Weeds, Trees, Faucet, TSA, and Frontier

We've been diligently working on our yard this calendar year.  It's definitely a slow process but hopefully the end result looks nice!  I've been trying to capture a few pictures during the process to share with you all!  I don't have many yet but we'll see how the next few months shake out.

These pictures are about 4-5 days after we put out some weed killer.  When your yard is made up of 95% weeds and you use weed killer, that means 95% of your yard dies!  Oddly, I felt great satisfaction when looking at the dead patches.  It's ugly at the moment but in the long run it will allow grass to take root and establish itself.  Just check out these dead patches in both our front and back yard!

The trees are getting special attention too!  In Feb of this year (HERE) we took a LOT of branches off our live oak tree in the front yard.  Now, just 4 months later, this tree has really taken off.

Left: Feb 2016 - Just after a major tree trim.

Right: July 2016 - Growth from just the Spring and early Summer.

I love the live oaks but it seems like they are most beautiful when they are regularly pruned.  Fortunately this guy is also growing nice and straight!

Out of curiosity we wanted to see how far the tree had grown since we planted it in Jan of 2011.  The pictures don't do it justice but it's nice to see this tree taking root!

Left: Jan 2011 - Mid-planting process.  The tree that had originally came with the house was overrun with bugs and had some rotted branches.  At the time, buying this tree seemed like a HUGE expense to Jordan and I but I'm glad that we planted it.  A beautiful tree really changed the curb-appeal of our home!

Right: July 2016 - Straight and full!  

We also had a recent project to fix our water hose faucet.  Over the years the metal got brittle and would regularly leak.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the repair but I DO have a fancy video that Jordan put together!  I'm so grateful that he takes on these kinds of projects!  I think the total cost of this repair was $40 and 1 hour (excluding research time).

In other news, we recently checked off a HUGE task: getting TSA pre-check certified.  We both wanted to get this chore done months ago but we under-estimated the time involved.  It was a long process and and a very long wait.

First, you have to register with the TSA website and select whether you want an appointment time or a "walk-in" so that they can personally interview you.  The "interview" doesn't take long but you have to be there in person.

It made the most sense to schedule an appointment except they were (and continue to be) booked SOLID!  Their appointment calendar only goes out 45 days and each day those slots fill up fast (there only 2 locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex to go to)!  Given the scheduling troubles with their appointment process, we decided to do "walk-in" interviews.

Wow...the wait was 3 hours long.  We'd planned a big day of errands for ourselves and made it to the TSA location around 1pm.  As it turned out, we were one of the very last people to be allowed to wait as "walk-in" appointments!  I was shocked.  The room was hot, every chair was full, and I was bracing myself for a terrible wait.  Fortunately, Jordan and I both got a little work done in the waiting room and passed the time by making idle chit chat with folks around us. The actual "interview" was only about 3 minutes too!

The long process worked out and we are so glad that we both passed!  It was 3+ hours of waiting in a small room (seated) which will save us 5 years worth of unknown hours waiting in security lines (standing).  The pay off should be worth it!

Lastly, Jordan and I have some venting to do about Frontier Communications.  We live in an area of Texas that was previously served by Verizon Fios for internet and cable.  Verizon recently sold the territory to Frontier which has been nothing but TERRIBLE for us and our neighbors in this area.  I'll try to keep the details short but in a nutshell, don't go with Frontier Communications if you can avoid it!  Consider yourself warned!

One day our internet randomly failed.  We'd been with Frontier for a whole month without any issues up to that point.  When we called Frontier to complain about the internet, they read from a script some generic statement about "area outages".  Day 3, day 4 passes... all the while, Jordan spent WAY too much time on hold with those people.

After many conversations and waiting, we finally got a technician scheduled to come by our house.  When the technician didn't show, we called Frontier only to learn that they CANCELLED the appointment since there were generic "area outages".  Oh boy... I was ticked.  This went on to happen several times, we (Jordan) scheduled an appointment with a technician and they (Frontier) would cancel said appointment.  Dumb, isn't it?

When we finally got a technician out to our house.  He fiddled around for 4 hours scratching his head.  When he arrived, we had no internet.  By the time he left, we had no internet AND no cable TV.  (Side note: It turns out that we have a very poor selection of movies to watch...lol!)

Finally, this happened:

You're looking at that correctly.  That's a 5 hour phone call between Jordan and Frontier Crap Communications.  There was no other way to get through to them...

All in all, we had no internet for 2 full weeks and no cable for roughly 10 days.  I was livid and Jordan was even more upset having been through the terrible customer service phone calls.

We have very few options for internet and cable service in our area.  Our two choices are really Frontier (previously VZ) and Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum).  We've been down a similar road with Time Warner but looked into switching just because we were so sick of Frontier.  Price wise, Time Warner can't come close to Frontier and NEITHER have good customer service.  That's telecom folks... UGH!

That's it for this random post!