Month: August 2004

The Picnic

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I had a good time at the company picnic on Sunday. We had it in upstate NY. The company rented a bus and brought the NYC people up there. We had a good time. The place was very nice. They had a lake, a pool and lots of open land.

Our NYC softball team played the Kingston people in a game. It was fun. I got really sore from running. I didn’t even run that much, but I am out of shape. I didn’t realize how out of shape until I ran that little and could barely walk afterward.

It was a nice day. it was not too hot out. I got to jump in the bouncy gym by myself. I didn’t get egg on me from the egg toss. And I ate allot of BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs.

I got a lift home with Glenn instead of taking the bus back to the office. Got dropped off a block from my place. Not bad.

Comedy Club Night

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We saw Heath perform at the Inprov NY comedy club tonight. I have never seen his act before. I lived in queens and never wanted to stay in the city so late to see the act. I was missing out. He was very funny. A bit raunchy, but it was very funny. Since it was allot of up and coming comedian’s some (half or more) weren’t that good. The others like Heath were very funny. Was it worth the money I spent? Probiby, since we all had a good time. Next comedy club we hit is Dangerfields.

Earlier in the day I headed out to Macy’s in Herald Square. I needed to get some shopping done. I wanted to go before the RNC convention starts Monday. I am avoiding that area all week. Got some work clothes and some hanging out stuff.

I am hearing that Union Square will be the protest central next week. That is good news for the RNC in Madison Square Garden, but not good for me who works right by Union Square. We don’t know how bad it will be, but I heard 250,000 people protesting down there. I have been to Union Square countless times, and I don’t know where they are putting a quarter million people. it is a big place, but I don’t think it is that big. If it is bad monday, I am working from home tuesday.

I have to go pack for the Company picnic tomorrow…

The Fish

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A few weeks ago Jayson showed up to work with a small fish tank. He proceeded to buy a yellow clown fish and put it in the tank. he said it was to liven the office up. Fast forward 2-3 weeks and we now have a 10 gallon tank sitting on the dresser behind my desk. We have a shrimp we call Ralph. We have Krusty the clown fish. our never named green fish didn’t make it, but we don’t speak of him.

We are trying to get a lobster, but Petco keeps being out of stock on them. Jay is calling Gretchen’s cousin who can ship us a purple lobster. We are still learning the perils of a salt water tank. It is the talk of the office. People keep coming over to look at the fish. it is really funny. Gus wants to get a tray of butter and put it next to the tank to show the shrimp his fate if he doesn’t behave.

Delayed Vacation

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So no last minute vacation for me. It just didn’t seem in the cards. My traveling companion and I never got to a consensus on where to go or what to do. I think he is going anyway, but it was just too last minute for me to eak out a vacation.

I am now looking to do something short in the middle of September. Hopefully with a week off somewhere in October or November.

More news about that as it develops.

AC Issues

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Air conditioning issues seem to follow me. My AC in my bedroom has been flaking for several weeks. It works, but barely. Then it makes loud noises, and just run’s loud. That was until last week. I called for the second time to have it serviced. Now it seems to keep the room nice and cold. I am happy.

Now all I need to do is get my living room unit to get the place a bit cooler. That may be asking too much.

At least work is cool, and comfy now. It hasn’t been really hot recently but the AC is at least working. 3 years of hardship may actually be over, but I am not an optimist most of the time!!!

The Day With Morgan

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I spent most of the day today with my niece Morgan. My sister had tickets to a concert so I baby sat and my parents came over. We all went to dinner and then I watched her till my sister and brother in law got back from the concert. That kid is so much fun to be with. She just finds new ways to crack me up.

I am not so happy about being alone with Morgan. I am always afraid I will break her in some way. What if she cries and I can’t make her stop crying? What if I don’t understand what she is asking for? If she was older it would be easer. I am just being nervous, I know. Either way I still have fun with her, but I am just nervous when no one else is around that she will be ok. She went to bed relatively quick. She was not happy about sleep time, but once she was down she fell right to sleep.

Mike and my sister just came to get her. I am now off to sleep myself. Man it is getting late…

More T-Mobile Stuff

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It is ironic that I wrote good things about T-Mobile customer service the other day. Gizmodo wrote very negative things about the same group of T-Mobile Customer Service people. I read that site all the time, and I can totally see what he wrote about happening. I have had bad experiences with plenty of companies. It just goes to show you that two people can have totally different experiences with the same company. It is and will always be the people that make a company good or bad.

I for one had a billing problem for 3 months early this year. After several calls they finally fixed the issue. Twice T-Mobile said it was fixed, and then was not. To my credit I keep dates, customer service rep id #’s and one line summaries of what we discuss. I know it sounds like over kill, but at work I have had problems I was working through and if I didn’t have data like that I would have been screwed. I take that lesson learned and have applied it for personal use. it has worked for me. But even then it took months to fix the problem. The difference was the problem I had was in fact fixed, and during the period of time the billing issue went on, I got credits each month for the mistake.

The Bar Scene

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Last night I went out and checked out the NYC bar scene. I met up with Gus & Vjay. We went to several places in SOHO, and the meat packing district. I honestly don’t remember the name of any of the places we went to. I normally don’t do the late night bar scene. It is fun, but I usually can’t stay awake on an 8 hour bar hopping binge. I have a good time, but I hurt the next day. I need my sleep. I normally get afraid that I will get a migraine if I stay up till 4 or 5AM. Today that fear rang true. I had to take 2 butabital’s throughout the day, but at least I was able to function.

The bar’s were cool. We went to a mix of places. From the nice old fashioned pub that was relatively quiet, to the swanky and busy club/bar’s. I am more a pub kind of guy, but I appreciate the fact that there are plenty of beautiful women at the clubs.

I got home at like 3AM, but realized I had voice mail from work regarding a problem. I ended up on the phone till 4AM with remote hands restarting a server. I slept till noon today.

All in all a fun night, but not something I would do every weekend.

Windows XP SP-2???

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So I sent out a notice to the employee’s not to install SP-2 on any work computers. We still don’t know what it will do to our desktops. We think we are just going to blow away every computer and re-image them with new builds of XP with SP-2 in it. This of course won’t happen for several months. for now no one will do anything, we hope.

I need to walk my dad through how to turn off automatic updates that I turned on his computer when I gave it to him. He is the perfect person for those automatic updates, but who knows what will happen to his computer if he gets SP-2. I would rather turn off auto-updates and take my chances with virus’s and worms vs. installing sp-2 and have him complain to me all the time.

Hey, SP-2 (for XP) may be completely safe. I am just not taking any chances with anyone I know, or any computer that I have to deal with at work…

T-Mobile Customer Service Is Great (Today)

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I called to unlock my Sony Ericsson T-610 today. They took down some information and are emailing me the unlock instructions. No questions asked. I have been a customer on and off since Sept 2000. I have had my current account since early 2002. You would expect them to treat you right if you have been around for a while? Other carriers I have had for years didn’t, but so far T-Mobile treats me well.

If you have had an account for several months they will unlock the phone if you ask and have a good reason (for me potential travel to somewhere that I will want to put a local SIM card into my phone). Hey, I own the dam phone. They get their money back from the subsidy if I stay with them for a year, or pay the early termination fee. So why then does AT&T Wireless and Cingular not do the same thing? AT&T does not unlock for any reason. Cingular I am not so sure about.

T-Mobile also doesn’t make me extend or setup a contract for changes to my account. I have been running without a contract for over a 1 1/2. I don’t plan on changing carriers, but I would think twice about staying with T-Mobile if I called and asked to change something and they did make me sign a contract. It is the point of the matter that they (Cell phone companies) lock me in for making changes. Verizon, and AT&T were terrible about that. T-Mobile has been good so far.

To sum this post up: If you are a T-Mobile executive, don’t change your relaxed customer service approach. Customers actually do appreciate it. I for one am a loyal customer not because I am locked into a contract (i have paid $175 to break out of other companies contracts because of draconian rules, etc.), but because T-Mobile can keep me without making me sign a contract.

Honestly T-Mobile may not have the best network in NYC, but they make up for it in all the ways I stated above. Verizon in my experience (and I have tried all carriers in NYC except for Cingular) has the best coverage and network. They do, I tell people that when they ask my advice. The problem is they cannot make up for the shitty customer service, and restrictions with good voice quality. They still suck even if they have the best signal strength, because support just sucks.