The First Month... Part 2 (DirecTV Issues)

Let me begin by saying that I don't watch THAT much TV. There are a few shows that I like to TiVo (Which ones you ask? House, Lie to Me, Life, Life on Mars (just cancelled I hear), The Office, South Park at the moment) to watch at my convenience, and every now and then I'll watch some game show network or adult swim, but I'm not really the sit-in-front-of-the-TV-all-day type.

The importance of DirecTV lies in its ability to pick up out of market sports. It is hard enough living out here completely alone and being 1000 miles away from all of my friends and family to also go without my favorite team, too. The ability to watch Kings and Raiders games at least gives me a little piece of home.

So Saturday, February 21st rolls around and I am now in an apartment that is facing south. DirecTV guy shows up to install the high-def dish. As it turns out, despite the fact that I am facing south, the direction it needs to point to pick up a signal is obstructed by the awning of the apartment's bay window. What?!?





That little corner there prevented me from getting high definition DirecTV. But the installer has good news! He believes that if he uses this apparatus to connect the dish to the railing of the patio, he can get a high-def signal. I say awesome, lets do it! He says no, I don't have said apparatus on me, and the warehouse is closed. We'll have to reschedule. Since I work Monday through Friday and don't really want people in my place when I'm not around, Saturday is the only day that will work... so I reschedule for Saturday the 28th. He says he'll be here 12 - 4pm.

And wouldn't you know it? After another full week without TV, the installer flat-out no-shows. I call and complain to DirecTV but they say they have no contact with their contracted workers so it isn't their fault. Wow. So the new appointment is set for March 7, this time with a manager's guarantee they'll be there.

To add insult to injury, Thursday night (March 5th), the Kings come back from a 3 - 0 deficit (scoring the tying goal with less then 10 seconds left in the game) to win in overtime against the Dallas Stars. My family and two of my best friends were at the game, coincidentally enough; and I would have been, too, if I weren't in Texas. And if I hadn't been no-showed, I would have at least been able to watch it on TV. Words can't really describe quite how upset I was this night.

Saturday rolls around and the guy arrives at 2PM. Hooks the dish up to the apparatus. And, of course, it doesn't pick up high-definition. So he tries another apparatus (instead of a pole, this one was an arm). That doesn't work either. Lastly, he tries a HUGE arm to clear the corner. This one picks up the signal; but it can't be stabilized to the railing and thus must be taken down.

The long and short of it? After 5.5 hours (yes, he stayed until 7:30pm), I was told that I would not be able to get high definition TV. As such, I had to settle for ordinary DirecTV, which puts out a 480i.

Hell of a way to utilize a brand new 40 inch Sony Bravia LCD 1080p TV, huh?

Extremely frustrating, I'm not going to lie. I absolutely love everything else about my new home, so am I really going to pack up everything, all of my stuff, all of the things I've hung on the wall, etc... go through the stress of another move just to upgrade the definition of my television? Of course not. But settling for an inferior product because of a stupid overhanging awning? Forgive me for not being thrilled.

The kicker? The place I was originally supposed to be in on the 3rd floor would have had a clear view of the sky and been unaffected by the awning. And the biggest slap in the face of all time?



That is right. Directly diagonal to me is another apartment owner triumphantly enjoying high definition TV. Notice how puny my dish is compared to his?

I guess when you get lucky enough to get an opportunity to work in the field you love, the universal order of things needs to balance the luck out one way or another.

In this instance, I say *fuck* the universal order.

The First Month... Part 1 (Housing Issues)

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't updated in forever... have been very busy and a tad bit lazy with my free time. When you work 40 - 45 hours a week staring at a computer screen, staring at one during your free time is a lot less appealing :)

Let's start from the beginning.

The plan was simple enough... put all my possessions in my car Wednesday (2/11), stay in a hotel halfway there in Deming New Mexico Wednesday night, make the rest of the drive Thursday and stay in a San Antonio hotel Thursday night, and then move into my apartment on the agreed upon day, February 13th. I start work on Monday the 16th.

I get a call on TUESDAY, less then 24 hours before I'm getting ready to leave, from Sunrise Apartments, the place I'm getting my apartment.

"Hi David... we're really sorry but your apartment isn't going to be ready until the 20th."

Apparently, the people who were living in the apartment I was moving into (#7305) were moving into another unit in the same apartment complex. The apartment that they were moving into was currently inhabited by a family that was moving into a house elsewhere. Still with me?

The family that was moving into the house said they needed another week (and waited until the last minute to tell Sunrise Canyon this. That meant that the people currently in my apartment had nowhere to go. And thus I was screwed.

So the solution that was offered to me was that there was another unit available that was just under 200 square feet bigger that I could move into on the day I was planning to be there (the 13th). Due to the inconvenience, instead of getting it at the market price of over 900/mo, they'd knock it down to 840/mo for me. The other place was going to be 795/mo. I wasn't thrilled as I liked the layout to the one I had chosen a lot better, but I was certainly getting decent value here, and the alternative was leaving all of my worldly possessions in my car for a week while I slept in some Motel 6 for a week. With less then a day to mull this over, I agreed to do this.

I didn't realize just how much I hated the layout of this place until I actually got there. I mean I knew, but I was trying to be optimistic. Here is the floorplan; see if you can scope out the issues.



First of all, you walk into the dining room from the front door. I like walking into a living room, not a dining room. I don't want the first thing I see when I walk into my home to be a dining room table.

Secondly, the living room design is terrible. By putting a window and the door to the deck on that wall, you make that wall useless; can't put a TV or a couch against it. As such, you are forced with a loveseat and a couch to have a floating loveseat, since the couch will go against one wall and the TV against the other, the loveseat has to float. Notice how the wall on the right is longer than the wall on the left? For someone OCD like me, do you have any idea how maddening it is to have a floating piece of furniture that isn't parallel or perpendicular to the wall?

And perhaps most disturbingly, doesn't it strike you as slightly odd that the bathroom door opens up right into the dining room? I'm imagining having people over for dinner and I or my guest needs to use the restroom. They get up from the dining room table and the bathroom is two steps away? Really? This just struck me as very odd/annoying.

The final straw came when the DirecTV installation guy arrived. I'm in an area that can't get Time Warner Cable, so my only option to watch out-of-area sports was to go with a dish. Of course I still want to watch Kings hockey (and get the baseball package as well), so I ordered DirecTV. The guy shows up and says my deck is facing the wrong direction and thus I can not get dish TV (meaning no Kings hockey, ever). The kicker? My original apartment was facing the right way.

This news, coupled with the lousy layout of the place that I hated and the fact that I was paying $45 more a month, was too much. I can only be so agreeable and so optimistic. I went to the office and told them I wanted a place with the other layout that was facing the right way for DirecTV ASAP. They did have one available fortunately, and one week after I'd moved into this place, I had to move all my stuff and all my furniture into a different place.

And, of course, I had to change my electricity and other billing address at about 5 different places for the 3rd time; Initially I'd given them all #7305, changed them all to the new address, and now I was changing them to my 3rd and final address.

As if ONE move halfway across the country isn't stressful enough.

Most Frequently Asked Question: WHAT Am I Doing Out Here?

Before I recap my first week and change out here, I find that the most common question I've been getting right after "How are you doing" is "WHAT are you doing?"

I'm working for a website called Sports Book Review (SBR for short), or more specifically the forum section of the site, http://forum.sbrforum.com.

The main website (http://www.sportsbookreview.com), as its name suggests, reviews all of the sports books on the internet to let players know where the safest and best places to play are, as well as which books are unsafe and should be avoided. Since players that get cheated by scam sports books have no legal course of action to take to get their money back, it is important to have a good idea of what books are legitimate and which are not before playing anywhere.

The forum aspect of the site is where gamblers and sports fans come together and talk about betting, sports, and just about anything else. The forum also has a place where posters can upload videos (http://www.sbr.tv) as well as make personal profiles (postername.mysbrforum.com).

My job is to help moderate the forum and add content to the site. I will be making sports handicapping videos and writing sports handicapping articles as well. We also have some projects that we are working on to make the site even bigger and better.

So to answer your question, THAT is what I am doing. Hopefully this helped clear it up for some of you! I'm VegasDave on the forum if any of you decide to check it out and/or sign up!

More updates coming soon,
Dave

Blog Created!

Hey everyone.

If you are here, you are probably either family or friend. Or at the very least, an interested acquaintance.

If none of the above are true, this blog probably won't be all that interesting to you.

Out here all alone in Texas, I think about all of you quite a bit. Yes, even you specifically, person that is reading this. This move has really made me reflect on all of the great friends I've made over the years, whether we are extremely close or just throw each other a hello once every couple of months.

You take your friends for granted sometimes; you know that they are always a phone call away from hanging out over the weekend, so you don't always make that phone call. When it is no longer an option, that is when you realize how much you will miss them.

But aside from my capacity to be a jerk at times, I hope that I have treated you, my family and friends, with respect and have made it clear to you all how important you are to me and that I'll always be there for you if you need me.

Anyway, I got to thinking about what would be the easiest way to keep you guys in the loop on how I was doing out here, and starting a blog made the most sense. I'm not really the "journal" type, but I think enough of you care about me and want to see how I'm doing, so I figured this would be worthwhile.

In my next post (sometime this weekend more than likely) I'll tell you about my first week here in San Antonio, and once I get everything moved in and tidied up I'll take a bunch of pictures and post them here as well.

If you get the chance, please leave a comment and let me know how YOU are doing! Would definitely make me feel more at home keeping in touch with you guys.

Thanks for stopping by,
Dave