Disappointments

Last night wasn't a great time. First, the conjunction was a bit overrated. I drove to a spot where I could look southwest over a large spot of land with no development and thus no lights. I'd spotted the "Christmas Star" immediately, of course, even from my own driveway, but was hoping to get a better viewing with a darker sky. As I left the house, it was the only thing in the sky visible aside from planes, so that had to be IT.

Once parked, out came the camera. It was the first time I shot in the "night"setting, and had no idea what to expect. Fully zoomed out, what was initially one or two stars to the naked eye, alternating for no discernible reason other than having old eyes, the camera couldn't quite decide either, also alternating between one and two  objects on the view screen. At first, there were two, but focusing made it one. Another shot, and same. Third try somehow made it into two points of light. I haven't uploaded it to my computer yet, but I doubt that it will match my impression from the screen of a white object on the left and yellow darker one on the right and above. Yeah, I saw it/them, but the combination wasn't any more spectacular than Venus at close approach. But hey, just a camera after all. TV news later that night showed both planets plus several moons, shot through a telescope.

The next disappointment was in the stress of our switch-over to Dish from Direct. As usual, we got a better offer after our contract with Direct had expired. Repeated mailings tried to get us to switch, repeating their same offer of a cash bonus and a better price with a 2 year guarantee. Direct had given us only1 year of better price, then zoom! Nearly double! We were finally persuaded, after some careful reading of the details.

The installation itself went smoothly... at first. Everything was explained exactly as expected, the good price would last both years of the contract, plus we're to get a hefty bonus in the form of a pre-paid Master card. Spend within 6 months or bye-bye. Not a problem! That would cover about a month's worth of food. Or something else.

Just at the end of his installation, when we were setting timers to make sure we could navigate the process, we were informed that we had only two tuners in this Hopper, aka DVR. This translates into we can record/watch - in any combination - just two programs at a time. Immediate quandary. Most weekdays we are recording three programs at least once a day, and we can't go back and watch an old one while even two are recording if the tuner has only two tuners. Nobody had said there was going to be that limitation.

Hey, there's a solution! According to our installer, we can upgrade to either a Hopper with 3 tuners, or one with 16 along with other unspecified bells and whistles. For free, as far as the new hopper itself is concerned, but some kind of monthly price increase. We should wait for an hour or so, so our account information has a chance to get entered into the system, but we should call and express our displeasure and they would work with us to keep us happy. Well, past experience with Dish has shown us that the work-with-us part is true. And the installer would be happy to bring the upgraded box back tomorrow, even leaving the box this one came in so it would be there for the return.

So we spent some time working on the timers we'd need for the next 20-some hours, getting somewhat familiar with the controls, ran errands, ate, and ran another errand. I finally had time to call Dish and complain about our inadequate Hopper. And guess what? Surprise of all surprises, our installer was fibbing just a little. Yes, they were willing to work with us, but no, the upgraded Hopper would not be free, and no, he would not be out again tomorrow (now today.) The first opening was Christmas Eve afternoon, any upgraded hopper would raise the monthly bill by $5, the three-tuner one would cost $5 to install because it was such a little upgrade, and the 16-tuner one would be $150. Ulp! I agreed to the $5 monthly, and they came down to half the cost of the big tuner. 

The good news is there's very little to miss out on this week, with holiday specials replacing regular programming all over the place. And yes, we'll be home on the 24th. With this pandemic, there's no place else to go anyway.

After returning from my excursion to shoot the conjunction, it was time to watch our first recorded show, the 6 PM CBS news. A graphic of the show was right there in the list of recorded programs, so we clicked on it and ... grey screen. No sound. We exited and went back to it... except now there was no "it" there. And now the TV was telling us we were tuned to #110. 

#110 what? 

We got out of that and tried something else, and now we were on Test 129. What the.......?

Time for the second call in one day to Dish. Their automated machine kicked in and tried to insist  I was calling about our appointment on the 24th, needing to change it.  I'm thinking somebody programmed it it recognize swearing, because it prompted a brief apology message before giving a more open ended question to discover what I really wanted. It was a pretty short wait for the next customer service guy, unlike my first call.

We're hooked up to the internet via the TV with this system, so he asked permission to access it that way from where he was, in order to see what was going on with our system, and I agreed. I tried to explain that we were recording two shows at the time that we didn't want to mess with, and had only two tuners. He finally got that point the third time I reiterated it, after his final solution was to have us shut down and reboot or reinstall or whatever they wanted to do. I could see what he was seeing and where he was moving around to on our screen. The missing program showed up there, but he couldn't find it to give it back to us. (Several years ago Dish had a spot on their menu for doing that if you accidentally fumbled your way into an unwanted deletion. Came in handy fairly often.) We finally agreed to call them back when we were not recording anything to mess up, for the shutdown/whatever.

Eventually we were able to access shows either while they were recording or after, so not sure what's happening, or whether we'll follow through with that shut-down. Gonna spend some quality time winding down first, though. Even the dog was avoiding me for a while.

There was one more incident, but it happened last week. I'm just finding out how much happened now as I work during the day's nicer temperatures to repair it. We had the yard crew out to trim dead stuff from the pine tree so it would only try to support what's left alive, hoping the rest of the tree would survive with more TLC, aka water. While they were out, there was the usual "blowing of the yard" with one of those backpack blowers to finish off the job, including hauling away a pile of branches and other dead stuff I'd been pruning and accumulating. Most times it's all we hire them for. Tree trimming is rare. Previously they've done a fantastic job.

I decided not to complain while they did what I though was over-pruning on the pine. I'd been hoping much less needed to go. In fact I'd asked that only the completely dead stuff be trimmed out.

A lot of green landed on the ground, much of it right on top of my newly planted baby agaves along the fence line. A couple of the chicken wire cages were crunched, one completely removed from protecting the plant. Of course, rabbits had a treat that night. I'm hoping new leaves will come up from the center. The fact it rained nearly an inch that night should help. The two crunched cages were pulled straighter and repositioned, one staked down. Since those agaves were planted because nobody else wanted them, and that was the last likely spot to do so in, I wasn't too annoyed.

But our crew leader brought her brother along to be "useful." His idea of useful was not in blowing the pine straw off the yard, but to rake it. Thing is, the straw, along with shed leaves and miscellaneous detritus, needed to get out of decorative rock beds along the borders of the yard. His use of the rake was so enthusiastic that I've been raking rocks from the middle of the yard back into their beds. Worse, the levels are way lower than before, as many were taken out along with the straw. I can handle working through an area about 10' by 15' in a day, and ibuprofin is definitely needed by bedtime. I've done two day's worth and am still seeing a depressing amount of bare ground in my former rock beds, even after the rocks are returned.

At least there is enough open earth in the center - a good thing, from the doggy perspective - that Heather Too is again willing to get outside and do what needs to be done outside. It's been a struggle. The raking has also loosened the ground enough that doves and quail are coming in to get bits of sand for their crops. 

You're welcome, guys. Well, except for the pigeons.