Sunday, July 30, 2006

Now I'm pissed!!!

One of the joys in "blogging" is that it is a relatively non-commercial enterprise,....well that was until today. Now I'm really pissed!
I was out scanning my favorite blogs and decided to pop into my own blog and see if there were ant comments, sure enough there were three!! Wow! Someone is starting to read my stuff,...cool. So I click intot he "comments" to see who they are and what they had to say and poof, faster than shit, they are all Advertisements! "Cool stuff that you write, check my page "Boston renters". I click and it's a damn ad!!
Ok folks how do we outlaw these or simply spam the shit out of the advertiser until they realize they screwed up big time messing with "blogdom"?
Any ideas or suggestions? Or do I have to start looking for a blog connection that outlaws them by charging me a fee?
I'm disgusted. The last frontier is shattered by Madison Ave. A thousand year pox on them and thier clients!!
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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Why are people so stupid?

I manage what are called "Community Associations" here in Florida. They are better known as "Condo's", but not exclusively. A Community Association is any form of owned living area wherein there are "common" entities involved as well, i.e. swimming pool, tennis courts, private roads, clubhouse, common area landscapign etc. The result is everyone living in the "Association" has to get along and live within a certain "framework of rules" and be careful not to violate them, hence "up-setting" others living there. It's really quite simple,...or is it?
That's what keeps me in business, literally. Now one Association I have has a rule that you must keep all your trash hidden until the evening before the trash collector comes, then and only then can you have your rubbish barrels at the curb for emptying. And they must be out of sight again the evening of the trash pickup day after they have been emptied. Simple, right?
Apparently not as so far I've gotten at least ten calls about this one home in the neighborhood wherein every day another odious black plastic trash bag appears in front of the garage door (Oh the shame of it all. The beginnings of a ghetto is upon us!) My phone calls are running sort of like this,
"Hi I just wanted to tell you that you are doing a great job managing things, but I did want to let you know about one tiny problem I saw coming home from picking up my medical prescriptions from the drug store. You know that "pink house" on the corner? Well they have bags of trash all over the driveway ion front of thier garage door. It's not supposed to be outside until wednesday evening and it's only monday. It looks like hell and it's making the whole neighborhood look terrible. We bought in here because it was so pretty and neat and these people have no consideration for the rules and they don't care about the property, and the next thing you know they'll be hanging laundry out to dry and all, it's just disgusting, you have to do soemthing about it!"
"I understand. Do you know who owns the house?"
" I think the folks live up in Indiana, ...Terre Haute, (aside) is that where Mabel and Charlie come from honey?,.......Yeah, Terre Haute."
"Then who's living in the house?"
"I guess they must be renters."
"Have you met them, or have any name or anything?"
"No."
"So how should we procede?"
"Well send then a letter and tell them we're going to fine them a hundred dollars a day for everyday there is a bag out there outside the accepted times."
"And why should they care, they are just renting and they don't own it and you really can't fine them by law."
"Well send the letter to the owners then. They have to take care of it."
" Ok, I'll tell them I recieved a complaint from you about this...."
" No, don't use my name, Mary beth and I know them. I don't want them to be mad at us. Tell them someone else told you."
"Well I'm sure they will want to know who told me, wouldn't you? Particularly if they live a thousand miles away and are going to be fined a hundred dollars a day!"
"Well,... can't you do it some other way?"
"Certainly,...what do you suggest?"
" Well I don't know. Listen I've got to go I'm running late for the men's club lunch meeting, but take care of that for us."

"Yeah right!"
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Sunday, July 23, 2006

Zapped from the twilight zone !!!!

Remember all that "six degrees of separation" stuff. Sounds good in theory, but I got one better,...you'll love this!
About four or five monthes ago my cell phone bit the dust. (Totally immersed in water for about thirty seconds and kaput from there on out.) Now for the first time in my adult life I had actually been smart because it was a Blackberry I got the handset insurance. Step 1, call my Nextel dealer,"Take it to the Nextel Repair center downtown, they'll just swap it out for you." EXCELLENT! and away I go. A while later I sign a paper, they hand me the new one and tell me there will be a $35 charge for the exchange on my next bill. God I love having been smart enough to get the insurance! It was worth it,...or so I thought.
Flash forward to last Wednesday night, I get home, pick up the mail, come in the house, change into my "comfy" clothes, pour a glass of my favorite Austrailian Shiraz, drop into the relcliner and start opening the mail. Usual "FREE mortgage quote", "0% finance charge until Christmas" crap, and a letter from Nextel. (They are always wasting postage trying to push the free phone with a new line, yada, yada,yada! Normally I would have just trashed it, but on the off chance that meant I could get a second Blackberry for my wife, I open them.) BIG mistake.
"Dear sir, our technician has determined that the Blackberry handset you turned in three months ago is definately DBR, (damaged beyond repair), therefore we are sending you a brand new Blackberry and postage paid return packing to return the re-furbished one you recieved and have been using. We will also be charging your account $399.58 for the new unit. Thank you for......."
"Attention Houston, the rocket has gone ballistic, and is travelling downrange from the recliner to the telephone at extreme speed with strange sounds emmanating from it." I literally punch in the "866" number from the letter, should I have "any questions in this matter". Damn right I got questions!
After ten minutes of elevator music while I wait "for the next available agent" I get a human being, the usual this is Maryann (or some such) may I help you. And the fencing begins. I tell her the story, I tell her I'm very happy with the one they gave me, it's working fine, I don't need or want another one, and much less I don't even want to hear about a $399.58 charge, so correct it now,please.
"Sir you signed an agreement when you brought your broken phone in to us and we gave you a re-furbished unit, do you remember that?"
"Of course I do it was a receipt, and I also filled in the srvice card and commented how quickly and accomodating your folks were, so what!"
" Well sir if you had taken the time to read it more closely you will see that you agreed to pay for a new unit if our technicians ultimately determined it was damaged beyond repair. "
"That's why I opted for the handset insurance on it when I bought it originally, check your records please, you'll see it right on the bill every month, and you'll notice the bill is paid every month on time, no problems, etc."
"Yes sir I see that, but that doesn't cover this situation."
"WHAT! You have to be kidding? It is a handset, it doesn't work, what the hell is the insurance for? It fell into water for thirty seconds and quit, that's why I bought the insurance."
" You would have to take that up with the insurance company sir. The insurance covers the loss of the cell phone unit in water. Did you contact them?"
"So you're telling me if I went down to the ocean and threw the son of a b***** in the ocean, then called you and said I lost it in the ocean, then the insurance would take care of it?"
"Yes sir, that's correct."
"Get me a supervisor. I need to talk to a reasonable person capable of thinking. "
More damn elevator music.
"Hello Mr. Guinness, this is Corey, my agent tells me you are having a problem?
"That's correct, let me fill you in...." so I re-iterate the entire situation again and the senselessness of everything.
"Well Mr. Guinness, I see your point, but you did sign the paper when you picked up the refurbished unit to use, and it clearly states,......"
"Look Corey, you sound intelligent, can't we just get to the heart of this matter? I don't want, or need a brand new phone. The one you gave me works perfectly well. I am a happy camper. No harm, no foul, just cancel the whole thing and we can all get back to our regularly broadcast lives. Simple enough?"
"I can't do that sir, you did sign the form."
"Look Corey, I can take and tell you to take your phone and shove it and go across the street to your competition and get a brand new phone FREE, and sign up for thier service which is just as good as yours!"
"That would be your perogative sir."
"Are you telling me your boss doesn't give a shit if you lose customers?
"I guess not."
"Fine so send the damn phone and let's just be done with this insanity."

And so it ended, or so I thought until I checked in on my "blog" the next morning and noticed I had a new comment on it. So I punch up the comments to read them and almost shit, for here was the comment I saw,
"Daniel Burton said,
Again sir thank you for calling Nextel, my name is Daniel and since I got off work after your call, in NO WAY am I here to help you today.
Just the same, it was nice talking to an intelligent person tonight."

Is that twilight zone or what? I don't remember even telling them I had a blog, let alone it's title, or web location. I guess Big Brother can really reach out and touch someone!!

Scary huh?

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Monday, July 17, 2006

Monday comes around pretty fast!

Well, it's Monday morning again. Time to crank it up again for another week. The two job thing is really starting to get to me. Iwas looking at the calendar and I have been doing this for 11 weeks now! 7:30am to 5 pm Monday thru Friday, at job one, five to nine-thirty at job two Tuesday,Wednesday, and Thursday, and 8:30 am to 4 pm on Saturday, giving me one day off, Sunday! Well it's starting to wear on me. Time to start weaning myself off the night job.
I got used to the money well enough, bought new clothes for the new job (that whole new "beach professional look" you know?) bought a few "toys" for my race to stay technologically on top of it, and have been thinking about some other stuff like a generator for the house in the event of more storms and lost power, paying down my credit cards to zero for a while, and getting a new vehicle with a litttle more room in it for my "stuff". But the generator, if you are going to get one, should run the whole damn house (about $5,000 at cost) so what's the point? I want my creature comforts like A/C, computers, TV, etc. while the wife just wants the refrigerator to run, and maybe the microwave. Consensus is,.....pass on the generator! Now payoff the credit cards and leave them empty for a while, very admirable goal, mark of sound fiscal management, very mature thought process,.......Consensus? ......not happening! While all those good traits for cash management and personal finance are there,...well, ...it's just not me!
So that leaves me with the new vehicle thing.
First of all both our vehicles are paid off already. Secondly they are both running pretty good. (Sure a few "pain in the ass things" like only AM/FM radio in mine, a vastly under achieving A/C system in her's, no room for stuff in my little pick up cab, no little gas powered piston thing to keep the back window up when you're trying to put stuff in there. And on and on, and on,....but all piddily little shit,..... so I guess we just keep the vehicles until this gasoline cost shit settles down a bit.
Long and short? Only 7 more weeks to Labor day and I can say good bye to the second job. Hmmmm, if I were to throw the whole check at the credit card I really could pay it off in that time! That would put me in good shape for Christmas, and a few other things I need to be concerned about. Hell I might even be able to set up one of those pre-paid cremation things. (Now is that a sick thought? But at sixty-one I guess it has to start eating it's way into my "long -term planning" process,... and I do mean long, like maybe another thirty or forty years!)
Well, so much for this mornings trials and tribulations! I've got at least twenty hours of "stuff" to do today so I may as well go shave, shower and get dressed and jump into it,....tempus is fugiting!

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Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Out and about,...sort of!

Ohhh! Still recovering from the world cup final. The wife safely off to work for the day I ambled over to my local pub, decided to have a full lunch there before the Cup Final began, and then relax and enjoy the game.
So I ordered a Grouper sandwich, cole slaw, french fries (I was pulling for Italy,...damn I should have ordered a side of pasta!), and a pint o' plain (i.e. Guinness) to wash it all down. The pre-game show was only a half hour long (Hmmm! Maybe they should apply this to the Superbowl and get rid of the six hours of "pre-game" crap. I came for the game, not the History of sporting events from the first neolithic hopscotch world championship.)
The Grouper was ok, not great, but it filled a hole anmd gave me supreme confidence I was a good dooby, not just hanging out at the pub drinking on an empty stomach.
There was a nice young couple next ot me and about ten other people in the entire place watching the World Cup. However they were loaded with other fans, all watching NASCAR! (I won't go there, suffice it to say sitting on your butt, turning left for three hours at 175 miles an hour is not my idea of an athletic event!) Apologies to all the legions of NASCAR folks, but isn't it the only sport, other than the Gladiatorial events, borne out of illegal transgressions? In other words the original sport was developed out of dudes running "white lightning" illegally on old back roads trying to outrun the police and "revenuer's". So aside from no police presence on the track, and no "hootch" in the vehicles, where has the "progress" of the sport been? Oh, I said I wasn't going there,...sorry, back to the World Cup.
It was genuinely a good game, I really enjoyed it. The one thing I must say is that the referee was outstanding! He was right there when he needed top be, was recognizing true fouls from the "Oscar winning" performances, and overall did a great job. Zidane blew it with his head butt, and rightly so was evicted from the game. (Sure would have liked to have been a fly on the wall and heard what the Italian said to him to provoke such a violent response!). I honestly believe that was the pivitol moment for the French. From there on out it was Italy's game to lose.
Well, duty calls and I must go and referee aBoard of Directors meeting this morning in about an hour and a half so it's time to prepare, don my armor, sharpen my pen, polish my red cards and yellow cards, and do the fifteen minutes of "impartiality look" aerobics in front of the mirror in preparation.
Have a good day, and remember,.....it's always a good day when your name missed the obituaries!
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Saturday, July 01, 2006

Going Down!!!

Man am I glad to be back at sea level! At the 7,000 feet above sea level breathing is a chore. In fact every night I was out there I'd sleep for about four hours and then snap awake feeling almost strangled and have to breath for a while before I could go back to sleep again, and more than once I had to slow down or sit down and catch my breath. At first I got concerned I might be having one of those "shortness of breath" warnings about having a heart attack, then my son told me it happens to everyone at this altitude, that's why the athletes train ing the high country. Guess what? They can keep it.
Ok it was beautiful, being surrounded by peaks and almost vertical chuncks of earth just rising over you. The greenness of the hills, the old 2002 Olympic event ski jumps and trails so evident on the mountainsides, all "spectacular", but not my cup of tea. The dryness was also incredible. It's a constant round of cracked lips, bloody noses, and itchy skin! Enough of my whinning, there's enough folks living out there that it must be good for them! Thanks for the opportunity to see it all, but the ocean is my grounding point. Sea level is my point of origin.
Folks were extremely polite out there, at every turn. I'd have to say it was one of the friendliest places I've been in a while. But much like the sea coast or beach resorts, the real estate out there has gone nuttsy as well. I guess if you are a skier this is your idea of a little piece of heaven, a week-end "get-a-way" etc. The little cottages that the original silver miners built a hundred years ago are selling for as much as beachside cottages here on the Gulf of Mexico. Well I guess the proper summation is simply, "different strokes for different folks."
I'm glad to be home and back at my own keyboard. I took my laptop and filled a lot of my "waiting time" out there learning new things ("Egad Livingstone,...he can still learn! Astounding hey what?") I joined one of those music download places. For an old fart it's great because it seems they have every song and album ever recorded. I down loaded one of my favorites, Chuck Mangione, and completely enjoyed having a grest listen, and having it on my laptop any time I want to listen to it. I played with some pictures we took and realized how woefully short the regular software that come with the digital camera is actually. Guess I'll be in the market for some of that stuff soon. I used to love taking pictures, and doing picture studies. But I sort of got away from it and all. Maybe I'll give it a shot and try and get back into it again. In the "neolithic age" back then you had to have your film developed and wait and then realize 75% of what you shot just didn't meet you expectations, but that's all gone now with the digital camera. My only peeve is that stupid honking big window thing on the back. I am not comfortable trying to frame a picture with the camera a few feet out on the end of my arm, but the "regualr" view finders on the digital cameras just don't seem to be good enough to really "see" your shot.
Oh yeah, I made the plunge into the world of "Wi-fi" while I was out there. The hotel had a sign saying it was a wi-fi ready space and when I bought my laptop a year or so ago it came with the "centrino technology" so I said what the hell. It wasn't anywhere as difficult as I thought to make it work and inside ten minutes I was up and surfing. Maybe I'll try and use it locally now as well. The local Whataburger is a free wi-fi spot so I'll try them next.
Well it's July 3rd today, the town is jammin' and about a month left til the "young-uns" go back to school and things settle down again. Looks like it's been a good tourist year thus far, but they aren't "pre-booking" like they used to before the last two "hurricane years". It seems it's a look at the weather for next week, make a couple calls, and we leave tomorrow mode, as opposed to the old model of months of planning reservations fifteen weeks in advance, etc. What it is doing though is putting a huge strain on everything because you never know what's happening until you are in the thick of it. That means local plans are disrupted, traffic is crazier, and everything builds to a cresendo of noise and aggravation.
For example after I closed up the shop Saturday night I decoded to stop for a pint at my local. Now normally, any time in the year by 9:30 the places are all emptying out and folks are headed back to thier condo's and hotels to get rested for tomorrow's assault on the beaches, but not this year. They were still on a wait until after 10 pm for dinner! How crazy is that? I had to stand up and decided that was not my idea of a "brief respite" before heading hime, so I went home.
Well gotta go shower, shave and head out to work and see what earth-shattering crisis occured while I was gone (already heard about six or seven of them while I was on vacation! "Mrs. Jones can't remember the code to punch in the gate to get to the beach, do you know what it is?" Certainly, I always keep the gate codes for eleven different locations in the forefront of my mind when I'm almost two thousand miles away on vacation, ...don't you?)
More tomorrow.
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