Job: 123 Fake Street, Anywhere

No, this is not a tutorial so if that is what you are looking for you may stop without fear of missing something. In fact, it is just some ruminations about things I have seen and who really pays the price for them.

So many years, so many different systems. One thing that they all have in common is illegal hook-ups. These can range from the downright ugly to very professional. When someone makes one of these connections to steal service they are of course reducing themselves to a mere thief.

But who really pays the price…

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One of the more common problems with cable in underground neighborhoods is damage to the buried cable. There are many reason for this but far and away the most common is something physically striking the cable. Perhaps you or one of your neighbors put a new fence in. Maybe an invisible fence was installed. New sidewalks, driveways or a myriad of things are common culprits. That is why there are programs in place for this very problem.

Call before you dig!

A good practice is to investigate the One Call Centers around the country. While researching this entry I found out something new. The 811 service. This is a handy way to find out contact information for your area. Here’s what happens.

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The weekend of my 40th birthday I decided to reward myself for a job well done and do some fishing on the Chesapeake Bay. I found a head boat that was nearby in Solomons Island and arrived at about 5:30 in the morning. Too bad the boat wasn’t going out. The name of the place I went to was Bunky’s Charter Boats and the people there were really nice. So I got to talking to the guy inside and the talk drifted to their private charters.

Now, since I had contacted a number of charter boats in the area I knew that most were booked already. But we got to talking (fishermen just love to talk) and I asked about the charter prices and how the fishing has been. When I heard that people had been catching rockfish (striped bass) I was intrigued. Now, maybe the gods of the committed fisherman were smiling on me. I was standing at the counter when I was told that a cancellation had opened up a morning trip on Sunday.

Interesting… Read the rest of this entry »

A short time ago I was talking about working at night and the possibilities of having the police stop by to see just, “what the heck are you doing in those bushes?!?”

Well, last week I got a real eye opener and it was at about 10:30 in the morning.

Anyone that knows me knows that I can be very vocal about idiots that use cell phones while driving. In fact, I sometimes wish the story told by Stephen King in Cell would actually happen to them. They are more than just a nuisance, they should be ticketed more aggressively than the non-seatbelt wearers.

Here is what happened… Read the rest of this entry »

This is a just a quick one this morning before I head out to do some fishing.

Many times people say that their internet connection is slow. So testing to the point where the fiber gets out of the system and into the world beyond can be very helpful. In my case, it is a matter of testing to NYC or Washington DC depending on where I am at the moment. So periodically I will run tests to one of those two places. Speakeasy just so happens to be in a common physical location for me and gives good results in an overall kind of way. That’s why I added the button to the sidebar. So instead of remembering where I put the *&%@ link, I can just do it here. Maybe it will be helpful to you, maybe not. But I do know it will be helpful to me.

Now, off to do some fishing. Happy Birthday to me! As they say, a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work…