So I’ve come to the realisation, after being responsible for lawns for the first time in 20 years, that I just don’t want to do it.

Truth be told, I’ve always known that I don’t want to mow the lawns, or take care of gardening, but when the front and back yards hit 4 foot high in some places, it was time to do something.

WauloK contacted Jim’s Mowing, and after some “missed appointments”, the guy showed up yesterday, mowed everything, pulled out a bush and cleaned up.

As it stands, I’m hiring him on an ongoing basis to bring the lawns up to good condition. Regular mowing, spraying and fertilising.
I’m also going to have him pull out the rest of the bushes, and perhaps rebuild mum’s retaining wall as it is leaning to the point where it will fall over.

We also had some discussion about drainage, as when it pours here, there isn’t sufficient drainage to move all the water. While I’m not sure we’ll get to it, it’s great to see that he had a working solution.

Hopefully in 4-6 months, EvilHouse will have beautiful lawns with thick, healthy grass.

It’s amazing how we take water coming from our taps for granted.

This morning I left the house, and there was a water crew digging up a neighbour’s front yard. Water running down both sides of the street, and even bubbling up out of the Telstra pit out the front of my house, flowing in to the drain.

I didn’t think much of it, and when I came back from doing the shopping, decided I wanted to take a shower, and wash up some stuff.
Unfortunately, we have no water.

Hopefully things will be back shortly, and the water in the Telstra pit won’t affect our phone line or ADSL.
I’m still online, so it can’t be too bad at the moment.

INTERNET
ADSL: CONNECTED
Mode: G.992.5 (ADSL2+)
Upload: 1023 Kbps.
Download: 12675 Kbps.
UPTIME: 0:01:57:18

Wow, two broadband updates in one day.

LOLO is back up, and Telstra have processed the line changes, so the line now shows as theirs, and not on iPrimus ULL. Brilliant.

The service at the old place is less than six months old, so an ETF (Early Termination Fee) will apply if I relocate it.
Not wanting to waste any more time, my ii-Contact suggested starting a new broadband service at the new EvilHouse, and waiting out the few days with the old service, then cancelling, so the ETF won’t be charged.

New service has been applied for, but connection date/time is currently unknown.

Time to update the broadband router with the temporary username/password for the new service.

There are no words to express how happy this makes me. 3G internet has been the word internet experience of my life.
Even the days of the 2400 baud modem were more pleasant.
While the speeds were slow, there was barely anything to transfer.

Today’s internet is a different place entirely. HUGE data caps that get blown in just a few days, because the amount of stuff to do on the net these days is so much more data-intensive.

People talk about downloading “Linux ISOs”, and other such things.
Has anyone tried playing SecondLife? This monster can easily suck down more than a gigabyte of data in a few hours, depending on what you do.

Then there’s ABC’s iView, youtube, streaming radio stations.

Take a typical Monday night. WauloK and I sitting on the couch, streaming Audio from Tech Talk Radio while we’re also streaming video from the cameras in the studio.
Two different types of streaming at once, and then I (or both of us) log in to SecondLife.

When we are graced by ADSL once more, this will be our reality.

3G can’t even handle one SL session, or one video streaming session. We’re currently operating of off two 3G USB connections just to listen to the show, and sit in the text-only chat-room.

I woke this morning to find the message “LOLO is down”.

While this may not mean much to most people, to me it means that Telstra’s database, which holds all phone records is unavailable.

Without this database, we cannot establish if the records for my phone line have been updated as yet, and as a result, any progress is delayed until LOLO is back up.

If there is one place where you can count on Telstra more than any other, it’s when you want to move to them from another provider.

True to their word, the phone service was changed over today, hours before they said it would be. Sure, I’m using them so that I can keep the number that mum had, then moving to iiNet, but I couldn’t figure any other way to do it.
Damn you iPrimus and your ULL.

I have already had a chat to one of my iiNet friends, and there is a task pending for Monday to check things out. LOLO updates for the recent changes should take about three business days, so I’m expecting nothing on Monday, but Wednesday should come with some good news.

It’s been around two and a half weeks since I’ve heard from Telstra about the phone-line take-back from iPrimus, so I thought I’d give them a call today.

A friendly guy named Jason took the call, and was very pleasant in answering my questions.

The answer that I’ve been waiting for is that the line take-back happens this coming Friday (the 15th).

So next Friday, I phone iiNet, and request my relocation, then wait another two weeks for broadband.

Me: “Hello?”

Caller: “Hi, I’m looking to speak to Marion Bron”

Me: “She passed away about three months ago”

Caller: “So this is not her contact number?”

Idiot.

Ok, so after some advice (in response to my previous blog post) from Dean, one of the guys I used to work with at iiNet, I am now on the phone to Telstra Reachout, to get mum’s phone number back from iPrimus.

iPrimus have “up to 16 days” to hand the number back, and the total service switch should take no longer than “16 to 21 days” then the EvilHouse broadband situation will start to improve rapidly (read: I can move my iiNet connection on to this number).

Now to sit and wait.
I wonder if 4gb on my 3G USB modem is enough.

Mum’s internet and phone were both with iPrimus, on one of their ULL services.

iPrimus wouldn’t talk to me, even though I had /all/ of mum’s details, so using her password, I logged in to the online toolbox, added myself as an authority on the account, and then phoned back and cancelled the ADSL service.

That still leaves me with a problem with regards to the ULL-based phone service.
This morning I faxed them the change of owner documentation, along with a certificate of mum’s death, and phoned back not long ago.

The change of ownership is now being processed, but they told me that they can not reverse-churn me back to a Telstra-based phoneline, and I would have to stay on their ULL service, or go become a Telstra customer.

My secret contact at iiNet will be phoning shortly to talk to me about my options, perhaps we can churn the phone directly to iiNet. I don’t remember, it’s been too long since I worked there, and honestly, I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff with the trauma of mum’s sudden death.