Plenty To Do In Retirement

[19&41]

I had my nerve blocking injections to see if RF ablation might help me with my back pain. They've isolated the two nerves that appear to be most responsible and will do the ablation soon. My cable company advised me my cable modem is too old to cut it, SO I ordered a more capable one from Amazon and called the cable company to switch the units. Here's the fun part. No communication device will work at my place without a functioning cable modem. The cable company decided to try helping me over the phone. I told them I could not set it up that way. the person on the other end said to just connect the new one and call me at this number. I said NOOOOOoooo(click) So, for the next 2 days I had no phone, internet nor cable. A tech finally came and worked on the new modem and between him and the powers that be at xfinity, they decided my new one would not work with their system, even though it was the recommended type. The tech installed an Xfinity unit free of charge and that peccadillo was ended. In the meantime. I purchased a new air fryer. Set it up, turned it on and it wouldn't cook. It heated the food only after a long cook time. I finally found the outlet that fed it had a very poor connection and the heating element wasn't working well. I ordered a combination outlet tester and transmitter and a breaker locator and found that the outlet had a faulty connection. I located the breaker, opened the outlet and drew out the socket assembly and found it had the push- in wire connectors. I bought a few outlets and replaced the first one and the next one that was inline. Now those are working just fine, as are the outlets. Yesterday, I decided to clean the tront lower brick wall of my house, along with the cement front porch. 2 years of pollen had pretty much blackened each. I used 1 part clorox to 2 parts water, administered with a long bristle deck scrubber. got those parts clean. I was finishing that and fell in the garage. That really finished things up right I just wish I could just get through something without having something uninted happen If it had seemed like I wasn't having any interest here, you know the real reason.

[William]

Wow, I am truly sorry for all of your misfortune, your life sounds like mine. One step forward and 5 back. I sure hope your fall did not mess up your back. Please, when you feel like it please tell me more about back ablation.

Bill

[19&41]

It's a form of electrocautery in which the offending nerve is cauterized and and taken out of service. Mine will be two from each side of the lower back. The fall didn't do my back any good, for sure, thanks for asking.

[TC Chris]

The last time my internet service went kaflooey, Charter (Spectrum) told me the modem was dead and to go to the local store & trade it in. The next problem was getting the new one going. I was doing it via telephone advice. I was skeptical. But I had a very patient service tech on the phone. When we got to the part requiring my secret numbers, none of them that were written down would work. He needed to send me a secret one-time code for me to retrieve the new secret number, so he told me to use my cell phone. Aha, but mine is a flip phone. No problem; we worked through that via texts to the flip phone while I was talking on the portable landline phone. The point is that the guy was patient and tolerant and was not time pressured to drop the call. He talked me through the whole process.

As to the back, I assume you've waited for things to get better and had no improvement. I was lucky with my March 23 sciatic nerve injury. At the end of 3 weeks, I could start walking while standing up, and after 2-1/2 mo. was pretty much cured. (That said, my doctor had the same thing and opted for surgery when he had no improvement after 3 months and was developing stomach bleeds from all the ibuprofen).

Chris Campbell

[William]

I hate Spectrum, but love their service so I have always been skeptical to change companies. They can either walk you thru the problems or will have a service guy there within 24 hours and sometimes it is within just hours. Ever since Frontier came thru a couple years ago with fiberoptic cable Spectrum is no longer the only name in the game so they have become very competitive with their pricing which is good as they were very greedy before.

Bill

[19&41]

With my modem, Xfinity sent out a notice that my own modem was too slow for their service. I finally found a recommended unit on Amazon. Now, how to set it up? I use VOIP for my home phone, The nearby Verizon cell provides an RF dead area to my cul de sac, so it requires WIFI for cell service and of course, the internet service is provided through the modem. All I could think of was the guy sitting on the branch that he was sawing from the tree. I was without internet for 2 days. My VOIP was set up to forward L/L calls to my cell phone, which consisted of my hearing the other party saying hello, hello, while I was hollering hello through my hands free while driving to my endless doctor appointments. I didn't know whether I felt more like the man up a tree, or Mr. Douglas up a telephone pole.

[electra225]

Rex, I'm sorry to hear about your back issues. I'll keep a good thought and hope you get it all sorted soon....

We use Cox Cable for everything. Landline, TV, Internet, cellphone. They are frightfully expensive, but they give stellar service. They have a brick-and-mortar where I can go if I want to talk with my "rented granddaughter" so she can straighten out whatever "old guy" issues I have with my cellphone. Having this internet forum has helped me tremendously with my management of "tech". I won't replace Mark in several lifetimes, but I am a sight better than I was before I got the forum. I have learned to text. I tried to teach my wife to text. Like teaching a bull to be a ballerina. I learned that if you get into a corner, look for the three little dots in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Don't poke until you know whom or what you may be poking. The wife pokes, then yells at me when it doesn't go well. Then call Mark or Mitch when you get in over your head.

Our store manager at work is one of those unique individuals who appreciates the diversity in her workforce. She has started a little program where the various associates in the store can demonstrate some abiltiy they have. One older guy played session work for the Beach Boys and is a pretty fair guitar picker. One lady weaves baskets then gives them to kids undergoing cancer treatment. I am going to bring in some "vinyls from the olden days" and demonstrate how 45's are played. I plan to take in the little RCA 45 player, along with an RCA 1R81 bakelite radio as an amplifier. Why anyone would want to listen to Taylor Swift on a cellphone with a 1/4" speaker rather than Jim Reeves on an 8" speaker in a tube radio is beyond me. "He'll Have To Go" was a favorite of the girls on the playground back in the day. It was "dreamy"......

On retirement. I have so much to do in retirement, I wonder when I ever had time to hold down a full-time job.

And last, the best benefit of retirement is that you don't have to call out at work so you can go to the doctor....