Sunday, June 21, 2009

Sunday, June 21, 2009 - Father’s Day. Happy Father’s Day to all you Fathers
Some clouds and cool enough to have a small fire this morning. I expect an afternoon thunderstorm, as predicted by NWS, as I have had one each afternoon or early evening this past week.
I spent the entire day writing and doing a small amount of research, as I didn’t want to be slowed to a snails crawl on the Internet. I’ll finish my letter to the Hughes CEO, with copies to others, tomorrow and mail it when I go to town on Tuesday. I still have research to do, but it appears as I expected, Hughes has over sold the ability to provide service with their current satellites and now we all pay for it. Several of the sites lamenting this problem, simply say to change service, but that isn’t possible for me, unless I hear from Dish Network about providing me with the service. It would be my only other provider besides Hughes.
I really hate that the government is in everyone’s business and now even going to produce cars, but I think someone needs to regulate the service providers for the Internet. They do it for satellite television, so why not the Internet too. There should be standards set and upheld for what service they provide, the speeds and bandwidths, and their contracts. After I read through the Hughes Terms Of Service agreement for the fourth time, there isn’t one single word or section that protects my rights as a paying using, but page after page protecting their rights and telling you what they will do to you if you don’t follow their rules and regulations, which they change at their whim and don’t even bother to notify you.
Enough of that for now, and I wish I could tell you about all of my wonderful accomplishments today, but as I said, I just wrote and did a little research, that’s it, nothing more.
It is now a little past 7 PM, and a peal of thunder has just rolled through and made the cabin vibrate. The sky has turned ominous and I expect rain to come down soon. I am ready to build another fire, take a shower, eat dinner and then veg out in front of the television.
Saturday, June 20, 2009 -
It rained off and on most of the night, and woke me early this morning as it increased. I have been enjoying the morning in front of a nice fire, watching the chipmunks play and get the hidden peanuts and sunflower seeds. Zack has been snoozing in front of the fire all morning, not even asking to go out and play.
An attempt on my life was made again last night, but I didn’t realize it until the early morning hours. It happens once or twice, sometimes even three times a year. The effects are always the same as the poison enters my system and flows through my body. My fight with this invisible foe has continued for several years and you might think that I would be ever vigilant, but after I recover from my near death experience, some time goes by and I forget to watch for the signs. I have vowed to be more careful in the future, and have gone through and thrown out all of the suspect items in my refrigerator.
I am, of course, talking about food poisoning. I have a tendency to keep things longer than I should, and if it isn’t discolored, or has the aroma of garbage, I eat it. I checked the expiration dates and both the salad dressing and the green salad olives said they were still good, yet I believe that they were the cause of my stomach violently telling me that something was wrong. At first, I thought it was the new medication I am on (Hydrochlorot 25 mg), as I almost passed out from dizziness when I got up to go to bed last night. I remembered reading that another possible side affect was nausea, so I chalked it up to the meds. When I carefully made my way to the bathroom at three O’clock in the morning, it dawned on me that it could be a mild case of food poisoning, and not the medication. I survived the night and have no ill affects this morning, but still, I have promised my self to be more diligent in my choices of food from the refrigerator.
Hughes has slowed my service down again this morning, saying I have exceeded their FAP. On Monday, I will be making some telephone calls and sending a letter to the CEO. I am spending some research time today to find out exactly who controls the Fair Access Policy of the internet, or is it just some excuse the satellite providers dreamed up to cram more user on less equipment. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about FAP. “Fair Access Policy or Fair Use Policy is a ISP-promoted term for a bandwidth cap. It may limit a user to a daily or monthly cap and once that cap is reached it may result in slowing, a complete cut-off, or overage fees.
Large uses of bandwidth, such as P2P and streaming video, and have led to increased bandwidth usage. In an effort to increase profit many ISPs instituted complicated bandwidth schemes limiting users from the bandwidths they were advertised.
Broadband has long been a market based on overselling. As video services have become widespread, users have started using the bandwidth they were sold, threatening and changing consumer ISP's business models.”
Based upon that information, I’d say Hughes is setting and changing the bandwidth cap to suit their needs. I have started my research, slow as it is, and will be compiling my information. I will then write my letters and complain to those that might have the power to do something about it.
Other than switching between being too warm with a fire after the sun came out, to being too cold without the fire after the sun disappeared, I have played with Zack, done some writing and a little research. I am not going to take a shower and have something to eat . . . other than leftovers.