bjarvis | More Minor Changes

As of yesterday, we now have Verizon FiOS television. There's a slew of HD channels but our television is an old CRT model so we're not exactly getting the full effect currently. If our expenses are under control, we might use the spring tax returns to upgrade the tv but it's not an urgent expense.

Just this hour, I've canceled our old Dish Network service. It was great while it lasted, but $50/month savings is too good to pass up. They're sending us a box to ship back our decoder & remotes. Happily, they're not requiring me to go up on the roof to remove the satellite dish.

One side effect of the new television service is that our package upgrade included a speed increase for our Internet access, from 15Mbps download/5Mbps upload to 25/25. My speed tests show an improvement closer to 30Mbps download but truthfully, the services we use aren't typically feeding data at such a high speed so we're not seeing an end-point performance improvement. I suppose if we were downloading movies regularly or using some online backup service we'd feel the change but that's not our typical usage. I should try re-imaging some remote server using locally stored ISO files to see if it's any easier than it was before... :-)

kent4str and

cuyahogarvr are cleaning out our storage locker as I type this. Some things will come home, others will be stored in the in-laws' basement for a while until we decide their ultimate fate. Savings: $192.50/month.

This morning, somewhat unexpectedly, our electrical utility PEPCO installed a smart meter. If there hadn't been a five minute power outage resetting most appliance clocks, we'd never have noticed. I have a concern on this point though: I've heard a great number of horror stories about peoples' electrical bills jumping dramatically after the installation of smart meters. Is it that they're finally being billed accurately after years of under-billing, or is there a bug in some models of meters or the systems used to read them? Don't know. We'll have to watch this carefully.

Now to dig into switching electrical and gas providers...