My Vote is For Rail on Richmond

Another one of my letters to the editor was published today in the Houston Chronicle. For some time I have supported the Richmond alignment for Metro's new University Line, the next phase of light rail in Houston. This is my second letter on the subject to be printed. Thank you Houston Chronicle for your continued support of Metro's light rail plans. Here is the full text of my letter:

Concerning Roy R. Reynolds' Sept. 23 Outlook column, "Metro: Make it a bike trail and spare us from light rail": Certainly Reynolds cannot be serious.

Bike trails in Houston will fail for the same reason that the Segway Personal Transporters failed: Because they are not air-conditioned.

MetroRail and buses are very well air-conditioned, though, and I would choose either of these conveyances over a bicycle at any time in Houston.

However, the argument is not over riding a bike or an air-conditioned bus or rail car, it seems to be about the placement of the University line.

And there is no better part of town to build public transportation than right where people are -- in the busiest part.

I agree that a comprehensive transit plan for Houston should encompass the outlying areas, but the most logical place to start is from the inside out. Why bring people into a city center and then offer them no way to get anywhere?

I spoke before the Metropolitan Transit Authority's recent public hearing (that Reynolds derided, saying "any words of discord fell on deaf ears").

By the time my turn to speak came up, more than half of those at the mike were in favor of the Richmond line. By the end of the day my experience was confirmed.

According to richmondrail.org: "The speakers who favored rail on Richmond ... clearly outnumbered those opposed to rail on Richmond."

I am one commuter who will be leaving my car in the garage more often once the University line runs down Richmond.

Another Funny Ad Placement

I found this one in today's Houston Chronicle. I don't think the person pictured in the liposuction ad has been to the Health Museum much less the gym! Furthermore, I am not sure which is the before and which is the after picture in the ad. To see my previous Funny Ad Placement item click here.

Health Care Revisited

Just this week I received a letter from my health insurance provider informing me that me that my insurance premiums were going to be "adjusted" (translation: they are going up). The increase is about 15%, far beyond the current rate of inflation. Their stated reason for the increase is "medical costs continue to increase as new technology, new procedures and new prescriptions drugs offer treatment alternatives never before available".

What a load of cow excrement! The reason that my insurance premium is being raised is 1) to ensure that profits for the insurance company remain high and 2) to offset the increase health care costs due to the burgeoning number of uninsured in this country. I was born at night, but not LAST night. Health care costs are rising for one reason only: there are fewer and fewer people paying in to the system by buying health insurance, whether individually (like me) or through employee benefits.

But this is just how the health industry in this country has come to work. The poor, unemployed or under-employed turn to the state or federal government for Medicaid or similar programs. The old have Medicare (for the time being). The rich can pay their own way without insurance (or afford any premium levied). The middle class (that would be ME) are left to try to cover ourselves with private insurance in what is called the "free market system". There certainly is a "system" but nothing in it is even close to "free" when it comes to health care. I would settle for just reasonable.

Now I don't mind paying my own way but when the system is so biased towards soaking the middle and working class and rewarding the uninsured poor and undocumented in this country, I have to speak up. I am entitled to my opinion and you just got it.

But to add insult to injury, tonight I got a call from a so-called "marketing survey" company wanting to ask me questions about my level of satisfaction with my current health care provider, which they mentioned by name. I have been called many times by these surveyors and have come to realize that at best their surveys are biased towards whoever hired them to to do it. At worst the survey is nothing more than a "feel good" effort by the company paying for the survey to confirm what it already believes. In the case of tonight's call I knew exactly why I was targeted.

Duh! They just raised my premium and wanted to assure their board of directors (or stock analysts or whomever) that all us customers were still very satisfied with our provider. What a crock! I told the caller that I was on to their ruse and would not participate. She thanked me for my time and wished me a good day. As a parting shot I asked if she (the survey taker) had health insurance at her job. Answer: NO (go figure).

To see my previous blog on health care in this country click here. Once you read it you will see why I am going to have to drink less beer (or a cheaper brand).

Ellen Tamm

Ellen Tamm was an art director with the advertising agency Rives, Smith, Baldwin and Carlberg (now Richards/Carlberg) in the early 80's. I worked with her at least one time on a shoot for M. W. Kellogg in May of 1981. Less than eight months later she was dead. She was murdered by the infamous serial killer Coral Eugene Watts, reported to have died in prison yesterday, closing the final chapter on this sad and senseless tale.

Ellen's death was first ruled a suicide. She was found hanging from a tree in the Montrose area of Houston on a cold January morning in 1982. She was an avid jogger, logging three miles each day. On a cold morning she would wrap her head with a tube top to keep her face and ears warm. It was this tube top that acted as a noose, suspending her from the small tree. The police seemed to think that she might have hanged herself.

Those of us who knew Ellen thought this suicide ruling was ridiculous. Both her parents and other relatives came to her defense and implored the Houston Police Department to investigate further. This was to no avail and the suicide ruling remained official until the truth came out when Watts confessed later that year to killing Ellen and eleven other women in Texas (11) and Michigan (1).

You can read more about this case and the many others connected to Watts here:

http://www.officialcoldcaseinvestigations.com/showthread.php?p=9618

In the years following Ellen's death the Art Directors Club of Houston (ADCH) created a special scholarship for students naming it the Ellen Tamm Memorial Scholarship. Ellen was a former board of director of the organization whose members work in the fields of advertising, design, illustration, photography and multimedia. For many years the scholarship awarded an internship for a deserving student at one of Houston's advertising agencies or design firms. The scholarship has been discontinued but the ADCH still maintains the Ellen Tamm Memorial Fund to provide other programs for students. In her remembrance the ADCH renamed its annual student show of advertising, design, illustration, photography and multimedia the Ellen Tamm Student Show.

DSL Nightmare

It all started out simply enough. I decided that I really did not need two land lines at my home office. I called AT&T to see about dropping one line. What I wanted to do was to keep my business line number (which I have had for over 35 years) and drop my home phone number (which nobody ever calls anyway). This would have been simple except for the fact that my DSL service is on my home line. When I moved my office to my home four years ago I thought it simpler to keep my existing home DSL service rather than switch it to my business line. And boy was I right! Read on...

So, being the foolish logical being that I am I expected it would be a simple task to just replace my home phone number with my business number. I thought since I did not want any of the business features of that line, just the logical phone number, that a simple flip of a switch would do the trick. Just change the digits of my home phone number. But nooooo.... AT&T would have none of that. They explained that once a business line, always a business line. There was no way to do the simple task I proposed.

AT&T proffered that the only way to do what I wanted was to add DSL to my business line and drop my home line and its associated DSL service. Not as simple as what I wanted to do, but workable. The cost of the business line and the home line were about the same. And I was already receiving Pro DSL on my home line and this cost the same as the new service would cost on the business line (which only offers Pro service). After thinking about this a bit I decided to do it their way.

This is when the nightmare began. On the day the DSL service was activated on the business line I handled the physical changeover of the lines in my house (to save the $150 for a AT&T guy to come out and do it). To keep it simple I went to the junction box where the phone lines come into my home (the drop) and switched the line pairs. I moved the business line to the terminals feeding the wires inside the house that formerly were tied to my home line and disconnected the home line pairs. Very simple to do and ensured that I would not have to fiddle with any of the wiring inside my house. Furthermore, the DSL modem was already connected to these wires and if everything went as planned all I would have to do is activate the account and we would be good to go.

Guess again. I got on the phone with AT&T once the physical installation was completed (as instructed). I told them that the modem had good lights (it was getting the DSL signal). The first time you call in to tech support with AT&T (I have done this several times in the past 10 years) you always go to what is referred to as "tier 1" personnel. This usually means you will be talking to someone whose first language is not English.

I try to work with these people as best I can. But it is frustrating to have to wade through a laundry list of "try this, try that, reboot... wash, rinse, repeat", especially when you can barely understand what they are saying. I understand the global economy thing and all but it makes just about as much sense to hire chefs from England to cook Mexican food as it does to hire people from India to talk to Americans about complicated and technical subjects.

After about an hour I realized that we were getting nowhere and asked to be kicked up to a "tier 2" tech. The fellow that came on the line next was based in California and I was able to understand him better (although he was a bit testy at times). He understood that I was connecting with a router and not a single computer, something the tier 1 tech insisted that I do. Fortunately I knew that this is what they always make you do at tier 1 and I had my laptop ready. The poor tier 1 tech could never understand that I was using a laptop because she kept telling me to unplug the wire running from the back of my computer. I think she was trying to ensure a cold boot of the computer but I knew this was unnecessary and eventually convinced her of that.

Anyway, the tier 2 tech sent me to my router setup (something with which I am completely familiar) and we attempted to get connected. On my home line DSL we used a protocol to connect called DHCP. For some reason AT&T now requires that you use PPPoE which requires a user ID and a password. It was my understanding when I ordered the new DSL service that I would be assigned a new user ID and password. For some reason the tier 2 tech insisted that I use the ID and password on my old account. After dicking around with this for a while and getting nowhere I asked what was going to happen when my old account was closed. He said "Well, you will lose your Internet connection until you set up a new account". I was flabbergasted. I asked why we could not set that up now. He got a bit defensive and almost hung up on me when I insisted that I get a new ID and password now and try to connect using them.

After getting the new ID and password and plugging those into the router setup we still could not connect. Now the tier 2 tech starts telling me that there is an "outage" in my area and that may be why we cannot connect. He says the outage will be "fixed" by 3PM my time. It is already 2:30PM and I have been on the phone with AT&T for nearly 2 and 1/2 hours. He said he could do nothing else until the outage was cleared up. He then asked if there was anything else he could do for me. I said "Let me talk to your supervisor". He became very defensive wanting to know what he had done wrong. Duh! I have been on the phone with you morons for nearly 3 hours and you cannot get me online.

I did get a supervisor on the line but he was of no help. He just kept repeating the outage mantra but could not actually say if it affected my DSL line or not. I made the sentient observation that if there were an outage it was logical not physical because... you would not be hearing my voice! I was talking to them on the same line as the DSL service. This did no good and after continuing to talk with both the tier 2 tech and his supervisor well past the 3PM "fix" time I accepted my fate and jotted down the number of the "maintenance" tech to call to set up an appointment to have someone physically come to my house to resolve the problem.

The maintenance tech ultimately became my hero. At first I thought that all he was going to do was schedule someone to come to my place. However, when he observed that they had no slots available until the next week he took pity on me and rolled up his sleeves and went to work.

Early on I had asked if this all might be just a "provisioning" problem. I had problems along these lines a little over a year ago. Neither the tier 1 or tier 2 techs or the supervisor had any idea what I was talking about. However the maintenance tech did. To put to rest the outage smokescreen he ran some tests and did confirm that a signal was getting to my modem and that there was no outage at all. The problem seemed to be in how the modem was talking to their DSL service.

Time to go to work on the modem. The tech goes to one of his buddies and gets the instructions for how to get into the setup program for my modem. I hook my laptop's Ethernet cable directly to the modem, do some Control Panel voodoo and get to the modem's setup screen in no time. It turns out that there is a single digit in the modem setup that needed to be changed from an "8" to a "0". No sh*t! That is all it was. The old DSL line on my home phone was provisioned for the "8" code and the new DSL was provisioned for the "0" code. Just like I said, a provisioning problem all along.

I thanked the tech profusely and hung up. After 4 hours on the phone with AT&T I got my new DSL line working. Or so I thought.

It was not until the next day that I realized that my new DSL was not functioning the same as my old DSL. I could surf the net and get email, but every time I tried to send an email the process timed out. I tried sending email from three different computers, employing two different operating systems and two different email clients. Nothing would go out. Finally I tried sending an email on my Treo PDA phone and that went out fine. All emails, including the one out of my Treo, were sent using the same SMTP server (the one maintained by my web hosting service which is not AT&T). Now I knew I still had a problem with my new DSL service and not my web host.

I called my web host tech support and they got right to the bottom of the problem. It seems that on all new DSL accounts AT&T (and many other DSL and cable providers) block Port 25 which is the port used for outgoing mail. They do this in the name of preventing spam. What they want you to do is use their server for outgoing mail and your web host server for incoming. The problem with that is if you start having email problems you have to deal with two entities and the finger pointing back and forth which most likely will ensue.

Of course AT&T does not tell you about this. You just pull your hair out until you are bald and then make another dreaded tech call. Fortunately I have a savvy web host and they were able to explain what to do. Just call AT&T and ask that they unblock the port.

OK, so another call to AT&T support. I won't go into all the details but it took almost another hour of wrangling with them to get the port unblocked and get my outgoing email working. Five hours wasted on the phone essentially to move a working DSL service from one phone number to another.

I feel like Keith Olbermann on MSNBC: "And now, for the Worst Tech Support in the World!"

AT&T!