The Flying Jalapeño Lives

Over the past few days I have been obsessed. A song has been playing in my head and I just couldn’t (can’t) get it out. Maybe it is just my 30′s seeping in or some facebook induced reminiscence.

Whatever it is, I’ve had 4 Non Blondes and Linda Perry’s voice performing hourly in my ear all this week.

The song is a fine encapsulation of 90′s music (to me). Great vocals, memorable lyrics without being too trite, nice layered guitar, all sprinkled with some woman empowerment.

Why has this song been bouncing around in my head? So much so, that I finally put the album on my iPhone about an hour ago.

Which begs the question, how could this album had been missing from my iTunes Library?

But I digress…

It’s funny that a single song can send my mind in so many directions.

On one hand, it makes me question my mortality.

Which makes me think it is time for me to reflect upon my life, after all 30 is a nice round number (Although Linda had me beat by 5 years).

On the other hand, it really just makes me want to pick up my dusty guitar out of the corner.

Who knows.

As I spend my days coding on my 17″ screen (yes large for a laptop, but small for a world view), I can’t help but feel cut off from other parts of my life (for better or worse).

I always tell myself, I can catch up tomorrow. Sure it is easy to see that is a fantasy when spelled out in a blog post, but it is much more difficult to see when shuffled in with the mundane details of everyday life.

Does this mean I am in mid-life crisis? No, not really. It just means, I have choices to make today, tomorrow, and the day after. Those choices make me who I am, just as your choices define you.

I guess what it really comes down to is acceptance. Of your sacrifices, your mistakes, your triumphs. Acceptance that this moment will never happen again. You can make the best out of it, or not. Life keeps moving.

Anyways, I’m going to start playing guitar again.

I just moved back to Philadelphia and needed to get some internet. I wanted FIOS, but unfortunately it isn’t yet available in my neighborhood (Comcast just lost the fight to keep FIOS out of Philadelphia). Until then, I settled on Comcast.

The tech arrived promptly on last Monday morning. He was a new guy, but seemed pretty settled in and got to work quickly.

We hooked the modem directly into my MacBook Pro to perform the setup. I had a feeling this would be a problem since I would be using my Airport Extreme, but he didn’t seem to modem/internet savvy, so I just went with it.

My internet was turned on with only a small hitch and the tech went on to his next job. Total time: ~1 hour. Not too shabby. I was feeling good about Comcast.

All I had to do now was plug the ethernet cable into my Airport and I was done.

Not so fast.

I restarted the modem, no-go.

I restarted the AE, no-go.

After a few more restarts and I decided to call Comcast. A few tests and modem resets proved unhelpful. After that, the customer service rep ran out of ideas. Not long after I was disconnected.

Not a good start.

So I dialed back, got in touch with a new rep rather quickly. Unfortunately, she immediately told me they don’t support routers and to contact my router manufacturer. Nice.

(Begin Rant)

I think it is a little ridiculous for any ISP to say they “don’t support routers”. The whole business of an ISP is to deliver bytes from the internet to your browser.

Most households now have multiple computers. This is double true for homes with broadband.

If you are in the internet business, you can’t escape routers. It is just a cop out and blaming other company’s hardware does not especially endear you to your customers.

The cost to having support reps Google a router manual is almost assuredly offset by the amount of good will you bank from solvinf your customer’s problems.

(End Rant)

Now what? Well I started with Google, but nothing useful popped up in any of my searches.

Eventually, I remembered the Comcast twitter handle: @comcastcares.

Over the course of the afternoon I communicated with both Frank Eliason and William Gerth. They were extremely helpful. Frank even called me in between meetings to help troubleshoot my problem.

Shamefully, I must admit that a simple reset of my Airport Extreme fixed the problem instantly.

Setting aside my personal failures in diagnosing my own network issues, I must say I was actually quite impressed with the help I received.

With all of the criticism that Comcast receives on the internet, I was admittedly surprised.

My only hesitation in crowning Comcast “King of ISPs” is the nagging question of: “What if I didn’t use Twitter?”

I would still be in the dark, at least internet wise. I would probably be incredibly upset. Not even Comcast’s own customer service reps pointed me to Twitter. I barely remember gleaning it from some obscure tweets a month or two ago.

I’m sure the company doesn’t want CSRs pushing every difficult question to the Twitter crew, but hopefully they can get the word out a little better.

Even with that, I want reiterate that I indeed had an overall positive experience with my Comcast installation.

Comcast is actively working to improve their image with customers, and it is working.

It’s been a long time and TFJL has been neglected. No more!

The Mrs. and I are finally settled down in a quite nook of Bella Vista in Philly.

Of course life doesn’t begin anew until internet is connected which, with a few hitches, was completed on Monday.

Now to think of something to complain about…