The Cat's Nuts

Damn this week has gone fast. It’s Thursday once again and I have found myself in Laguardia Airport. I am once again heading out to Ohio. This time I’m only going ot be out there for an evening, so it’s not really all that big a deal. This time around, we’re going to be presenting out findings from last week. Honestly, had we had one more day last week, we could have put together this presentation without a hitch and just have been done with it, but as it turns out, we had a short labor day week last week and needed to extend it into this week. There is currently a second SOW (Statement of Work) that is being prepared for this company that we are working for, but I don’t know if we’re actually going to get the job. It has been voiced to me that there is a possibility that their IT department will undertake the suggestions that we made and our services won’t be needed after this week, but as of now, we don’t really know.

I am just going to take it as it comes. This past week has been pretty nice because I’ve been able to hang out at home with Laura during the day. We went out during our lunch break the other day and played volleyball and threw the Frisbee in the park. It was a nice change from when I was working out on Long Island, sitting in my car for lunch, listening to the terrible Long Island radio.

During this past week, I have had very little to do, except for yesterday when I was given some of the documents that we are going to be using for the presentation. I was asked to review them for punctuation, grammar, and formatting. That took me quite a bit of time, but the real problem came when I was about to hit the “send” button to ship the newly revised documents out to my supervisor.

“Michael….the internet isn’t working…” yells Laura from the other room…

Ugh. We have the great and amazing privilege of having our internet and cable brought to us through Time Warner Cable. In my opinion, there is only one large scale operation that is run more poorly than Time Warner and that’s the US Government. It’s amazing how you can call Time Warner five different times and each time the people on the other side of the conversation will tell you different things. You would think that they would have a central database that would tell them what the person who you previously spoke to had told you, but no, instead you practically have to talk to a supervisor every time you call in order to get service.

So after an irritating 45 minutes on the phone with a tech person he tells me that the problem is that my cable modem isn’t working and that I need to have a tech out. I ask him “How is it possible that on a sunny day, where my modem was working perfectly all day long, that all of the sudden, out of no where, the modem just dies?”

Needless to say, he didn’t have an explanation for me, but what it came down to was that his script didn’t have the needed response. Eventually, I figured that I would just schedule the appointment. Luckily for me, the closest appointment according to the person on the phone was for Monday afternoon. I explained that I and my girlfriend worked from home, so that was completely unacceptable. My cries were not heeded and I was told
“There’s just nothing that we can do. The soonest we can get a tech out there is on Monday. You can stop into the Time Warner store on 23rd and Park to get a new modem if you like…”

So off I went. I grabbed my computer and started the trek into the city. Laura decided to come with me and we headed up to Time Warner’s store front. On the way, I planned on stopping in Union Square park to use the supposedly “free” WiFi that’s in all of the New York City parks. I find myself a bench, sit down, and crack open the clamshell of my computer. As it boots, I am quickly realizing the terrible truth. I had grabbed Laura’s computer, and the documents that I was trying to send to my boss, who by this time was waiting on me to get the documents out to him, were on my computer in Brooklyn. Misery. So I say fuck it, and Laura and I walked up to the store up on 23rd. Once we get there, it’s a short 15 minute wait and we are presented with a new modem.

Once we got home, both of us were quite hungry and getting to be very short and cranky with one another. We both have this lovely trait where we become highly hypoglycemic and are just bitches until we are able to eat. When we’re both hungry, it’s like fireworks going off. Not a good time, but at least we’re aware. Needless to say the phrase

“You need to eat something!” was heard throughout our apartment a few times yesterday.

When I got home, I plugged in the modem, and waited anxiously for it to boot up. Once it did, I was just a tad on the disappointed side. Yep, it didn’t work. At this point, it was two hours past when I had told my employer that I would get him those documents, so I was on the brink of getting quite irritated. The next logical step was for me to just go and find somewhere that I could get on the internet with my laptop and just upload the files, so I headed out to the neighborhood coffee shop.

I walked into this little coffee shop, Sachmos, on Graham ave, about 200 yard from my apartment. It’s quaint and a little off-beat, but a nice new establishment. When I walked in, the owner greeted me, and informed me that there would be a beat poetry reading going on later if I wanted to come back, but I informed him that I was interested in a small cup of coffee and getting an internet connection. After fixing up my coffee and settling down into a chair, I once again cracked open the laptop to hop onto the internet… no dice. Apparently, Sachmos was having the same internet issues that I was having at my house, so off I went, slightly more irritated than before, cup of hot coffee in one hand, bag over the shoulder and armed with a MetroCard, I hopped on the subway into Manhattan.

I got off at Union Square and figured that I would again, now armed with my rightful laptop, attempt to access the park’s WiFi network. I sat down on one the benches that line the pathways through the park and opened up the network connections box on my laptop. Not surprisingly, there were around 30 various wireless networks in the general area, most of them locked. As I was trying to log onto one of the networks, trying to figure out which network was the “Free Park WiFi”, a sleezy looking Russian man sat down next to me.
“Have you ever been to the Turkish Bath houses on 10th street?”

“Ummm…no.”

“Ohh… you should go. They are great. Lots of celebrities….Sandra Bullock, Madonna….”

“Ummm, yeah. I’ll have to check it out…”

At that, I got up and started to walk towards the one bastion of free internet that I KNEW would work…Starbucks.

Weaving my way through the throngs of people in the crowded Starbucks, I was luckily able to find a small table in the back where I could set up shop and finally send off the email that was rotting on my computer. I’ll save you the cursing and swearing, but it didn’t work. Millions of people a day are able to log onto the free internet at Starbucks, but karma wasn’t with me I guess. At that point Ryan called my phone…Ryan who lives literally 5 blocks from me.

“Hey, whatcha up to? “

“Ugh.. fucking internet….” I proceeded to tell him my story of woe, and he just laughed.

“Dude, I have internet…why didn’t you just call me?”

The motto to this story is that Time Warner Cable should rot in hell. I am going to keep my appointment and when that bastard comes knocking on my door, I’m going to choke him with a length of coaxial cable… maybe that’ll get my message across…. Well… not really, but it would be sweet, right?