Middle America's Worldview

Great Scott, what a day of support today. The network was totally unstable and I had to continually recycle interfaces all day. Some more than once.
I am currently blogging as I keep an eye on my alerts when someone IM's me of another interface down. Probably take me a freaking hour to write this. LOL

Cable/Dish update: Well this morning, I was on the phone with both to disect this out, seeing my best options. Essentially it boiled down to this. I can get the same channels (in one reciever) through Cox for the same price as I am putting out for Dish and Cox. In addition I will have channels 2-99 in both kids room and my office. Currently we have the Dish Channels in our living and bedroom only.

I have this going down next Monday. Dish will discontinue and Cox will come up full digital.

Good advice Nixon, I gave them the lowdown this morning when I called into cancel.

The individual I spoke with initally asked why I was going over to another cable company. I told him full blown. Basically just told him the truth. Dish first said I could upgrade, giving me the local retailers that can do the work and call them to turn it on. I called the local retailers, they said no that was incorrect. If we do that Dish will fine us. Dish will have to give the yes and they call us. I called Dish back and the second representive said they could not upgrade us due to 'your an existing customer'. blah blah blah. So the guy said, "ok, let me transfer you to our cancelation department."
I was very nice nor raised my voice during the whole discussion. When the cancellation dept answered a lady asked me the same question. "Why have you decided to go another company?" I asked if this conversation wsa taped. She was a bit taken back and replied "I dont know."

So I gave her the whole story again in rich detail. She interupted saying it will be more expensive to go another company. I said no it isnt. She said, "yes it will, it will be cheaper in the first month but I assure you it will rise and be more."
'That is incorrect maam, yes it will be cheaper the first 3 months and then the price will rise, but it will be the same I am putting out for Dish and I will gain 3 rooms of cable.' Well that didn't go over well. You would think they realize we (customers) would research our shit first. grr. She changed tactics and started to ask me if I would like a 522 reciever sent to me with no charge, we can install ect. I kindly responded with 'with all due respect maam, Dish should have offered that yesterday before you made my decision for me. I am requesting you to cancel it Sept. 20th and send me my final bill via mail." She finally resigned her attempts and confirmed the date and amount the final bill will be.

Son update: Recieved tremendously good news today. My wife took our son to the Doctor and spoke with him. This is an alternative doc, registered not a voodoo but not really mainstream either. Anyway, he suggested we are on the right track. ( not that we can't see a major difference ourselves these past 2 days, with the non-milk diet ) Anyway, the thing I found interesting is he suggested to my wife, the belief our son actually does not have speech apraxia, rather since he has been missing 40-50 percent of input, due to the staring out, he is only developmentaly behind. He also stated, he would not be surprised our son would catch up in 1-2 years with his speech. Now I know we shouldnt be too overly confident, but with the last two days dramatic change. This is looking better and better. I have to say Thank the Living God. Yes, we wish we had this 2 years ago, so he wouldnt even be behind, but at least we have it now.

As promised, the election board sent me a sample ballot for Oklahoma. The 10 question s posed on the ballot can be found here. They are state questions, 705 through 708, 711 through 715. In addition there will be the following running for office.

Judicial Retention: Requesting to retain Note they are not running against anyone.
Justices of the Oklahoma Supreme Court
James R. Winchester - District 5
Rudolph Hargrave - District 8
Judge of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals
Charles S. Chapel - District 1
Judges of the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals
Joe C. Taylor - District 3, office 1
Ron Stubblefield - District 3, office 2
Glenn D. Adams - District 4, office 1
Larry E. Joplin - District 4, office 2
E. Bay Mitchell III - District 6, office 1

Coporate Commissioner between
John Wylie(D) and Denise Bode(R)

U.S. Senator between
Brad Carson(D), Tom Coburn(R), an Sheila Bilyeu(I)

District 2
Dan Boren(D) and Wayland Smalley(R)

Then of course the Presidential vote.