Good and Bad

During our moving process, we've dealt with a lot of people from a lot of different companies for different reasons. Some experiences were good, others you can say were below satisfactory. Here's a list of things good and bad from the past few weeks.

Good - Dish Network
We got hooked up yesterday with Dish. We have a Tivo. Life is good. How did we ever live without Tivo? (And I'm saying this less than 24 hours after we have it hooked up.)

Bad - Dish Network's Installation Guy
He wanted us to pay him 10 bucks under the table for hooking up our living room, and it probably took him 2 minutes to do. We didn't even want our living room hooked up. He kept saying "Don't forget, you owe me ten bucks.", and when it was time for him to go, he said "You owe me 10 bucks." It was a bit confusing since we just made him a check for $49.99. When we only had $2 in cash and offered to write him a check he said "No, 2 bucks is better than a check." Should I be concerned that this guy knows where I live? He's going to start following me around yelling "I want my eight dollars!"

Good - The Orkin Man
I didn't know how much we needed the Orkin man. He sprayed for bugs Wednesday morning. By Wednesday evening there was a 3 foot pile of dead ants by my back door. Plus I found out that dog that was annoying us when we were moving in was actually a large spider.

Bad - AT&T
Give me my DSL hookup before someone gets hurt! Also bad is that When you call these people you end up getting transferred four times and none of the people know what the previous person told you or what you're calling for. Plus without the internet, it's not like I can find my way around here with Google Maps. I think we ended up in Arkansas one day while we were looking for a Sears.

Good - Moving into a house
It's pretty cool to look at your sink and think "Hey, that's MY sink."

Bad - Paying for the house
I'll be how old when that sucker is paid off?

Good - Helpful neighbors
The next door neighbors watched our kids for a couple of hours while we unpacked some stuff. Also, the Crookstons drove clear to the DFW airport in the middle of the night, even risking their lives by driving through the crime infested streets of Dallas (the news is scary hear) to help me drop our rental car off. You guys are too cool. I swear I'll get that wagon back to you before you move.

Bad - Having to talk to our truck driver while our stuff was unpacked
Let's say our driver's name was Al. Al liked to talk. A lot. Some of Al's favorite topics included how to handle the war in the Middle East (kill everybody, whether by nuke or by ground forces). Overthrowing the government (Al says he was a history major, and that's what they did back in the day, or something). The menace of a dog was just having a good time (I still wanted to make it disappear). Wyoming is full of oil (Huh?). We have enough oil in the US to supply us for 50 years (Al's a history buff and a geologist). I don't know what else he talked about because I poked out my ear drums after an hour or so.