♫1-877-Karma's-Not Just for Kids♫

We've had us some moments in the past few days. My workweek was four straight days of virtual court appearances, a Tuesday with five straight hourly appointments (including one of those court things) and a Friday with no court but plenty of stress from clients and opponents. Meanwhile, Eleanor finally got to the point of being ready to install the final major things in the loo, but for various reasons the Big Day came the morning after she got her bimonthly cortisone shot in her knee, which meant she was amped up on steroids, sleep deprived the night before and sweating like crazy during the process. We've gone two nights with no upstairs toilet, which is less of an issue for me than for her (there's a portapotty up here for such things), and there have been any number of mismeasurements and false starts and stops, but we're getting there.

And in it all, there have been those moments. Here are some of them.

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A neighbor and friend of ours has been of immense help in getting this project done. When we first set out to fix the big things in the bathroom, we couldn't get any of a half dozen possible contractors to help. The insurance company tried and failed to get somebody under contract to do it. Friends or other contacts recommended one guy or another, but they were too busy, or it was too big a job, or it was too small a job, or they couldn't commit to get here until next year. I even had a client who does this kind of work, but he never bothered to even show up to look at the job. So it largely became DIY, or in this case Do It HERself, but our neighbor has more experience at this than even she does and he has popped in previously to offer advice. We decided some time ago that when it came to the end of the job- fixing the rotted floor, replacing the throne and laying down the new underlaiment and vinyl flooring- we would hire him for that purpose.

Eleanor decided on a figure. I agreed with it. She told him the other morning what it was. He said it was too much. We insisted. He accepted it. And somewhere in there, he told us that the exact number was a sort of sign. You see, he and his girlfriend two houses away have had troubles of their own. Her mother, who they live with (and they moved here from another state to help take care of and her then-husband who died last year), had a major health crisis a few months ago. Both of them lost time from work dealing with it. They've mostly recovered financially, as Mom has medically, but it turned out there was one specific bill that they were worried about getting paid on time, for which they were somewhat short,....

by the exact amount we'd decided to pay him.

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Moving on to my own tilts with windmills:

For much of the past two weeks, I've been dealing with new tech, mostly in the office but also moving an older printer from there to the house and then setting up this new laptop. Last time I posted here, I reported that I'd done some DIYing of my own getting the new printer and this laptop to communicate: I solved the mystery of how to get it to scan to this machine's scans folder, called Tech Guy #1 back to tell him I'd done so (and explained how I'd done it), and also mentioned I'd never heard from TG#2 who was supposed to take a crack at it.

Well, TG#2 finally called me yesterday, because apparently the service order was still sitting around in their system. At some point in the past couple of weeks, probably due to changes we've made on our phone plans (more about THAT joyful experience to follow), my phone now displays all incoming phone calls by name rather than number. (It had always displayed contacts by name, but now every name, or UNKNOWN, or TOLL FREE NUMBER displays.) I didn't know who JOE NOTHISREALNAME was, but it looked vaguely familiar. Joe turned out to be TG#2, following up to see if I still needed help.

No, but where did I know his name from? A think, a thank and a thunk later, I checked in a particular piece of software, and boom:

I'd done the guy's bankruptcy five years ago. He worked for the company at the time, but I had just moved into that office and wasn't dealing with billing or service on the printer back then so I had no idea he was connected (heh) to my tech. I asked if he recognized my name from anywhere else, and after a few seconds, he said, Wait, were YOU the guy who....?

Yeah, that's me. Glad I made such a good impression (heh again).

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Our other circle of Tech Hell has involved the mobile phones. As part of getting my old office printer to connect wirelessly in the house after it turned its nose printhead up on talking to our existing wifi, I got the brilliant idea of using my iPhone as a hotspot. Last time I'd looked into this, it was a limited and expensive proposition, but now, it's right on the Settings menu to turn it on!

Or not. Apparently my plan was so old, it didn't even have an option to enable such a thing. So I looked into whether I could upgrade any or all of our plans to include such an option. My iPhone has had unlimited data since back when it was originally Cingular Wireless. When Eleanor got an iPhone of her own, she went with a limited data plan that's occasionally burped and bumped into a higher price bracket due to some glitch or extended video watch. But we found a new plan that would put Eleanor's phone into the unlimited data category, add mobile hotspotting to mine, and even throw in an HBO Max subscription that we now get through the kids (they can now cancel and use ours), all for less than we're paying now!

Except, that is, for the burner.



That was Eleanor's last pre-smartphone, finally replaced with an iPhone 6s five years ago. Little Nokia sat, lost and lonely, until we ripped out our multiple landline phones which were running us over $175 most months. I then ported the one "personal number" among them to AT&T and parked it on that burner, just so we could keep in touch with people who had that number for us.

Few ever did. Most of the calls we did get on it were from doctors confirming appointments, and various robots and spammers. It Just Sat for most of the past five years, occasionally ringing, more occasionally letting out death pangs if we'd left it unplugged, and perhaps being useful a dozen times to find a missing phone or take when one of ours had been left behind someplace.

But it was only 10 bucks a month, plus taxes and garbage fees close to that- until we changed the plans. Even though our total bill went down when we made the change, the tiers meant that we were now paying $45 a month to have, well, THAT.

And so, I was given a QUEST:




I would remove the burner from our plan, saving us something, and then either tossing the phone or putting that burner, with its oldschool landline number, onto an El Cheapo™ prepaid service which would cost something around the 10 bucks a month it was costing us before.

After four more trips to AT&T stores, four separate trips to other retailers, and endless time on phone calls with bots and beings, we think it's done. The burner is definitely off our AT&T account, saving to be determined in about three weeks. But here, if you care, is the litany of how we got there:
 

( FETCH me, a,.... SIM Card! )

Meanwhile, while I was doing all that, look what materialized in my absence:



The new vinyl floor, all in except for some trim. The new throne has received its first bits of business. The extended vanity is in. The heat register will move from the windowsill to the hole where it belongs. The new handmade shower curtain will take its place.

But for most intents and purposes?

IT'S DONE.