“Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.”
Last night it rained. This morning was cloudy and a bit damp, but we went to the beach anyway. Our festivities took place in the car. We sang our traditional songs, quoted authors on spring, and then when it was sunrise by our watches, we went outside the car and took pictures. The sun wasn’t visible behind the clouds, and the wind was cold, but we didn’t care. After the pictures, we went out to breakfast, our final tradition for the welcoming ceremony. Happy first day of spring!
Today will be warm, or at least warmer than it has been. It is a gift from mercurial Mother Nature because next week winter will back with weather in the 30’s.
An article on the sports pages this morning mentioned the permafrost on some baseball fields and the difficulty of getting them ready for their opening days. In Chicago, a sort of giant hair dryer is being used under a tarp to thaw the ground while crews chip away at the ice in right field. Baseball should be played on a warm sunny day with soft grass underfoot, not thermafrost.
I wish there was a way to make sarcasm ooze from the written word. Yesterday I had quite the chat with a Comcast representative about a problem with my cable TV. I had also had the same chat the day before, but that first problem seemed to solve itself, but when it reappeared yesterday, I foolishly called the chat line again. Both Comcast chatters were condescending and their platitudes nauseating. I felt like a puppy or a little kid being potty trained with their good job, well done comments. I even told the second guy to stop the platitudes now. He also said a couple of times he could feel my frustration. I would rather he had felt my fist. He gave me an appointment between 8 and 9 am for yesterday. The only problem was it was already noontime. I asked him if he was going to charge me for missing that appointment. He didn’t get it so I explained we were long passed that time then I told him I understood his frustration. He didn’t get that either. The Comcast guy is here right now trying to fix the signal. I have hopes. He seems capable.
Yesterday I saw a male goldfinch with bright yellow feathers. His dull winter look has disappeared. Spring is arriving in dribs and drabs, and I couldn’t be happier.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: Baseball, cloudy, damp, goldfinch, mercurial Mother Nature, permafrost, rainy, springtime, warmer, yellow feathers
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
March 20, 2014 at 12:13 pm
Its spring, its March Madness, its snowing.
Somewhere in Washington DC the President of the United States of America took time off from chastising Putin and made his picks for the 64, selecting as the eventual winner – Michigan State University.
Sparty On Mr. President.
I am a tuition Sparty – Go Green Go White
March 20, 2014 at 12:20 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I hope he has luck with Michigan as poor Mr. President hasn’t much going his way of late. I like that he made his picks.
The sun is now out here. I think today really is spring!
March 20, 2014 at 12:48 pm
Careful Kat – We have both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. In these parts there is a very high degree (pun) of sensitivity
While Michelle and the kiddies are in Beijing before warriors in Xian and pandas in Chengdu, the President went with STATE, not the Wolverines.
March 20, 2014 at 1:02 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I know the man is a basketball fan, and you are right-I was thinking University, not State University. Thank for clearing the confusion.
March 20, 2014 at 2:32 pm
I can feel Your frustration over here too 🙂 I hate when they talk to me like I’m an idiot! It usually helps when I ask for their full name so I can report them to their boss 🙂 I can’t do that too often though because sooner or later they will find out I never do 🙂 I wonder in what part of the world he was sitting since he didn’t understand he gave You an appointment that already was too late?
Storm here again but rather warm and no rain since yesterday evening. Hordes of cranes are flying in here now and I wonder if they have problems landing because the speed they get with tghe help of the wind must make it hard for them to calculate where they’ll land. They might just as well hit the forest if the wind grabs them 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
March 20, 2014 at 3:17 pm
Christer,
Every part of the world is ahead of us in time, not behind, so I think the man was just bait of an idiot.
The sun came out for a bit this afternoon but then disappeared again and hasn’t returned. It is still sort of warm, in the low 40’s.
Many birds are at my feeders today. I love being at the sink and watching them.
March 20, 2014 at 5:28 pm
The call centers are usually in another country, and they have canned responses to anything you say. I hope your issue is fixed soon.
How can Michelle take their daughters out of school for a week? Our friends are doing just that next week, and the school will not give them work to do while they are away, no exceptions. Do the Obamas think they have some kind of pull?? Please don’t tell me it is an educational trip. They just want to have some good Chinese food. I hope we the taxpayers are not financing this trip.
We had 2″ of heavy wet snow last night, and the end of the driveway had a big hump of concrete after the plow went by. Where is global warming when you need it???
March 20, 2014 at 5:45 pm
Bill,
It got fixed today. It was bad splitter wire, and he replaced it.
Many places have a March vacation as they don’t have one in Feb or April. My sister does in Colorado so maybe it is this week in Washington too.
No snow here-but we got a night of rain. It is sunny and warmish right now.
March 20, 2014 at 6:33 pm
Ah… Comcast… the telecommunications company with a record of the very worst customer service. Soon to be united with Time-Warner, another company with bad customer service. Yes, indeedy, let’s okay that merger and we’ll be sure to believe their assurances this will result in a much better company offering customers a better experience. This is the monopoly that needs to go directly to jail and does not collect $200.
March 20, 2014 at 6:41 pm
im6,
At least the tech guy who came was nice and worked quickly. He identified the problem and had it fixed in about 20 minutes.
The only alternative to Comcast here is Dish so I am sort of stuck!
March 20, 2014 at 6:47 pm
Your problem of having a choice between two bad providers is a common one. When I was in Ohio, there was a choice of two companies to choose from. I had one, the downstairs neighbors had the other. When they had problems, their company repairman cut my lines and MY company had to do the repairs. Of course, I had to wait a couple of days for them to show up to make repairs. The good news was that it was only a couple of days. It’s usually a week or more. The government really needs to get actively involved and make sure such companies provide better service. They need competition to keep them on their toes.
March 20, 2014 at 7:03 pm
im6,
My repairman came in less that 24 hours from my call, and he was early. Comcast used to give a window of 5 or 6 hours. Now it is only 2 so there is some improvement. The price is huge for my TV, the phone and internet. That too comes from no competition.
March 20, 2014 at 8:34 pm
Goodbye net neutrality. The proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner along with Congress’ failure to pass legislation to ensure net neutrality is one of the worst situations for the future of the internet. We all know who’s teat many members of Congress suck money from. Their interest is to get reelected and to protect the interest of their big donars.
What will we the unwashed consumers lose when net neutrality goes away? We will lose equal treatment online for all customers. When you log onto a website whose owner paid a high price to get their message or product out to the public your browser will load at warp factor seven. Log onto Joe Shmo’s website, who pays $100 a month, and your browser might load his page sometime before lunch. The big internet providers want to charge more for higher speeds. It cost them nothing to provide everyone with high speed, but it’s more profitable to charge more money to go fast. Big donors to both political parties will have top speed internet to get their message out quickly while the little folks will be left with the crumbs. Hopefully, the no gonad Federal Trade Commission will stop the merger, but they didn’t stop the recent airline mergers like Northwest and Delta, Continental and United, American and US Air. Air fares are going up and internet speed will be going down. You want your message to fly in cyber space than you are going to have to pay first class fare. Economy class won’t even get you a bag of peanuts.
Today was a beautiful spring day here in North Texas. Clear skies, 70 degree temperatures and light winds. Can’t wait for the days to get longer.
March 20, 2014 at 8:45 pm
Bob,
The big donor wins every time as does big business when there is a Republican controlled congress.
I have only one choice, Comcast, for the internet down here unless I go back to caveman time and use dial-up.
I get what the cable company gives me for internet speed. Most times it loads quickly so I don’t have much of a complaint. I haven’t had many problems: the last couple of days have been an exception rather than the rule.
Those boilerplate responses had me crazy. I really could have whacked the guy. Luckily I made a phone call, and the woman was excellent and knowledgeable.
It was in the low 40’s today and will be warm again tomorrow. Cold will be back next week.
March 20, 2014 at 9:41 pm
Sorry for the rant but this proposed merger and it’s implications for the future of the net is important. Here in the city of Dallas we have only two choices for internet, Time Warner Cable or AT&T. I don’t have cable TV and only I get my home phone and internet from AT&T. We get great over the air TV reception in HD. When cable TV first came in the 1970s the city gave an exclusive contract to one provider to wire up the city. Their successor is Time Warner and I think their contract is forever. AT&T internet is DSL through the phone lines.
Customer service is a thing of the past. When you get a great customer service person you should send an email their company and sing their praises. I try to only deal with companies whose customer service departments are here in North America. I hate it when the person on the other end of the line has a name like Chuck and remarks how nice the weather is in Dallas, when he is sitting in a call center on the phone in Bangalore.
March 20, 2014 at 9:47 pm
Bob,
No problem-everyone needs a place to rant!
DSL is not available here and neither is FIOS.
I did the chat so there was no way to determine the English ability of the chat person as it was all written. They both, on two different phone calls, used the exact same language so they were writing from a script. It drove me crazy. The next time I will call right away and skip the chat wherever it came from.
March 21, 2014 at 8:12 am
Hi Kat,
I feel your pain. I have only screamed at a telephone “Help” person once and it was a Comcast Tier Two CSR. If you call for technical help and the Tier 1 person offers to transfer you to the next higher technical level (Tier 2), thank him/her, hang up and call back to get a different Tier 1 CSR. Tier 2 people are not technicians. They are sales reps for Comcast’s monthly repair plan which they will try to convince you that you need.
Having said that, I do have to say that Comcast technicians (Tier 1) have been very friendly and as helpful as they could be. I run a Mac and few of the techs were familiar with them. If I had a problem with my internet the CSR would transfer me to someone who knew Macs and that person would usually give me his direct number. I suppose it helps that my small town has two other cable companies. Competition is a good thing.
I’m glad your cable issue got fixed.
March 21, 2014 at 11:05 am
Hi Caryn,
It was the chat that did me in. When I called two days in a row, I got the same exact words from the different people. That’s when I couldn’t take it.
The tech called me so I’m guessing it was the right person instead of getting a random person.
I haven’t had internet problems. I also run a Mac.
Competition is the best thing, and we haven’t it for internet here. I pay a huge bill for all 3.