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03/29/2007: "Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time ..."
After Tuesday's whine ... er, rant ... about my life, I decided to take action. Well, to be more accurate, the IT Gods did. I got a notice Tuesday afternoon that our developmental computer systems would be down all day on Wednesday for disaster recovery testing. If that's not a sign to take a day off, I don't know what is. So I immediately declared Wednesday to be a vacation day - no work, no blogs, no nothing. I went to bed Tuesday with the alarm off and dreams of what I'd do all day Wednesday instead of working.
I woke up around 7:30 and was just finishing the first cup of coffee when my doorbell rings. There at the door were three guys dressed in the traditional orange of city workers. They tell me they're here to work on my cable. Confused, since my system seems to be working just fine, I asked what the problem was. "We're replacing all the cable runs," they say. Sounds like a colossal waste of time and money, but they're not leaving. Then comes the good part - they need me to be there so they can get access to wherever the cable goes. I spend all morning and part of the afternoon watching these guys punch holes in my house and run new cables - rather than doing the things I want to do. Then I get the call on my cell reminding me that I have a pair of telecons scheduled for 1PM and 2PM, and even though I'm technically on vacation, they really hope I can participate. Before you know it, I've spent three hours on the phone, the sun is setting and I'm wondering where the day went.
Look - I at least tried to spend a day away from the job. That should count for something, right? 
BTW - I did a little research into the whole cable thing. Turns out that when Time Warner bought Adelphia and had to renegotiate with each of the cities, Redondo Beach added a caveat to the contract that TW had to verify that all the cable in their system met current code requirements for grounding and whatnot. Apparently, TW decided it was easier to just hire a bunch of contract crews to replace all the runs. They've only just started the process, but already over 70 residents have filed complaints over the way in which the work is being done. Sounds like one more case of a councilman trying to make a name for himself by getting his "victory" over big business - only its his constituents who will have to pay for it. I will have to give them credit - they did a good job with my wiring, and even routed the wires the way my old ones had been done - something I had to pay extra for last time.
