Today, I Hate My Front Door.

I just noticed, the last post was post number 200 for this blog.

Insert balloon drop here.

That's about it for that.

We've been having trouble with our satellite TV lately. The HD channels have all gone away and left us with a white screen and a magical message, "Searching for satellite signal in 2". It's really quite irritating since that means most of the channels don't work. And the ones that do work are not in HD so the quality of the picture is a little poor in comparison.

On a Macintosh computer, when you are having trouble connecting to an Internet service, there is a step by step process that the computer takes you through to get it to work. It asks you simple questions, and gives you choices, "What method are you trying to connect with? A) Ethernet, B) wireless, C) USB?" Then you choose and the next screen pops up, "There is trouble with the connection, are you using a router? A) Yes, B) No." "Yes, you are using a router. Please restart router. Does that fix the problem? A) Yes, B) No." "Are you connecting through a DSL box? A) Yes, B) No." And so on, and so on. Eventually you come to the end and it either works or you get the message, "Sorry, we've exhausted all possibilities, you and I are not smart enough to make this work, time to call somebody smarter... tech support".

This is basically an example of what I had to go through to make my satellite work again. I called the "tech support" line and the nice lady on the other side was my Macintosh for the satellite. "When you tune to channel 401, what do you see?"

"Searching for satellite in 2."

"Okay, check the wires in the back make sure they are tight. Are they tight?"

"Yes."

"Okay, you answered yes, now unscrew the wire and make sure the copper part in the middle is straight. Is the copper part in the middle straight?"

"Yes."

"Okay, now go outside and see if the satellite dish is still connected to the house. Is the dish still connected to the house?"

"Yes."

I can see her sitting in front of her computer checking the "Yes" box, and the next window pops up with the next silly question. Eventually, we came to the end and the problem wasn't fixed, the window said, "Send technician."

So at present, there is a technician on my roof with a screw gun, and I can hear him moving the dish around. Hopefully by the time I finish this post, he'll be done and I can get back to watching my all important hockey stats on the NHL channel.

When he first showed up, he came into the house and basically did all the same steps I did on the phone with the tech support lady. I get it, gotta make sure I didn't do something wrong, so he's been walking in and out of the house, each time slamming my front door.

The slamming is not why I hate the my front door today, and I'm not mad at Raul (the technician). The reason I hate my front door is because it's a metal screen door. And when it slams, it makes an unholy metallic bang. And it didn't really occur to me until just now, that this metal door, and all the metal bars on my windows are meant to keep people out.

Is my neighborhood that bad, that I have to have metal doors and bars? No, I don't think my neighborhood is that bad. I know the owner of the house before we moved in was broken into once and in response, had all the windows barred and metal doors installed, just so she could feel safe.

But they don't make me feel safe, it actually makes me feel claustrophobic. Are these bars making me feel like I'm trapped inside? Feels like prison, but all I have to do is open the door and walk outside. So why I don't I do that more often?

I should do that more often.

As soon as Raul is gone, I'm going for a walk. Ah never mind, he got the satellite working again and there are hockey stats to check.

I'll get out tomorrow.

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