Right before sundown he showed up to disc his field last night. It's a small field and with something that wide it wouldn't take him too long. Luckily the wind was blowing away from the house and all that dust was headed west and not toward the house. I had my windows open and had completed my weekly house cleaning earlier in the day.
While on the hound walk this morning I saw he still has about half of his field to do. That is the section that goes to the right of my house and behind the two neighbors across the highway. I just caught the tail end of the local tv news the other night where they were discussing income per acre. Don't take this as accurate, but the part of the show I caught was talking $15 per acre after they harvest their crops.
Sadie had not made it out to this part of the yard yet. So the robin was safe, while the hounds were over by the burn pile. I moved my mower up one level so I am letting this part of the backyard grow a little before I mow it again. The mole hills and tracks are disappearing naturally with the rains and the grass is overtaking the weeds as it gets greener. I did not apply any Scott's turf builder nor grub worm killer.
I have a feeling the big blonde cat was checking out the yard last night while we slept. Sadie and Stella slowly walked investigating every inch along the back side of the house. They spent a lot of time around the air conditioner, then slowly migrated up the small hill to the far north of the yard where the robin was.
They have decided that is their new place, barely out in the field for their bathroom runs. They may head back in the direction of the house but not before they stand looking in the direction of the neighbor's house. Their nose scans the area before they turn to walk toward me.
By 9:45am this morning I had all of my walls and doors hand washed and wiped down with a towel. Before I did any cleaning, I vacuumed all of the walls and ceiling. I guess I could buy some new attachments for my old Swifter, or just buy a new one. The last time I used a Swifter to clean the walls, it was hard to put into words what you don't see on your walls and the Swifter picked up.
So with a break needed and a call from my HughesNet installer telling me it would be after lunch before his arrival, the hounds and I took off for a walk. Heidi was sound asleep on 'her' Marmot sleeping back in front of an open window enjoying the breeze.
You may have noticed I typed HughesNet and not Exede when I mentioned the installer calling. There is a reason for that and luckily since I was not really paying attention, it will not cost me anything in fees for changing service providers unintentionally.
The other day I mentioned on a post here the local business that installed my Exede system in June 2014, texted me as an Exede Customer telling me about the new plan available in my area as of April 1. For some reason I thought it was a new Exede plan. I also thought I was on an automatic two year contract renewal after my expiration date.
I found out last night just how confused I was on this transaction. It wasn't a 'senior moment' but more of not paying attention to what was said. Or maybe it wasn't, because when I looked back through those texts from the local business at no time was HughesNet mentioned.
What I found strange was the day I set up an "update" day (today), they billed the debit card I gave them. What was confusing was the description for that transaction said HughesNet and not Exede. The next confusing thing I noticed was that on the Exede website the plan they were offering me locally was nowhere on the Exede website.
Just a short break from the topic ... Sadie got in some really good running this morning. 100% effort and without being called.
When I saw the different name I really didn't think to much about it since I was happy with the savings in my new monthly bill, faster speeds and more data per month. I thought I'd call the local business to verify if something had been entered wrong before my service appointment.
Last night the owner texted me since it was after office hours to let me in on the change in service. I did some quick internet review searching on the Gen5 system and found no problems with it. The new satellite was just launched March 16, 2017. I watched the video on the HughesNet website, from building it to launching it ... pretty amazing stuff.
As far as reviews found on the internet ... I will read them but don't put a lot of stock in them. I'll analyze what is being said by active or past customers and then decide ... but if the review is from CNET, then that something I strongly consider before making a decision.
I was going to call Exede again and make sure I was not breaking a contract. I will say that if there was going to be a fee charged to me for breaking a contract I would have had second thoughts about the change. I have had nothing but great service with Exede and unless I start streaming movies through my Directv, the faster download speed may not be that much of a factor since I have great fast speed now for internet surfing.
I found out after my first two years had passed I was not on a two year renewal but on a month to month basis. No one from Exede ever told me that whenever I talked to Customer Service.
Besides the difference in speed and data limits, I'll not get a free data period between midnight and 5am but will get an extra free 50Gb of data for the month, to use between the hours of 2am-8am. Still a good period of the day to do my large OS updates, download movies or ballgames. Those OS updates do not take place too often.
I'll write more about the new system later after it's installed and give kind of a system review for those of you are interested. What I found interesting was that the Gen5 system automatically compresses and optimized web content with built-in SmartTechonlogies to make web pages load faster while using less data.
I will be able to monitor that activity with my Activity Monitor that I always have open on my other monitor incase something downloads that I am not expecting.
It also includes a video data saver so you can watch more videos using less data. It will adjust data rates for streaming video to deliver DVD quality.
Under my current system I basically cut out my YouTube videos because of the amount of data I was using. With only 15Gb per month I had to really control the amount of video I watched and made sure that all of the 'autoplay' settings were turned off, along with using Flash Control and Ghostery apps.
I'll keep posting updates to the system change and let you know if I made a good decision. The owner of the local satellite business told me that he is getting great feedback from past Exede customers that changed to this new HughesNet system last week.
What else was confusing??? My old old old washer I blogged about a few weeks ago didn't work. At that time the belt had decided not to work, thus the wash machine did not spin to get all of the water out of the clothes.
I was about to say heck with repairing a 38 year old washer and just buy a new washer and dryer. I still might because it is past due I guess for replacement, but they still work okay and with me being retired I found that I do laundry less frequently.
So last night I did a small test to see if the machine was going to spin or not ... it did !!!! I loaded the wash machine to capacity, including three pairs of jeans and two sweatshirts. Both would be very heavy when loaded with water. I would find out if the weight of the wet load would be a factor for the spin cycle not working.
The rinse and spin cycles for two loads worked perfect. I had done nothing to fix the problem of a few weeks ago. So the wash machine may be on it's last legs but I will continue to use it until it stops working.
Well I have to get the hounds fed lunch, and then barricade them in the living room, blocked by a baby gate when the installer shows up in about an hour. All three of them would be more than willing to help him do his job or at least supervise him if they were not blocked off.
It's perfect weather today here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.
No comments:
Post a Comment