interference

Was on the phone and using the tubes last night at the same time. Tubes stopped working. My ISP is via wireless, as I think I've mentioned before. The ISP has a x-mitter on top of a water tower a couple miles from my house, and i have a small antenna on my roof to receive it. Apparently, this works at 2.4GHz, which happens to be the same frequency as my cordless, and has been known to get interference from the cordless. It's the first time the web has stopped working while i was on the phone, but the tech support guy indicated that was probably the issue.

Sure enough, i reset everything, got off the phone and it worked. when i called back to tell the guy that, it stopped working again. got off the phone and it was fine. shit, guess i need to get a new cordless, (higher or lower frequency) or just live with it.

it's a miracle

We've got both of our vehicles parked in the garage. It took some work, but with the 4-wheeler in front of the car, the motorcycle, bicycle and wheelbarrow in the basement and other crap stacked around the edge, i made room for my truck. Now, if we get a big snow that requires me to plow, that will be a total PITA to get the 4-wheeler out, but at least i don't have to clean the truck off or warm it up in the morning.

Gonna have to get a move on building the barn I'm wanting, because I don't think next winter will be so easy to make room in the garage, as I'm always accumulating garage-type crap. I was going to wait a couple years on the barn, but may see if we can swing building it this year...

Christmas is over!

finally, my backordered Christmas gift from Stacey was delivered, an 18V DeWalt drill. I've been needing/wanting a new drill for a year or so, because my 18V Crapsman batteries won't hold a charge and have to stay on the charger if i want to ever be able to use the damn thing. I'm pretty stoked because DeWalts are good gear, too bad i didn't have it BEFORE i wired the house though :D I'm sure i'll have plenty projects in the not to distant future to use it on though!

Thanks!

Question

Does anyone use a U.S. help desk anymore?

It's not that I don't appreciate the fact that these outsourced folks need jobs, and it's not that I can't understand them. Usually, they speak pretty clear English. It just bothers me, the sheer number of companies that are outsourcing all of this stuff...maybe it's our own fault for demanding such high pay for jobs that don't really require any skills but enunciation...

Not much to report

I'll give a quick breakdown of Christmas. Had some good times, way too much to eat and way to much stuff. I got some new tools, a remote control AMC Pacer, a coffee maker, thermos, some movies, a couple of gamecube games, a coffee mug with IAC's picture on it, an IAC picture book, a few various gift cards and some other stuff i can't remember right now. Still haven't got a gift from the wife, hooray for backorder!

IAC got sick the friday after Christmas, and is fighting it off still. We took him to the doc on the 31st and he has RSV. It pretty much sucks, but we caught it before it got real bad, so no hospital time, but some inhalers he has to take. he's not a fan of those.

Also, SBIL gave me an old Nintendo DS that didn't work. The top screen wasn't doing anything. I've been troubleshooting it for 2 weeks and buying parts off ebay. Nothing I've bought so far has fixed it, but I've got one last part coming in the mail, and if it's not the fix, then it's the motherboard or processor that's shot, and I'll part it out on ebay. Hopefully I can get enough out of the parts that didn't fix it to make up for most of the money I spent...

that's all i can think of for now...pretty boring.