Me

My bill came in this morning after I posted about being happy with streaming. I disconnected television service and returned their equipment on July 20. I still got billed for the full $220 as if i had television and was renting all of their cable boxes. I try to go online, and I get stuck in a chat with an automated system that won’t do anything but show you the (incorrect) bill and ask if you want to make a payment.

So I tried to call. Now I know why people snap. There is no way to escape the phone tree, because it texts you a link to the automated system and then hangs up on you. The only way to get through to an agent is to sit there and refuse to respond to any prompts. If you respond in any way, the system sends you a text link to the automated tree. Once there, you are back in the loop where it shows you your incorrect bill and asks how you would like to pay.

So I sat there and refused to answer by voice or push 1 for an agent, until the system put me on hold for an agent. I sat there on hold for 9 minutes before getting an actual person. That guy gave me a song and a dance about how it takes time for the computer to update.

I called to cut the television services on July 10. I made them effective July 20. I returned all of their equipment on July 20. I have a receipt. They just billed me for services from July 21-August 20 in the amount of $222. They are telling me that the system takes time to update and that my bill is really only $87.

It’s quite frustrating. However, the only options in this area are DSL or this one. DSL here isn’t fast enough and has data limits that are too low for streaming. I swear, it’s harder to get out of CATV service than it is to leave a timeshare sales pitch.

So I will wait to see what they charge my credit card. If it is a penny more than $87, I will send a certified letter to their offices, demanding an adjustment. Following that will be a complaint to the state regulatory agencies, and possibly a lawsuit in small claims court.

That’s why I keep copies of receipts and correspondence. When I move, there will be a different internet provider.

Cord cutting is going well. It’s been several weeks, and we haven’t missed CATV at all. Our first night without cable TV, we watched a movie: Where the Crawdads Sing. Great movie. We are saving more than $100 a month by not having TV.

The hospital where I work has an extensive training program. One day a week, I get scheduled to work from home, attending online training. The hospital follows a protocol model, where everyone is expected to follow the hospital’s official guidelines when treating patients. An encyclopedic level of knowledge of those protocols is required in order to comply with this. My last hospital was more of a “come as you are” model, and I actually think that the protocol model is safer and more efficient. Still, that means there is a steep learning curve.

My wife seems to look at this as an opportunity to assign “honey do” chores for me to do, because she apparently hears the “from home” part more than the “work” part. Today, she has asked that I get laundry done, put away the dishes in the dishwasher, and fix the ice dispenser in the freezer.

Uh, you DO know that my workday begins at 8:30, right?

I am getting annoyed at the new technology trends. It seems like everything that you own, from your computers, to cell phone, and even your car is being controlled by someone else. These endless “system updates” are becoming another income stream for technology companies that are looking to use your connected equipment to make more money. Car companies are charging people a monthly fee for things like using their cruise control and their air conditioning. The air conditioner costs $15 a month, the ability to tow a trailer is $20 a month, and engaging the four wheel drive sets you back $40 a month. Heck, even the seat warmers cost $4 a month. It will cost you $20 a month to use your key fob to remotely unlock or start your vehicle.

Remember when you used to buy software? Now you rent it by paying yearly fees to use the stuff that you bought.

One of the things that I did at my current house was to make it a smart house. I have more than 150 smart devices: I can control ceiling fans, lights, irrigation, and even the thermostat- all with smart devices. The backbone of the system is Samsung Smartthings. It has been great. I started doing home automation back in 2014. Since then, my system has expanded.

One of the best things is my lawn sprinklers. I have a personal weather station on the roof of my house, and the system analyzes how much rain I have gotten, using that to adjust the schedule and amount of water the lawn gets. The lawn looks amazing, and the only effort it requires on my part is some weed and feed every 3 months or so.

When I am out of the house, the system monitors for intruders, water leaks, fires, turns the air conditioning to a more economical setting, turns off the water heater, locks the doors in case I forgot, and even turns lights on and off to make it look like I am home. It monitors my freezer temperatures and the humidity of the gun safe and will alert me if there is a problem. The system feeds and waters my wife’s cats, and empties their litter box. My carpets are vacuumed and floors mopped. All automatically. Until we decided to move, I was going to add robotic lawn mowing to the stable and get rid of my lawn service. I feel like George Jetson. Nearly every household chore is automated, and it makes things very convenient and easy.

Until recently. Samsung has been making changes to their systems so that they are easier for people with no tech skills to use. What this means, is that my devices are getting changed and “dumbed down” to the point where I don’t think my next house will be a smart house. Where I used to be able to write, edit, and change the drivers to my system, it is becoming less so.

It all started with changes to how the system dealt with my Sonos speakers. I once had it set up so that the system made announcements over the speakers: things like “your wife is home” when she would arrive, or “your in-laws have arrived” when they came over, so that I knew to put pants on. Then there was a system update 2 years ago, and the speakers don’t talk to the system anymore.

It’s little things. I used to have the ceiling fans set up so that I could adjust their speed from 0-100 percent. Last night, there was a system update, and now my choices are low-medium-high. If I had wanted low-medium-high, I would have set it up that way.

It isn’t just Samsung. A couple of years ago, Google bought out the company that made my fire alarms. Now I can’t change, replace, or add anything without updating the drivers to Google device drivers and becoming a NEST customer, which will charge me money for monitoring the system.

So going forward, I have a few choices:

• Continue with Smartthings, and keep losing functionality. It will still require a fair bit of time and money to set up the new house
• As long as I am moving, I could switch to Home Assistant, which I have been playing with and will give me a lot of control, but will even more work, a steep learning curve, a good bit of money, and I just don’t know if I want to invest the time and money to do it right now
• go back to having a “dumb house”
• or sharply cut back on what automation I do have, to get what I refer to as “a mildly retarded house” with a lot less functionality, but at low cost and not a lot of work.

There is a lot going on right now, and I don’t know if I have the time for most of the options above.

My mail saga continues. There is a knock at the door today. I open it to see the owner of the landscaping company that mows my lawn. We see him all over the place, at parties, friends homes, restaurants. (It’s a small town) Anyhow, he hands me a package that he found on the side of the road about a mile away from here. It’s addressed to my wife. It looks like its been outside for awhile, as it is pretty weathered.

I look up the tracking number, and USPS says it was delivered a week ago.

Delivered (or not) by the same government that wants to be in charge of delivering your healthcare.

I usually write my posts the night before they appear. As I write this, I just got home from a 12 hour shift in the pediatric emergency room. The shift before that was in the acute unit of the main ED. I got attacked by a suicidal, unmedicated schizophrenic. I am still sore. Also this week, I went to my CCRN (Critical Care RN) course on two of those days.

I also have to work a 12 hour shift on Saturday from 10:00 to 22:30.

I am exhausted and don’t have it in me to research and write a post right now, so I am going to bed and there may or may not be a post for Saturday. With my long hours on Saturday, there may or may not be one on Sunday.

It’s not going to get any better. I’m trying to finish my masters degree, build a house, and move into that house. All within the next 4-6 months.

So all of you- enjoy your weekend.

My problem has been repaired. The issue was that I had a Work/School Microsoft account that was used to access school software that was needed to attend class, back when I was using this laptop for school. The IT drones at the school were idiots and somehow that account authorized my computer to upgrade to Windows 11.

When the upgrade happened, it changed all of my bookmarks and settings to what they were when I was still a student. It also loaded a bunch of apps to my browser and changed my default search engine.

I don’t think that any data was lost or compromised. It just took a bit to get the work account removed, and to get all of my stuff restored.

One of the things I am doing is changing the way that we handle Internet and Television. That system is a ripoff thanks to what they call “bundling.” My last bill was $230 for CATV and Internet. We don’t get any premium channels. I am trying to figure out what I am getting for all of this, but I have seen Greek instruction manuals that are less confusing than our cable bill:

• They charge me $102 for Internet service that is nominally at 800MBps. When I check it, the best I get is around 50-70 MBps. My in-laws live 2 miles away and are getting 250 MBps, according to speedtest. So I decide that I am not paying for speed that I’m not getting and look to see what a lower speed would save me. Lowering my speed to 400 would actually RAISE my bill by $22 a month. Going to 200 would raise my bill by $34 a month. Yeah, I know that they have a disclaimer that says speed can vary, but only getting 10% of what they are advertising seems to be a stretch.

• Now on to television. My wife watches far more of it than I do, but I do occasionally watch. Mostly movies, hockey, and old television shows. My wife loves watching shows like medical dramas. I can’t stand those, but we gotta keep the wife happy. They charge us $91 for 185 channels. Cutting it to the 125 channel option would save us a whopping 94 cents per month. If I go to only 10 channels, it would save me $40, but I can get those same 10 channels with an antenna for free.

They bundle them together, and the bill claims that with discounts, I am being charged $130 a month. Seems reasonable, so how do they arrive at my $230 biil?

• Add-ons. They charge us $30 for three cable boxes, another $10 for DVR service, $6 for the remote controls so we can use their cable boxes, and $38 a month in service, sports, and local channel fees, Then add in the taxes, and the total bill is a quarter grand. $3k a year for cable and Internet. Believe it or not, this is the best of the providers in our area. We tried DSL. That service has even slower Internet. T-mobile has a home Internet that works over 5g cell towers, but there is a 200gb per month data limit. That isn’t going to work if we stream. They are raping us because there are really no other options.

So I called them. We are getting rid of cable TV and cutting the Internet speed to 400mB/s. Why pay for 800 when we never get speeds that high, anyway? If it continues, I may even cut it further. We already have Amazon Prime and Netflix, because they were free with other things that we already have and pay for. So here is the plan:

• Internet: $87
• Netflix: Free
• Amazon Prime: paid for through other means
• Paramount+ $12/mo
• Hulu (with ads): $8/month
• Peacock (with ads): $5/month

So it will cost us $25 for TV and $87 for Internet. Once we see if there will be any hidden charges, especially from the not-so-transparent Internet provider, we can consider upgrading to the “no ads” version of the above services, which will cost us an additional $19 per month. However, we just cut our cable/internet bill from $230 to $112 per month.