Wednesday 19 November 2008

Guess Who Is Really Sick

After almost nine months of being relatively sick-free, Jeremy is sick. Started on the weekend with what Tina believes was a flu.

It has evolved into full blown cold that includes a wicked ear infection and a continuously runny nose. His throat hurt for a while - or in Jeremy's words: "It hurts when I gobble".

He slept with Tina in one of the chairs in the living room to relieve some of the pain in the ear. He looks pale and sick today. Hopefully the germs are losing the battle and today is the beginning of the end.

Corbin didn't look good this morning. We will see in a few days.

Posted by Adam

How Did We Survive Before Cable TV and Always-On Internet?

At approximately 2:00 pm yesterday, our internet and cable TV went dead. Tina called Technical Support at Cogeco and there was a message about system wide issues in Essex and Chatham counties. Okay, she thought.

By 7:00 pm, still no joy. Tina called up tech support again. The message was gone so she was put through to internet tech support. They ran her through the usual gamut of questions. At one point I got involved. The tech person tried to reset the connection but nothing. So we scheduled an appointment for Friday morning.

Tina was none to happy at having no internet or TV until Friday morning. So she called cable TV support. She got a much better response and a service called was arranged for today.

The service person came by just before lunch and found that our connection at the street cable box had been disconnected. Seems the person who installed a new connection the other day decided that it would be a good thing to disconnect a paying customer's connection. The Cogeco service rep couldn't believe that the street box only serviced four houses.

He came in to the house to make sure everything was working. He commented on the monitor and router that we have - something about one of the best monitors and a good router. Can't complain with a seal of approval from a person who is in the know.

Posted by Adam

Tuesday 11 November 2008

No Kids for Three Hours

In past years, Tina and I would do the boys Christmas shopping on Remembrance Day since we both had the day off. Usually we had an idea of what to get for the boys and would head off first thing in the morning to Toys R Us.

This year was different. Jeremy spent the morning with us. We walked him to school and then headed for lunch and shopping. Lunch took longer than expected, which cut into our shopping time.

We arrived at Toys R Us with no real idea what to get the boys. Corbin is 10 and he is moving away from toys (or at least we are 'guiding' him down that path). He showing more interest in electronic gadgets like a digital camera, video games and science sets. Jeremy is still into toys - he loves playing with his dinky cars and is just getting into Playmobil.

We walked around and grabbed a few things, and got a few ideas. At the end we decided to not buy the few things we had in our cart. It was a very strange feeling, leaving Toys R Us empty handed.

Our plan is to make a list and buy things over the next few weeks, either online or do a day of brick and mortar shopping.

Posted by Adam