…..Our TV, as it does more often then ever has a screen that says there’s an issue and it will be fixed soon ……Right, when has that ever happened. So we wait and watch until about 4AM, no that’s not all we did, we just kept checking…..I knew I would have to call later in the AM to see what was going to be done. Finally about 9AM, I call, the Tech, like all Techs try’s all the magic he has been taught to do, say and try over the phone, no worky still…..Then comes the appointment, between 2 and 4 PM, that day….That’s not too bad…..At Two I’m checking every car or reflection that passes our house, finally, as I figured, at 4PM I get the call, “I’m just a short distance away, I’ll be there in about 10 minutes”….Cool…..Ten minutes later here he is…He asks the usual “On-the-spot” troubleshooting questions and goes down the street to “The Box”, this is where all the real magic happens.

I turn one TV on so if he get’s it, I will hear it and maybe notify him of the “Good Job”.

Several minutes later….Not too many……The TV comes on, he heads up to our front door and I meet him with the news…..’All is working, what was wrong?”

It looks like our next door neighbor had them out yesterday to fix their Cable and that Tech, after using all the “Troubleshooting Techniques” learned in “The School of Cable Troubleshooting Techniques”, fixed theirs and forgot to plug ours back in….That was the lesson he missed…….

So this brings me to my thoughts, thoughts about the past and what we have done to this point in time.

We have come such a long ways, even in my lifetime. The things that have changed are way to vast to cover in a little article like this but one memory when it comes to this Cable/Internet outage of mine, is that I guess we are now all spoiled. When I was about 5-8 years old we would go to my Aunts and watch their TV on Sunday night, we would all huddle around a semi-round 9” screen and wait for the “Toast of the Town” to come on, starring, Ed Sullivan. That was what we watched, we didn’t have to worry about what else we might be missing because that channel was it, there was only one channel, made it easy you say, ok, we didn’t need a remote for that but we were up countless times adjusting knobs and tweaking the Rabbit ears to be able to see the early TV programs…

Many inventions, changes improvements and concepts have changed, I will mention just a couple from my point of view. The Microwave, helpful, The Internet very helpful and a big problem, Cable TV, very enjoyable, DVD’s, oh, yea, Cell phone, good and bad, Remotes, now they are essential. HMO’s, they should be cheaper, but as usual, you get what ya pay for, today a Physical, if your doctor is knows what one is consists of two things, a Blood and a Urine test, that’s it….The doctors today do a Two question evaluation, is the patient breathing, “Yes” their ok, if they are not and the answer is ‘No”, there might be a problem so they do a referral to a specialist, in most cases, when it’s that urgent you might see one in less then a month. The Post Office, my personal all-time favorite, they had back in my early childhood a One cent Post Card and a Three cent letter delivery that could go from one coast of the US to the other coast in about 4-5 days, today, the same letter will cost you Forty-Four cents to cover the same distance and might make it in Five days if the letter is not lost or stolen…..

With the technology that we have developed over these years I can sit at my laptop with a web cam and watch NASA fix the toilet on our Space Station, if I wanted to, that would be nice to see, I can also view the operation of any Chimp in the deepest layers of any jungle in the world, that to could be cool. What I would like to see is doing the things I know we can do with this technology, build cars with much, much better gas mileage and less pollution, really cure things like Cancer and really, I have many, many more but for now, I best sign off. In conclusion, let’s sit back, use all our goodies and toys, be happy, be satisfied and be safe….