Ugh...

[altivo]

I see Wednesday coming up *peers over the top of monitor at wall calendar and makes a sour face*.

I hate Wednesdays.

Oh well, you've heard that before. In other news, they replaced the utility pole by the road in front of the house today. Yesterday when I got home from work they were just leaving the new pole lying by the road, so we knew it would finally happen. The existing pole was originally flagged for replacement EIGHT years ago. Yes, that's right. It has taken Comm Ed that long to get around to acting on its own work orders.

Apparently they used a big auger to drill a hole, and a cherry picker crane to stand the new pole up and set it in the hole, which was about three feet away from the original. The process of transferring the lines from one pole to the other seems to have involved cutting the top eight feet or so off the old one. Wires are now in place on the new pole, and a fifteen foot stump of the old one is still standing there. I hope they are going to come remove it soon, and not wait eight more years to finish the job. The only lines on these poles are the three wires that carry the 2400 VAC mains. Our own service transformer is on the next pole to the west, on the neighbors' lot. All phone lines in this area are underground, so those don't use the utility poles, and there is no cable television either. The 240 VAC two phase service to the house and barns is also buried, running underground from the pole with the transformer.

We had no mail delivery today, though it is not a holiday. No idea what caused that. It wasn't just that we had no mail (we always have at least some junk) but that the carrier never came by. There was outbound mail in the box, with the flag raised, and it's still there.

Oh, and a curious announcement: I gave in and got a cell phone. It will spend most of its time turned off, however, so don't get all excited about it. ;p Gary has been pleased with his, which he actually uses, and so far is only spending about $10 a month. That's reasonable enough, and he started bugging me to have one in the car in case of emergency. Of course, around here, half the time you are out of range of a tower anyway, but OK, for $10 a month, I can give in and get one. So I did.

Comments

[calydor.livejournal.com]

My mom and I both have a cell phone. It uses prepaid cards, that for some reason will expire after six months unless you refill it, even if there's still money on it. A real scam. I think they both now contain around triple the value of the cheapest card for this reason.

Cell phones, IMO, have two good uses. One is to keep on you for an emergency - I even keep mine with me when out in the pasture alone, since the house is VERY sound proof. If I was injured by a horse, I wouldn't be able to yell loud enough to be heard inside.

The second is quick messages, the only GOOD way to use text messages; you can tell someone to remember to pick up a couple of grocery items on the way home, without necessarily disturbing them right here and now; though most cell phone users don't realize this, text messages do not have to be read and answered immediately.

I never make calls from my cell phone. I rarely send any messages from it, either. But I find it nice to have in case of needing to be contacted or contact someone when I'm far away from a landline.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

So make some calls or send some text. It's not really a scam. It costs money to maintain the account and an active number, even if it's rarely used, and you have to allow some kind of profit. The minimum on my phone comes to $60 a year. That's just $5 a month. By comparison, my landline phone costs $60 every month, whether we use it or not.