Customer Service.

Monday, April 30
Them: “Hello, this is Davidson’s Chevrolet in Rome (author’s note- caller ID says they’re calling from Watertown, over 80 miles away) and we’d like to let you know that the part you ordered has arrived. Could you please call and schedule a time to bring your car in?”
Me (ignoring the fact that she wants me to hang up and call back to schedule an appointment): “Uh, the car is already there. You looked at the problem, determined that you needed to order a part and so you did. Can you just go ahead and install it?”
Them: “I’ll call parts.”
Me: “Shouldn’t you call service?”
Them: “Yes. Thank you. Good-bye.”

Wednesday, May 2
Earl: “Hello, I’m calling to check the status of my car. The part has been in since Monday. Has it been installed?”
Them: “We are waiting for you to bring the car in.”
Earl: “You’ve had the car for the past week.”
Them: “We don’t know where it is.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday, April 26
Earl at the bank: “I’d like to apply for a home improvement loan.” (patio and landscaping)
HSBC: “No problem.”
They complete the application, Earl signs his life away.
HSBC: “We’ll have an answer for you on Friday, Monday at the latest. I’ll call your cell phone when I have an answer.”

Wednesday, May 2
Earl (after searching 45 minutes for the local branch phone number, since HSBC only wants you to call Singapore, Pakistan or India, depending on who’s cheapest today): “I’m calling for the status of my loan application. It’s been almost a week and I was told that I would have an answer by Monday at the latest.”
HSBC: “We don’t have any record of a loan application.”

This, gentle readers, is one of the many reasons that Old Glory is going right down the tubes. Lousy customer service has become commonplace and fully accepted in our society and no one gives a care.

This is just plain wrong.

2 May 2007 by Let's All Rant. 3

Room 104.

The year was 1974. The room was numbered 104. I was in the first grade at the newly christened Lura Sharp Elementary School in Upstate New York. My teacher, Miss Kania, was a young woman that I found incredibly beautiful. She was smart and hip and pretty and had beautiful eyes. This was her first year as a first grade teacher, every year before and afterwards she taught third grade.

School officially started at 9:10. The buses started arriving around 8:45. Our bus driver, Mr. Curry, must have been a leadfoot, because bus 43 was always the first bus to arrive at school. If we had behaved during the ride, we were allowed off the bus and into the school for an informal recess before class started. If we were unruly on the bus, he’d park next to the playground and we’d just sit there, watching the other buses pass, watching our friends gather as they met each other before walking into the school, without us. He’d then let us off the bus at 9:05, leaving us just enough time to get settled before the buzzer sounded the beginning of our studies.

During the informal recess before class, Miss Kania often set up this old dinosaur of a record player. Normally used for playing records such as “Free To Be… You And Me” and instructional narration that accompanied a filmstrip, she let us bring in our favorite records to enjoy.

Scott brought in some old waltz record he’d pilfered from his parent’s collection. I don’t know why he liked those waltzes but he always did. He and Janice would try to waltz around the braided rug. He’d usually stomp on one of her feet.

Bobby (who was killed the year before we all graduated) brought in some nursery rhyme, sing-along type record. Once in a while he’d bring in something from the Mickey Mouse Club.

I always wanted to make everyone have fun dancing, so I brought in my Mom’s copy of “Rubberneckin'” by Elvis Presley. I’d get the girls to do 1st grade versions of go-go dancing and the boys would dance like monkeys all around Room 104. I cranked the music up so loud that it broke the volume knob off the old dinosaur of a record player. We ended up having to get a replacement. Miss Kania was pretty and nice, she didn’t scold me for it.

Today I stumbled upon the video for the Paul Oakenfold Remix of “Rubberneckin'” from 2003. I hope it makes you want to dance.

1 May 2007 by DJ 1

Bad Geek?

Earl is out of town tonight. Normally we’d just TiVo “Heroes” and watch it when he gets home. In fact, we’ll still watch it together later in the week but curiosity got the best of me so I watched it tonight.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to post any spoilers.

I did not enjoy this episode. I didn’t like it at all. In fact, I hated it. But I’m sure the remaining episodes will be excellent episodes, as we’ve come to expect from the series.

It’s obvious that this is a “throw-away” episode, designed to get the final three episodes of the season squarely into May sweeps. This is the first time that I’ve been disappointed with the show since “Heroes” debuted last fall. Maybe I’m getting old.

Oh, and I still can not stand the Nicki/Jessica character.

I hope I don’t lose geek or gay points because of this.

30 April 2007 by Ponderings and Musings 2

Electrician.




Electrician.

Originally uploaded by jp2.0.

Earl and I decided that we should continue our run of home improvement projects around the house. I find it kind of funny that we are doing this sort of thing, as we sold our last house because there were just too many projects to do.

Oh well.

We started out the fun by getting rid of some of the leftover clutter from the building of the rooms in the cellar. We intended on taking it to the dumpster at Earl’s work, but they were good employees and locked up the yard gates per Earl’s orders. This was bad for us. So now we have a load of junk in the back of the Jeep that I’ll have to take to the recycling center tomorrow.

After that run of fun, I decided that the clock in our garage (which is part of my collection of school clocks) needed to have it’s wiring hidden instead of being tacked along the wall. This involved pulling wiring through insulated walls but surprisingly it didn’t go badly and I didn’t end up drilling from the garage into the adjacent laundry room.

The relocation of the clock looks spiffy.

Now I’m currently taking a break of installing new lights in a remote area of the cellar. Earl was impressed with the fact that I was wearing safety glasses, so he snapped a photo.

Tuesday night the landscaping people come to tell us how much it’s going to cost to relocate our dirt.

Fun times in the JPnEarl household.

29 April 2007 by Flickr 2

Retro Time.

I love “Never Can Say Goodbye” as performed by The Communards in 1987. I *always* play this track when I’m spinning (usually the last fast song of the night). Today’s dance music doesn’t come close to the energy of songs like this. Plus, it brings back so many fond memories from my first spin at college and “Doc’s”, the classy(?) bar in Jamestown, N.Y.

Enjoy the video.

28 April 2007 by DJ 0

Oh Alec.

I’m trying to decide if I like Alec Baldwin these days. This picture of him from years ago helps me sway my decision a little bit, but just a little.

Alec Baldwin.

Of course Alec has been part of the latest breaking headlines from Hollywood, after he left a very ridiculous, sad and unbelievably angry and hostile voicemail for his young daughter, Ireland. Yesterday he appeared on “The View”, in a double segment no less, where he joined Barbara Walters and Rosie O’Donnell to give his side of the story of what actually happened and the aftermath of it all.

Alec is now heading up the cause of “Parental Alienation”. He is trying to bring awareness of this to the masses. He has also written a book which will be released in September. Per his appearance on “The View”, Alec wanted out of his contract with NBC for “30 Rock” so he could focus on this instead. Sources say NBC responded with a “no”.

O.k., he said some hateful things to his daughter on that voicemail message. Let’s face it, you really shouldn’t call anyone a pig and especially not your family. Alec knows that. He lost his cool. He took out frustrations with his ex-wife on his daughter. I think that’s readily apparent. It doesn’t make what he did acceptable by any means, but people lose their cool and they need to learn and move on from the experience. But you know what, that message should have never been made public in the first place. Years ago I went on a rant that rivaled Alec’s voicemail performance. I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted that rant to be seen by anyone in the general public. It’s amazing that I can interact with the target of my venom once in a while and have it be an amicable experience. So in a way, I feel for Alec in that regard.

But what kind of creeped me out was the whole interview itself. Barbara Walters desperately tried to go into 20/20 mode, but Alec wasn’t having any of it and pretty much steered the direction and tempo of the interview. Barbara was visibly uncomfortable with this. Rosie looked like she was a little uncomfortable as well but for different reasons. This style of interview is not her forté and she certainly gets an “E” for effort.

I guess I felt that Alec was trying too hard to do damage control. To me it felt like it was too soon for this sort of thing. He looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep, he stammered and stuttered a little bit and while I appreciate the scruffy face, he really should have shaved if he wanted to put his best face forward so to speak. People notice that sort of thing.

So do I like Alec Baldwin? I guess time will tell. I’ll download “30 Rock” and catch up on it this summer. I’ll see how he behaves in the future.

For now I’ll keep enjoying his scruff in the proper situations as well.

28 April 2007 by Celebrity Self Destruction. 4

Telstar.

Today has been one of them days where you think you’re accomplishing things but then you look around and it seems like nothing has been done.

We started the morning fairly early. At 8 a.m. on the dot, a contractor arrived to give us the quote for the new patio we’re having put in. The back deck is gone and we’ve opted for a stamped concrete patio; the contractor gave us two bits of good news: 1. It will be done within two weeks, 2: the price is very reasonable.

Yay! Where do we sign on the dotted line?

With that accomplished, we had hoped to clean up what was left of the deck but April showers prevailed. So I suggested “Plan B”. In an effort to save money, Earl and I have been talking about dropping DirecTV and going with a traditional antenna instead. Several of the stations in the area are now broadcasting HDTV digitally over-the-air, so I figured between these feeds and the AppleTV, we’d be fine with our entertainment fill. Off to Radio Shack we went, where we picked out a moderately priced antenna that could be mounted on the side of the house without looking like we were trying to pick up secret conversations from Telstar.

Just for kicks I installed the antenna in a makeshift arrangement in an effort to confirm that we’d be getting a decent signal. I figured it’s better to be safe than sorry before calling DirecTV and telling them to pull our plug.

That’s when Earl realized that we weren’t going to get ESPN, Discovery, Lifetime, Logo, et. al. anymore.

I think he paled.

So the antenna went back in the box and is destined to be returned and DirecTV will continue to tap our wallets for something that was free back in the day.

After our little Telstar drama, Earl and I made supper together, which was an enjoyable experience. After our delicious meal, he said he’d help with loading the dishwasher, where I was presented with this (images are clickable in this new blog format):

Dishwasher.

He’s such a kidder.

28 April 2007 by Fun and Games Dept 1

Blog Maintenance: Here We Are.

Well, I’ve messed around with this blog layout on and off all day today. After a discussion with Earl regarding our website, we’ve decided that we’re going to completely revamp the site, so this is the new look of the blog.

I hope that you find your reading experience in this new format to be enjoyable, please let me know if there are any quirks that you encounter. I’ll still be tweaking here and there as my moderate OCD kicks in, so you might see a few improvements once in a while.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program!

27 April 2007 by Geek 0

The Panera Experience.

Earl and I are sitting in our local Panera. Oh, by the way, we’re back home from Gettysburg. This is our second Panera stop today.

Earl finished up his meetings this morning around 11, so we checked out of the hotel and hit the road. We were originally going to visit some of the historic sites and the battlefield at Gettysburg, but Mother Nature decided that we should visit another time when it’s sunny, so we headed north to Harrisburg. Earl had a conference call at noon, so I got him situated in the car in The Capital City Mall parking lot. I went and browsed while he chatted with his peers on the cell phone. He then joined me for lunch when he was done.

It was still raining so we decided to head home. To break up the monotony otherwise known as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, we stopped at a new retail outlet called “The Shoppes at Montage”. By the way, adding the “ppes” to “shops” makes it trés chic.

Actually, it’s a nice place to browse and shop. We picked up a couple of picture frames for the house at The Christmas Shoppe. We also had a quick snack at the new Panera there.

We got home just a little while ago. It’s still raining, but not too bad. Not in the mood to cook, Earl suggested our local Panera where we could surf and dine. So that’s what we are doing right now. Like many of the retail establishments in our area, this Panera has been “localfied” with a strategic amount of wear, tear and disarray to make the locals feel at home.

I find the effect rather disconcerting.

27 April 2007 by Fun and Games Dept Geek 0

Blog Maintenance: Don’t Be Afraid

I’m in the process of migrating my blogging software to a new platform (WordPress). It should be done by the end of the weekend. You might see some weird messages or changing formats untiI I get everything in place, but fear not, my entries and your comments will not be lost. I would never let that happen.

Update! If you’re using an RSS Feed to monitor this, you’ll probably have to update your bookmark/favorite.

26 April 2007 by Geek 2

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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