A few weeks ago, I received a letter from Bright House telling me that my rates were going up – again. This seems to be a holiday tradition with Bright House. A little over a year ago, I noticed that my bill for cable TV, Internet and Phone was over $175. That seemed absurd to me. At the very least, I didn’t believe I received enough value to justify that amount each month. I called up to get details on my bill so I could look for services to cancel.
That’s when I received a bit of an odd offer. The Bright House rep told me she could lower my bill by adding RoadRunner Lightning service to my account. To this day, I still don’t understand that logic. I asked her if this was a promotion that would end and put me right back into the same problem, but she assured me that wasn’t the case. I would get faster Internet speeds and pay less for it. OK, I signed up for it. Despite some initial problems with quality (due to the way it was installed), it ultimately worked out very nicely.
Now my bill is back up higher than it was before, despite the fact that I haven’t changed service at all. Bright House wants over $181 per month. Again, I just don’t see the value for that price. There’s another wrinkle in this picture now. I was laid-off by my employer last month (such a generous holiday gift, to be sure). If $181 was too much while I was working, it’s exceptionally excessive right now. It’s time to cut costs and Bright House is making my decision about where to start.
Since I’m starting my own business, I still need Internet service. I also plan on keeping the Cable TV service. At present, I’m told there is a 2-year rate of about $90/month for those two services. By cutting out the landline phone and Lightning service, I can cut my bill in half.
To be honest, I’m a bit perplexed by the Lightning service. It claims to have a max speed of 40 MBps using a special cable modem. Even so, the Bright House technician who came out to resolve my problems told me he’s getting 100 MBps performance at his house on the old RoadRunner cable modem. I’m not sure if that’s something Bright House does for its employees, or if he’s just aware of how to tweak the performance for himself. In any event, it would seem that the additional price for Lightning is more of a marketing issue than a technical feat.
One problem with canceling my phone service is determining what happens to my phone number. I’ve had it for a long time and it’s tied to many accounts, friends, etc. Some people just go get a cheap cell phone and port the number to it, but then they’re stuck carrying two phones. I hoped that Google Voice would be an option, but it only supports cell phone porting – not landline phone numbers. I’m not sure why there’s a difference, but it is what it is.
NumberGarage.com is a service that will let you Park and Forward your phone line. There are other services with similar offerings, but I decided to use this one after doing a little research. The initial fee to make the change is about $30. After that, it’s $4.95/month to park your phone number or $9.95/month to forward it. I opted for the latter service, forwarding my landline number to my iPhone. There are no contracts or other fees. You pay them to host your number until you move it to another service, or as I am, just to keep that number available with forwarding to another number.
Why didn’t I just port this number to my iPhone? First, I also want to keep my cell phone number. Both have their uses. Another issue is that it would cause AT&T to generate a new plan for me. I have unlimited data with my current iPhone plan, but switching phone numbers would lose that benefit. In the end, it’s worth $10/month for me to keep my old phone number and I’m glad I found a service to do it.
My brother and I discussed the Bright House bump last week. He says the same thing happens to him and he needs to call about every two years threatening to cancel service in order to get them to “discover” a lower rate. Well, I wasn’t offered any better rates when I called, so I’m canceling services.
To be fair, my quality of service with Bright House has improved lately. Internet speed is what it’s advertised to be, the wretched distortion on my cable TV service seems to have gone away, and the phone line has been very clear. It just costs too damn much.
 Shrek the Halls I went out to Gaylord Palms ICE! on Tuesday. It’s best for me to hit this thing early before it gets too crowded. Not only do the prices go up for peak times, but so does the hassle factor. I like to take pictures and it’s pretty dark in there for photography; not to mention cold at 9 degrees. Dim light means you have to do one of three things:
- Raise your ISO (creates noisy pictures)
- Use flash (ruins the atmosphere of the place)
- Use a tripod (winner)
That’s right, a lugged a tripod out there to get my pictures. Everyone else walked around with a cell phone camera or a small point & shoot with a flash. Most folks just wanted to pose in front of the ice carvings, snap a shot (which it seems to take them far too long to do), and then move along. Not me. I’m the only dude out there setting up a DSLR on a tripod with a shutter release, taking brackets of 5 different exposures. One of them has to turn out, right? At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
The nice thing about a tripod is that you get a clean shot with the ambient light. The downside is that it takes time to make that shot; time spent waiting on a seemingly endless crowd meandering through popping their little cell phone flashes about, generally right in front of my camera which somehow seems invisible.
That’s OK, though. They have just as much right to be there as I do. I run into this kind of thing all the time and I know how to handle it – with patience. I have it, they don’t. That means they’ll scurry along to the next scene soon enough. I just have to watch the ebb & flow between crowds and take my shots when the place is empty. Like I said, I do it all the time. The difference here is that it’s 9 DEGREES! Patience is much more difficult in the cold. Especially when one of those groups decides to stop in that archway and have a conversion while my big ass is sitting on the floor with a camera and a tripod waiting for them to get out of the way.
In any case, I eventually got my shots because they eventually moved. My ass was numb, but I’ve heard that we must suffer for our art. I’ve suffered to bring you this photo, and many more than I’m not posting yet.
Speaking of suffering, they have sound clips from the movie playing repeatedly in the different rooms. Most folks only hear them once, because they move along before it replays. I heard them about a dozen times. They haunt me in my sleep now, especially that creepy exclamation of “SEASON’S GREETINGS!” Did I mention that I suffered for my art?
What you see above is essentially the womb of America’s Space Program. Inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), NASA assembled its rockets from the Apollo program to the Space Shuttle. These days, most folks are familiar with the image of the Space Shuttle rolling out of this building, but it was constructed for the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo era. I grew up during that time, watching images of the space program and going over for every launch. The Saturn V was an awesome rocket. I still remember lugging along a tape recorder to capture the sound of a launch so I’d have to something to bring to my 3rd grade class for Show & Tell. For those of you who have never witnesses a launch, you don’t just see and hear it. You feel it. A launch vibrates through your body & soul.
When the first Space Shuttle launched, I was in my last year of high school. My Boy Scout troop was camping in the wilderness survival area of Patrick Air Force Base. We watched the astronauts arrive in their jets and do some practice runs. When it was time for the launch, the Air Force invited us all on a bus to go view the launch. We had already seen the new Space Shuttle and it was drastically different than any of the rockets we’d seen before, but we were excited to see a launch again. When Columbia (STS-1) launched, I remember we all had the same collective response – That’s it?
Compared to a Saturn V launch, the Space Shuttle seemed slow. Where the Saturn V was a drag racer, the Space Shuttle was a truck. We wondered if the damn thing would ever get out of orbit.
Over the years, we learned to love our shuttle missions. It didn’t start with the same pizazz of an Apollo mission. I mean, those Saturn V’s were going to the moon. The Space Shuttle didn’t really go anywhere until the International Space Station started assembly. Piece by piece, NASA built its missions and made the Space Shuttle seem a little more cool with every mission (except for those voice-over speeches upon launch – always sounded like a cheap infomercial).
Before we could go to space, we needed a place to build our rockets. That purpose, much less its massive size, made the VAB seem so cool. It’s the birthplace of our rockets. Sub-assemblies may come from all over the place, but it’s not a space vessel until all those pieces get inside the VAB and joined together, loaded on a crawler, and prepared for rollout.
NASA hasn’t permitted visitors inside the VAB since the days between Apollo and the Space Shuttle assembly. Decades have passed and now I finally had the chance to fulfill a dream. A small group of friends were equally interested, so we all made plans to meet at Kennedy Space Center on Sunday and take the Up Close tour with a stop to get inside the VAB.
I think we all geeked out at the prospect. The tour itself wasn’t anything to get excited about. In fact, we only had a few minutes inside the VAB – ten minutes and forty seconds, according to my friend’s timer.
This is where the fantasy took a bit of a curve into the mundane. Remember, we’re on a tour, so we’re tourists. Tourists don’t use tripods for photos, but a few of us did. As soon as we entered the VAB, the tour guide wanted us all to move down to the far end behind a yellow line. Of course, that wasn’t a good place to setup for a shot, so I put my tripod right where you see it – then I moved down.
We all had to stay together, so it became very apparent that my opportunity to get this shot was about to be blown. In fact, the tour guide picked up a portable speaker system and started his speech right in front of my camera. Fortunately, I managed to get back to my spot and start taking my photos, because it was clear we weren’t going to be able to stay and take pictures once he finally stopped talking. I didn’t listen to a word he said. I just kept waiting for him to get out of my frame. He finally stepped aside – still in the frame – and I started shooting, thinking I’d have to use Photoshop to edit him out. Fortunately, he finally got far enough away that I could get this shot. Then it was time to pack up and move over to see Endeavour.
In typical NASA fashion, the orbiter was behind not one, but TWO fences. The first fence was to keep us in our place, and the other one was there to block the shot of the orbiter. It was a pathetic way to display a piece of history. NASA is good in that they allow photography all over the place. NASA is bad in that it puts obstacles in front of nearly every visually pleasing piece you’d want to photograph. That, combined with the short time in the building, put a bit of a damper on the experience. I was setting up for another shot when they said it was time to go. It was excitement and disappointment combined.
Still, I’m happy I went. Not only did I have good company with some friends, but I finally got to step inside a piece of history and make my own art from it. All in all, that’s a pretty good day for me. I got the shot I wanted, although with some panic. This one is getting printed on aluminum – big aluminum!
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The angry denizens of Occupy Orlando are promoting a protest for this weekend – 8:00 am on October 15th – starting at the Chamber of Commerce at 75 South Ivanhoe Blvd. I wish them well, but I’m not going to join them. Don’t get me wrong; I also have some complaints. I just don’t believe that this will end corporate greed. In fact, I doubt it will end any kind of greed. Greed, in and of itself, is not really the problem. Control is the problem. Some people have it and these protesters are trying to get it. Until they realize that little fact, I don’t see them having any form of success.
No doubt, the people who are in control are greedy and will step on anyone else to maintain their power and comfortable lifestyle. Do you think that anyone attending the protest would do differently if their roles were reversed? The history of humanity has shown us the answer. It even gives us trite sayings to remind us of these little power struggles – absolute power corrupts absolutely. So the protest has little to do with ending corporate greed, but rather, whining that they’re on the shitty end of the stick.
Meanwhile, the folks who engage in protests tend to be consumers of corporate products. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream pronounced its solidarity with the Occupy[Insert City Name Here] folks. Yes, why shouldn’t they? This is an outstanding marketing opportunity! They’re siding with the people who buy ice cream in a campaign that I’m sure has the approval of their Corporate Board of Directors.
Look, I have no problems with protests. In fact, I’m glad that there are people who will give up part of their weekend to go yell and scream on a day when no one from the corporate office will be around to see the protest. I have no doubt that the organizers picked this date and time so it wouldn’t conflict with the work schedules of the protestors who work for greedy corporations, because you know that it’s mostly non-corporate businesses that work weekends to sell & serve these folks at small businesses.
However, I wish these protestors would be honest with themselves and target the corporations they know most. Instead of passing out flyers at the Chamber of Commerce on a day when no one is around, why not protest Target? Why not protest the Orlando Magic on a game night? Why? Because these same people are supporting those corporations all the time. You won’t see this protest at Bright House headquarters, because they want to go home and watch a football game on cable after stuffing flyers under windshield wipers.
There’s only one way to protest against corporate greed. Stop giving them your money. That’s why we have another trite saying, “Money talks.”
A few weeks ago, I updated a post I made earlier in the year about Guitar Center prohibiting me from entering the store with my messenger bag. Some unfortunate employee thought it would be a good idea to reply to my post with something offensive, and I shared those details on the post. That got the attention of management at Guitar Center and we started talking.
I’m very pleased to say that they not only were offended and apologetic over the comment, but also took the time to investigate their policy that started the whole thing for me. We’ve been talking for a few weeks now and (after a little phone tag), they shared some updates with me.
- The person who left the offensive comment was identified and they’ve dealt with it (this person was not from the Winter Park store).
- When I was told I couldn’t take my bag inside, that was store policy at the time.
- They’ve re-evaluated the store policy and trained staff with changes that are more respectful, while still protecting their interests.
The store obviously wants to protect its interests against theft, and I get that. In fact, I was fine with someone looking at my bag as I departed to make sure I had a receipt for things I purchased there, but that wasn’t an option at the time. The issue with leaving my bag with someone at the front counter is problematic for both of us. I have the bag so I can keep my valuables with me. I could’ve taken then back to my car and left them, where someone could do a smash & grab to take my stuff. It’s happened to people I know with everything from camera bags to gym bags. That’s why my stuff stays by my side.
Likewise, some person at a store doesn’t want to be responsible for my possessions. For example, what happens if my property is damaged or stolen while in their care? It’s just fuel for a big fight. The new policy gives customers a choice. They can leave bags if they want, or they can take them in with the foreknowledge that they’ll be inspected upon departure. For me, this works great. I protect what’s mine and they see that I’m not taking what’s theirs. More importantly, you have a choice.
Management at Guitar Center was upset that one of their own would leave an offensive comment here, but they were equally concerned about potential customers feeling unwelcome because of an old policy. All of my communication with Guitar Center was friendly and respectful. They listened to what I had to say, considered their own interests that they need to protect, and came up with a good solution. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome and I’ll feel comfortable going back there to stop.
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