Yet Another Post in Which Randy Cries Like a Baby

Today I got a phone call from AT&T.  Well, it was from a computer at AT&T.  Or at least I think it was.  It could be the nation wire tapping program just doing a routine monitoring of my line pretending to be AT&T.  But assuming its AT&T a recording, yes a recording, told me to call AT&T to ask them about my account.  It gave me the phone number to call, told me that I should call them about my account, and then gave me the number to call again.  Only I had no paper to write things down with so I hung up, tried to dial the number from memory and then got a wrong number message.

A recording!  Why is it that they can afford to do any number of things that are called advertising but they fail to offer the customer service experience that would make customers want to do business with them?  Can you believe that in a customer service scenario they chose to use an electronic device to 1) irritate me like nothing else and 2) cause me to have to scramble to remember a number and 3) use a recording to communicate ‘an important message’?  So I called AT&T’s customer service line that is published on their website and after a little pinball-like action through their automated system I arrived at a customer service rep named Leslie.  Leslie was nice and helped me the best she could, she helped me determine that something had shut off my auto-pay plan (which has worked for some time now without a problem).  Something had shut it off three months ago.  And after accumulating three months worth of bills they were kindly letting me know that, finally, I should pay my bill.  Three months!  A recording!  Agggghhhhhhh!!!!!

I don’t know who is responsible for the numbskullery that is their procedure and policy in dealing with billing snafus but this was a really irritating way to interrupt a Friday.  So I’m going to pay my bill and attempt to reset my auto-pay program, but this is just irritating.  Thanks for nothing AT&T.  A recording!

With Walls Like This, Who Needs a Museum?

I happen to have had a very forgiving set of parents.  They put up with my playing loud music (live loud music, not just recorded loud music) and they would also put up with my thundering down the stairs when I descended from the second story of the house.  As a teenager very few things I did were quiet.  They endured it all and never allowed my brother to kill me no matter how much he might have wanted to end my noise at any given moment.  One other thing they allowed me to do was to completely cover my walls with memorabilia from events in my life.  I had everything up on my walls.

It all started with eight pieces of paper that I drew a face on with chalk.  I took those six pieces of paper and made a large rectangle out of them (assuming 8.5″ x 11″ pieces of paper edge-to-edge that’s approximately 34″ x 22″).  Then, next to the chalk drawn face things began to be stapled up.  I initially wanted a ‘nook’ of focused cluttered above my desk but it didn’t take long before the organism grew to take up much of one long wall.  After several years time I had stapled, tacked, taped or nailed pretty much everything onto my wall leaving only small bits of actual wall showing.

Ketchup flavored potato chips my aunt gave me, an engineers cap that had died throughout my junior high years, pictures, receipts, ticket stubs, advertisements, drawing and other assorted things arrayed my walls.  People would come into my room and just stand there taking in the volume of crud that was mounted in the room.  I have zero aspiration to replicate that cacophony of ‘decoration’ but it was fun while it lasted.  It was passed onto me later that my parents were heard mumbling, grumbling and groaning as they patched the hundreds if not thousands of holes in the walls to repaint the room after having to remove the wallpaper.  I got off easy simply removing the junk from the walls and putting most of it into garbage bags when I moved out 🙂

Thankful Thursday: Stories from Sunnyvale

I just posted a story about Sunnyvale, California on my finances blog and it reminded me of some other things that had to do with Sunnyvale.  I’m grateful for the good home my parents raised me in.  It was warm, safe and always big enough for me to mess up.  Here are two short stories for your amusement:

Nick

Nick was my neighbor down the street.  Nick would get home from school a little later than I would.  He would get home and I wouldn’t be far behind.  Usually hoping to score some sort of snack from Nick’s mom who would buy sugary treats for her children.  My parents were ‘granola’ in comparison.  That is to say that they would buy healthy foods for us to eat.  Imagine that.  Healthy food – ugh – things that probably didn’t have a high refined sugar content.

So I would show up at Nick’s house and ask if he’d had snack, hoping that he hadn’t, and then after his mom kindly fed us a treat we’d play GI Joes in her garden bed.  Hours of GI Joes.  We probably killed a plant or two, but we dug tunnel after tunnel and probably lost five action figures over the time we played out there.  A bomb would blow up the tunnel, which would then bury the GI Joe, and then we’d forget about it.  A few times we actually found buried GI Joes – score!

Nick was older than me and when we left he was probably a little glad to get rid of the leach that was Randy Peterman, but the downside was that he had one less person to play GI Joes with.  He probably lost a lot fewer actions figures after that!

Israel & Sharone 

We had two Jewish neighbor boys.  I wouldn’t normally point that sort of information out except that they were practicing Jews and not just the ethnic variety.  Every Friday night as the sun was going down their mom would call them in and they would pack up their bikes, their toys and whatever else and disappear until the next Sunday.  When it got dark enough for the Sabbath to be over it was too dark to play so we lost a full Saturday with them as they obeyed the Torah (the Law of the Old Testament).

Every once in a while their mom would be without some ingredient or some cooking tool and she’d send them over on the Sabbath.  That was fun because they weren’t allowed to leave their property which was two houses down and a phone call was work [which if forbidden on the Sabbath].  However, to try to bend the rules and to get the needed item they were allowed to carry a stuffed animal fifty steps from their house, place it down, walk fifty more steps and then place the animal down.  Usually they needed 4-5 stuffed animals to get to our house’s front door where they would ask for something.  One time they asked if we had a brand new skillet that had not been cooked in or touched other pans that had cooked bacon or pork.  Unfortunately we didn’t ever have things they needed, but it was fun to watch them carry toys, which looked like work to me, just to come get some food or item, which would have been carried back, looking like work, to their house where it would have been used in food preparation… which would have been work 🙂

Good times.

Tough Day

Today was a tough day for the girls.  They were both out of sorts.  Evie has some teeth coming and and I’m not 100% sure what’s getting to Abby.  She’ll be five in two weeks (22nd) and she’s just been disobedient and she fell a few times from her jungle gym in the backyard.

Jessica spent much of the day scrubbing the kitchen down from top to bottom.  It looks fantastic.  She just told me it, ” was so disgusting.”  And by my standards it was looking OK.  Apparently she’s just got higher standards 😉  Actually, the kitchen gets dirty fast because both girls, as old as they are, have a way of trashing any area within minutes of entry.  Some people might even go so far as to say seconds from entry.  I would be one of those people.

The last thing that made today tougher is that my buddy Dave, whom I have worked with as a co-worker or as a contractor for years now, is moving on to another company.  He’s a really, really sharp guy, a neat brother in the Lord, and he’s also funny.  All three of those things made working with him great and I’m sure that the folks at his new place of employment will really enjoy him for those reasons and more.

Audacity Digital Audio Editor in New Radio Shack Ad

I was reading at Unclutterer and they linked to a Radio Shack Ad on YouTube. As the commercial played I was able to see what looked like Audacity. Sure enough, once I zoomed in and paused the player at the right time they’re using the open source software to show a large, high quality wave pattern on the laptop display.

Check out audacity, its good, free software and it runs under Windows, Linux & OS X – I have it installed under all three OSes.

Reminder: Tonight is Feasting on Asphalt 2!

Just in case you had forgotten tonight, Saturday August 4th, is Feasting on Asphalt 2 night!  We’re having my sister and her husband over and we’ll be eating jambalaya in celebration of Alton’s starting off his journey in the southern part of the United States.  We’re hoping that we can follow along on this culinary adventure every weekend with some parallel food based on our understanding of the different regions followed by watching the episode from the DVR (thus fast forwarding through the commercials that would keep us from the actual fun).

I guess this makes us junkies 🙂

Thankful Thursday: My Brother Hated My Drums

I know its a little goofy to be thankful for my brother not liking my playing the drums when I was younger, but if it wasn’t for his frustration (and the evil happiness that it caused me to make him frustrated) I wouldn’t have stuck with music.  I hated practicing, and really I wanted to be a rock star but I knew I wasn’t enough of a rebel to be one, but hearing my brother complain made my lack of devotion go away and it helped me explore other instruments.

I love my brother a lot, next month is his birthday and I think I shall write him a song, but it’ll be about how I hope the instruments his son and daughters have come together to make one sweet song that brings him much happiness instead of frustration.  Brennan, my nephew will probably be the next Pat Boone.

A Funny Story to Keep You Secure

If I were Bruce Schneier and I had witness the following conversation I would tell the story at any possible opportunity because what you’re about to read is true, and stupid.  Instead this story comes from my friend, Dave.  Dave was telling me that while he was waiting for the shuttle at a hotel to take him to some destination the following occured:

 Two co-workers checked in together, one headed off to his room, the other asked the clerk what the first guy’s room number was… She wouldn’t give it out, “privacy” she said.  Good for her.

I decided to “help out” (okay, I like tweaking people), so I went up asked if he was in 105 ’cause I stayed in that one before and it had a funny smell…

She said, “No, he’s in 104.”

You just can’t make this stuff up 🙂

Feasting on Asphalt 2

Last year Jessica and I really enjoyed Feasting on Asphalt – a tour across the width of the United States on back roads with Alton Brown & his production crew. Love it. Watched each episode at least once and most of them twice. We’re that sick. But its coming up again and they’ll be premiering season two this Saturday night on the Food Network. Set your DVRs, rescheduled your otherwise important events and check it out.

You can learn more on Alton Brown’s site.

Big Step in the Seated Position

Evelyn went potty on the toilet tonight.  Much cheering took place – as you can imagine – and she was excited.  I’m not sure she realizes how wonderful it will be for us to not have to spend so much money on diapers and wipes and having to always remember to carry the diaper bag.  This is just the start and she’s by no means done being potty trained, but I’m excited to see this next stage coming.  As a parent you love the next stage because you see your child develop and grow, but at the same time there is moderate sorrow to see that the memories are what you have left because that very child is growing.  Its wonderful, though, and I’m glad that she’s not going to be thirty, living in the basement and wearing diapers 😉