Life in Woodson Terrace

This is day five of the Renaud Empire in exile. Or maybe we could call it Operation Expand Our Borders. Or maybe we could just say day five of “vacation” in the “Renaud Empire Southeast.”

However you look at it, things are going fairly well.

The girls like the rental home. It’s bigger than our own place, with lots of room to play. I have seen them use a hall closet as if it were a little playhouse. Yesterday Jadzia and Ludi were out in the fenced backyard playing by themselves. Jadzia found an empty birds nest on the ground under some shrubs, which she thought was really cool.

We have visited the nearby park twice. It’s just a quick walk, and the girls really love it.

At this point, our main inconveniences have been:

* Getting Channel 9 (KETC) on the TV. We don’t watch a lot of live TV, but when we do it is usually PBS. But KETC just wouldn’t come in. Yesterday I had a breakthrough and I hope we have figured it out. (it involved rearranging all the living room furniture).

* No Internet for a week. AT&T can’t get us going any faster than that. My old dialup took less than an hour to start, and Charter can get you going the same day. But AT&T still has by far the best price for broadband, so I guess I’ll wait.

* no dishwasher.

* missing kitchen tools. We’ve bought a few and pretty much have most of the essentials now.

As far as the Renaud Empire headquarters home goes, we are in waiting mode. We have been meeting with the contractor and an architect, and hope to have plans ready soon. Ferguson has to review them before they will let us even begin demolition. It could be 2-3 weeks away, which is frustrating. But we’ve got to keep our eyes on the end result, which will be a greatly improved house. That keeps us motivated.

AT&T’s $14.95 DSL might get me to switch

So, I’m revisiting high-speed internet options in St. Louis again.

The main reason is that AT&T is offering “three of their DSL plans for $14.95 for 12 months.”:http://www.att.com/gen/general?pid=6431

This is a great price point for me, since it’s under the $18/month I mentioned in my “previous entry about looking for high-speed internet.”:http://www.joshrenaud.com/family/archives/2010/01/high-speed-inte.html

If we go for this plan, we will also immediately start looking into Skype, Vonage, Google Phone, and other options to replace our local AT&T phone service. I think we can come out ahead on our combine phone and internet bills (during these 12 months, at least).

We want to dump the phone service because the bill just keeps getting more expensive — additional taxes and surcharges are added all the time. I think it’s supposed to be $18 or $19, but the actual bill is closer to $30 when it comes.

So, folks, who has experience with AT&T internet? Is the service okay?

What about replacing the home phone with internet choices. Anyone have experience with that?