Laying Down on the Job

I was out of bed & downstairs around 745am. Despite a weather forecast that on Friday promised that the rain would move out, it was still sprinkling. Ho-hum. I started a pot of coffee then headed to my PC. It was a little depressing looking at the long range (10 day) forecast for both Columbus and Holiday Valley. Not a day below freezing or any snow in the forecast. The coffee was ready around 815am. Poured a cup then returned to my PC.

I spent a little time updating my blog before heading out for a run. I needed to be back home by 10am for our Time Warner upgrade of service appointment. Mindy was up around 845am. After some coffee, she headed upstairs for a shower. Near the same time, I headed out for my run. It was close to 935am.
It was drizzly and 52 degrees, actually pretty nice weather for a run. I ran three miles without issue. The Time Warner contractor was at the house when I got back from my run. Frankly, I was surprised that he was already there given that it was a 10-11am appointment. It was only 1005am. Mindy was showered and dressed but hadn’t yet finished her hair and make-up. She said she couldn’t answer most of his initial questions, but assured him I’d be back in a few short minutes.

Russell, the tech was replacing our cable modem when I walked in. Said he eliminated my quality Cisco dual band n-router too. I didn’t request a new router, so I asked him to hook it back up. Said that wouldn’t be a problem, but it was a combo modem/router, so the device would actually remain, but only as the cable modem. Whatever it takes.

Next, we headed to the family room where Russell swapped out the HD DVR box with a new Cisco whole-house DVR. Initially the swap went fine until he discovered that there isn’t a digital audio output on the new Cisco, which is how we get the audio to my Yamaha receiver for surround sound. He made a quick call to his office to try and determine how to proceed. His solution wasn’t acceptable, which basically eliminated an audio feed to my receiver. With that solution I was ready to cancel the whole upgrade.

It dawned on me that the Cisco box did have a fiber optic output, and that’s how I moved audio from our Blu-Ray player to the receiver. I suggested we swap the cables between devices. Problem solved. Mindy was downstairs and ready to head out for a run to Target. She left shortly after Russell joked with her about doing some of his Xmas shopping.

After Mindy left, Russell and I headed upstairs to put the box on the master bedroom TV. That went fairly smooth. While Russell set up the cable modem and the telephone service, I tinkered with the new DVR in the family room. He had to come in and configure the box to our 1080i TV. Before that, most HD channels weren’t viewable. I was a little nervous but he figured it out in a hurry.

The phone service install was far & away the simplest, essentially plug n’ play. I fumbled to find the assigned number to place a test call. Worked perfectly. Russell took a few minutes to gather all the trash and then the old box and cable modem. I’m thinking he was there until almost noon, or about 2 hours.
As soon as Russell was gone, I took another hour to get everything set up the way I wanted it, including getting the new home phone set-up attractively on the kitchen side desk. I also pulled out my Yamaha receiver and swapped the inputs on the back so the cable box audio matched the setting. As it was, I had to have the receiver on DVD player for the cable audio after swapping the cables. I took a few minutes to clean the dust bunnies behind the cabinet, too. It took me quite a while to figure out how to program the new remote to control my Yamaha receiver. None of the codes listed worked. I had to use the auto discover feature, which literally meant I had to hold the find button down for almost 4 minutes before it discovered the code. But once I did it actually controlled more features than our old remote. Cool!
I did an internet speed test next. As advertised, I am now getting download speeds of 20mbps, effectively doubling my old speed.

Once the cable services were squared away, I headed to the basement to inventory all of my ski gear, including gloves, helmet liner, gator, goggles, etc. I even tried on my ski pants to make sure they still fit comfortably. They did. Satisfied that all my gear is ready to roll, I carried my ski boots upstairs where I planned to give them a tune-up. The first thing I did was give them a bath. They were covered in a white powder, chemical residue from Mad River Mtn. snow preservative, I am sure. After a thorough cleaning, I coated the adjustable boot buckles with 3-1 oil, and then worked them in and out several times. A couple of them were beginning to seize up prior. Lastly, I installed my new Dr. Scholl’s Gel insoles. What a difference!

Mindy was home just as I finished tuning up my boots. I suggested that I would do hers next. Took about 30 minutes to do mine. Mindy’s went a little faster after working out a system. Plus, she didn’t have new insoles needing installed. From my perspective, we’re ski ready. Now all we need is some dang snow! Mindy quickly prepared to leave for Fallon’s baby shower. Fallon is a girl that we met at MRM towards the tail end of the 2010 ski season. Later that spring she headed off somewhere in Asia to teach English. While gone she got married, and two years later is expecting their first child. The theme of the party was “a tea”. According to Mindy, she was really supposed to wear a formal dress and gloves, but she didn’t have any in white. Mindy left the house around 130pm expecting to be home near 4pm, or just in time for us to get ready for Ben & Ryan’s Xmas party.

While Mindy was away I planned to tinker and nap. I was starving, though, so the first thing I did was make a burrito with leftover taco meat. Umm! The next 90 minutes went pretty fast. I headed up for a shower around 330pm. After a shower I decided to try out our new bedroom cable box. I was disappointed to discover that the box was disabled and displayed a message to call Time Warner service. Dang it! I called the number on the screen was quickly routed to Justin, who later shared that he was in Zanesville. Not that it really mattered. He was able to take care of the problem. Said Russell forgot to have them remove our old HD box and add the 2nd new one. He asked three times if we still had the old box in the house. Each time I told him the same thing. No, Russell took it with him.

Had to reprogram the new remote for the cable box, too. In home technology has certainly gotten complicated over the years. Mindy got home just as I was finishing up on the phone with Time Warner. She laughed when I told her what happened. It was about 420pm. Mindy took care of a few things downstairs but then headed to our room to steal a nap ahead of Ben & Ryan’s party, which officially began at 5pm. We figured to get thee around 630pm.

While Mindy napped, I spent a little more time online updating my blog from the past week. Mindy’s nap was relatively short, 30 minutes tops. I have expected to sleep for a couple hours. She readied for Ben & Ryan’s party while I walked the pug. We left the house between 6-630pm.

We didn’t have the address or street name but have been there a couple other times. We figured we could fairly easy find the house by familiarity. I took 70W to Hilliard-Rome Rd then headed south. We got stopped for a train at just north of the old 84 lumber. There was something like 130 train cars, though I stopped counting accurately at 100.

We sniffed out their house easy enough. I recognized the street name – Pasadena right away. We then drive until we ran into a number of cars. Yep, that was it. Probably a little more than half their guests were already there on hand. There were a few guests, including Josh, hanging out in the detached garage. We stopped in there briefly first. I followed Mindy inside to greet Ben & Ryan.

We arrived bearing gifts and also brought a growler of CBC Bodhi. There were lots of eats. Ben’s one heck of a chef. In fact, all will tell you that he missed his true calling. Everything we ate was prepared by Ben. He made wings, smoked brisket, Puerto Rican pork roast, a stuffing with rice concoction, as well as a few others. Everything was to die for. Most folks ate the meat with fingers and napkins. No need for utensils or plates.

Our friend Josh (Ben’s brother-in-law) had us all in stitches with several impersonations: Ben, Kenny, Steve – Ben’s father, etc. Too funny! Ben insisted we head to his bar in the basement to do a shot. Showed me his scotch collection. We ended up doing a shot of locally distilled OYO vodka. It’s pretty good.

We hung out at Ben & Ryan’s party until almost 11pm. Mindy had only one glass of wine and agreed to drive. Aside from Ben’s parents, we were the first to depart. We’re old fuddie duddies, I guess. 

Mindy was quickly off to bed as soon as we arrived home. I went to the computer but quickly abandoned thoughts of staying up and hanging out after Mindy pleaded her case for me to join her in bed. She agreed to let me watch SNL from bed. I don’t think I saw much at all.