Nine Weeks Later …

Time has many forms, measurable in different ways.

When we started work on the master bath, we moved our toothbrushes and shampoos over to the guest bath. We thought it would be temporary; only a few weeks. We transferred only a few things and placed them on the countertop. As we needed more stuff, the countertop got cluttered and we started filling drawers.

Now, I have lost count of the number of toilet paper rolls we have used up, I am ready for my third bar of soap, and my large bottle of shampoo is getting empty — all consumed in the guest bath. The rate of consumption of such items is relatively constant. They measure time. We use toilet paper only for our own routines and we typically shower once a day. If the daily routine gets more frequent, that increased rate of use is also relevant to an accurate measure of time's passage.

Yesterday we cut and laid the last tiles: itty, bitty one-inch pieces of marble fed in cumbersome, mesh-backed sheets through the wet saw, or individually to cut a special one-third or triangle shape. The glass-block wall is now framed with small and contrasting marble tiles, each delicately cut and laid with Shari's and my joint consensus. The shower tiling is complete, the wet saw has been hosed off and put away in storage, and my two sets of work clothes — regularly drenched in front (that's why they call it a wet saw) and laid out to dry on the bedroom floor — are put away in the garage where they belong.

Shari still has grouting ("Grout expectations," I keep murmuring), caulking and painting to finish. She has already worked her fingers bloody pushing grout into the many spaces between sharp marble edges. Trouble is, she likes to grout and she is good at it. I like cutting and laying tiles. As for grouting, my grout lines reflect my dislike for that job.

I have a one-gang electrical outlet to replace with a two-gang, and plumbing to restore. Using the master bath is still only a fervent hope. Maybe by year-end. Meanwhile, I need to get a new bar of soap.

Six Weeks Later . .

. . . and we are still working on it. About nine hundred square feet of floor tiling in master bedroom, walk-in closet, meditation room, bathroom floor and bullnose wall-edging are pretty much done, but that leaves shower walls, restoration of bath wall and ceiling, figuring out how to caulk and grout glass blocks, and restoring the shower and toilet plumbing. My new tile saw is wearing out and I need to cut about twenty feet of quarter inch wide strips along the shower floor, plus the usual "dutchmen" (contractor-ese for cut tiles) on five shower walls.

Then there was an increase in the scope of work when we had two bedroom windows replaced. Windows need scraping, caulking and painting on the inside, then sealing and painting on the outside.

Each work component is several days. It took days of planning, pondering and mega-hardware store shopping, and a long day of work each to relocate light switch wiring, hand saw and level two-by-six studs, and replace an exterior threshold. Friday I spent telephoning Delta to figure out how to re-install the two-decades old shower faucet. There was this plastic part that didn't make sense. Just cleaning up the mess in back — our staging area, tool depository, and factory for producing heaps of dust, both porcelain and wood —will take a couple of days.

Shower floor.

The dumpster was pretty much full when it got hauled away. There was room to dump mustard prickly pear cactus and large pieces of dead acacia and palo verde trees from the yard. We hired a crew to rough-in the shower stall and lay its one-inch marble tile floor. That was a couple of weeks ago. We hired happy-go-lucky, wham-bam Jesus to replace the windows. His scheduled afternoon for the job turned into three. And the home-security guy came to install the new sensors in the new windows. I think we are done with strangers wandering about the house.

As I began to appreciate the structural ramifications of Shari's desire for a glass block shower wall, I began to worry. I worried about relocating the light switch wiring, severing three vertical two-by-fours, rebuilding the half wall, measuring thirty-nine and seven-eighths inches of vertical space between level two-by-sixes screwed to the bottom and ceiling stud stumps, and trying to figure out Pittsburgh Corning glass block installation instructions.

The glass block wall turned into a nice way to spend a Thanksgiving weekend — all four days of it. Yesterday we began the first courses of shower wall tile.

I miss my shower and toilet. I look at the toilet hole in the floor, a rag stuffed into it to keep debris out, and I have urges to urinate in it.

We've learned to appreciate the guest bath. Like its door that rubbed against the wood floor transition. I had been meaning to trim that door bottom for years. Finally, in a late afternoon of deliberate construction confidence, I took the door off its hinges. Trimming door bottoms was something I knew how to do. Heck, I'd done it several times before. Late afternoon should have been the clue.

The two saw horses were already set up in back. Carry the door outside and lay it down. Measure how much to cut. Draw a line. Clamp down a straight piece of wood to guide the circular saw. Adjust the depth setting on the saw. Check measurement again. Plug in the saw and cut smoothly. Like a hunter returning home with his catch, I proudly carried that door inside to the guest bath, placed the hinge side towards the hinge side, then realized I had trimmed the top of the door.

 Maybe we'll be done by Christmas.

… and the Master Bath

The lines are straight. It's the camera lens that's curved.

Day eleven and the walk-in closet is pretty much done. Instead of wooden baseboards, porcelain bullnose adds a touch of class — even if most of our work will be hidden by the clutter of plastic drawers, hanging clothes, boxes and shoes.

We have it for a month. 

We decided to skip the weekly garbage pick-up and go all out with the smallest dumpster we could get. Fifteen cubic yards. We won't get near filling it up, but the collection of demolition debris in the bathroom was really too much.

Showers are wet, yet the only accommodation in
the previous remodel was thin plastic sheeting
(like the plastics bags for your vegetables, only
a bit thicker) stapled to the studs behind the basic
(i.e., not even waterproof) sheet-rock.
Of course, the sheet-rock screws in
the bottom foot or two were all rusted.

Actually, the bathroom is too much. Specifically, roughing in a walk-in shower is too much for me. This is the first time I've demolished down to the studs. Tearing out the old wall tiles revealed funky construction, multiple layers of wallboard, crumbly mortar, huge strips and gobs of still flexible caulk, insulation coated with black mold, and insect feces. The shower floor tiles came out attached to huge pieces of poorly set concrete. The shower floor is a mess. On the plus side, the studs are in good shape — no rot.

Rotary hammer, much preferable to a
sledge hammer and chisel, but
the vibration and dust are terrible!

Eleven days and I've hit a bit of a wall. I don't want to be responsible for installing the shower pan, a new square drain and the floor grading so the water goes down the drain, glued plastic liner material. I'll pay someone to install the floor and walls so all I have to do is cut and cement tiles.

We had a guy come out today to get us a quote on the shower.

Imagine the floor crumbles to the touch.

Preparing the bathroom floor itself was enough of a job. Now I know what is a “rotary hammer.” It’s an electric jack-hammer. It probably has other uses, like making bread dough and polishing cars, but it's good for tearing up old tile and the mortar that holds it down, the thin-set.

A rotary hammer looks innocent enough, but it packs quite a wallop and generates veritable haboobs of mortar dust. Wretched stuff. We should keep a canary in that room and watch for it coughing and passing out.

My hands are vibrating like they have Parkinson’s. The alternative is Michaelangelo-ing it with a sledge hammer and chisel — which I did for three hours on Sunday with little result except for the pain in my hands and arms.

Friends who are also doing some remodeling took pity and lent us their rotary hammer. They are good friends!

I could not conceive how this thing could cut
safely without breaking your hand, but
it does, and quite elegantly.

I am the proud owner of an “oscillating tool” which has an ugly looking cutting edge that makes flush cuts. I got talked into buying one at Home Depot and it's one purchase I haven't regretted.

Eleven days into it and Shari has already declared this to be our last construction project. My idea of "remodel" is increasingly becoming (a) assembling Ikea furniture and (b) replacing light switch covers with decorative Mexican ones. I want to work in the garden and dream about making tongue-in-cheek YouTube videos on Do-It-Yourself projects.

Tile Floors

I propose that tiling be made the official sport of the Old Pueblo. Enough of marathons and Tour de Tucson. The competition ought to be gutting existing flooring, chiseling old thinset, stuffing garbage cans with construction debris, layout design, floor and tile buttering and, of course, grouting. As I often say, the family that grouts together stays together.

Carpet is frowned upon in the Old Pueblo. Stores and generates dust. Cheap carpeting and cheap foam padding disintegrate into crumble dust. You know it's there, but when you pull it up, you gag at what you have been living with.

Tile floors are the way to go. Preferably nice, hard, durable porcelain tiles.

We have been wanting to tile the bedrooms ever since we bought this house eight years ago. We inherited a sort of a white subway tile in the kitchen, bathrooms, and dining room, and everywhere else the same cheap, off-white carpeting. What's cheap? The abrasive feel of wall-to-wall carpet made from petroleum.

Most of the subway tile we replaced in the great kitchen cum guest bath remodel of 2007. That was our first stay in our new house. We had the old kitchen for a week before it was gutted. We got to use the new one for only a week before we migrated north for spring. In between, we camped among boxes, cooked on a plug-in burner, and ate out a lot as professionals gutted and installed with ruthless efficiency. Still, the schedule spread over two and a half months.

This time it's easier because we are working at our own pace. We can move the bed to one corner while we work on the rest of the floor.

We are seven days into this project. Eight hundred square feet of master bedroom, adjacent bedroom (currently stuffed with furniture, as is the hallway — dangerous to walk through in the dark), walk-in closet, and master bath. Maybe we will have most of it done in a couple of months.

Shari is nagging me to watch a YouTube video about installing tiles for a shower. My mind can't deal with it yet. I am still working on chiseling subway tile and scraping old thinset, wondering if I remember how to replace a toilet, and worrying about what we will find after stripping the shower walls to the studs.

Time is measured by the weekly garbage pickup. It will take many weeks to get rid of all the construction debris. Good thing our garbage cans have wheels. The old carpet doesn't weigh that much; it just takes up a lot of space. Old tile weighs a lot. We probably should have ordered a dumpster.

To give an idea of how long we have been planning this, eight years ago when we first drove from Whidbey to Tucson to take possession of our house, we pulled a trailer bearing three power-flush toilets. Two were installed in the great remodel of 2007. The third has been sitting in the garage, then storage unit, then shed — patiently waiting. The time has come.

Something's Happening Here …

Unusual garbage raises questions about what is going on.

… What it is ain't exactly clear.
There's a man with a knife over there
Telling me there's work in the air.

Stacks of tiles also raise significant concerns.

Steps in the Gully

The three steps; plus a broken Oaxacan pot relocated from
the backyard. See Monsoon Stories from Monday.

Our private gully is an inspirational place. Outside is where I like to work in the mornings and just sit and stare in the evenings.

Shari taught me at Terra Bella on Whidbey that the land talks to you. It does.

The steep hillsides in our gully invite terracing. I began working with the acacia and palo verde trees, pruning them and digging berms around their trunks so I could water them. Circular berms developed into terraces.

Two parallel trails traversing the east side were separated by a steep slope, tricky to walk up or down because of the loose rocks. I had been planning steps and even a sitting area there.

The farthest garden tap — for now.

Some months ago I installed a water line and a garden tap there, which is my declaration of intent to develop. To develop means planting. Planting requires water. Water requires a ditch to in which to bury a PVC water line. You dig the ditch before you start fine tuning the trail. So the garden hose by the steep area was the first step.

Two weekend mornings, a trip to the mega-hardware emporium for concrete blocks and concrete mix, and three steps proudly await the hillside wanderer, anxious to alight upwards or carefully assist in the down climb. In the process, the land talked to me. After months and years of thinking about a flat area big enough for a bench, I realized it was not the place. People can sit on the steps, just like at Montmartre.

The last two weekend mornings, I pushed the edge of cultivation another forty feet down the eastern hillside. Forty feet means four sections of PVC pipe and a garden tap by a gnarly palo verde that used to be bigger until dry times made it lose several branches.

Forty feet of digging a terraced path.

I know it used to be bigger because of the big dead branch on the ground and three baby saguaros growing under where the branch used to serve as a latrine for the birds that feast on saguaro fruit and pass the seeds. That palo verde, like others in the gully, needs pruning and occasional water.

Connecting the steps to the farthest garden tap are forty feet of terraced trail cut into the hillside.

Every rock is precious. I sort them as I dig. Bigger rocks are piled together. They will be stacked to serve as a shallow retaining wall. The smaller rocks I salvage by shoveling the dirt onto a screen and sifting it. This rubble, the caliche is particularly good stuff, will become the surface for the trails themselves. Foot traffic compacts the jagged little rocks into a solid matrix that discourages little critters from digging their burrows.

I was apprehensive about heavy rains damaging terraces, but it turns out the desert is quite hardy — as long as one accounts for the flow of water. Stagecoach ruts from over a century ago are still visible in the graveyard down the street, and, going back some two thousand years, the network of foot-worn Hohokam and O'odham salt trading trails down to the Sea of Cortez are still visible in aerial photos.

Many more weekend mornings await. There are a few areas in our land that have overgrown agaves and aloes. O need to dig up shoots — mini-plants sent out by the main plant — and transplant them. And it's autumn, so it's time to plant a few mesquite trees.

Just Another Sunrise

One good sunset deserves a good sunrise. I can't write that these light shows are common because there is nothing common about them; but they are not uncommon in these parts.

Sunrise begins with a pale light so faintly yellow that it seems dull. A few minutes later, the eastern sky begins to glow more intensely. The clouds begin to reflect the red light until most of the sky is lit up like an explosion. The display changes with each passing minute until the sun rises above the horizon and the clouds fade into shades of grey.

Just Another Sunset

Clear and dry desert skies make for unobstructed evening and morning sunlight. Add a few fluffy clouds to reflect that red-hued late or early light and you have spectacular sunsets and sunrises.

My small and obsolete pocket camera (most people nowadays use telephones to take photographs; how au courant) can't do justice to the scene.

That red band framing the brightest strip of the sky was not ordinary; it was a red so deep and iridescent as to restore the original meaning to the word amazing. And the vast scale! How can a photo capture the magnitude of the sky?

We get these lights shows quite often; coyote howling and birds chirping add the sound shows. It's just another sunset, but I never tire of them. It's not something you can get used to because each is so spectacularly marvelous.

Rillito River Flows

Not often, but there are a few days when the Rillito is a river and not a dry wash.

We've had a good monsoon season in terms of rainfall. October is pretty late for monsoon rain, but we got a bonus last week, about an inch and a half over two days, courtesy of Hurricane Simon.

The Rillito River flowed. The Santa Cruz River flowed. The water around our back doors flowed, and with the help of a large shop broom, was swept to the West.

Everything was wet, glistening with water. The earth is saturated with the wet. The desert squishes as you step on it. You feel like you don't want to step on it. The heavy rain makes beautiful patterns on fine dirt, exposing pebbles to create a rich, living texture. 

The Tucson basin is green, and the vegetation is so happy that some trees and shrubs are flowering — again.

Rats and Telephones

We have telephone karma.

It took months to get a second line removed, two months to get a VDSL circuit installed, then the monsoon rain on September 8 took out our phone for a few days. Each such adventure involved hours on a phone wading through computer-managed questionnaires.  I've written about it critically in It-Takes-A-CenturyLink, or Para Continuar en Español, Oprime el Nueve.

Yesterday, the phone went dead. I feared either God or the phone company was getting even with me for being critical.

Today, Monday, we called repairs, waded through the computer-managed questionnaires, repeated my name, phone number, mailing address, last four digits of my SSN, and call-back number several times: once for the computer; the rest for the nice young female voice on the other end of the wireless line, probably in Manila.

The repair man came out early this afternoon.  Hey, that ain't bad.  That's pretty quick. The phone company truck pulled into our driveway and we eagerly met him at the door. Turned out he'd already fixed it. He showed us a broken telephone wire. A packrat had gotten into the phone company's box down the street and chewed through wiring.

So maybe it wasn't God's or the phone company's retribution. Maybe it was that big packrat I evicted from behind the storage box in our tower. Or maybe it was all of the above.

Wire, Glass & Cans

Mostly bits of wire, possibly from a fence, but also broken
glass, chicken wire, aluminum something or another, and
an old style pull-tab can.

One of the nice things about the rain is how it uncovers buried things. Like bits of trash and construction debris.

Coat Hanger Valley yields lot of interesting stuff. A brief stroll on its west side, staring at the ground, and within ten or fifteen minutes, I have a bucketful of wire, broken glass, and other non-indigenous items.

I don't like non-indigenous items. I collect trash, sometimes even concrete debris, and put it in the garbage can.

Except that so far I have saved three coat hangers from oblivion. The three are hanging on palo verde branches.

Coat Hanger Valley is getting a strolling-friendly makeover. I'm beginning to think of it as Shangri-La Valley. Maybe when I've done more work to complete path that traverses the west side, I'll start calling it Shangri-La. That's when I will remove the three coat hangers. Maybe.

Welcome Rain

It already has been a pretty good monsoon season with decent rainfall. Now we are getting even more, and it's quite late in the season.

Here are some snaps of San Simeon with grey skies and drizzle.

My thanks to Judy's greed for the blog. I'm always happy to remind her that she and Ray did buy their retirement house in Tucson. All they need do now is retire.

Should I mention that the swimming pool temperature is well over ninety degrees? Probably not.

C'mon down. We'll leave the lights on.

Agamemnon in Vegas

Agamemnon at Gila Bend, the turn-off
from I-8 for the Peenix bypass to I-10,
with one of the two jet fighters
that stand guard at its municipal airport.

Agamemnon Jetson's greatest achievement to date, his longest excursion (leaving aside being dragged behind a U-Haul truck; see Haulin' U-Haul, or, the Laughlin Ride) and his greatest payload (if we ignore hauling paving bricks; see 500 Bricks & 600 lbs. of Sand) is three nights in Vegas.

The adventure began innocuously enough. My sister Irene was flying from Seattle to Las Vegas on Monday bringing our two cousins from Hungary, Laci and Judit whom I had never met before, in order to drive them to the Grand Canyon on Tuesday. They would return to Seattle on Wednesday.

I was invited to meet them somewhere along the way.

On the Vulture Mine Road, outside of
Wickenburg,  Shari's and my favorite shortcut.
Monday's monsoon washed it out,
so I had to drive through
Peenix on the drive back.

Innocuous until one looks at a map. I decided against any attempt to rendezvous at the Grand Canyon. I decided against flying to Vegas — tickets are too expensive, flying is a hassle, and it's only about seven hours driving time, which I love.  Irene was renting a car for the ten-hour return drive between Vegas and the Canyon, so all I had to take was myself. It was a job for the nimble Agamemnon.

The distances added up, but neither my sister nor I had factored in the budget, subcompact car she had rented (rated less comfortable than Agamemnon) or that she was its only insured driver.  I insisted upon taking Agamemnon to the Grand Canyon.

Four grown adults in a tiny car flying at Arizona freeway speeds (75 m.p.h. limit) on a day with predictions of 90% chance of rain. Cool.

Joshua Scenic Drive, AZ, on US 93
between Wickenburg and Wikieup.
Wikieup marks one edge of
the saguaro's habitat.

Our hotel in Vegas.

You know the joke, "How do you fit four elephants into a VW beetle? Two in the front and two in the back." It wasn't that bad at all, but Smoke Ganesha, our trusty Ford Explorer, would have been more comfortable and quieter.

Three nights in Vegas, some 1,450 miles (over 2,300 km.), and a total of about twenty-four hours on the road, burning gas at the ridiculously cheap rate of over 40 m.p.g., Agamemnon served us well. I patted its dashboard repeatedly in appreciation.

The heavy monsoon rains that caused so much flooding in Peenix and Tucson (see Monsoon Stories from Monday) also fell in Vegas. The weather was moving west, so the rain was scheduled to hit the Grand Canyon on Tuesday, the one day my sister and cousins had to make the ten-hour drive.

US 93 lookout over the Colorado River.

Hoover Dam.

We set out from Vegas at six in the morning. It had stopped raining, so my sister and I decided to stop at the nearby Hoover Dam. My thought was to let our cousins take pictures of something. My fear was that the Canyon would be socked in so badly that the only clouds would be visible. (That would have made one heck of a story, like standing on a beach watching underwater submarine racing.)

We saw the dam and Lake Mead at its lowest level since the dam was completed. A little farther along the way, we even saw the Colorado River from US 93 as it winds through the Mojave Desert from Vegas to Kingman.

Agamemnon at the Grand Canyon Visitors Center.

The weather held out until we turned north from I-40 towards the Park entrance to the south rim. We were headed towards some very dark, menacing clouds. Sure enough, it started raining just as we pulled up at the entrance.

We sheltered in the Visitors Center until the rain eased up a bit. My sister and cousins were more prepared than I. They had brought hooded jackets and an umbrella. (Well, they had flown down from Seattle.) I encouraged them to walk through the drizzle to the nearby look-out and see what could be seen.

Five or ten minutes later, the rain eased up even more and I ventured out myself. The Canyon was staggeringly beautiful.

The pleasure that Laci and Judit got from witnessing some of the world's most stunning and famous scenery made it all worth while. Actually, making connection with family from my mother's side, walking the Vegas strip together, and chatting for a day and a half in Hungarian all made my adventure wonderful. The miles just flew by.

Judit and Laci at Yaki Point.

On our way back from the Canyon, we decided to gas up and have something to eat at Williams. ("Vilmos", said Laci, citing the Hungarian equivalent name.) As if God was reminding us how specially She had treated us, it rained heavily the entire time we were in Williams. I had images of having to drive petite Agamemnon carrying four adults past the dense spray and splash of huge trucks hydroplaning at freeway speeds. But by the time Irene paid the restaurant tab and we got back onto I-40, the rain had stopped and the road was already dry.

We arrived back in Vegas after nightfall to see the full moon rising. At five the next morning, I set out to return to Tucson, arriving at twelve-thirty. Agamemnon and I are good buddies.

"Agamemnon in Vegas." You may ask, "What about Las Vegas itself?" That's another story.

Monsoon Stories from Monday

The heavy monsoon rains in the Southwest this last Monday made national news and prompted family and friends to inquire whether we were alright. Yes, we are, but not without some stories. Probably everyone in the Southwest has stories.

Our major story is four days suffering internet withdrawal due to the loss of our telephone connection. More on that in the It-Takes-a-CenturyLink post below, postscript 4.

The broken pieces might make a nice feature in Coat Hanger Valley.

Major damage at our portion of the San Simeon ranch was limited to one of our three large Oaxacan clay pots, blown over by the wind.

Actually, this had happened several years before. When we brought it home, I just stood it up and stuck an old century plant agave shoot in it. I figured I could stabilize it with earth and rocks inside later, as I had the other two identical pots we had set up in the backyard.

One should not underestimate the power of wind in the Sonoran Desert. The thin skeleton of the agave shoot was enough to catch the wind one night and knock the pot over. When we found it in the morning, we were devastated. Shari had painstakingly collected the pieces, glued and caulked them together, and we set it up again. I loaded dirt and rocks inside, then planted the old agave stalk inside.

It held up that way a long time, but I noticed the gaps in the repaired breaks were getting disturbingly wider and wider. Until Monday's monsoon when the repairs failed and the pot resumed its former, fragmented configuration.

Caught in the act at the
Stratosphere, Sin City.

The origin of our third story from San Simeon and Monday's monsoon lies with the idiots who laid out our backyard. It's a large area paved with concrete and brick that slopes towards the house. When it rains heavily, it floods inside through two back doors.

One should not underestimate the power of rain in the Sonoran Desert. For some reason, they too often build houses here with little regard for monsoon rain. My theory is that the long periods of sunny weather addles their critical thinking.

I had caulked strips of wood to the concrete outside the two vulnerable doors to serve as dams. Even so, when it rains heavily, I enjoy taking our shop-broom and sweeping water in the rain. The heavy rains usually last maybe ten or twenty minutes. I also had installed a two inch drain pipe that can handle the rest.

Shari, with her bad back, swept water for three hours on Monday.

Moi?  With psychic premonition, I skipped town on Sunday for Las Vegas and enjoyed the much more gentle Mojave Desert monsoon rain on Monday, leaving Shari at home to deal with flooding and the phone outage. I should add that she was happy to see me on Wednesday.

Barrel Cactus Flower

It's a deep red with hints of orange and pink. It's so bright, it pulls your eye. It is the flower of a barrel cactus.

I walked the dogs down the street and saw this by the side of the road. I had to come back and take the snap.

There are lots of amazing flowers in the Sonoran Desert. Many bloom a second time during the monsoon rains. But there is something haunting about the color of a barrel cactus flower, something that a photo cannot capture.

It-Takes-A-CenturyLink, or Para Continuar en Español, Oprime el Nueve

Time Toilet

Recently, Bill Maher did a thing on "New Rules" about being afraid less of "Big Government" and more of big business. The jokes were inspired by a customer's hellish experience trying to cancel a Comcast service. See, for example, the NPR article.  Although Comcast backpedalled by claiming that was not its corporate culture, it is. Which was the point of Maher's jokes and social commentary.

My nemesis is CenturyLink, so named because of the time it takes to get something done.

Last year I asked customer service to drop the first house line and make the second line our sole phone number. You have no idea how confusing that was to the phone company.  Three times I spent a half a day calling, being cut-off, calling, being given another number, assurances, conflicting information, providing my phone number (repeatedly in the same call) and listening to "Para Español, oprime el nueve." It doesn't help that each time you get a different rep, so what one guy tells you becomes irrelevant as soon as you hang up. Of course, that's by design. It-Takes-a-CenturyLink has a random rotation system.

It took two months to drop a house line. I'm not making this stuff up.

I recently got a form letter from CenturyLink explaining that I can upgrade my internet speed. I'm skeptical. Last year and again this year I called the good folks at It-Takes-a-CenturyLink asking whether I could get higher speed.  "No. In your area [no optic cable line] 1.5 Mps is the max." Mind you, I called customer service and technical support to get the same answer: not available on my street. So the letter surprised me.

What the heck, I'll call again. Identify my phone number (which I had already punched in for the computer voice, "Para Español, oprime el nueve.") mailing address, last 4-digits of my SSN, a number where I could be reached [?! Don't they have caller ID?] -- one goes through this routine with each new rep, regardless -- and customer service says I can get 20 Mps and technical support tells me I can get 40 Mps.

"How? What's changed?"

"You need a VDSL modem/router."

"Is this new technology?" The tech support guy was speechless. Turns out VDSL has been out for years and years.  It's old technology.

I sign up for 20 Mps.  I bought my VDSL modem/router at Best Buy so I wouldn't have to wait. After all, CenturyLink has to only flip a switch.  I bought the identical modem/router -- identical down to the logos -- that CenturyLink will sell or lease to me, but at least someone else gets some markup out of it. Plus I don't have to wait. But I am up against Big Business.

I have to wait for It-Takes-a-CenturyLink to UPS me a modem/router. "I already have one. It's the same modem/router."

"No, we have to send you one."

"Can you check with your supervisor?"

"I just did. There's no way in the system to turn it off.  Just send it back to us."

Yeah, with institutional incompetence like CenturyLink, I can trust that I won't have to call again to take the charge off my bill.

"Since I already have the required modem/router, when can higher speed be switched on my line?" In eight days, was the answer.  It was scheduled for the end of the business day on Friday. There was nothing I could do. The system assumes you are waiting for a UPS delivery, so it makes you wait for no reason. Plus by scheduling it just before the weekend, the customer is assured of a nice conversation with India.

Then there was the rep in India (I couldn't make out which Indian language was chattering in the background, but the lunchroom conversation was so loud that I could barely make out the rep's voice) who couldn't -- actually, wouldn't -- help me set up my new router because I had an order pending. "Yes, but this modem/router is good for lower speeds, isn't it?" The Indian rep agreed, but hung up.

What the heck, I'll call again. Identify my telephone number which I had already punched in for the computer voice, ("Thank you for calling CenturyLink. Para continuer en Español, oprime el nueve.") mailing address, last 4-digits of my SSN, a telephone number where I could be reached -- one goes through this routine with each new rep one has to talk with, and there are lots of them -- and the third Indian rep helps me set up the modem/router.

You know, we pay these guys over $200 a month. The only competition it has is Cox (doesn't serve our street), Comcast (bad reviews), and Dish (horrible reviews). Oddly enough, they are all priced pretty much the same, if you can get beyond the "bundles" and five-page itemization that not even the company's billing folks can explain.

This is the private enterprise, free market system that Republican hacks, tea-baggers and Ayn Rand worship. I say we need a lot more regulation and a lot more anti-trust litigation.

Well, I'm supposed to get 20 Mps after five this evening. Be still my heart.

Post Script — Nothing Doing

Of course, it didn't happen. No VDSL double circuits available was the explanation. So CenturyLink is behind the times (again that time metaphor), selling stuff it doesn't have, and its left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. But their reps, generally very nice people, are trained to give happy answers that mean nothing.

Post Script 2 — India, Boise & the "Held Order" Dept.

Over the weekend, the reps in India and the one tech-support rep I managed to talk with all suggested I call on Monday during business hours. I'm getting better at calling. No point sitting holding the phone; I make breakfast and eat it as I wait.  Para continuer en Español, oprime el nueve.

At first, the nice rep (in Boise?) tells me that the order can't be completed because I don't have the correct modem. That's a new one. I assure her that I do and encourage her to keep checking.

It takes about a quarter of an hour as I listen to It-Takes-A-CenturyLink recordings encouraging me to upgrade to 40Mbs and assuring me that my phone call is important. A couple of times the nice rep interrupts the recordings to assure me that she was still working on it. "Hello. Mr. P___, are you still there?" Well, yes. (What did she think, or is it typical that callers give up and hang up, or was she hoping?)

Finally a new voice comes on. It's a lot less cheery, but a lot more informative. She's obviously not in sales. She is one of those people who actually knows, actually does the work, and you hardly ever get to talk to. My order is in the "Held Order" department. She confirms that what is missing is a double VDSL circuit in the phone company box that's across the street from San Simeon, by the Mormon graveyard. A work order has been placed, but it might take a month.

Well, that's better news than what I was told last year and earlier this year when the blame was put on the lack of a fiber-optic line in the street.

Milagro de milagros, my phone company bill drops when I get more expensive service. Makes no sense, but then, have you ever tried to understand a phone company bill? So I think to myself, why don't I call customer service and get a bill reduction now.

This is where it gets funny. The nice man tells me that my order is completed. (This is what's fun about calling It-Takes-A-CentutyLink: every time a new person and a new story.)

I say he doesn't know what he is talking about. The order is not completed. He gets a little defensive. When I tell him I already have a modem, and I've already had to return one It-Takes-A-CenturyLink sent me by UPS, he says the rep who told me It-Takes-A-CenturyLink had to send me a modem didn't know what he was taking about. You tell me. Is this funny or what?

He says I can put in a new order and it would be completed on the 13th at the latest. Okay. I bite. Now I have two orders. What could possibly go wrong?

Post Script 3 — the 13th; Is it Christmas Yet?

What can go wrong is reality. Despite some feint hope in my psyche, the 13th came and passed without the higher speed upgrade. It's like the promises of Advent unfulfilled at Christmas. [A tip o' the hat to Randy whose new blog has inspired me this morning.]

It-Takes-A-CenturyLink trains reps to say things to make the customer feel good and the company look good. Calls are recorded to make sure reps authoritatively maintain appearances.

The "Held Order" department is much closer to the people who actually do the work. Its telephone number is a precious resource because the folks there actually have a pretty good idea of what's going on locally.

For fun, I call the general support numbers to needle and waste the reps' time. It can provide lots of amusement because you always get a nice new rep who is eager to help and authoritatively tells you a novel story. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" they obligatorily and cheerily ask after they have been unable to help with anything.

For reality, I call the "Held Order" number where I'm told maybe by this month-end some tech will be sent out to the phone company box down the block to install a VDSL double circuit. The information is not much more satisfying, but it is closer to reality. When It-Takes-A-CenturyLink advertises the availability of higher speed DSL, the job of installing the necessary circuits is less important. Appearances matter, not reality.

Megacorporation X also promotes
what's not now -- like,
"your check is in the mail ® "

Yesterday we saw a phone company truck parked by the subject, under-equipped phone company box. Shucks. The truck had Xfinity painted all over it. (Where do these corporations get their names? Why do they pay money to get them? Why do they keep changing them? How do you pronounce "Xfinity"? Not like I care.) Xfinity, if I understand advertise-speak correctly, is Comcast, which is another mega-corporation determined to rule whatever ("X") is everything (infinity).

Not the promised truck. So much for a few seconds of feint faith.

You think I should give the It-Takes-A-CenturyLink reps the phone number for the "Held Order" department? Nah. That would ruin the fun.

Post Script 4 — Monsoon & Mid-September

A couple of weeks ago Shari fielded a call from CenturyLink to advise that the additional VDSL circuits will be installed mid-September. By now, I'm not waiting so eagerly, but I also suspect that it will be done.


By now, it's Shari's turn to get livid with the phone company. Monday's monsoon rain caused our phone line and that of at least one neighbor to go dead. That night, the lines were restored. Tuesday morning, ours was down. I was in Vegas until Wednesday (another story) so Shari had to call to schedule a repair guy to come out. Thursday was the earliest, which schedule evoked Shari's anger and threats to switch to another phone company. (Which one? There's little choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.) Thursday morning before 12:30 it was.

She was going through internet withdrawal. It didn't help that the rep said that on the phone company end, the line appeared to be working. If the number was dialed, the caller got a ring. If the problem was in the house, we get to pay for the repair.

I got home around noon on Wednesday and my fears proved founded. Shari hadn't picked up the phone, and that was because it was down. My experiences, as chronicled and suggested in this expanding post, and going back over a year, in fact, allowed me to be a bit philosophical. I allowed Shari to pick up the irate-customer baton.

No one showed up in the morning. At 12:30, Shari used our clamshell cell phone to call customer service. As I listened sympathetically, she waded through the para continuar en Español, oprime el nueve and similar digital recordings before reaching a rep who paged the guy who actually does the work. New ETA: 2:30. They are busy. Around 3:15 and almost fit to be tied, Shari calls again. This time the rep is in Manila. That's in the Philippines.

While she is struggling to get the Manila rep to page the repairman, the land-line phone rang. I picked up the phone. It was the repairman. Line is fixed. For the previous couple of hours he'd been working on the box down the street. He noted that the box was scheduled for the VDSL upgrade next week, but he replaced the to-be-upgraded part — with some difficulty, he explained.

So that's why I have some confidence that we might get high speed internet, as advertised and promised in late July.

But, to be honest, I am finding that I have more sympathy for the phone company. Monday's rain caused a lot of outages and I'm grateful they fixed our line as quickly as they did. I enjoyed and took advantage of my time without phone and internet. I'm also relieved that it's fixed.

Post Script 5 — High Speed & Scottish Vote

Well, yesterday, Thursday September 18, 2014, was a big day. Not only did the Scots vote to remain within the U.K. and continue the confusion among "British", "English" and "United Kingdomonians", but we got our high speed DSL connection. Laughing with glee and amazement, we watched web pages flash into existence. Our Roku box downloaded programs with a previously mythical four-out-of-four dot quality. Our previous high was three dots, but usually we received at two-dot quality.

Uploading is still a bit slow, but hey, it's not a perfect world.