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June 06, 2014 - 11:56 p.m.
"antenna success" or "lotus ii"

Hey Journal!

Happy Friday!!

Tonight we went to LOTUS EAST II for dinner... I was really craving it. It did not disappoint!

First thing's first, though.... This morning I woke up and headed off to work. The morning was pretty normal and I got everything I needed to do done. I was expecting the delivery of a new antenna for the maintenance department in the afternoon, and I wanted to have plenty of time to work on it when it arrived.

I ordered it a couple of days ago and it said it would take about 7 business days to be delivered, but for some reason it came much faster! It came today, and it came at about 11am. As soon as I got it, I got to work testing it out.

I had to set it up in the basement and then use a little creativity to get it up and running and tested in the basement. It worked, and I was super excited. At about 12, I got all the networking stuff set up on my end in the basement and then I went down to maintenance to see about mounting the antennas.

Steve and Greg were just finishing their lunch and we got right to work. Steve disconnected the old microwave antenna and mounted the new antenna on the side of the trailer. I went inside the trailer and swapped out the POE and made some adjustments on their computer.

When we were done with that, I headed back up to the clubhouse and they followed shortly after. Before they arrived, I got the other antenna, got it set up in the basement, and then it was roof time. Greg climbed up to the highest part of the roof while Steve and I watched! It's not as easy as it sounds... it's kinda scary. First, you have to climb on top of the walk-in freezer and then pulled the ladder up to use it to get to the next level. The next level is the worst, though, because there's a giant cavern under you from the roof to the bottom of the stairwell! It's like the grand canyon.

Anyway, Greg made it up to the top and mounted the antenna. While he was up there, I asked him to remove the ridiculous old antenna that has been on the building for almost 11 years. It's the antenna we had installed to allow Debbie and I to get radio reception back the first summer I started. We haven't used it in forever.... and it's just an eyesore.

Next, I went back to the basement to get this thing working. I wasn't getting a signal, so I called the manufacturer to get a little insight. It turns out that one of the factory settings got messed up and needed to be reset. I had to enter a new encryption key on both ends. In addition, we had to realign the antennas. They are nowhere near as particular about being aligned as the old ones, but they do need to be in the same general direction.

We had one pointing up at the moon and the other at the halfway house. What a mess. While I worked on the technical settings, Greg went back up and repositioned the antennas.

Then, it was a big success! I was so excited. We got a super strong signal and a really fast connection!! I am just hoping it holds out and this is the END of our nightmare with this problem. I just tested it out now and we still have a strong signal, so that's great news!

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I had lunch. The meal of the day was ribs, and the BBQ sauce was on the side. That was great, because I hate BBQ sauce, which si why I had never ever tried ribs before. So, I tried them and I loved them! I went back for seconds, and everyone was shocked that I had never eaten ribs before!

Just as I was about to leave work there was a flurry of credit card payments. It was really weird... nobody has paid over the past few days, and not at all today until about 4:45. So random.

I left work at 5 and headed home. I got ready to go out to dinner, and Dan got home from his big San Diego trip at about 6:15!! WAHOOO!!!! His plane landed earlier than expected and he didn't have much traffic!

He got settled in and took a shower and I watched World News. Diane was off AGAIN... "on assignment"... where she's been since Tuesday!

At 7:30, we met Lau and Ryan at Lotus East II for dinner! I love that even though our old favorite is closed, we still have some Lotus East in our lives. It's amazing. The gang was all there (except Gene, of course.) The twins, the man with the orange car, the woman... perfection!

We got lots of food...but we ate it all! I went for the PFR and Lo Mein, myself! When we left, we took a walk around the parking lot, and went to Dunkin Donuts. It was free donut day (with purchase of a beverage) but the selection of donuts was weak, so we decided not to participate.

We headed home after that and then Dan and I watched last night's Carbonaro Effect!

Now it's time for bed!

Until tomorrow...

Goodnight. :)