I wanted to save this post for something important. Before I get to that, I should mention what prompted my extended absence – it’s been almost 9 months now since I’ve posted anything here.

It all started last December. I got a phone call from Cogeco to say that they wanted to install a new cable modem. I thought to myself that would be fine, it never hurts to get a newer model from time to time. They came by and installed it while I was at work. But I came home to discover that they hadn’t replaced my old modem – they’d simply installed a second modem, to sit alongside my existing one. Up until then, I’d been running VOIP and business Internet from the same device without a problem. Somebody in “administrator land” decided that this couldn’t happen, and that if I wanted (residential) VOIP and business Internet, I’d need to have two separate devices, one for each account.

Aside from the inconvenience of having another device sitting under my desk in the study, I had a more real problem with this. By using two different modems, the cable signal was being split yet again. I suppose that in normal circumstances this wouldn’t really be a problem. However, in our condo the signal strength from Cogeco sucks in the first place. This has been a problem ever since we moved in. The wiring in the building itself is a mess, as is the actual infrastructure under the city streets – but this isn’t something that Cogeco has ever been willing to properly address because of the cost involved in doing so. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy.

I removed the extra modem and re-wired things back the way they’d been. It didn’t work. I called Cogeco and explained things. They weren’t able to fix it at their end.

At this point, things devolved into a surreal nightmare. I spent about 5 hours on the phone with Cogeco over the next two months, as well has having 3 other visits from technicians. I got involved with technical supervisors and a sales manager for the region. The short version of the story is that even though there was no technical reason to have two modems, that was what was decreed and they couldn’t do anything about it. For the last two weeks, I had accepted having to have two modems – but even then, with both hooked up, would things work. Something about the way they’d configured my account’s technical settings had changed at their end – and they had no idea what it was or how to fix it. One day, it just “magically” started working again.

During these two months we were without either Internet access or VOIP (so we could neither send nor receive calls except on our cell phones). At times, we were without either. For some brief periods of time we were also without TV. Also, during the course of all of this, I had to “undo” damage that was done by various technicians to my home theatre set up – which resulted in TV shows not being recorded. Additionally, I had to force the cable to be split in a certain way (not as anybody defaulted to doing it) and insisting on getting a new “splitter” at the cable drop source to support this split. Otherwise, the signal strength would simply be too low to service all of our cable based devices. Poor Michelle. For the first few visits, somebody would show up from Cogeco while I was a way – and mess things up. I’d come home, get upset (not at her), put things back, and then phone Cogeco again. Towards the end, I had to make sure that I was there in order to babysit and prevent them from doing things incorrectly.

At one point, when I was in touch with the regional sales manager – in order to leverage escalating my situation – I mentioned that I was on the Board of Directors of our condo, and that we were thinking of switching everybody in the building over to Cogeco. She stated that she would have a building inspection done, and then call me back after she returned from her vacation to set up a meeting between the Board and herself. This never happened. I also never bothered contacting her again, since, by then, we’d finally got our cable working properly. I can’t say that my opinion of Cogeco has changed much since then.

But I never did “recover” from this extended outage and get back into posting articles here. When I did start to think about it again – I realized that my next post would be me 200th, and I thought I’d wait for the event of the next paragraph to finally occur…

For the exciting news to be conveyed in my 200th post – we finally got our inheritance from my grandfather’s will. The amount that was available to us in the first week was enough to pay off our CIBC loan, one of Michelle’s credit cards, one of my credit cards, and give Michelle’s mom some funds for her Ireland trip. It also paid for a pool table. More on that one shortly.

The remainder, and bulk, of the funds will be freed up next week. With it, we’ll pay off all of our other debts (aside from our mortgage) and then use the rest for some renovations in our condo that will greatly help our home comfort. Primarily, we need a new shower, but everything else we do (including enlarging our existing shower when we do get a new one installed) will only increase the value of our property above and beyond that of the cost of renovation itself.

Getting rid of all of our debt is a huge thing. I think I’ve carried a balance of some kind on one of my credit cards ever since I was a student at Trent University. But, more than that, all of the money we’ll be getting on our pay cheques will be going straight into our pockets. (Again, mortgage payments and condo fees aside – but I can live with that in the context of there being nothing else to worry about.) This will drastically reduce our stress and our ability to just lead our lives as we’d like.

There is also more financial good news on the horizon. VMware had an IPO just yesterday, and, while valued at $29/share the previous night, it opened at $52/share when trading started. I was given a not insignificant number of options in VMware stock a couple of months ago, based on my number of years at the company and my current employee level. While it will be a bit before I can exercise them, converting them into either cash or stocks, I have no doubt that I’ll be in a good situation. I have no doubt that VMware stock will be going up like either Microsoft or Google in the years ahead. If / when we get more money “that we don’t know what to do with”, picking up more VMware stock would certainly not be a bad idea.

Also, on the subject of stocks, I went and looked at my EMC stock. I was able to exercise some options whose vesting period had passed. I now have actual stocks in EMC, rather than just options. That’s pretty cool. So, I’ll be ending up with stocks in both EMC and VMware in the not too far future.

Lastly, in the year to come, I believe that we’ll be getting even more money. Not only was some of the inheritance money held back, just in order to make sure everything works out okay for Rachel and her farm, but there will still be the proceeds of the sale of Kay’s house – which I believe she also intends on sharing with us to some degree. I feel a little bit like a lottery winner – even though I still feel a bit conflicted about the actual source of the money.

As for that pool table. There seems to be a consensus that our condo’s gym could use a pool table. It’s all just been a matter of when and how to come up with the money. The Board doesn’t, currently, have a budget for it. One of the owners recently presented us with a low-end pool table / ping pong table as a possibility. It’s a decent enough table, although not really a “proper” pool table in any sense of the word. (But, everything else aside, it would have been okay.) However, in researching both the current value of this table and that of more standard pool tables, I found an incredible bargain. A tournament sized (4.5′ x 9′) Dufferin pool table for 1/4 the cost it would be new. This is just like the tables I’m used to playing on at Boston Manor – where we go play when we feel like it. I’ve immediately jumped on it. Pending “official” approval of a committee and the Board, and sorting out some issues in the gym (things need to be moved around, and some electrical work has to be done in order for that to happen) this seems like it’s on its way. I’ve already given the current owner a deposit to “reserve” it against a final decision next week. If (hopefully when) this happens I’ll be ecstatic owner of my own table, and have access to it whenever I want.

In terms of our condo suite itself, renovations aside, I woke up last Saturday and ripped out the hedge that had been dividing our patio in two. The landscapers will be coming tomorrow to trim everything back (this is now longer overdue) and will be removing all of these bits. We’ll be left with a nice clear view of the lake – and of our own patio, from one side to the other. We’ll be putting some earth in the, now empty, planter and some flowers. We may or may not do something else with the space next Summer.