Back to the stone age with Verizon

When I was working for a college newspaper, the professors/advisers used to threaten less conscientious reporters with going to press with a huge white hole in a page, slugged “This blank space brought to you by [name of reporter who didn’t get copy in by deadline].”

Well, today’s hot steaming pile of white space is brought to you by Verizon FiOS, a company that has accomplished what I had not thought possible: it’s made me wish I had Comcast back.

Both phone and Internet service went belly up on Wednesday. When I called their we-won’t-help line and got Eric somewhere in the Philippines, he ran a line test and informed me that the problem was with “the big box”. (Not the first time since I moved in two months ago that I’ve had to call Verizon about equipment failure.) This turned out to be the high-rise apartment building equivalent of the customer premises equipment (CPE) box that regulates the “last mile” of wire from a central line to each customer’s unit.

And Verizon would have a technician out to look at it…sometime between 0900 and 1700 on Thursday.

Checking yesterday on the Verizon trouble ticket got me this:

Their idea of "working hard" is a possible fix two days after the failure is reported.

So, without access to my normal blogging device (i.e., personal laptop), I’m doing a quick bootleg post from work.

Where I’m also checking out Comcast services. Because their equipment is working fine in my apartment building.

Low-riding

Okay, I’ll confess that this is something I never saw in the Valley They Call Silicon:

I’m guessing it’s some sort of motorcycle cover that was dislodged by winds or possibly would-be thieves. But it looks remarkably like a two-wheeled version of sagging.

Drive by

On one of my walks around the ‘hood I encountered something that nearly transported me back to the Valley They Call Silicon. Because y’all know how much I love making stories out of car art.

This sticker was a first:

And of course it was on a Prius.

The spook in the 'hood

I’ve written before about how big Halloween seems to be in the yard-decoration stakes in the Valley They Call Silicon. Some displays take weeks to install, and I wonder where the zombies and tombstones live for the other 11 months of the year.

This was not a big deal, that I recall, during my last sojourn in a Confederate state, but recent walks around my NoVa neighborhood makes me wonder.

Only about a block and a half from my current residence I encountered this as a permanent installation, in the front yard of a house that is otherwise perfectly anodyne:

Gratitude Monday: The scent of spring

I rambled around my NoVa neighborhood on Saturday and Sunday. It’s an old one—well, reasonably old by Virginia standards. New construction is seeping into it, but for now, at least, the balance is in favor of houses that date well back into the early part of the last century.

The yards are old landscaping, too, which I really enjoy. Especially when I come across an abundance of flowers. No matter what kind of crappy mood I’m in, flowers on the hoof always lift my spirits.

And on both days, I experienced the joy of walking into a wall of the scent of wild roses before I actually paid attention to the shrubs.

And then there were the beautiful flowers themselves.

It’s been a while since I’ve had that kind of encounter, and I’m very grateful for being reminded that all sorts of beauty fill my life every day.