Today [14.2¾]

A Guy

I get to start on "G" today.

I have been busy today helping other ex-pat Finns in our forums. A popular Finnish IPTV system closed suddenly on Friday, domains confiscated and company filed for bankruptcy. The service has been excellent, allowing us ex-pats to get Finnish television. Me and many other Finnish abroad around the globe lost already paid subscriptions.

Late Friday night I found a legal and valid way to use another similar service which basically only works from Finnish IP addresses and told about that yesterday for other ex-pat Finns. Since then my email inbox has been getting 5 to 10 emails per hour from "desperate" Finns and I have been making simple illustrated instructions to be used either on Windows 7 or 8 in several languages; simple things like "Run as administrator" have to be translated depending if the user is using a Finnish or English or German or whatever language version of Windows. To my surprise the general Windows knowledge among my dear fellow ex-pats seems to be at so low level I really have to make as simple instructions as possible, lots of pics and not so much text :).

Good looking out there Kari!

Today my "regular" season starts ...... sorta. The trucks are starting to roll in for our first spot this year. We'll start setting up as soon as the ground dries a little. Torrential rains yesterday, you can literally stomp your foot and watch the ground undulate 5 feet away! (and get muddy as heck doing it ) My Boss sunk up to his knee in a flooded ant hill yesterday, yes they were fire ants and his leg is swollen to twice its regular size.

This was my first winter "working" in quite a while and I won't be doing it again next winter. Not worth the time or money. Finished the Collier County Fair (with another show) last Sunday. Big Fair, big crowds, little money. Us Carnies were treated like criminals there by the local sheriff. We were LOCKED IN the fairgrounds at night and patroled by the s.w.a.t. team in FULL regalia 24/7. Not just the grounds but our living area at night as well. The independents couldn't walk their dogs or leave "their area". Our living areas were blocked off/out into little squares by fences ...... guess its easier to control smaller areas. Needless to say I will NEVER play that fair again.

I'm looking forward to a decent year, if its good enough (possible), I'll be retiring after this one. 34 years is enough ...... but then 35 is a nice even number isn't it?

I bet they said it was for your own protection.

Hey Scott buddy, good to hear from you. That Collier County Fair is in what state, I'll be sure to avoid it. Sounds like the inspiration for the movie Deliverance. And this song....

Nice to be back too, should be able to be a little more regular now. Yep ...... I could hear banjo's playing all day long! Reba couldn't make it though.... probably has dogs and they wouldn't let her in. Oh! plus our $50.00 show I.D.'s were not enough for the Collier County Fair either, we had to buy a FAIR I.D. too!!! In all my years doing this all these things were a "first". The fair is in Naples,Florida by the way and I do not recommend it to anyone. Oh again, it WAS for our protection, and I felt sooooooooo much safer

Thank Heaven they kept you from the evil citizens of Naples, who know what could have happened if you went to Wal Mart for food or something.

I've had no service all morning, got up and hubby said the broadband's down, so I checked did a restart of the router then started to go through the steps shown on the computer to fix it. I lifted the receiver on the phone and had no dial tone. They give you an 0800 number to ring and tell you it wont cost from a BT Landline, silly people I don't have a landline.


Anyway phoned from my mobile and yes there is a fault and they'll send an engineer but if it's on my property it will cost me about £129, get a text to say it should be fixed by the 3rd April


I looked down the drive and saw a man at work road sign and cabling so went down the drive and saw just down the road men replacing a pole and working on the wiring that had been on it. I asked one of them if he was BT and he said yes they had been there since 7am changing the pole, give them another hour or so and we should be back on, service was resumed just before 2 o'clock.


What makes me laugh is that obviously BT knew the work was being done on the pole so service would be interrupted so why not say when I phoned that was the problem instead of yes there's a problem we'll get onto it and it should be fixed by the 3rd April.