Greetings from the Big Easy!
Things are finally looking brighter and better than ever, and I'm not just saying that because I have a cuddly pup curled up at my side.
First of all, I am EXTREMELY happy to report that all of us -- Mom, Nancy, Cookie and myself -- are now living inside the house for the first time since the the hurricane. When I flew in last Tuesday, we all slept in the trailer; my room was already setup, but I got in so late I didn't care where I slept. That was the last time though, as it reminded me how motivated I am to help everyone get comfortably moved in.
The rest of the week was filled with electricians, plummers, furniture deliveries, and the arrival of the much anticipated cable box replacement. The same day the plummer finished installing the new jacuzzi tub in the guest bathroom, I had nearly figured out what was wrong with our cable setup. To make a long story short, we still had our old box but with no ac cord, and the adapter for the new one fits the old one. However, the attic connections are weaker than a Jay Leno punchline, so the new box never activated correctly. Cox Cable is supposed to come sort it out on Sept 5th after I've left (never mind the fact that Cox wouldn't book an installation appointment until after we physically received the box,) but since I'm impatient and want to be done hooking up the entertainment center, so I'm doing all I can to get it working.
When I tried hooking the old box, it gets all the digital stations, all the premium channels (save for IFC) and HBO on Demand, but it lacks most of the extended cable channels we'd otherwise get if we plugged directly into the tv. To top it all off, it's an hour behind on the set-top clock, but it's doing it to the guide as well, so it's still current programming, just an added annoyance. Eventually I got fed up, so I took the new box & a portable tv to the attic, plugged it all directly into the source cable feed, and tried activating it by phone. Now it seems to work okay at the moment downstairs, but what sucks is that the OnDemand's broken and the only premium channel we get is HBO.
Sooooo, I don't know if we're getting billed for those premium stations on the old box, but for all the aggrivation Cox Cable has given us, I'll let the new box collect some dust before the tech comes. ;)
Next I tackled the phone line issue, the problem being, there isn't a working jack in the house. Or, more to the point, wasn't. I know, it's easy to wire when you have standard telco wiring, but it gets very intimidating when you see a clump of over two dozen pairs of wires, half of which the insulation color has faded. Yada yada yada, we bought a surface mount jack for the only non-corroded set of wires in the whole house, and now we have the house phone inside the house, not the trailer. Oh yeah, and I hooked up the DSL there too, which means we now have broadband running on our working, albeit noisy, phone line.
It's never a dull moment around here though. The neighbors next door opted to knock down their house and start from scratch. That is, this past week. It was cool to see them knocking everything down, but for the following days, I awoke at 7am precisely to not only the sound of debris falling into a dump truck but to the jolt of the entire house shaking.
Alright, enough for this update, I need to run off to dinner w/ my dad. Ciao!
P.S. Pictures here! http://picasaweb.google.com/dcpesses/August15th25thRebuildingInTheBigEasy
P.P.S. Eventually I'll get to read & reply to all y'all's blogs, but as you can see, I've been a bit busy. :D
First of all, I am EXTREMELY happy to report that all of us -- Mom, Nancy, Cookie and myself -- are now living inside the house for the first time since the the hurricane. When I flew in last Tuesday, we all slept in the trailer; my room was already setup, but I got in so late I didn't care where I slept. That was the last time though, as it reminded me how motivated I am to help everyone get comfortably moved in.
The rest of the week was filled with electricians, plummers, furniture deliveries, and the arrival of the much anticipated cable box replacement. The same day the plummer finished installing the new jacuzzi tub in the guest bathroom, I had nearly figured out what was wrong with our cable setup. To make a long story short, we still had our old box but with no ac cord, and the adapter for the new one fits the old one. However, the attic connections are weaker than a Jay Leno punchline, so the new box never activated correctly. Cox Cable is supposed to come sort it out on Sept 5th after I've left (never mind the fact that Cox wouldn't book an installation appointment until after we physically received the box,) but since I'm impatient and want to be done hooking up the entertainment center, so I'm doing all I can to get it working.
When I tried hooking the old box, it gets all the digital stations, all the premium channels (save for IFC) and HBO on Demand, but it lacks most of the extended cable channels we'd otherwise get if we plugged directly into the tv. To top it all off, it's an hour behind on the set-top clock, but it's doing it to the guide as well, so it's still current programming, just an added annoyance. Eventually I got fed up, so I took the new box & a portable tv to the attic, plugged it all directly into the source cable feed, and tried activating it by phone. Now it seems to work okay at the moment downstairs, but what sucks is that the OnDemand's broken and the only premium channel we get is HBO.
Sooooo, I don't know if we're getting billed for those premium stations on the old box, but for all the aggrivation Cox Cable has given us, I'll let the new box collect some dust before the tech comes. ;)
Next I tackled the phone line issue, the problem being, there isn't a working jack in the house. Or, more to the point, wasn't. I know, it's easy to wire when you have standard telco wiring, but it gets very intimidating when you see a clump of over two dozen pairs of wires, half of which the insulation color has faded. Yada yada yada, we bought a surface mount jack for the only non-corroded set of wires in the whole house, and now we have the house phone inside the house, not the trailer. Oh yeah, and I hooked up the DSL there too, which means we now have broadband running on our working, albeit noisy, phone line.
It's never a dull moment around here though. The neighbors next door opted to knock down their house and start from scratch. That is, this past week. It was cool to see them knocking everything down, but for the following days, I awoke at 7am precisely to not only the sound of debris falling into a dump truck but to the jolt of the entire house shaking.
Alright, enough for this update, I need to run off to dinner w/ my dad. Ciao!
P.S. Pictures here! http://picasaweb.google.com/dcpesses/August15th25thRebuildingInTheBigEasy
P.P.S. Eventually I'll get to read & reply to all y'all's blogs, but as you can see, I've been a bit busy. :D