Days 7,8,Thanksgiving Day – Happy Merry Thanksmas

As we continue to occupy space #11 in the “campground” adjacent to the service center by night we spend the days helping make more phone calls on Insurance to help set up Kevin's mom and sister for 2014 and determine what his mom's long term care policy would cover. Yes this did take the better part of 2 days! It is our experience that the Health Care provider Web sites are of little to no help forcing us to call and talk to multiple sales reps to have them explain the terms and conditions of the many options available. We could not even talk to the same sales rep in the same company to discuss Health and then Dental options, instead we had to be transferred to the other dept. In every case the transfer actually put the caller back into the cue. The Affordable Health Care web site must have modeled its self after these insurance web sites. How come so many folks complained about that Web site if it works as well as the regular insurance company sites do? No one gets it right! In the end Kevin's sister and mom have the same Medical insurance and can see the same Doctors.

Kevin's Mom's place in The Villages, FL

We also visited one more Assisted Living facility that was very close to Kevin's mom's home but currently under construction. It would be an ideal location so that his sister could easily take her 'sports car' (golf cart) there to visit. Kevin's mom has put her name on the list of potential future residents and will be able to make a special visit to tour the finished facility before it is open to the public. At that time she can pick up to 3 potential favorite rooms if she chooses.

On Wed. we got a call from the RV service guy and he told us our windows have returned and they had to replace the glass as it was not only fogged but stained and etched as well. Kevin used that opportunity to add yet another item to the repair list, this means more $$ to repair. We still need to determine if the starter motor is failing as the RV has just as much trouble starting in the morning as Kevin has. With all this it looks like final (for now) repairs will be finished on Monday so the duo can continue their adventure on Tuesday Dec 3rd!

On Wednesday Kevin called the Direct TV satellite company to request the local channels be activated for the location where they were camping. Thru the course of the conversation it became apparent that the Direct TV satellite service does not typically deal with satellite receivers moving from billing zip code to other locations. After some back and forth the solution was for Kevin and Theresa to fill out a special FCC paper work requesting Global service for ABC, CBS, and NBC stations to be activated on their receiver. While Kevin had the rep on the phone he also requested to deactivate a second receiver that had been shipped to them but that was not being used. This reduced the monthly bill by about $10. The representative also activated a bundle of HBO and Showtime Movies for no charge for the next two months. Yeah, they now get to watch movies from the 1950 to 1980 time period. Maybe there is something they had not seen yet.

Theresa also took the time and checked our online mail service from Good Sams Club and yes we have mail! Checking it we were disappointed that they did not show the image of the envelope so we can help determine if we should trash it, scan the contents or have it mailed to a location. Since this was our first time using this service we gave scanning a try to discover that it costs $2.50 for each scanned item. What a rip off! Last year we used a different service that was far better and less costly. Lesson learned. We will end up scanning as few letters as possible and then send the rest in batches to Kiehl or Theresa's Moms or sisters so we can go thru it out there.

Theresa also saw the December bill for Time Warner Cable, yikes it was higher than normal! In preparation for the trip we had requested to put our bundle of phone, TV and internet on 'seasonal' to reduce that cost significantly while we are not home. We did this in early November giving a start date of the 18^th so we could 'test' it prior to leaving. TWC proceeded to place it into effect the next very next work day and left Theresa coping with poor internet for an entire day before she realized what happened and spent hours with TWC on the phone to get it straighten out. Finally they put the home service back so Theresa could continue to work from home prior to the planned reduction to seasonal service on the 18^th.  On Nov 18^th she checked and sure enough everything was turned down to a low threshold as requested. So what is with this bill, it should have reflected the seasonal rate? Theresa logged into the TWC site to see that for some reason they had us back on full + service WTF? On Thanksgiving day she called TWC (yes they have folks answering calls on a holiday) to see what was up. Fortunately the service representative could see all of the previous inquiries and was very apologetic. After several minutes on hold the agent informed Theresa that this matter would need to be escalated to a manager to get corrected and we would hear from them on Friday. With that assurance, Theresa thanked the service agent, wished her a very happy Thanksgiving and hung up. Yet one more thing to follow up on! Any bets TWC contacts the Smits on Friday?

Thursday was Thanksmas! Since we will not be with Kevin's mom & sister for Xmas we brought a

few gifts and treats to celebrate both holidays at once. The Turkey, stuffing & a new sweet potato and apple recipe (see recipe) were prepared and consumed. We were thankful that there were no calls to make or forms to fill out or places to visit today! We did get to facetime with Kiehl and Madison twice, once at the beginning of their day and the second time when they were at Theresa's sister's house with her mom and all the family there in Fallbrook, CA. We are so looking forward to making it in person (barring any unforeseen delays) for the next family gathering at Xmas!