I am sitting at the dining room table right now. Writing and thinking and watching TV out of the corner of my eye….

Not a big deal, really, except it is brand new for me. This is the first time, in a dozen years of living in this house again, that I have been able to access the internet anywhere besides in my office.

Sometimes, I get so tired of being in my office that I want to scream. But I don’t, of course. It is actually a nice little room, but I get tired of it. My desk is in there, all my bookcases, my laptop, and all the peripherals. I pay bills in there, work on crafts projects in there, and talk to my friends online, sitting at my desk.

This is the house I grew up in, and what is my office now was my bedroom when I was a child. So, it feels natural to be in there. It has been part of me for most of my life. But, after an hour or so, I am ready to be somewhere else.

I went to the phone store last week and signed up for a bundle: internet, home phone with long distance, 450 TV channels, and WiFi. All I wanted was the WiFi but hey, why not get the whole thing?

I took the afternoon off from work today to be here for the installation. The two young men who work for the phone company were very nice, and very helpful, too. It all started when they arrived at my back door and started putting on shoe covers to protect my floors from their shoes……I made them stop. No shoe covers needed in my house!

They got all three TVs hooked up, installed the modem, and brought Cat 5 wire into the house. Then they had me access the internet on my laptop—without the DSL and the router. OMG! That is so cool!

There is a downside, of course. It is very difficult to decide what to watch on TV. Even though the guys showed me all the buttons on the remote control, it is still a little foreign to me. All the channel numbers are different from my former satellite service.

Speaking of which, I had to call the satellite company a little while ago and cancel my service. Yes, I am a pessimist: I waited until the new service was up and running before calling my old provider.

And they weren’t very happy with me, to say the least. The service rep wanted to know why I was cancelling my service and I told her I switched to another provider. She offered to discount my monthly bill by $15.00/month for the next year. Um, no thanks.

Then she wanted to know why I switched. I told her: it’s cheaper, and they bundled the other services, too. She offered the premium movie channels, for free, for 6 months. I already have them with the new service, so I asked her if the satellite company offers phone service, internet, WiFi, and free long distance…….Um, no they don’t.

Not only did I get new services, it is costing me less each month than I was paying before. So now, on to more important decisions: what to watch on TV, and where to sit and surf the internet…..

Hmmm….

Cali