annz0r.net

• Worrying about being late to work because of the CTA
• Random men on the CTA who think they have the right to feel me up
• The smell of urine on public transit
• Car alarms in the middle of the night
• Car alarms in general
• Looking out my window straight into my neighbor’s window

That is all.

Just as an update…  We are still unable to make outgoing phone calls.  And T-Mobile continues to be inaccessible and completely inattentive.  Thanks guys!

We DID end up changing our Comcast modem — instead of having the combo internet/phone modem, we now have a straight cable modem without phone capability.   At this point, it’s likely the only thing keeping us from using our phone like normal people is Comcast, a la a couple of blocked ports.  Dominic at the @home customer (cough) support said that he would work with Comcast on the issue, but it has now been over a week and a half and we have not heard anything from him (or any of his team members for that matter).  I have left them voicemails, since you cannot actually reach a person when you call advanced technical care, but no one will return my call.

I would, you know, call Comcast myself, but I can’t make outgoing phone calls at home and I have no mobile reception while in the house.  Standing outside talking to Comcast would make testing rather difficult.  Considering the fact that I’ve spent hours on the phone with T-Mobile regarding the issue, I can only hope they will help me out a little here…

I’m probably hoping too hard.

Perhaps this post would be titled the pursuit of happiness, but I’m sure not pursuing happiness while on hold with T-Mobile for hours on end…  Or, waiting for a call back from T-Mobile’s Advanced Technical Support, which seems to have a dubious status of existence.

When the T-Mobile @home service was rolled out, we were excited.  $10 for unlimited incoming and outgoing calls is really cheap — about $30 cheaper than Comcast’s VOIP phone.  We began the process of porting our number over from Comcast to T-Mobile.  Comcast didn’t seem to want to let go of the number, but we sort of expected it and gave things a little more time.  Right now, we are able to receive phone calls (sometimes with degrading quality, sometimes not at all!) but we cannot make any phone calls.  Instead of a dial tone we have a lovely BUZZZZZZZ that does not go away when you try to dial.

Here’s our setup:  cable internet with Comcast, using an Arris TM402P cable modem/telephone combo -> T-Mobile/Linksys router.  Today we went to the T-Mobile store and came home with a new router and new Vtech phones, which were all tested to perfect functionality in-store.  I honestly don’t think we have anything in our house strong enough to cause such a terrible interference.  Er, wait…  Let me tell Vic to move that industrial magnet… The only thing left to consider, for me, is the Comcast cable connection/modem.  I am THEORIZING that, because our modem also provides telephone service (although it has been canceled), it may be causing some kind of a problem.

If you come across my blog on Google and are having similar problems, PLEASE COMMENT!  If T-Mobile and [insert cable company name here] cannot figure out what’s going on (or refuse to admit fault), maybe us netizens can figure it out.

So… Yesterday we contracted to build a house.  We weren’t sure if we were going to build a house or buy an older one, but the perks of building were just too much to turn down.  We’ll be in Yorkville, IL, which is pretty far out there.  There’s a park and ride shuttle station a half mile from our subdivision, and then it’s only an hour from Aurora to downtown on the express Metra trains.

The subdivision was meant to be townhomes and duplexes, but the builder got around it by “attaching” the homes with a small storage area off of the garage.  We’ll technically have a duplex neighbor, but no walls in the actual house will be shared.  We can fence our yard and everything.  The lot we’re building on is right in front of a marsh/pond area (had to pay extra for that, heh), which will be cool.  There won’t be anyone building or moving in behind us, only on the sides.

The prices for these houses are going up by $2K on Monday, and we were able to get in on one of their incentives.  We got a pretty sweet deal because the models aren’t built yet (a lot of people won’t buy a house without a model to walk through).  We visited a townhome model that was in the same layout as our house, just smaller.  The incentive is a full deluxe kitchen, which means we don’t have to pay for the included, stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, flooring upgrades, and cabinet upgrades.  The incentive is saving us about $15000, literally.  The fridge that’s included is worth freaking $1500!  Plus, the larger/private lot and sweet kitchen will help with resale value whenever we decide to sell.

Here’s the link to the house description/floorplans.  We are getting a full basement (underneath the house area, not the garage area), and the floorplan does not show the small storage room off of the garage.

Here’s an estimation of where our house will be built.

View Larger Map

The Google satellite picture isn’t that recent; there are a lot of homes that have been built that are not on the map.  They are expecting us to close at the end of november, so hopefully we’ll be moved in by december!  Depending on the weather, the close date could be earlier or later…

We’re pretty excited.  We also have to go into super save mode, because we have to pay the rest of our down payment in 30 days (ugh).  After that we’ll just have closing costs…  and we’ll have to buy a car.

What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

I have an enormous amount of respect for the people who are taking care of this unfortunate kitty, and it’s amazing a cat like that can live a semi-normal life.  But, on the other hand…  OH GOOOODDDDDD asldjfalsdjflasdjf