SubscribeI managed to get down to the rally site at Highland Park with the plan of zipping down to the cable store to swap cable modems and be across the street in time for the arrival of the walking protest group. When I arrived at the cable store, Wilfred Brimley was standing at the bifurcation point of the parking lot, shooting dagger stares at everyone. Time Warner security. In addition to having all but one entrance blocked off with cones and Time Warner trucks backed end to end (were they expecting Hezbollah?), someone got out the FedEx Kinko’s card and ran up a dozen “private property – for business customers only” signs and planted them all around the entrances.
I entered the cable store, which had another security guy sitting at his desk, and one family waiting for service. I was in and out in five minutes with a replacement cable modem.
Wilfred was still glaring in my direction. I got back into the car and parked across the street and waited. Within 10 minutes, the 30+ protesters arrived (when people assume the matter was resolved with Senator Schumer’s visit, it does have a tendency to reduce turnout until people become re-engaged), and more security turned up outside of the building. The group then ended up on the sidewalk in front of Time Warner and spent about an hour waving signs and accepting waves and honks from passersby. I shook the hand of one Time Warner employee who came out to say hello. As I’ve always said, I don’t have any issues with local employees, or even management. They play the cards they were dealt.
Just prior to leaving, I get a phone call on my cell phone from … Time Warner. They were expediting my service call to this afternoon and asked if I would be home to receive them. I asked the lady calling if she could see me waving at her from the sidewalk. Upon reaching home, a Time Warner repair truck arrived several minutes later and, it seems, found that the new modem may have done the trick. He also checked the signals on the pole and changed a fitting, and we seem to be back in business.
Also as I’ve always said, Time Warner delivers excellent service to their customers, and the service crews are top notch. That’s all the more reason why we want to fight to keep the excellent service we’ve had for years. We just want to pay a reasonable and rational price for it.
The rally, by the way, attracted Channel 8/31, R-News (who didn’t have far to go), and I was told Channel 10. The Democrat & Chronicle was also there. I want to thank the rally organizers for their efforts and work on this. We need these kinds of public events to help keep focus on these issues, and have a chance to make connections with each other to stay engaged. If anyone has video, pictures, etc., please let me know. I will arrange to have it embedded here for people to see.
Other stories of interest:
After seeing the Beaumont news report piece, things got boiled up in me again, and I am all for “re-engagement”.
This ain’t over, TWC, and other “Internet Capping Providers” should be on notice.
I will accept some royalty payment for coining a new term of ICP .
Phil Im glad to see you back. I was talking to Mr. B about it just a few hours ago. Thankfully it was just a dead modem and not something that would have started WW3. I can not think of any thing else to say at the moment except it is sad so few showed up. I was going to ask you to take me there but I knew you had alot on your mind so I did not. The event needed 3000 people not just 30. UK
Suggestion to Twitter users: Be sure to include the hash tags #TWC and #stopthecap when adding updates on this issue.
You may also want to join WeFollow at http://wefollow.com/add
Click the “Add yourself to WeFollow” button. Add TWC and stopthecap without the hash mark (#).
TweetDeck makes it a little easier to remember to add Twitter hashtags.
Thanks for the tip Corrine about WeFollow – just trying to understand what that does exactly though.
I am very sad that so few turned out, I wanted to be there myself but had a previous family enagagement to attend to and found it impossible to be there. I certainly hope that I can make the next one…and there certainly does need to be more of these with a much stronger turnout. I did and will continue to keep up the fight by helping to inform and educate others to this site and to our cause. I am confident that we will win this war in the end!
@JM – http://wefollow.com/ is a Twitter Directory created by Kevin Rose (Creator of Digg). I don’t see it as much more than another means of getting hash tags visible, although others may see it as a popularity list. Bottom line, I figure if it adds more exposure, all the better.
Corrine – I agree completely, any means of exposure is a good thing – and thanks for the explanation about WeFollow.
I would like to expand on my post above. Phil did a good job of explaining some of the reasons the turnout was not as high as one would have hoped. The word apathy keeps coming to me. It’s not my problem, Let somebody else worry about it, It wont effect me, I don’t care, etc and this happens in thousands of issues. After their kids do 100 hours of on-line Xbox a week and mom dad and the kids parse through their netflix, itunes catalogs and they get their new bill they will soon care. Education is a key but not from TW to us but from us to the less technical computers users. Im willing to bet if I went to the public market and asked 100 people that own computers if they could find this site without telling them the name I bet more then 90% could not They to need to be brought into the fold so they understand what is going on and how it will affect them. Ill be the first to admit there are new things out on the net I do not understand. Above you see posts about twitter and twitter tags and I say to myself what. I know what twitter is and how powerful it can be but I really do not think anybody would care what I was doing yesterday or today or tomorrow. I hope you understand what im trying to say here. Thanks
Come to think of it a venue at the Public Market just might be a good idea. We all have printers, copiers, or access to something that can print the written word and we have a voice. Many of us go to the market each week even Phil’s sister does so let us cash in on the idea. For $25 we could have a booth and floaters that go around. That’s 25 or more people kicking in a buck for the stall and a buck for printing and there is always Scott’s right there for your morning coffee or what ever you want. Think of it this way you would have been going there anyway, you get a chance to meet each other, you still get to buy what you came for, and you get to do some good for the people and Stop The Cap at the same time. May is when it really picks up. Flower season. The handout format and wording could be discussed right here and naturally needs the URL’s of the major players in it and im mean right down to http:// as well as what to say to people. The reason you get so much junk mail is who sent it hopes to get 2% of people to bite. Well in a crowd of 10,000 2% is a big chunk except we are more pure we are not trying to sell a product but to share information to someone that did not know this was going on in the first place behind their backs. So now you have my first offering of an idea let’s see what you think of it as well as your own ideas. This cap issue will not go away until a lethal blow is dealt to all the isp’s in the US and beyond. xxxxxxx
Would definitely donate for such important exposure!
LOVE your idea!
I’m NOT a morning person, am forced into it during the week, and *treasure* my sleeping past noon on weekends, so you can probably count me out on manning said booth. But certainly willing to donate to cost of one, as well as cost of the handouts.
I think that the Public Market is a great venue to catch people who are unaware of this problem and/or mistakenly believe it won’t affect them!
Another suggestion: Consider placing the handouts on public bulletin boards – such as the ones near the entrances at Wegmans, coffee shops, laundromats, etc.
Could even tape to lightpoles, etc in high foot-traffic areas of the city like Monroe ave & South Wedge.
I would certainly be willing to put them up at such locations near where I work & live.
Come to think of it a venue at the Public Market just might be a good idea. We all have printers, copiers, or access to something that can print the written word and we have a voice. Many of us go to the market each week even Phil’s sister does so let us cash in on the idea. For $25 we could have a booth and floaters that go around. That’s 25 or more people kicking in a buck for the stall and a buck for printing and there is always Scott’s right there for your morning coffee or what ever you want. Think of it this way you would have been going there anyway, you get a chance to meet each other, you still get to buy what you came for, and you get to do some good for the people and Stop The Cap at the same time. May is when it really picks up. Flower season. The handout format and wording could be discussed right here and naturally needs the URL’s of the major players in it and im mean right down to http: as well as what to say to people. The reason you get so much junk mail is who sent it hopes to get 2% of people to bite. Well in a crowd of 10,000 2% is a big chunk except we are more pure we are not trying to sell a product but to share information to someone that did not know this was going on in the first place behind their backs. So now you have my first offering of an idea let’s see what you think of it as well as your own ideas. This cap issue will not go away until a lethal blow is dealt to all the isp’s in the US and beyond.