Rub a dub dub, Lori in the tub

Our last night in Minnesota found us staying at a Quality Inn's and Suites on our adventure to the Mall of America. The room was "Ginormous!" and the best part was it was free because of points we'd earned.

I showered and went down to the lobby to get some coffee while Lori got into the tub to get cleaned up for the day. When I got back I parked in a chair and was flipping through channels on the tv and drinking my coffee when it happened. The fire alarm in our room went off!

I scared the crap out of me. My hand holding the cup of coffee jerked and coffee spilled all over the chair I was sitting in (but none on me...yeah!!!). It was so loud. I got up and went to the bathroom to see what Lori was doing and she was still in the tub, shaving her legs! I asked her if she was going to get out ...."what if someone comes down here from the front desk?" So instead of getting out she shaved faster!

I told Lori I didn't see any smoke or fire but was going down to the front desk to see what to do. She continued to shave her legs at mach 1 speed.

When I got to the front desk there was no one there. I started yelling..."hello...hello" and finally an older gentleman who accent made his english barely understandable came from across the hall. I explained what was happening but he seemed to care less. I told him I didn't see any smoke or a fire. He shrugged his shoulders and asked if I'd just take an shower and maybe it was the steam. By now I cannot believe this guy doesn't care. I can hear the alarm going off from all the way down the hall and he is doing nothing. Finally he said he would call a technician (whatever a technician is) and he would send them down to the room. I left and went back to the room.

By now "shaving girl" was out of the tub and dressed but he extremely loud alarm was still going off. I sat down and finished what coffee was left in my cup and waited for Lori to finish getting ready to leave. It stopped. What a relief. We packed up our stuff and headed out.

The same guy to whom I reported the alarm to checked us out. But not until we started to walk away did he say anything about the alarm. Also behind the counter at this time was a woman, apparently the manager. She spoke up and said she was going to come down but it stopped so she didn't.

Fortunately we found an Einstein's Bagle shop with some delicious vanilla hazelnut coffee. All was right with the world once again.

Customer Service......or the lack there of (pt4)

After my last post about the service I was getting from Verizon Wireless I didn't think I'd have a part 4 to this nightmare, but I do.

Thursday morning of this past week Verizon topped themselves once again. As we were getting ready to leave on our get-away weekend to Minnesota, I picked up my phone to make a call. After pressing send I got a recording from Verizon saying to stay on the line and that I would be transferred to Financial Services.

When Verizon Financial Services came on the line they wanted to know if I wanted to make a payment right then. I asked why because my bill wasn't due until the end of the month. The financial services rep advised that my service had been suspended for lack of payment. I was livid! Not more than 3 days ago did they finally credit my checking account for money they had no business taking, now they were saying I was late and cut off my service.....and, and...they were going to charge me a reconnection fee. ARRRRRGGGHHH!

I explained, AGAIN, all of what transpired over the past 2 1/2 months (which I remined the person ont the phone that all of it should be noted on my account) and that none of it was my fault. She then took the time to read the notes on my account and said she would remove the reconnect fee and I would have service restored in30 minutes. I demanded to speak to a supervisor about what had happened. Of course this meant 10 minutes of Verizon commercials while I waited on hold. I'm convinced the supervisors must be on another planet and they have to beam up and get them and come back. When the supervisor came on the line I said I wanted it noted on my account that none of this was any error of mine and asked for an email confirmation of that. She told me that she doesnt' email but she would give me her employee number. Unbelievable!

I am so tempted to pay the $174 to have this account closed and move to another provider. On a credibility scale of 1 to 10 (1 being low), Verizon has about a .5 with me right now.

Pump up the volume

This is the second really dumb thing I've done this week. It's a good thing I'm taking a pseudo-vacation long weekend this weekend.

We have this really cool thing at work with voice mail. Instead of it going to our phones its set up to go to our email. For the past couple of days when I've received an voice email there hasn't been any sound. The first time I just wrote it off to a wrong number and they didn't hang up but then it happened a couple more times and I thought this just can't be coincidence.

Today I receive another "soundless" voice mail so I decided to put in a support ticket to our IT people to get some resolution. I prefaced my email with the known fact that I am hardware challenged so if it was something I could check and they told me where to check it I'd be happy to and save them a trip down to my office.

After putting the support ticket in, I decided to crawl around under my desk to see if anything had been disconnected. I was able to find all the right cords and cables and it was all hooked up. I thought it probably was as there is a green light on the speakers and its been on all along.

I don't know what made me think of this but my eyes focused in on the volume button on the lower right of my screen. Sure enough there was a red circle with a line through it over the top on it. Sudden and unbelievable embarassment rushed through my body. How stupid can I be!

Instantaneously I started an email to support that said "Disregard my previous email on sound from voice mails.......You don't want to know."

Customer Service......or the lack there of (pt 3)

I have some, ok it's miniscule, faith restored in Verizon. After countless calls made to customer service to rectify the auto bill payment they erroneoulsy took out of my checking account.....and after numerous promises to re-credit my checking account.....and after waiting 15+ days to receive the credit.....it was actually posted to my account this morning.

Rest assured, my days of auto bill pay will Verizon has come to an end. From here forward they'll get their money when I send it to them and not when the want to take it.

Thank's Verizon. Although it took much longer than it should, you finally came through.

Strike while the iron's hot....

Always trying to utilize my time to the utmost, after getting home from working out Friday I decided that I would catch up on some of my ironing until Lori got home from Manowe. She actually called while I was ironing so I was trying to cock my head so that I could be hands free to iron and then, duh, I forgot I had speaker phone. Lori arrived home not long after our call and I wrapped up the shirt I was ironing and we took off to go out for dinner.

Fast forward to Sunday evening. Over the weekend we did several more loads of laundry which meant there were several more things to be ironed. We'd been gone much of the day and when we got home around 5pm I decided I'd go up and do my ironing before having some dinner. When I got up stairs I stood in disbelief. The iron had never been unplugged since Friday night. And furthermore, its doesn't have an automatic shut off. Talk about God being on the look out for our well being!

Lori happened to be upstairs when I finished what I had to iron. I passed her on the way to our closet to hang up what I'd ironed and said, "I opted to unplug the iron this time!"

The $20,000 watch

When I arrived at the gym yesterday afternoon and made my way to the locker room there was a guy in there on the phone. I've seen this guy a zillion times at the gym and we always say "Hi" to each other and maybe join in some surfacy conversation about the weather. As I'm getting dressed I can telll by the tone of his voice he is very angry. I bent over to tie my shoes and apparently he had been put on hold at that point. He looked at me and said "you'd think when you buy a $20,000 watch you could get it serviced without so much hassle!" I responded "you'd think" and returned to my shoes. I mean, really, how do you respond to something like that? He rolled his eyes and about that time was taken off hold. His much aggitated and aggrivated conversation continued.

We started a tithing series at church last weekend called "Deal or No Deal." First of all, either you believe that God owns everything or you don't. I do. And if he owns everthing then I am just a steward of the resources He provides to me. If He says that its my duty to take a portion of what He provides and reinvest that in His church then I believe that is what I should do. However, not everyone believes this, perhaps because they're afraid, they don't understand or they just don't want to.....I dunno.


Last weekend our senior pastor made a huge ask of our attendees. He asked them in two weeks to make a committment to tithe 10% on that weekend. To some people 10% is a huge amount for them to give up to others its a drop in the bucket. Either way it means giving up something.


I was reading the book of Haggai and I came across these verses:



2A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: "The people procrastinate. They say this isn't the right time to rebuild my Temple, the Temple of God." 3-4Shortly after that, God said more and Haggai spoke it: "How is it that it's the 'right time' for you to live in your fine new homes while the Home, God's Temple, is in ruins?" 9-11"And why?" (This is a Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, remember.) "Because while you've run around, caught up with taking care of your own houses, my Home is in ruins. That's why. Because of your stinginess. And so I've given you a dry summer and a skimpy crop. I've matched your tight-fisted stinginess by decreeing a season of drought, drying up fields and hills, withering gardens and orchards, stunting vegetables and fruit. Nothing—not man or woman, not animal or crop—is going to thrive."

The people the prophet Haggai is addressing seem to be so consumed by "keeping up with the Jones'" that they've totally neglected returning any part of what they have to build God temple. How different is the world today? Not much.

I remember when we first committed to tithing. It was scary. It was a risk. But in the second chapter of Malachi God says go ahead test me and just see if I don't take care of you.

"The tithe and the offering—that's how! And now you're under a curse —the whole lot of you—because you're robbing me. Bring your full tithe to the Temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in my Temple. Test me in this and see if I don't open up heaven itself to you and pour out blessings beyond your wildest dreams. For my part, I will defend you against marauders, protect your wheat fields and vegetable gardens against plunderers." The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

I don't necessarily think this means that God is going to pour buckets of money on you if you tithe, but He might. Who am I to say? But I do know that you will get blessed because we have been blessed abundantly over and over and not just with money. We've never went without food nor shelter. I've always been able to pay my bills. And I have more savings that I ever dreamed I would. God will take care of you if you tithe. It's a promise.

I can't say that Mr $20,000 watch doesn't tithe. I have no idea. But I do know how easy it is to get consumed by what the world tells you is important and what really is important to God. Been there, done that. So don't let your $20,000 watch stand in the way of giving back to God what is due Him. You'll get some much more than an expensive watch back in return.

contact in the shower

Finished a milestone workout Sunday morning. I made it a record 6.5 miles. I headed for the locker room to shower and go to Panera for a bagel and coffe with Lori and our friend Dixie. When I finished showering I grabbed my towel on the hook just outside the stall and started to dry my face. As I rubbed the towel across my eye lids I realized that I'd used too much force and I could feel my contact come out and it was on my eyelashes. I quickly wrapped the towel around my waist and headed for the mirror above the sink across the room.

As I was on my way I was trying to dislodge the contact from my lid and lashes but wasn't having much luck. When I made to the sink I put my face as close to the mirror as I could to see where the contact was lodge in my eye. During my attempts to get it off my eye it fell to the counter top. Of course I couldn't see it. I'm searching around the counter top and finally find it. With no solution to clean it the only option I had was to run it under some cold water and put it back on my eye. As I'm putting it back on my eye, my towel comes loose and falls to the floor. The contact is still not in my eye and my towel is on the floor. Choices...choices!

I pryed my eye open and stuck the contact on as quick as I could and immediately dove to the floor to get the towel. Quickly, I wrapped it around my waist and walked back over to my locker as if nothing ever happened.

Note to self, only pat dry face when contacts are in or pay the price!

Smokin' fireworks

After we'd had breakfast at Panera Sunday morning we headed over to Super Target to browse around. Just inside at the end of the never-ending row of checkouts (that I've never seen all open at one time) was a fire works display. Lori stopped and was pointing at and cracking up.

Posted in front of the display was a no-smoking sign. Yah think!

Isn't Target non-smoking anyway!