Havasimy

Okay, I don't have much time tonight. In fact, I don't have much time this week. I'm currently working on two projects, twenty hours a week on each, but the one that will end in a couple weeks is in a total time crunch and one of my assignments has turned out a week longer than scheduled, so I'm behind on it so I'll likely be working extremely late every night for the rest of the week.

Just a brief update. I got a new phone in the mail last Wednesday. I took it Wednesday night to the verizon store that is in the middle of the nearby Circuit City store to get my phone book transferred. I didn't want to go back to the Verizon Wireless store I had the problems with. So I went there and not only did they transfer all the numbers, but they did it without charging the fee, which the technical support person at the other store said that they would. Apparently there is officially a charge to do it, but most places don't, figuring that you're already paying for a new phone and service.

I went into work on friday and sunday morning/early afternoon. Saturday, I finally hung pictures up on my walls. I got my CMU degree up, as well as this, this & this, this, and this. (The last one looks alot better than the picture on the page shows. It's hanging up over my entertainment center.) Not to mention a few that I don't have time to find pictures of on the internet. I also put up a bigger portrait of my niece and nephew that was taking up too much space on my entertainment center. So far, I have the sports pictures on one wall, movies on the other long wall, my degree on the short wall, and miscellaneous up in the bedroom. Next week, sometime, I'm hoping to dig out older photographs of friends and family and put them up on my wall. There is plenty of space under my college degree. After the time I put in preparing my place for my family's visit, I decided I needed to make this place livable so that I wouldn't have to go through it again.

Okay. A update on the phone situation. I went to the verizon store tonight. There was a different woman behind the counter so I explained the problems and what the previous Verizon employees have told me, both at the counter she was at and on the phone at the national customer service. I said I wanted a used "refurbished" phone. (Refurbished was how the woman last week put it.) The lady last week had told me that there were two used phones I could get and, although she didn't explicitly say it, she made it sound like she could get me one immediately. This woman tonight said that I had to get the exact phone I had and there were no used ones available in the region (south Jersey). Now, unlike last time, there was a line of six or so people behind me line waiting. They obviously overheard me a few times saying how the person last week had mentioned nothing about me having to get the exact same phone and had said nothing about there not being any available refurbished phones. All the while, including when she was interupted by a co-worker to talk about another issue, she had my phone and was opening and closing it, despite the fact that I had told her when I had walked up that my phone had a worsening problem where it couldnt' tell if it was open or closed. Well, I was watching it worsen as she spoke to her co-worker. Anyway, I walked out of the store pissed. I decided to immediately call national customer service to see if they can find me a used phone from a different region. I walked back inside and looked on a business card to find the customer service number. I called from my car. I started out by getting a message about the hurricane and what Verizon is doing to help. Well, considering my recent encounter with New Orleans, I'm actually interested in helping the hurricane victims, but not at that moment. I pushed "0". I continued to push "0" until I got put on hold. After five minutes I hung up and tried again. I pushed "0" to get past the hurricane Katrina message then waited for the correct prompt. I waited on hold for less than a minute. From there on, it was good. I've generally had great luck with the personalities on Verizon Wireless customer service. Now they might now always be able to help me, but atleast when they can't they actually sound sincere when they say they're sorry. The girl in the store said sorry in a way that it came out "I'm sorry my co-worker a week ago said something that conflicts with what I believe and is now wasting my time because you keep repeating what she said." A customer service rep for verizon a couple years ago gave me a $5 credit because I had a problem paying a bill on their then-evolving website. Tonight, they apologized and said they could send me a refurbished phone for free. (Their story went along with the girl I spoke with in the store last week that there were two types of used phones available and that I didn't need to get the exact same model I previously had. They couldn't confirm or deny whether any were available in the South Jersey area.) So, they were able to find me one and ship it to me. Shipping was free for 7-10 day shipping or I could have it overnighted at a small cost. I was sick of my semi-working phone, so I paid the extra and will have my phone on thursday (it was too late to get over night shipping tonight). I can activate it over the phone. I have to go to a store with a technical support desk, though, to get the phone numbers transferred. I will be going to a different store to do it. Maybe friday, after my half-day at work, I can go into Philly or to a slightly further verizon store than the one I went to today, and get all my old phone numbers transferred. I'm definitely not going back to the technical support desk of tonight's store.

To summarize: I won't have text messaging until thursday. I also will have only semi-reliable phone service until then. And any text message you send me before then, I won't be able to read.

Well, I've survived the visit from my family. I'll give details about it later. I had a stressful week last week. There was a time crunch on both of the projects I'm working on, preparing for my family's visit, and then there was my telephone. The main screen on my cellphone stopped working. I spent Tuesday evening at the Verizon store trying to understand that, even though there were many phones in the store with prices of under $100, the least I would pay for a new phone was $180. I couldn't get any sale prices for my phone until January, where I'd then be eligible for a free phone. My previous phone, I found out later in the week, is too old to reactivate. So my choices are use my old phone as is until January (which isn't a option since my trying to fix it has made it worse), get a new phone for $180 (which isn't a good option since it resets my new phone date two years ahead), or buy a used phone for $70 and then still be eligible for a new one in January. I'll have to take the final choice. I can't go without a phone til January.

Anyway, the main reason I'm writing this. The way my phone is now, I can see when I get text messages, but I can't see what the message is or who sent it. I'm pretty sure I can attribute all the messages I've received recently to regular automated messages, like sports scores, but, just in case, if you've sent me a text message since last Monday, I wasn't able to see it. So, if the message was important or you just want me to know what the message was, send me a email or simply call me. I can still get my voice mail.

Here's one time I'm glad to see CMU in a headline and not have it be Carnegie Mellon.

I drove back to Pittsburgh this weekend. I left right at Philly evening rush hour and traffic was less than normal. It most likely had to do with people either leaving work early or not working at all to start the long weekend early. People adjusting their commutes due to gasoline prices might also have some responsibility.

My niece is getting big and starting to have a personality. Her older brother, who is now four, has always called me "Uncle Nom". He's now started calling me "Tom" He has fixed the "T" but dropped the "Uncle". I think it's because anyone else who would called me Uncle is too young to speak so he's copying everybody else.

Gas is now over $3 a gallon. I was supposed to drive back to Pittsburgh tomorrow night. It's going to cost me as much as a plane ticket to make the trip. I went out this evening to get gas before it went up further. I decided to also make a trip to the grocery store. On the way to the store, I notice the price to be $3.08. On the way back twenty minutes later, when I stopped at the station to get the gas, it was $3.18.

In honor of current gas price situation, I offer the first verse of Bruce Springsteen's "Held Up Without A Gun":
I was out driving just a taking it slow
Looked at my tank it was reading low
Pulled in a Exxon station out on Highway One
Held up without a gun,
held up without a gun