Cable TV and Botanical Gardens

New Cable TV system: I am still furious over the system although the TV reception is improved. The picture is sharper and I truly have HD now, the sound is better, there isn't as much lag time when I change channels, etc. However, the guide to the remote only covers about half the functions and my internet for the computer was totally screwed up last week. I talked to 3 different tech people on the phone over 3 days and each one had me do a different thing. Finally the last one said "take your wireless box and ethernet cable to our service center and get new ones". We can't send a tech person out when you are getting service to the house."  Needless to say, I was very vocal with him. However, I drove a very long way to get to their only customer service center in all KC area and exchanged them.  Then I had to figure out how to hook it all up and I was NOT going to call them for help.  I finally figured it out and the internet now seems to be working good.  I just can't figure out everything on the remote, etc.What really irks me is that I don't have a choice in companies since only Consolidated Communications supplies internet/cable service to the whole apartment complex!@#$%^&*(_+.

Botanical Garden in Columbia:  I was looking for something to do in Columbia to do and ran across  the Shelter Insurance Gardens "A Mid-America Arboretum and Public Garden." I have never heard of Shelter Insurance but in researching them I discovered they they bought out the old MFA Insurance Co. When I was a kid, I remember seeing MFA Insurance,  MFA Oil Co, etc. MFA started in 1946 and was bought by Shelter Insurance in 1981.  Their corporate offices are in Columbia and behind the office is the 5 acre garden containing over 300 varieties of trees and more than 15,000 annuals and perennial plants. The Garden also includes a waterfall, rock garden, statues, Vietnam veterans' memorial and a replica 19th century one-room school house. Pretty amazing place to be right in the city.

This is a path in the gardens. I don't think I have every seen as many ornamental sweet potato vines in one place before but they sure were pretty. 

One of the numerous statues scattered around in the gardens.  

Decent size man-made waterfall tucked away in one corner. There were a lot of koi fish in the water. 

 Newcomer School is a replica of a 19th-century, one-room school that is located near Brunswick, Missouri. Construction of the replica school began in 1974 when ground was broke with a plow pulled by a team of Missouri mules. Local grade school teachers often reserve the school for a day of teaching the tradition of their 19th-century counterparts. Below is the inside of the school complete with a wood stove.