As you may or may not know, I've had my problems with AT&T's internet service back in Indiana. Renewing my service for the first time, I had to talk to three people, each of whom required some holding time to get to, took the last 4 digits of my SSN, and tried to sell me the same upgrades. Later on, I found they offered faster service for cheaper than they were charging me, which was weird, and though they agreed to switch me to that, they ended up not doing so for several billing cycles and until I called them twice about it.

So this is why I'm surprised that Verizon has made AT&T look good.

First, nobody offers service at AT&T's price here, even at half the speed we had in Indiana. So we signed up for slow service from Verizon. But then the strike hit, and they had to cancel our installation. That's understandable, but we needed internet, so we signed up for Comcast. I tried calling to cancel several times: several times an automated system hung up on me because they could only deal with certain kinds of issues; then finally when I got a person, she had to transfer me to someone else, so I was disconnected again and gave up.

Then, about a week ago, I started getting about 4 calls a day saying that our installation appointment was coming up. This is more than a month after our ideal installation date, so I tried calling again. I had the exact same conversation with the machine ("Her") three times before giving up:

Her: What is the person's last name?

Me: Chenette.

Her: Okay, let's try this. You can say the person's last name, and then spell the first 3 letters.

Me: Chenette. C-H-E.

Her: What's the person's first name? You can say, "I don't know."

Me: Timothy.

Her: I only have one record of that name in Amherst, Massachusetts: [undecipherable, clearly not my name]. Is that the person you're calling about?

Me: No.

Her: You're calling about service in Amherst, Massachusetts, right?

Me: Yes.

Her: What is the person's last name?

Finally, I replied to an email that was supposed to let me "reschedule," requesting that they cancel the service. A few days ago I got a very apologetic call from a representative, saying she'd put a note on my record.

Then, today, I got an email with the subject "Verizon High Speed Internet Service Not Available":

I realize this isn't really a terrible story--we've had internet access most of the time we've been here, and there are many other things to worry about. But there was something comically, perfectly incompetent about the timing of that email that made me have to share!

Wow, it's been a while! Things have been going well in Amherst. I'm happy with my teaching overall, though I still need to work on how I want to handle/conduct my Aural Skills course. In a way it's the easiest course to teach in terms of workload, but at the same time it requires a lot of thinking on one's feet and knowing what will help students. My last couple of semesters teaching aural skills were a few years ago, and they didn't go very well (a combination of early morning, disinterested students, and some curriculum experimentation), so I think I lack the necessary confidence to feel good about it right now. I'll be observing a few other aural skills classes in the next week and seeing what I can do to feel better about it.

At the same time, we've been taking advantage of any extra time to get outside and do fun things. There are literally trails leading away from our back yard into a conservation area, which is one of my favorite places in the area so far: there are a surprising number of trails, all of which are quite pretty and very well maintained (and almost always deserted, except for the main trail, which has runners and dog walkers in the mornings and evenings).

We've also checked out a few of the bike trails. It's pretty easy to get from our place to the Norwottuck bike trail, which has become known as the "pizza ride" because it's easy to get off the trail and to Hillside Pizza, our new favorite restaurant. But the trail itself is lovely--it parallels busy route 9, but feels miles away, and on hot days it also feels noticeably cooler than the surroundings. (That's not so helpful anymore.) And it leads over a gorgeous railroad bridge over the Connecticut River, and into Northampton, where one can take several further trails all the way through Northampton or South to Easthampton.

(Brief side note: I haven't figured out the deal with town names around here. I know Northampton and Easthampton, as well as far-off Southampton and Westhampton, are quite separate towns, as are Hadley and South Hadley (though Hadley is mostly a bunch of farms and strip malls), but I don't know about North Amherst, Amherst Center, South Amherst, and Amherst. Nor do I know if "East Amherst," which I've seen written, really exists or is just a description, or why Mt. Holyoke College is in South Hadley rather than the (further South) Holyoke, or why all of these towns are seemingly in a great big jumble. And I am truly baffled why a community with such a transient (college/university) population refuses, as a matter of policy, to install a single street sign on any major road to confirm that, yes, you are on (say) Russell St., or why all roads longer than 3 blocks change names several times, requiring street signs to say things like "Cherry Ln to Jennifer St. to Grantwood Blvd." and requiring drivers to realize that a street called "Sunderland Rd" in Amherst is probably called "Amherst Rd" in Sunderland.)

Yesterday we took our new bike rack (above--thanks Mom and Dad!) on the car to Northampton and tried one of those trails, heading South, and then back East, before turning back around. It was a very pleasant ride. We took a little "nature trail" at the end of the bike trail in hopes of reaching a promised "overlook," which I assumed would be soaring cliff over the beautiful oxbow in the Connecticut River. It turned out to be a slight (20 foot?) rise over a small, swampy tributary of the oxbow, obscured by lots of trees. I had to strike a heroic pose to make up for the lameness of the overlook itself:

Seriously, it's probably a nice overlook for birdwatchers, but they could have warned us.

There's much more to tell, but this is enough for now. Amherst has been a great place to live so far, and we hear the most beautiful time of year is only weeks away!