Monthly Archives: October 2009

What to do about a phone has been a problem that I’ve repeatedly wondered about and researched many times.

At the Forsyth house, I had DSL from AT&T.  For about $50 a month, I was getting local phone service and high speed Internet.  Now that we’re in Argenta, that had to change.  AT&T doesn’t service the area, Verizon does. Verizon doesn’t offer DSL in Argenta.  You may remember reading about the lengthy search for Internet that ended up with us choosing Barbeck Communications and their broadband solution where they broadcast off the water tower.  That is costing $55 a month just for Internet service.

Kona is paying for a cell phone from U.S. Cellular, but it’s an area code 309 number and she wasn’t sure if she would need to switch carriers when we moved out here.  Most of her friends and family are on Verizon.  I have not ever been impressed with cell phones.  I don’t have one, think I’ve survived all these years and traveled all over the United States without one, and can probably get by a lot longer without one.  They seem like a big rip off to me.  Why does someone need to spend a minimum of $50 a month for phone service?  I make maybe 2 calls a week.  Verizon was offering a paygo plan where you only pay when you need it, but I still don’t like it.  Kona made the case that I could get stuck at the end of the drive and be a half-mile from home and need to get ahold of her.  She has a valid point, but I don’t want to spend that kind of money for the off-chance that might get stuck.

I’ve been looking at Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) solutions off and on and when we were up at Fry’s Electronics over Columbus Day weekend, we saw a whole bunch of stuff, one of which was a package called Ooma, which toted “Free Unlimited Calling” within the United States for only $220.  I had heard of other programs like Magic Jack, which they also had for $40 plus $20 per year after the first year, but those required a computer be turned on to make a call.  Ooma was a separate box that plugged into your high speed Internet connection and then you plugged your phone into it.  I researched VOIP and found that there were other companies, Vonage and Phone Power being the main ones.  Vonage wanted $25 a month and Phone Power wants $80 + $15 a month.  Best Buy had MagicJack, Ooma, and Phone Power.  After doing some research, I finally decided on Ooma.  Best Buy’s price was $250 for the newer, fancier looking model.  So we stopped Wednesday night and got one.

I spent most of the night Wednesday night trying to get it to work.  The first step was to get Internet into the office.  Since the wires were ran before the house was built, they had Cat-5 wire into each bedroom, but then they blew foam insulation into the walls, so there was no way I was getting another wire in there.  It meant taking off the telephone jack and replacing it with an RJ-45 connection for the network.  That technical job designed for the few trained in wiring was strangely easy compared to the next task – getting the Ooma, designed for the person who knows nothing, to work.

We have a static IP address, which is nice in some ways, but it also means that nothing automatically configures itself like with DSL or a cable modem, which use DHCP.  I managed to get into the Ooma box and run their web interface that configures the system and got that set up.  It didn’t like something and there was no Internet connection with it in the line.  It said it was connected to the Internet, but it wouldn’t let the computer get out.  So I couldn’t go online for help until I unplugged it and re-plugged in the router.  Finally, I got it to work by plugging it into the router (rather than in between the modem and the router), and thought I would let it sit there and do its thing while I went to bed.  It is supposed to download a firmware upgrade when you first plug it in, so I thought maybe it was taking longer than I had anticipated and read about.

When I got up the Thursday morning, it still hadn’t finished.  The Ooma logo was still flashing blue.  I got online and started reading the user documentation (it only ships with a quick-start guide) and found that you had to activate the Ooma device before installing it.  Why this was not on the quick-start guide I do not know.  And if it was on the quick-start guide and I missed it, it should obviously be in bigger, bolder, print somewhere.  Perhaps one of those separate sheets of paper that says “Warning! You must activate this device before installing it.”

[ Note: I went back and looked at the quick-start guide.  Step 1 is online activation.  But it was only in a box 1 inch high.  Easy to miss since there were no diagrams or other figures to look at ]

So I went online and activated it and picked a new phone number.  They only had one exchange available in the Decatur area and I was presented with a list of eight available numbers to choose from.  They were pretty much sequential except for the ones that had already been chosen.  It would have been nice to pick the one with the same last four as my current number, but I’m still undecided about whether to port that number over or not, so I decided to go ahead and go with one of those.  I sent Kona an email asking if she had a preference, but she was busy and didn’t get back in time to have input.  Her input, after the fact, was to pick the same one that I had picked, so that worked well.

After activation, the Ooma Telo configured itself and rebooted several times and then settled in and was working.  My first call was to Kona at work and then she called me back to make sure I could receive calls.  I saw the light on the Ooma blinking, but the phone didn’t ring.  I later found out it was because I had a powered telephone and it wasn’t plugged in, so it didn’t ring.

Finally, all is well.  The Telo is still in the floor in the computer room, though.  I had to unplug Kona’s network connection on her laptop to get it to work because I ran out of ethernet ports on the switch.  I went to NewEgg and bought some networking gear to get it moved somewhere else, but that will take several days to get here, so for a while, it may just stay there.

A few other notes about Ooma.  The “unlimited calling” isn’t really unlimited.  You can call anyone, but you’re limited to 3000 a minutes.  The company says that’s to keep people like telemarketers from abusing it and they have never kicked anyone out for legitimate residential usage.  Also, after the first year, you have to pay telecommunications taxes on it of about $12 a year.  Certain types of devices like satellite receivers, which need phone connections, don’t work with Ooma, you still need a land line for that.  I’m thinking that if we ever get to the point where we get satellite TV again, there has to be some way of ordering movies without having a land line — there are just too many people out there with cell phones only.

Ooma provides you with an online manager so that you can see your call log and listen to your voice mail.  That’s kind of cool.  You can even set it up to email you notification or the voice mail when you get one.  That might come in handy, especially since getting the Ooma device installed upstairs and still being able to use corded phones may be difficult because of the single wire ran to each room.  Ooma does offer a premier package with some extra features for $10 a month, but I’m not inclined to go with those.  I really don’t use the phone that much, but it is needed for people to get ahold of me.  The only problem now is that if we lose power or the Internet connection goes down, then we’re without a phone.

After sleeping in a little Sunday morning, we got up and headed to Menard’s to get bookcases, rock for the entrance into the garage, sheet rock putty, a putty knife, light bulbs, and a new door bell for the front door.  We weren’t sure how much room all of this stuff would take, so we figured we get everything we needed then go back to the house and load both vehicles up before heading to the new house.  Amazingly, even with 5 bookcases (disassembled and in boxes), 4 bags of rock, and all our other miscellaneous goodies, we were still able to pack quite a bit into James’ car.  We also then crammed my car full, stopped for a quick lunch to go, and headed off to the house.

Once we got to the house, we split up and each worked on different things that needed to get done.  After taking car of the rock in front of the garage door (there was a big bump there because there wasn’t enough rock), James headed to the front porch to put the new door bell on.  Now this might seem like something little, but to me it was huge (like getting the “blue” bedroom painted huge!).

The second time we looked at the house (after we knew we were getting it), I was walking around trying to really take a look at everything and when I walked up to the front door I saw it… the dreaded doorbell.  It was awful, simply awful.  Here is this beautiful house and it has an icky $0.99 doorbell at the front door.

Original doorbell on the house

I immediately ran to get James and told him we had a problem.  He thought it was something really important (which in my mind it was!), so when I showed him the dreaded doorbell he looked at me pretty strangely.  Pretty much the same reaction I got from Liz when I went back to work and all I could talk about was the first thing we were doing when we closed on the house was changing the doorbell and painting the blue room!!

Anyway, so while James worked on getting my new doorbell installed, I swept the porch (the day before James had knocked down some wasp nests and hadn’t cleaned up the mess) and tried to knock down all the spider webs.  Once I was done sweeping and de-webbing, I went and got the glass panel that replaces the screen one in the front door, so James could switch it once he was done with the doorbell.  James finished up with the doorbell (YAY, it looks a 100% better!!) and then started switching the screen with the glass panel.  As he was doing this, I went and got some glass cleaner and started cleaning up around the porch and the front door.  I mentioned to James that in the spring we’ll need to find someone to come and pressure wash the front of the house because it was filthy and within minutes he was back… with a pressure washer!!  I didn’t realize we had one, much less at the new house, so I was really surprised, yet excited that he decided to just go ahead and clean everything off today.  Once James got everything cleaned, he put a little decorative table together that Ty & Austin got us as a shower gift (it hadn’t even been out of the box yet), and I finished everything off with a new “Welcome” mat and a few pumpkins!!  Overall a significant improvement!

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The rest of the day was spent with me painting… and painting… and painting… and you get the picture.  I started with our bedroom since James had to patch up some damage to the walls in the dreaded blue room.  Everything just seemed to take twice as long as it should have, but eventually I got it done!  While I was busy with the master bedroom, James went around the house patching up other places where there were cracks in the walls or big holes from nails, i.e., basically creating more painting for me to do!!  He also went to Casey’ it pick up pizza for dinner, primed the walls in the blue room, and set up one of the new bookcases… he was a BUSY guy!!  I put the second coat of primer up in the blue room and did the trim, then we headed home so we could both get some work done!  Me – responding to questions from faculty and James working on his Calculus exams.  After finishing my work, I decided to get cleaned up and go soak in the hot tub before it gets emptied tomorrow in preparation for the big move Tuesday [Addendum – James also decided the hot tub was a good idea and joined me!] !  All in all a busy, but productive day!

We knew that we would be going to the house to work on Friday night; so we loaded up the car and then went out to eat supper before making the trek.  We originally thought McDonald’s and then I decided on Pizza Hut.  We decided to go into Lowe’s first to check some prices and decided they were too high.  Then we went to Pizza Hut and waited to be seated.  Then we waited some more and finally a little more.  After about 5 minutes of this, we decided to leave and walked next door to Steak -n- Shake [Side note from Kona – At Steak-n-Shake the service was pretty quick considering the place was packed and the food was good!].

Then we went to Lowe’s where we spent $371 on a dehumidifier, paint supplies, and shower heads and then headed off to the house.  We unloaded the car and then prepared the “nasty” blue room for painting before calling it quits for the night about 10:30 pm.

The house is ours!!!

After Kona had gone to work, I called the painters that I called on Tuesday and actually got them to come out and take a look at the house.  They are Colorworks Professional Painting in Decatur.  Brandon came out and gave me an estimate of $1700 to do some minor repairs; caulk some of the windows; and paint the house, trim, picket fence, and shutters on the house in Forsyth.  I called Kona and she okayed it and so I called him back.  He estimates four working days (dependent on the weather) to get the house done.

Then I went into work and picked up Kona and we went to the closing at Brown, Hawkins, and Basola.  They’re the lawyers that Jim Cleveland uses for all of his closings.  Besides the lawyer, Kona and I, and the seller, there was also Jim and Taylor from Re/MAX and Debra from 1st Advantage Mortgage present. Taylor presented us with a painted paver stone with a house and The Jones’ printed on it as ReMax’s way of welcoming us to the new house.

There was a lot of paperwork to sign.  A lot of paperwork.  Kona remarked that we’re not saving any trees.  There were even two times that I had to sign blank pieces of paper just because they were part of another form. I signed papers confirming my social security number, that all the figures they had given were correct, that the house had been inspected for termites, that we weren’t in a flood zone, that I didn’t need PMI or Escrow, and on and on.  I had to sign a paper each of the ways that I might sign my name (with middle initial, with middle name, without either).  Then I had to sign that paper certifying that those were the only ways I would sign my name.  I had to certify that I wasn’t the other James Jones in Decatur who owed money to someone and that I had never been married to Tammy.  We each started with a new pen and I was afraid my was going to run out before I was done.  I guess the lawyers wanted to make sure they earned their money.  Getting married was a whole lot easier than buying a house.

Then I took Kona by Jimmy John’s and showed her where they Arby’s on Pershing Rd was.  She only knew of the one next to Decatur’s North WalMart.  We went back to work where I crunched some numbers looking at the success (and failure) rate of students in developmental math and then had an hour long conversation between the math faculty here and an instructor at Cleveland State Community College in Tennessee about revising the developmental math program at Richland.  I finished up and stopped by Kona’s office before heading home and she looked at me strangely since I should have been done about 105 minutes before I showed up.  I left and went home and when she got home, she wanted to go look at the house while it was still light out.  I insisted on putting some things in the car because I didn’t want to waste a trip and so we made our first trip to our new home (as opposed to the house we were buying).

[Side note from Kona – What James left out was that when we pulled into the drive way and got out of the car he asked me what door I wanted to go in, the front door or garage door?  I told him the front door of course, so we headed around to the front and prepared to unlock the door to our new house!!  James opened the door, yet before I could walk in he swung me up into his arms and carried me over the threshold.  Very sweet and *very* romantic!!] We spent quite a bit of time there and I took a lot of pictures of the house.  Unfortunately, the house was empty, so there isn’t much in the pictures to show.  Still, we managed to find these pictures to share.

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Kona was so cute.  She was going through the rooms saying, “The bed goes here, the long dresser and mirror go here, the TV goes here, …” [Side note from Kona – James was so cute, he didn’t even argue with me about where I wanted to put everything, which is completely out of character for him!]

We finally got home a little after 7 and Kona prepared some really good chicken, rice, and stuffing for supper.  I get leftovers for lunch tomorrow, which is good because those are often better than the food at the cafeteria at school [Side note from Kona – “often better than”??? “often better than”???].

Tuesday, October 13, 2009, was mostly a “stay at home and recuperate” day for me, while Kona had to go into work.  I tried to find out how much money I needed on Thursday for the closing, but the seller’s information hasn’t come in yet, so I won’t find out until Wednesday.  This is probably the one biggest complaint about buying the house; not knowing until the last minute how much it’s going to cost.  I still have to get to the bank and get a cashier’s check, but I’m at work all day and the bank closes by the time I normally get off (since I have to wait for Kona to get done).

I also attempted to get an estimate on the painting the house.  The guy I called returned my call promptly and then said, “I’ll need to come out and take a look at it, let me call you back.”  That was before 2:00 pm and I never heard back from him.  Now he’ll call during the day while I’m at work.  It’s a big conspiracy by the phone company to make people think they need cell phones.

I did manage to complete a change of address form online for the post office.  They wanted $1 to confirm that I was a real person.  I did a “family” move for the first time ever in my adult life.  That was kind of cool.  I also figured that most of the stuff that Kona got here with her old name was junk and so I didn’t want it forwarded; she needed to tell people about her new last name if she wanted to continue to get it.  To help solidify that, there were four articles that arrived in the mail today; three of the four were to her with her old name [Side note from Kona – None of the three – actually none of the four – were anything I would actually want, so I’m fine with the old name not getting forwarded].

I was still sick, the cough deepening into the chest, the nose running continually in the morning until there was nothing left to blow.  Hopefully this won’t turn into what I had last fall / winter.  I spent six months with a deep chest cough and thousands of dollars with the doctor still being unable to determine what it was.  It eventually (in the spring) cleared up on its own, but I did find out I didn’t have asthma as part of the process. [Side note from Kona – I’m more worried that James and I are passing something back and forth. I was sick the weekend before last and still don’t feel like I’m completely over it (in fact my sore throat actually came back yesterday) and James started getting sick towards the middle of last week and seems to be getting worse.]

I did get out long enough to take pictures of the house to show a painter (should they ever call back) and to get the mail. In the evening, we watched three episodes of CSI to finish up the DVD for season 9.

[Side note from Kona – What we didn’t get done today (or over the weekend) was any packing! I’m starting to get a little anxious about the lack of packing that’s done compared to the amount that needs to be done, yet with both of us being sick we just haven’t felt up to doing much, especially tonight.  When I got home I had an awful headache and just generally felt like awful, so I made dinner and then vegged out on the couch with James (who also felt pretty bad), barely staying awake to finish season 9 of CSI.]