Story Archive - June 2006

Bathrooms for Rednecks Only (06/26/2006)

May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless America. - George W. Bush

I'm cruising through the boonies with one of my gothicesque friends and he complains, "I need a restroom. Can you pull over at the next stop." I pull over into a hick gas station with a giant "God Bless America" flag painted across the front, two biker guys on Harleys and pair of hooches in their rag top Mustang. Mr. Hipster is hesitant to get out of the car. "Do I need to go to the next gas station?" "Yeah, I'm worried about the crap I might get here." So we get back onto the freeway and go one stop down. The next stop was no better, except that the bathroom was off the side an unlocked so he could easily sneak in and out without incurring the rather of the redneck. On the other hand, I went in the front door in my Sacramento Rivercats shirt and bought some beef jerky, or dessicated cow. Tasty.

She can ban. Ban you so hard. (06/21/2006)

We were there to take your calls, not solve your problems. - Kyle Killen

This past weekend my father asked if I could help him set up his Vonage phone. His office had provided him with a device that could connect to a router and would allow a normal phone to attach to it. I would never be brave enough to think a device like this would work well, but I rolled up my sleeves, took two shots of Fernet, poured a very large glass of Bacardi Bahama Mama and started the process.

At the Vonage web site I tried a few different "Sign Up Now" links, but during the flow I was always taken to part where I had to select a device to purchase. It took too much drunken confusion before I finally saw the "Already Bought Your Box?" link. That flow worked much better and I got to enter in the MAC address of the device and my billing information. It completed and my status showed up as "IN PROGRESS" and it directed me to check the progress by logging in.

I couldn't log into the site with the username and password I had just created, but assuming there might be some delay I sat back and had a few more drinks to let the minutes tick past. The login still didn't work. I called technical support.

The level 1 technical support woman had a fine Indian accent. My father always asks the name of the technical support person he is speaking to, but I never bother. It doesn't actually help to solve the problem. She asked for my Vonage phone number, but this hadn't been assigned to me yet. She asked for my account number, but I hadn't seen this yet either. She claimed it would be in a confirmation mail, but I hadn't gotten one. Finally I gave my sign-up confirmation and she was able to give me my account number and confirm my sign up was "IN PROGRESS." She said she would forward me on and put me back on hold.

The level 2 technical support man also had a fine Indian accent. He asked for my Vonage phone number, and I offered my Vonage Account number which worked out. He happily confirmed that my account was "IN PROGRESS" and asked what else he could do for me. I explained the entire situation to him again and he reminded me that the account was "IN PROGRESS" and that I should just wait. I added my complaints about my inability to log into the system using the username and password I just created and the lack of any confirmation e-mail from Vonage. He said he would format me on and put me back on hold.

The level 3 technical support man had an American accent, so I assume he was been doing customer service work in India long enough to have perfected it. He asked for my Vonage phone number, I offered the account number. Without a need to explain the situation he jumped in, "Well it looks like the device you provided has already been assigned to a different account number in the system for [insert name of company here]." AHA! Progress! That was the name of my father's company! "Ohh, this is easy. I'll put in a MAC address ticket and it will get switched over in twelve to twenty-four hours. You'll get an e-mail with a ticket number in about fifteen minutes." Since I hadn't received any e-mails yet from Vonage, I still had a lingering concern that the mails were making it through and I asked him for the ticket number. "Well, the ticket doesn't have a number yet. It can't get a number until it's attached to an account, and you're account is still IN PROGRESS, but it should go through in another fifteen minutes and you'll get a ticket number then." I think that's a lie. So I brought up my other problem that I couldn't log in using the username/password I had just created. He triggered a password reset e-mail, which I did receive, and I was able to log in and in fact see my account was "IN PROGRESS." I asked if I could stay on the phone until the ticket was generated, and he said it would definitely happen, I could safely hang up. I was in a good mood because of the drinks and hung up. The phone said it had only been a forty-three minute long conversation.

Fast-forward sixteen hours to the next morning after church. There was no e-mail with a ticket number and the account still displayed "IN PROGRESS" proudly in the web application. I called technical support.

The level 1 technical support woman had a fine Indian accent. I explained the entire problem. She found no MAC address ticket associated with my account. Then she forwarded me.

The level 2 technical support woman had a fine Indian accent. I explained the entire problem. She said there was a billing issue and forwarded the call.

The billing department man had an American accent. He put got my account number and put me on hold immediately. Three minutes later he returned and kindly said, "Well, I don't know what's wrong with your account. So I deleted it and refunded the charges. Just try again through the website." I asked about my MAC address ticket, "No problem. Just use the same e-mail and your ticket will work fine." I hung up feeling like the problem was at its conclusion. The phone asid it had only been a thirty-seven minute long conversation. Across the six people, there was an average call time of over thirteen minutes.

I explained it all to my father who rolled up his sleeves ready to try signing up again through the website. My jaw hit the floor, but it was father's day. So we followed the process again, but this time when we entered the MAC address it just gave an error stating, "the MAC address is invalid." I left.

My father decided it was his turn to try a conversation with technical support. A few hours later and nothing was solved. Sorry Vonage, but it will be a very long time before I'm ready to recommend your product.

The Sermons Were Boring, and We Liked It! (06/19/2006)

I'm old and I'm not happy. Everything today is improved and I don't like it. - Grumpy Old Man (Dana Carvey - SNL)

I went home for Father's Day Weekend to see my father. The temperature in Sacramento was triple-digits. My last few years in the bay have caused my to lose my acclamation to the heat. On Saturday my father said, "I thought we'd have dinner when the temperature dropped below 80" and I had to say, "Crap; we'll be eating at midnight." Together the four of us easily went through three liters of Bahama Mama Bacardi beverage. I guess that's where I get my lush half from.

There was over and hour of time talking with Vonage tech support trying to get my father's phone hooked up. It did not go well. What should have been easy was painfully hard. I never give a hard time to tech support. There job is thankless and hard. They can only do as well as their training and tools allow them. While Vonage has a catchy jingle, they still have a ways to go to compete with the phone company. I'm a Skype user myself, and a large fan of it.

We went to church on Sunday with my grandmother and attended the traditional service. There were about four new age rock hymns that were sung and the preacher was the front man. It's weird to think that at my age I prefer the colder more traditional ceremonies. I want to hear the Word and I want to hear a sermon based on it. Maybe my Catholic schooling has done that to me.

I've been struggling a little recently physically and emotionally. There haven't been any mid-life relapses, but there are things bubbling up that need some re-work. The biggest challenge is just a lack of time. I look at my schedule for the next four to six weeks and I see an incredibly busy work schedule and an incredibly busy fun schedule and just have to wonder where I'm going to fit in the time to have a good sit.

Dreaming of Work (06/16/2006)

Dream no small dream; it lacks magic. - Donald Wills Douglas

I had a conference call from 10:30pm until 11:30pm for work last night and then went straight to bed to wake up for a conference call from 8am to 3:30pm the next day. During the night I had a long and vivid dream about being in a meeting. Can't I at least have dreams about happy thoughts? The meeting had a double-decked conference table with two layers of people all packed together. The top level of the conference table was made of glass providing a great view between levels. I think the idea is genius. Patent pending.

During the meeting we paused to take a smoke break. I went flying. My standard dream flight is a slow levitation, but this was more of a gentle swim. I would float around the conference room and went for a jaunt down the hall outside by providing very light flipper kicks with my feet to propel me. It was fun.

After work I went to the Stanford bookstore to try and buy a new MacBook Pro. The store was sold out of the model that I wanted. It had seven in stock on Tuesday according to their inventory sheet. Since the school year is over, all the students are buying up computers before they leave for the summer. Mine next computer is on order. I guess I will get it sometime next week. My plan is to have it all set up and configured before I leave for the Fourth of July weekend.

My Toys are Old! (06/15/2006)

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. - Henry David Thoreau

My PS2 is dying on me. It doesn't even seem to able to play DVDs anymore. I can't play some of the new games. I need to try putting a cleaner through it to see if things will resolve themselves, but I think it's gone. It's too soon for it to die. It needs to last until the PS3 comes out and I can spend two million dollars on it. Why is the PS3 so expensive anyway? Sure, I'll buy one, but only out of stupid corporate loyalty.

I have corporate loyalty for a few companies, but I keep it up. The PS2 was my first Sony, but it rocked. It was my first and has always been my only DVD player. I probably use it more often to play DVDs than to play games. Though I love it for DDR. Dancing has never been so cool.

I have been a Palm user since my first US Robotics Palm Pilot Pro and it frightens me how much money I have spent on my Palm III, PalmVx and current Palm m505. My Palm is dying on my too. It's many years old and suffers from USB death too frequent of a basis. It's dead right now, so I can't sync it with my Mac. The Treo is a crappy camera, crappy phone and crappy PDA all rolled into one, so I'm looking at one of the new Tungsten handheld from Palm.

I feel like a recent Mac switcher, even though I have owned my current PowerBook G4 for three years. I have never been a fan of Windows (I was an OS/2 user long after it still made sense to be one), so I wasn't giving up a lot in the switch. Now I am a giant Mac fan. It meets all of my needs more effectively than my windows machine. The amount of cool little tasks that I have cool little shell scripts, crontabs and other Unix goodies running on my system always surprises me. I have also fallen in love with listening to Podcasts on my iPod. My daily commute is made so much better by listening to these goodies. Plus, it is far safer than watching movies on my PSP during my commute.

My phone, the Ericsson T610, is also a few years old but the phone is the one thing I have desire to upgrade. It can make calls. What else does a phone need to do? The convergence of cramming all sorts of other dumb technologies into the phone is something that has always frustrated me. I don't need to browse the wired on my phone. I just need to make phone calls with it.

Anyway, the upgrade plan in my life right now goes: new laptop (MacBook Pro 15"), new PDA (Tungsten E2), new camera (PowerShot SD450), new iPod (Nano 4GB), new console (PS3), new card (flying Prius).

Wicket (06/13/2006)

I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further. - Darth Vader (Empire)

A few weeks ago, one roommate wanted to adopt a cat. He wanted to adopt a twenty-five pound Maine Coon. We vetoed. I don't even weigh twenty-five pounds. Our exact veto went something like, "See, you did this wrong. You should have just shown up with a kitten, and then since we are tools, we wouldn't have stopped you."

One week later he showed up with a kitten. He took our joke too literally. Still, we are tools, and kittens are kittens so how can one say no? Her name is Wicket. She came to us rescued from a construction site and just a few weeks old. She is older now, but not much bigger, and at least able to climb up and down the stairs freely.

Right at this moment she is slowly creeping into my room. I've kept my door shut most of the time since she moved in, so my room is a magical and new place to her. For most of my childhood I thought I wanted a cat. It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized what I truly wanted was for my friends to have kittens.