Sunday evening I headed to Papa's to see about installing his new modem.
Papa has had a battle with viruses on his computer since first getting it. I cannot count the number of times it has been to the computer guy to clean off viruses. I cannot count the number of virus softwares we have tried. It has just been a losing battle.
I finally decided part of his problem was his phone company. He was using SouthEast Telephone. They have no facility to scan for viruses or junk eMail's before they send them to him. AT&T does have software to do this and we have not had that problem with our Internet service with AT&T. So we made the decision to change his phone and Internet service from SouthEast telephone to AT&T.
That decision and the process were started November 1st. Today is December 2nd and I'm still working on getting this service up and running. I'll just give this outline of what we have been through to date:
- We placed the initial order on November 1st.
- Papa got a letter about setting up paying his bill with his credit card or through automatic withdrawal from his checking account. Papa called to set up this automatic payment. In talking with AT&T, he was told the original order was not done correctly and they re-did the order with Papa and set the date for a Thursday instead of the Wednesday.
- Nothing happened on Thursday.
- By the 19th of November I'm back on the phone trying to find out where they are in their process. We finally determined to cancel all previous orders and start anew. Seemed like the right way to handle this. We were told a new modem would arrive the next Tuesday.
- The next Tuesday, Papa received a UPS package with a new modem. That being Thanksgiving week and my week full to the brim, we agreed he would wait until I could be there to get the modem connected and set up his Internet/DSL service.
- Sunday was my first day to have time to stop and work with him. Thinking this would be a 'quick' thing, I headed over after choir practice. Papa got everything plugged in correctly. I opened the Internet and it automatically started me on the process of set up. Then it gave me an error message. I tried again and again got the error message. I called AT&T and spoke to a young man in the tech support department. He eventually told me I had to talk with the sales department and they wouldn't be open until Monday.
- Monday I left my home at 2:30pm and didn't get back home until 8:30pm. After calling AT&T they eventually helped me get things started but said I would have to wait for a two hour stretch while they did some things at their office. Good Grief!!! I left Papa's apartment and ran some errands to make productive use of my time.
- Then I came back to his apartment and called AT&T again. This time I was told it couldn't be turned on until Tuesday. Livid is a good word to describe my mood. After cojoling this lady and trying some things we found that we did have Internet service. She talked me through setting up his new eMail address and passwords. She sent me two eMails which we received at the AT&T homepage eMail site. All seemed in working order.
- After she disconnected, I successfully got AT&T to work with Outlook Express for Papa for his eMails. I sent a couple of test eMails from my Blackberry to his computer and that worked fine.
- One of the eMails sent by AT&T was for McAfee to help with virus protection. While trying to download it to Papa's computer it detected a software that would interfere with McAfee's performance. I removed that software from Papa's computer. Then we had to turn off his computer to complete that process.
- When Papa's computer came back on we tried again and somewhere in that process inadvertently deleted the eMail with the link to get the free McAfee software to work with AT&T security.
- Today Claude and I spoke with AT&T to find ways to lower our personal home phone and Internet service. After we finished, very easily I might add, lowering our AT&T bill and improving our service, I asked Shawn if I could find a way to get the link again to get the McAfee Virus software on Papa's computer. "Sure, no problem" was his cheerful reply.
- I was transferred to someone else in tech support who said we still didn't have Internet service. I assured her we had an eMail printed out saying we did and Papa had received this eMail from them welcoming him to AT&T service.
- She eventually transferred me to someone in billing who should be able to fix this. I found my last nerve wearing very, very, very, very thin and I could sense someone was just about to step on it!!! Sure enough, she quoted me a rate for Papa that was $10 more per month than the November 1st quote. I assured her in a very Hayden'esk tone, "That is not the right number!!" I'm telling you, after hours of this I was going to get the price quoted on November 1st at minimum. By now I felt I deserved free service.
- The end result is they have everything set to take effect on December 8th, can you believe that. We will still use the same AT&T eMail address I sent to family from my Blackberry Sunday evening while getting things to try and download on Papa's computer. We don't have to do anything with the modem, that is supposed to all be set to go. We should just be able to get eMail for Papa on his computer and there will be an eMail in there with the link to download the McAfee virus software. Any bets on this going smoothly on the 8th of December???
- After finishing this, I called Papa and gave him the update.
- Then about 30 minutes later I got a call from Papa that he received a package through UPS just then. He opened it and found modem connectors from AT&T. We were both dumbfounded. I told him to just hold on to them until the 8th. We'll work everything then and see where we are.
In addition to that on Tuesday I was able to:
- Make reservations for a trip to Las Vegas in January which we won in a Raffle at the GOP Picnic in October.
- Make more of the plans for the trip to Egypt in February through the travel agent
- Get some rebate stuff in the mail
- Deal with a very curt person at Radio Shack's phone lines about a battery I ordered and they sent me the wrong one for my cordless phone at my desk
- And go to the Marx home on Tuesday afternoon to babysit Hayden and Bailey so Andie and Michael could have a date.
Wednesday morning my Homemakers Club was having their December lunch at Claudia Sanders Restaurant in Shelbyville. This is Colonel Sanders, of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame's, wife. This was the reason I went to the Marx home on Tuesday. I just figured I could spend the night and give them a date night and get up Wednesday and drive back to Shelbyville, have lunch with the ladies, then head back to Georgetown to sing with Papa. It all worked out fine but Andie and Michael had a very short date night with not feeling well. Oh, we also headed back in to Georgetown for an 8pm choir practice to get ready for Christmas music.
Today I worked all day and got...well...not very far. But I have been productive and that feels good. Claude and I checked some biggy items off our shared 'to do list'. Claude even got some Christmas lights up. The wash is done. Some presents are wrapped. Music has been practiced. Blog has been updated. Yep, it has been a full and good day. There is even a little snow on the ground here in Sadieville.
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