I wish I could say it was the time zones or "Daylight Savings" sleep shifting which was the cause of my lack of "Oomph" the past couple of weeks. I mean, what small amount of wind there ever was under my sails seems to have taken a sabbatical!We already knew that there was really no comparison between the welcoming Snowbird experience in St. George and that of the "here comes fresh meat" one in Mesquite; but, where last year it was tolerable, this year it seems to have sucked the soul right out of me.
Our reasons for choosing Mesquite over the much more snowbird friendly St. George? Very close and unique offroad experiences and less traffic on the streets. Two reasons which hold less and less meaning for us each day.
I could expound on many of the varied organizations and people which can destroy motivation more deeply than a "dementor," and probably will before the winter is over, but the monopolied phone company "Reliance Connects" tops the list as chief blood-sucker for now.
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS to merely "turn on" DSL for snowbirds, free to year-long residents! And this is up over 100% from last years blood-sucking price of A HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS! Non-refundable for snowbirds (who can't commit to 12 months). Add this to $12 per month "rental" on a DSL box (double) and $25 per month for the privlidge of connecting to the internet at half the speed that Qwest gives (lowest tier) in Salt Lake.
Made all the more onerous by the incompetent regulatory managment who allows large tracks of the city to have no other source of internet (i.e. no legislation requiring "sharing" of cables) and allowing Reliance Connects to purchase and close down the only competing independent internet provider in the region.
No way around it! There are other, almost as heinous, blood-sucking "Snowbird eaters" in Mesquite but Reliance Connects is the all time demon of the bunch.
Filled with adolescent arrogance, the pompous child-manager who was called in to "explain" it to me prefaced his remarks with "meaning no disrespect" then challanged if I "had ever stopped to consider how service is provided to those houses on the hillside."
My plea's that there are NO houses on hillsides in Mesquite (unless you consider those over in Dell Webb who could afford their own phone company), that we were definitely NOT on his make-believe hillside, that the condo we were renting already had full-time phone service from an owner who was a long time customer, that it had already been DSL connected, that we had already paid them their exhorbitant connect fee last year at the SAME ADDRESS and that their extortionary fees were QUADRUPLE reasonable and customary amounts, all merely fell on accoustically, and morally damaged, adolescent tympanic membranes.If you let a bully come in your front yard, he'll be on your porch the next day and the day after that he'll rape your wife in your own bed.”
Just like his most likely hero, Voldemort, would claim: Reliance Connects was not at fault because it was their consortium who set the fees, and the competitors didn't have to "sell themselves" to to us, and he claimed (I quote) "The city hates us." Tyrants everywhere blame their victims for their abuses!
Only in the morally bankrupt recesses of a tyrants mind would it be logical for the burden of building the companies infrastructure to be unfairly bourne by those who use it least and only in a bully's heart by those least able to raise a defense.
The plain fact is that they have a monopoly given to them by the city and state "regulatory" commissions, they know it, they are in a position of power and exact every ounce of blood they can from the least "franchised" group - snowbirds!
I've always had next to no tolerance and near complete contempt for bully's!And the wind shall say Here were decent godless people. Their only monument the asphalt road. And a thousand lost golf balls.”
If the mayor has her way the entire riding area around Mesquite will be pretty much closed to seniors (and probably everyone) by next year, the blood-suckers like Reliance Connects are allowed to bully Snowbirds at will... remind me, what was the matter with a little traffic? And, really, shoveling a little snow wasn't so bad... was it?
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