You can't have your (cheese)cake and eat it too!

Dulce de Leche Cheesecake - Yummy!

This latest entry starts with a little trip to the Cheesecake Factory (CF) here in Miami.  A few weeks back, we were at the Miami-Dadeland Mall and in this mall is a CF.

Well, anyone who knows Terri even slightly will not be surprised to hear she put that as a future destination into her day-timer almost immediately….And said day came to pass this Wednesday.

Do you remember the last entry about our food experience on Lincoln Road?  This was not near as bad – but the food was not near as good as Terri remembered (my CF experiences have been few and far between).  She ordered some garlic pasta dish that came essentially as a bunch of noodles in a bowl in garlic water.  Yuck!

I had the Jambalaya, which came pretty much as advertised so I have no real complaints.

We DID have a kick-ass waitress though – her true name escapes me at present so we’ll call her ‘Alice’….like the former 70’s TV show.  She was kind enough to warn Terri off about the Blueberry Mojito (it’s crap), the peanut butter-coconut pasta, and one of the cheesecakes on our dessert shortlist.  We appreciated her honesty and up front personality….if only the food she served us was better.

Appys and a very sweet Mojito

We will agree on this – the cheesecake was unbelievable…And it makes sense right?  A place called CF should have some seriously good cheesecake!!  Perhaps it is the rest of the food they should shy away from.  Many of my former bosses – most recently Richard Kroeker – always said it best; play to your strengths. 

CF, play to your strengths! 

We shared a piece of Dulce de Leche Caramel cheesecake at the table and then took home a piece of Hershey’s Chocolate cheesecake for the next day.  On the way home that night we had to quickly stop at ‘Target’ (naturally) and we were both walking zombies as the instant sugar high vacated our bodies leaving tired shells.

That was some good cheesecake though – not gonna lie!

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Letsplay, wannaplay?, Ido - How I imagine Jonny would speak.

One of our dogs almost lost their life this week….or at least had its owner (yours truly) threatening him with a trip to the glue factory. 

Jonny – our youngest – likes to play fetch with his tennis ball on the main floor because the tile is fun to roll the ball around on.  When doing this, when he isn’t getting enough attention, he likes to roll it underneath the TV stand and then whine until you go and retrieve it for him….or, this week, go behind the TV himself and try to get it on his own.

Wouldn’t ya know it – in doing so, he toppled one of the speakers and we were treated to a loud ‘BANG’ as we got ready to go out upstairs.

Now, I’m a pretty laid back guy – don’t get upset very easily and take things in stride – but when you mess with my electronics, I go from zero to Red Alert in a nanosecond.  I think I touched two stairs as I flew down the staircase seconds after that bang.  I knew instantly what had happened (because I had foreseen and verbally predicted it many times) and I was not happy. 

(No sir, he was not).

After loudly and deeply scolding Jonny – I went about opening up the speaker to see what the damage was.  Yep, busted innerds and this speaker was finished.  As I cursed with every word I knew – and a few I didn’t know in Spanish – Terri came down and tried to sooth things.

It didn’t work.

“We’ll just go and get new speakers,” she says.  “We have had these ones since we were in the apartment (8-years ago) so perhaps it IS time.”

That’s a good point there…

Bose knows sound...oh yes they do!

By the end of the day, we didn’t only have new speakers, we had a new home electronic entertainment centre courtesy of our friends at Bose.  “This will last us for the rest of our lives…” is what we tell ourselves when we look at the bill (the system itself is on order).

The ironic part is I managed to fix the speaker when we returned home ctsy of some adhesive and a few screws….”Well, since we’ve already paid for this other thing, might as well keep it, right?....” 

During the set-up phase, it actually has you throw on a pair of mic’d up headphones and then sends you to five different parts of your room where you may or may not watch TV from.  It then plays a series of test tones to sync up the sound.  It then adjusts the speakers internally to reflect good sound from any one of those five positions – AdaptIQ it is called.  I was kind of like ‘Ok, this is interesting…’

Once we got that all set-up, we threw in a ‘test’ movie (Raiders of the Lost Ark) just to see what the sound was like.

OMG.

You know that old DTS thing that used to come up on VHS movies?  It was the whole Dolby Surround thing?  Starts as a mild hum and builds to a loud crescendo on your TV.  Ya, this blu-ray did that and Terri and I just looked at each other and started laughing – because the sound was so ridiculously good.  Ya, this is going to be fun to watch movies with!

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Oh Cable Guy, where art thou...

So, this past Tuesday was ‘cable/internet/phone’ hook-up day.  Very exciting – and as you can see, I was up early and eagerly awaiting the Cable Guy’s arrival (the apt was for between 8-10a).  I was actually sitting there in case he drove by looking for the place, I could run out and make sure he sees me – waving my arms wildly like I’m trying to be rescued off a deserted island…’Over here….please!!  Help us!!’

He arrived as scheduled (at about 9:30a) and the poor guy was here until 3pm.  Our whole cable infrastructure is a mess in this new place.  There are cable hook-ups in literally EVERY room EXCEPT the living room area.  Go figure.  Cable Guy (Ernesto) suggested we shift our entire living room area to the dining room for the closest hook-up to which I said;

“Ya, that’s not happening dude.”

Ernesto then proceeded to check the connections and discovered that the connections are indeed there, but not hooked into the main line.  He thatgot that sorted in the garage but then informed us that in order to get cable into the living room area, he would have to run a physical cable from the garage, through the wall, over an archway, through a closet and out the wall into the living area (Wendy, you’ll understand this having been here).  This is all EXTERNAL cabling, which he then stapled into the wall.  It actually doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would….

With that done, the TV was switched on and voila – cable! 

Then he hooked in the internet lines – voila – internet!

Then phone and voila – phone!

It was like Christmas morning I was so happy.  Once all that was done, there were a few glitches with a couple of the extra cable boxes upstairs but he set-up an appointment to get the malfunctioning boxes switched out on Friday.

YES!!

So, off Ernesto goes and Terri and I both split off to accomplish separate related tasks….there was downloading, phone calls, checking all the TV channels and then settling in to watch some soccer.  It was glorious – until about 8pm.

The doorbell rings and it is Ernesto.

“Hey, Ernesto!  What’s up?”

(me thinking he’s here to swap out the upstairs boxes as part of some excellent customer service – nope.)

“Mr. Yeremy, we ‘ave a prolem” he says as he hands me his phone.

His Supervisor, Gustavo, proceeds to inform me that Ernesto has installed the wrong equipment at the wrong house and another customer is supposed to have our DVR, Cable boxes, modem, etc. – and Ernesto is now here to rip it all out and leave us with nothing until Friday.

“Umm what?”

We are to get the same equipment but not until Friday.

“Wait a second, Ernesto showed up as he was scheduled to and installed everything he was supposed to….I don’t understand what you’re saying Sir.”

Ernesto...poor Ernesto...

Gustavo: “Sir, your appointment was changed this morning and is now not until Friday when all that stuff will be installed then.”

Me: “Wait, that appointment is a supplementary appointment to swap out a couple of malfunctioning boxes.  Ernesto here made that appointment.”

Gustavo: “Sir, let my technician into your ‘ouse so he can do his work.  Another customer is waiting, you have the wrong appointment.  I do not know why Ernesto went there today.”

Me: “He came here because he was scheduled to come here, that’s why…and he did what he was scheduled to do, so just get some new boxes and give those to the other customer.”

Gustavo: “That’s not how we do it Sir.  Let my technician in or I will call the police.”

Now, through this little snippet of conversation, can you feel my temperature slowly rising ?(As Bane would say: ‘the fire rises’)

It ended up being a mess.  I had to call our sales Rep and he came over to calm things down, I called Comcast corporate, I argued with Gustavo….In the end, we got to keep the boxes and equipment and they switched them over to our name.  Poor Ernesto had been working all day and his Supervisor sent him back – and he didn’t want to pull any of it out – he loved us!  We felt terrible for him!  We offered him food, drinks – whatever he wanted as he had obviously been on the clock for over 12hrs now!

He just wanted to go home – and we understood that….and he did and we got to keep our cable, phone and internet.  YAY!!

But…

We got up Wednesday morning and everything was shut down. 

“Oh man…” I said – as the fire once again started to rise within….

Terri called Comcast and it was explained to her that until a work order is closed, service cannot be maintained.  Our work order is not closed because there is an appointment on Friday to complete the actual job.  Therefore, because our work order was not closed off, no equipment in our house has been registered so the connection is not maintained.  We asked if the person we were speaking with could close the work order – and naturally he could not.  He said once the work is done on Friday, then everything should be fine.

When Ernesto left on Tuesday night, I was told to relay to him (by Comcast Customer Service) that he needed to close off the work order immediately and we were to re-schedule the Friday appointment as a ‘malfunctioning equipment’, not a ‘set-up’ appointment as it had been entered. 

Confusing, I know.

"Patient you must be...come to you cable/internet/phone will"

As it stands, we have nothing once again.  And I am postulating that when poor Ernesto got back to the office to close off the order, my new good pal (his Supervisor) Gustavo said he could not close it off – just to be a you-know-what (rhymes with rumplete stick).

After slightly blowing my top – the fire rose...and exploded – I came to the realization nothing will change and Friday is only a couple days away.  I’ll lodge a formal complete with Comcast in regards to Gustavo’s conduct (actual and perceived) once the job is done.  We lasted this long without right?  What’s a few more days?

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Bonus picture!!  On-set with Terri!

We have a few more tales to share – but will save those for another blog posting – which will be sooner than this one!  (our apologies for being tardy)

Thursday is US Thanksgiving and we are opening our home to 10 people from Terri’s work for a massive dinner for those without family here.  Everyone is bringing a dish and we are going to have a night of food, friends and lots of laughter. 

Just being able to have the opportunity to share the occasion with new people has us feeling pretty thankful indeed!  We will raise a glass to your – our family and friends – whom we are also so very thankful for!  Your love, support and continued messages are appreciated more than you can know – even if it is as simple as a ‘Like’ for this blog link on Facebook.

Talk at you soon!