We returned home from our favorite Florida beach last Sunday. On the Friday before leaving, just before sunset, we placed the camera on a tripod and snapped this family picture. The archive contains many such beach pictures because, over the years, we've always taken a family picture on the beach before packing up to come home. Our son Mark has a "November" beard. It doesn't look bad, and his wife Jenny doesn't seem to mind. Their kids are Jackson (14), John Michael (11), and Margaret (7).

Now, let's talk Comcast, our cable TV company. When we returned last Sunday, we found that our cable TV wasn't working properly. We have 4 televisions; 2 connected to Xfinity high definition (HD) boxes and 2 connected to standard adapters. One of the HD boxes is a DVR and the other HD box is, in my words, a slave to the DVR; not a DVR itself. On Sunday the DVR was not working, and no amount of effort on my part could bring it back to life. So I contacted Comcast.

Using my Xfinity cell phone app I scheduled a technician to come to the house Monday morning. He showed up on time and replaced our DVR with a newer model. Everything looked just fine when he left.

On Tuesday I checked my app and noticed that the old DVR was still listed as one of the devices on our account. In my mind I pictured being billed for 2 DVRs on my next billing. So I opened a chat box on the computer with a Comcast service rep named Terex. I remember his name because it made me think of T-Rex, everyone's favorite dinosaur. I described my problem to T-Rex, and he made the necessary changes to my account to remove the old DVR. That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday, around 5 PM, the cable service to the 2 televisions connected to the standard adapters was stopped. The statement on the screen said that the service needed to be "activated" to continue. So, this time, I called. Just for the record, after dialing the Comcast customer service number, it takes about 10 minutes to work through the answering computer before you can talk to a live agent. You'll see in a few minutes why that's important.

So after about 10 minutes I explained my problem to an agent whose name I can't recall. This agent made several attempts to activate our adapters, but failed each time. After about another 20 minutes, he decided to transfer me to the "activation group" to solve my problem. The call was disconnected during the transfer process! So I had to place another call to Comcast customer service.

After another 10 minutes, I was connected to an agent named Kassie. I explained my problem again, and Kassie attempted to activate the service and failed just like the previous representative. Kassie said she was going to transfer me to the activation group, promised to call me back if we got disconnected, and offered a $25 credit for my trouble. She transferred me to a lady named Rose in the activation group, and Rose got our service working once again. She thought that T-Rex must have pushed the wrong button on Tuesday. Oh yeah. The old DVR was still on my account. Kassie said she would remove it.

No, I'm not done. On Thursday, again around 5 PM, the televisions connected to the standard adapters stopped working. Only this time, when I checked my Xfinity app, the adapters were not even listed as one of my devices. The old DVR was still there, but not the adapters. So I made another phone call.

After another 10 minutes dealing with a computer, I calmly explained my issue to another agent. I never heard her name. My blood pressure was so high all I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears. Now this time I had to give the agent the serial numbers and MAC addresses for each of the adapters. It took an hour to solve the problem and get the adapters back on my account and the televisions working again. They still worked when I checked this morning. Oh yes. The old DVR is still listed as a device on my account. I'm not sure I want to even try to change that.