Have you ever seen the rain?
Holy hell, it's coming down. Tyrone Avenue -- long a conduit for rushing water -- turns into a river during any sustained rain, and if this rain ain't sustained, I don't know what is.
Coming home last night, a power outage hit a few large blocks near Victory Boulevard between the 405 Freeway and Sepulveda Boulevard. It knocked out the traffic lights at the freeway and at Victory and Sepulveda, slowing traffic to a crawl. While Sepulveda and Victory did have a guy directing traffic (what a job, no?), getting off the freeway at Victory or crossing said area was slow going.
Our potholed street looks flat -- all the giant craters are filled with water. I had to drive slowly to keep from dousing Eisenhower -- a huge, blue-gray Great Dane -- and his owner yesterday as they went for their morning walk. Don't know the guy's name, but everybody knows Eisenhower (just like they know Chocolate Chip, the not-as-huge chocolate Lab a few blocks north and east).
Since the last AT&T repair, the phone line has held through wind and rain -- with DSL intact, too. It used to get flaky every time we got a stiff breeze or a little moisture. The speed's down a bit since they rewired it, but it's rock-freakin'-solid, and I'll take that any day.
Since then, DSL Extreme billed me $90 for installation of a DSL filter. At the time, nobody could tell us whether or not we were going to be charged.
I'm not happy, because the DSL was previously working just fine, and I think the rewiring that the telephone company did from the poll to the phone box was what fixed it, not the filter. Now I'm out $90, which I really can't afford, but since the damn DSL works, I'm just going to eat it.
Again, I'm not happy, but I do have rock-solid DSL right now.