Direct TV........

After 10 years with Direct TV, last night we have moved on....... Goodbye DTV, you will be missed.

Approximately 10 years ago we had Time Warner Cable as our supplier for our television viewing pleasure, but we left them because it seemed every few months they would raise the rates or change the programing selections, and thus remove something that we enjoyed watching. As the price climbed and climbed and the service fit our desires less and less we made the tough choice to leave Time Warner and try out the relatively new concept of Direct TV. We were happy with them, their prices and their service until last night. Last night, the unthinkable happened....... We hit a television viewing crisis and DTV was unable to respond to assist us. We had finally found the fatal flaw, the Achilles heal of DTV. What is it you ask ?

DTV has no brick and mortar stores that you can work with to resolve you equipment problems. If a part goes bad, they Fed Ex you a new one, in 2 to 5 working days. You can't upgrade the shipping, due to 'contractual obligations'

So, here is the story.

Last night as I walk past the television it is happily showing my lovely wife's favorite channel ( DIY ) and then the screen goes black and prints a little message at the bottom saying the receiver needs reset. This is not a huge surprise because we get this little glitch about once a week. You press the little red reset button and the sun, moon, stars and satellites all check their locations in the universe, calculations are performed and the universe comes back into balance. This takes about 4 minutes, then you have you program back on and life sludges along as normal once again.

Upon re-entry into the room I discover that the precious receiver is no longer receiving power. The little blue light of joy is not shining any longer. I immediately drop to the floor and begin to attempt to necessitate it. I work tirelessly to bring life giving electricity back to the precious receiver. Upon exhausting all possibilities of immediate assistance I call the DTV version of 911 ( Tech Support ) and I speak with a fine young fellow named Tyler.

Tyler : thank you for calling Direct TV, how may I be of service to you ?

Me : Tyler, my receiver is dead, DEAD I say, it will not receive power, the blue light ( the blue light of joy ) is not on.

Tyler : have you tried plugging it into a different receptacle?

Me : yes, yes I have ( duh )

Tyler : let me check diagnostics on my end, ( canned computer like noises now whirr and grind away as I am on hold ) sir, you are correct, your receiver is indeed dead. Lets look at getting you a new one.

Me : yes, yes lets look at that... how do we do that ?

Tyler : I am showing two receivers, one is leased one is yours, this is the leased one, I can wave the new part cost and Fed Ex you out a new one that will arrive in 2 to 5 business days. There will ONLY be a shipping fee of $19.95 to cover the shipping cost...

Me : uh, Tyler... that's not going to be a workable solution. I know you're tech support and you're doing your job, but what I just heard was that your equipment failed and you're going to charge me to replace it, and I have to wait 2-5 business days at that. I am willing to pay for shipping only if its an upgrade to next day AM, otherwise no, and why would you charge to replace faulty equipment that is yours anyway.... I know you probably can't do anything so can you bump me to someone who can?

Tyler : well sir, it is just the shipping you need to pay, not for the part........

Me : I heard you, pay was the word I don't want to hear...

Tyler : I understand, I will transfer you to billing now..... have a great day and thanks for being such a long time customer........

Me : thank you Tyler, and I hope I get to stay that way.....

Hello, this is Becky, how may I help you ?

I repeat the situation to Becky, express my gratitude about Tyler doing his best and that his best was simply unacceptable. I then ask if she can do better. Long and short of it is that Becky discovers that I am listed as having two receivers, I only have one television and one receiver and she fixes this problem but can't help with anything else.

Me : so you cant wave the shipping charge and you can't upgrade the shipping at no charge or otherwise?

Becky : No sir, we have a contract with Fed Ex, everything ships the same and we can't change it. There is no place for you to go pick up a receiver unless you want to go to Best Buy and buy one instead of leasing.

Me : my wife is behind me dialing Time Warner Cable at this moment and if you can't do any better than that .....

Becky : Sir ( interrupts me with a new found sense of urgency in her voice ) let me transfer you to the retention department.... they have more access to things they may be able to do to help you..

Me : transfer away.....

Hello , my name is Danielle...... I see you have some faulty equipment issues , how can I help

(" Hello, my name is Inego Montoya, you killed my father, now prepare to die" " stop saying that " )

I run through the issues one more time. Daniell adjusted my bill, gave me a discount, removed the shipping charge but still could not upgrade the shipping or get me the equipment any faster.

Angie, my lovely wife, then gets hold of Time Warner, announces that she is an upset DTV customer, and asks what can they do for her.......

Time Warner then proceeds to offer us more channels for less money and upgrades our Internet service for free for a year as an incentive......

Angie then calls DTV and cancels the service as well as the new receiver... Someone comes on the line to attempt to talk her out of it. This gentleman offers her a $200 credit to our account as well as keeping the current arrangement of no charge shipping and a reduced bill, but he still cant get the receiver to us any quicker either.

FAIL......

Why is time such an issue....... well........ its bowl week for one thing and UK is playing Louisville on Saturday. With New Years being a day or two away and January one being on a Saturday we could expect that receiver sometime between the 3rd and the 6th of January.....

While I was writing this Direct TV just called to ask why they just received an order to cancel and offered to not cancel. I explained to them, again, the reason why. This time they offered to send an installer to the house today to put in a new receiver........

I told her that might have been of interest last night but we were told repetitively that the only way was to wait for the Fed Ex truck to arrive........ At this point, Time Warner is coming between 4 and 6 today to install and upgrade our Internet at the same time.....

possible pit falls........... still to come.........

Time Warner has a habit of wanting to charge for odd things........ if they try to charge for installing and becoming a new customer we will have to have a chat about that.....

Direct TV says they will send a final bill in seven days, that bill should only be about $20, if it is much greater then they are trying to charge a fee to disconnect my service or some such, then we will have to have a chat about that as well......

oh what fun.....

Of what use are the trees?

Girls and boys are different. Duh, I know. Women and men are different too. Whoa, not exactly a revelation either.

I have made an observation however that might not be quite as obvious.

There is not nearly as much of a difference between a girl and a woman as there is between a boy and a man. This is just my opinion as observed from my perspective.

Girls seem to become women rather abruptly, it just kind of happens one day. It is a common understanding that girls mature faster than boys, but I submit to you that the reason is because they never really have to change as much as boys do.

Before you go getting all Grumpy Guss with me, this is complimentary towards the finer gender.

Girls ( metaphor warning ) are like flowers. When they are young, they are beautiful little buds. As they mature they become blossoms, and then as they age they open up into mature beautiful flowers. Some flowers are strong and hardy and stand up well to wind, rain, drought, and frost, while others wilt easily. Some flowers thrive in harsh conditions while others only grow with constant nurturing and fertile soil. All are beautiful flowers none the less.

The boy to man transition is not nearly so attractive. Boys are ( another metaphor warning ) like nuts laying on the ground. They look almost nothing like what they might grow up to be, a tree. Boys first must learn to not get eaten by squirrels or they will never take root. Most do take root, but then we spend years and years growing o' so slowly as a sapling. During the sapling stage our outer protective skin is thin and scars easily, but this is wear the bark comes in. If we scar too much as a sapling we grow think and nearly impenetrable bark in our maturity. As young trees we are still green and relatively flexible, but as we age we become stiffer and harder and we don't conform as well as we used to. The transition from nut to tree is extremely different than from bud to flower. It is a whole lot slower for one thing, and it is a bigger transition from start to finish for another. ( again, this is my male opinion )

Another difference is that flowers have purpose, but trees have uses.

What kind of flower a girl becomes does not seem to affect the fact that she is a flower. ( not in my eyes anyway, but some might argue ) In contrast, however, what kind of tree a man becomes affects how the world views him.

Of what use are the trees, do we bear fruit? Are we cut for lumber ? Do we just drop our nuts randomly around the forest ? Do we stand strong against storms but still have enough sap in us to bend a little with the wind? Is our bark so thick and ugly that we go unnoticed? Is our canopy full of dead branches that fall and litter the ground? Are we to be burnt up to keep others warm ?

Of what use are the trees ?