Today I had to complete my vehicle registration because I received notice of it in the mail. I could have mailed it in, however I had to update some information so submitting it by mail would not have been suffient. Upon arriving at the city hall there was a line like 3 miles long. I guess that’s because it was the end of the month and other people had to get their vehicle registration in too. After waiting in line for about 45 minutes, I finally get up there and the lady says I need to provide additional documentation. I reviewed this vehicle registration notice and it didn’t say anything about additional documentation. So I had to go home and get the additional documentation. Then I had to drive back to the city hall. Then wait in line for what seemed like forever again. About this time when I made it to the front the price was not the same and what was on the vehicle registration notice. So then I had to go to the bank to get more money. Then I had to go and wait in line again, this time it was shorter, then finally when I got to the front. The lady took like 40 seconds to give me what I needed in the first place. It may not be true, but it just seems like people love to screw with me just to make their day more fulfilling.
CompUSA Never Ceases to Amaze
Today I was scheduled to take the Microsoft 70-290 exam. I went over to the CompUSA testing center and went in to take the test. When I got there I found out the test proctor’s husband had a stroke and she was unable to give the test. You would think CompUSA would have planned for situations like this by employing a second test proctor, but that would be too logical. So I got to speak with the store manager and he informed me that I would have to reschedule. I informed him that if he was a good manager and he could not fulfill his obligations that he should get on the phone and make sure I can take my test elsewhere. Well, that didn’t seem to work. They told me to call back tomorrow when she will be back in the office. Since I was unable to complete my test today I decided I would go look around at the Mac software and perhaps talk to somebody about my my iMac will not connect to my linksys router wirelessly. When I got to the Mac area of CompUSA a gentleman asked me if I needed assistance.. I threw the idea at him that my iMac is not connecting to my wireless router. I informed him I had already talked with Apple’s tech support center and they concluded the airport extreme card is functioning correctly. He asked me if I had any firewalls running. I informed him I had the built in firewall turned off on the Mac. He asked me if I was using WEP. I informed him I was. He then proceeded to tell me that WEP is a firewall. I informed him that WEP is not a firewall, but instead it encrypts data packets between the computer and the router with the encryption key I configure the router and the computer with. He then started getting an attitude saying he was wrong. I did not disagree because he is wrong. He then told me that the linksys router has NAT built into it and that is a firewall. Once again I informed him that NAT is not a firewall, but instead allows multiple computers to share a single IP address. Then he told me he could not help me unless I wanted to bring the iMac into the store and try to get it to connect to their network. That would isolate my problem to either my router or a misconfiguration. It seems that everytime I go to CompUSA, I end up walking away pissed off. I get sick of these pimple faced punks trying to tell me wrong information. I don’t understand how these people get employed by this company when the obviously have no idea what the hell they are talking about. It seems that even if their manager cannot fulfill his obligations then who is he to get rid of their idiot sales people.
Shaping the Future for the Next Generation of Terrorists?
By what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Isreal, and other countries, is this shaping the future for the next generation of terrorists? Look at this simple scenario. Lets say a kid has his father killed while fighting for what he believes is right. Now this kid grows up with a lot of rage and fury towards who killed his beloved father. This drives the kid to work extra hard in school, now put this kid in contact with the right individuals coupled with a little money and he is a well motivated and dangerous weapon.
With all the people being killed and the unrest in the different parts of the world a simple scenario like this is very probable. It’s just a little food for thought.
Spandex – A Privledge Not a Right!
I was in K-Mart the other day and I saw this fat lady in the store wearing some short shirt that did not cover her fat belly and spandex shorts. First off I would like to say anytime a woman’s belly is bigger than her breasts, that is not a good thing. Second of all people like that just need to realize they are not entitled to wear such clothes. Flat out because nobody else wants to see her nasty condition her body is in and her stretch marks. It is already apparent that she doesn’t not have any concern for herself by the way she takes care of her bodily condition, but when she inflicts the pain onto others by wearing inappropriate clothing. That’s just wrong.
Does a Certain Song Bring Back That Certain Memory?
The other day I heard the song by Cher – Believe. Normally I wouldn’t really pay attention to a bad knockoff of techno like this, except it made me start thinking of the first place I heard it. The first time I heard this song was in Florida. I remember it vividly because I was down in Florida attending an IT class down there and this song was big on the radio. Where I clearly remember this song was down by Pennsacola. It was early in the morning and I was in my rental car driving across a drawbridge. There was a fishing boat going out to the Gulf of Mexico with a flock of seagulls flying around it. The sun was just breaking the horizon when this song came on. The water was blue and the nearby beaches had white sand. I guess I took a mental snapshot of this early morning drive and co-related it to this song.
It’s experiences like this that are always nice to remember from time to time. Hearing this song took me back to this experience I had. I’m thankful for all of my experiences and I hope to have many more. Do you have that certain memory to go with a certain song?
Atkins Diet is No Answer for Lack of Self Discipline
Everybody from McDonalds to Subway seems to be jumping on the bandwagon for this Atkins diet. Atkins may be a good diet, but for most fatasses out there it will not be the answer to getting slim as opposed to getting off your fat ass and doing a little exercise. A sucessful mathmatical equation to getting slim is: “daily caloric intake < amount of calories burnt off by daily activity = no more fat ass!" To test my theory I decided to try my own diet (not recommended for others to try). My problem is I love Mt Dew. Each can of Mt Dew contains 170 calories. I typically drink about 6 cans a day, this is about 1020 calories. Next I eat 2 meals a day roughly 1000 calories each. This means I'm taking in 3020 calories a day. Since I work a job that allows me to sit on my ass everyday. This means I have to exercise, a lot! Instead of exercising a lot I decided to cut down on my daily caloric intake. I went out and bought a bunch of Banquet tv dinners. Each one roughtly contains 470 calories. I would eat 3 a day and drink 1 can of Mt Dew. Now do the math with me, 470 x 3 = 1410 + 170 = 1580. Since this is less than a 2000 calorie a day diet. If I exercise 3 times a week for 30 minutes each time I will slowly, but surely be burning off more calories than I'm taking in. This means no more fatass! This does not mean I have to run out and buy Atkins diet crap for big $$, but instead I bought 3 tv dinners for 2 weeks at $1.00 a piece. This is about $42.00 + tax. Granted during my diet I did not get much nutritional value out of these tv dinners, so to suppliment this I took multi-vitimins. So we can add on $7.00 for the vitimins. Roughly $50.00 for a 2 week diet that I burned 5lbs a week on. Once again, I’m not saying the Atkins diet does not work. I’m just saying that if you watch what you eat and get off your fat ass, you don”t need to spend retarded amounts of money for a special diet. All you have to do is have enough self discipline to go through with it. Perhaps the problem why Americans tend to be fat asses isn’t because of McDonalds super smart marketing, but instead because people just don’t have enough self discipline. Once again this is just food for thought, I tried it and it worked for me because I have the self discipline to go through with it. Who is to say something like this wouldn’t work for you?
Business Trip
I recently have arrived home from a business trip. This trip was to Seattle. The area around Seattle was nice. The forests were gorgeous, but the weather was a little too cold for me. Also it was cloudy all the time there. Other than that the business trip was a success. Other business associates and I went out to eat and drink. Everybody was older and I was the youngest one. This crowd was cool, but it seemed as though we didn’t have the same interests. So I did what I thought was best when a situation like this comes up. I drank to get drunk. They ended up taking me back to my hotel. I fell asleep for a few hours and my drunken state wore off. I decided to pack my bag so I would be ready to catch my flight. When I looked at my itinerary I thought it said my plane was leaving at 11 AM. So I sat up watching stupid tv shows all night. About 6 AM rolled around I decided to check my ticket again to see what flight I was supposed to be on. When I looked again in my sober state I noticed that my plane was supposed to leave at 8:40 AM. Being that you are supposed to be to the airport 2 hours before the flight I had to motor to get to the airport. I quickly grabbed all my belongings and went to check out of the hotel. After checking out I hopped into my Pontiac Sunfire rental car and started driving to the airport. The thing I noticed about traffic in Seattle is everybody drives so slow. I ended up making it to the airport by 7 AM and I checked in. My next step was to make it through the security check. This took about 50 minutes to get through the damn line. Finally I was through and made it to my plane in time. That was a close one. Next time I will not wait until I am drunk to check my tickets to wait to see when I leave. All in all this was a very successful business trip.
Grey Area With Copyright Infringement
I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I don’t want to run into trouble. Lets say I create an image for a kid that looks like Nemo from Walt Disney’s movie “Finding Nemo” and somebody else sees this image and says I stole it from Disney. Is that considered copyright infringement? Especially since no profit is being made nor is it being labeled as Nemo, would that still be considered infringement? If that is considered copyright infringement than who’s to say I didn’t draw a picture of Nemo straight from memory on a piece of paper with a marker or crayon. Would that be considered copyright infringement then? Even then is that still infringement because there is no gain by having an e-card with a character on it?
The other issue that comes to mind is lets say I create my own character for my website and somebody else likes that character so much, they put some kind of copyright on the character. Does that mean they can turn around and sue me for copyright infringement because they beat me to the copyright? If that is the case can they do the same thing with domain names? If they can do that with domain names, who’s to say that isn’t a whole business by finding out what domain names are not copyrighted then sue each person who uses your copyrighted name.
Anyway, this is just food for thought and is something that needs to be investigated more.
Recently Purchased iMac
Well, I finally broke down and bought an iMac. I decided to purchase it after my previous computer finally kicked the bucket. I was fed up with troubleshooting my computer at home so I decided to splurge and go ahead and buy the iMac. So far I like everything about it. The graphics are fantastic, the user friendliness is great. I think the only thing I’m having problems with right now is connecting it to my current wireless network. I know this is a configuration problem and I should have it sorted out shortly. Other than that, this Mac should last me a while and is so easy to use I don’t know why I didn”t buy one before. It was probably the price that kept me from buying one before. I’m looking forward to making new graphics for this website with the new iMac. Keep an eye out for new things being posted on the site. The sky is the limit of the possibilities.
Sifting Through Bookstore Bullshit
I went to the bookstore today and I was looking through the computer books. The thing I noticed when I was trying to find the right book was that there are a million books and half of them are about the same things, but just written by different people who are asking way too much for their books. These money hungry whores don’t seem like they are concerned about actually writing good material because by the time you sift through a 500 page book only about 50 pages contain information that is actually useful. That means you have to buy their whole series of books just to get the relevant information that you were looking for in just one book. Not to mention they mark the prices of the books up to about fifty bucks per book. I am no math genius, but when they say knowledge is power and they are charging 50 bucks per book, but only 10% of that book is relevant information that means you’re paying 90% of the total cost of the books for just bullshit.
High School Reunion
I recently received an e-mail from a girl I knew in high school. She was trying to get updated contact information and trying to find out if I’ll come to my high school reunion. It was neat to see some of the names listed on the contact list. She also sent out this e-mail saying, “Getting to know you.” I figured this was an ice breaker so everybody could start contacting each other. So I filled it out and sent it back to everybody on the contact list. Then the following day she sent another one. I hate these e-mails like this because thier whole intention is to clog an e-mail server. So I replied back saying that if you haven’t stayed in contact with people from high school, there was probably a good reason for it and these “Getting to know you” e-mails aren”t going to make up for lost time. Naturally she replied back saying that if I don’t want the e-mail then just delete it and that I shouldn’t reprimand when I reply back to everybody. I say, “the hell with that”. I don’t have to be politically correct anymore because I don’t have to be around you. Nice time is over! You should have gotten pleanty of nice time in high school. Now that high school is over, so is nice time. I don’t give a shit about who is doing what and who is making more money and stupid irrelevant stuff like that. I’m not out to please anybody, but myself. Call me selfish, but I don’t care. I’ll get you a nice warm glass of “Shut the hell up!” The thing is, the people I stayed in contact with from high school are the only people I really care to stay in contact with. These stupid e-mails aren’t going to make me like you any better now, especially if I didn’t like you in high school. That is just unwanted spam. So I added her to my black list and I don’t have to worry about her e-mailing me anymore.
Dell Finally Gave In and Gave My Money Back
The Dell saga has ended. Finally today Dell gave my money back after initially placing the order on March 3rd, 2004. The product was shipped back last month and this month I was finally refunded my money. It seems they are much quicker at taking your money than they are at giving it back. It only took 8 phone calls and numerous e-mails. If you call that good customer service I would hate to live in your world. At least it has ended and I can go buy a Mac.
Punishment For US soldiers in Iraq for Abuse
It is going to be interesting to see what kind of punishment the soldiers in Iraq will get. The interesting thing won’t be the example the military is going to make out of them, but instead because they are enlisted soldiers, will they get imprisonment? This is interesting because we know the only thing US Navy did to Commander of the USS Greenville, Scott Waddle was forced him into early retirement and he killed 9 Japanese fishermen. The soldiers in Iraq only abused Iraqi prisoners and their punishment will probably be much greater. You can’t tell me that the enlisted soldiers who are going to be punished for abusing prisoners were the highest ranking in this scandal, but they will probably be punished much greater than anybody else.
What does that say about the US military and their rank structure? Does that mean they think enlisted are expendable? Does that mean their careers are valued much less than that of an officer? Don’t get me wrong, what they did was humiliating to the entire US as well as the Iraqi prisoners, but should they be punished worse than that of Scott Waddle who actually killed 9 people as well as sinking a ship and damaging a US submarine, while trying to impress some guests on his ship? His crime was much worse than theirs, but they will probably be punished much worse. This is just one of those things that should open your eyes and make you scratch your head
Wireless Insecurities
You would be surprised how many people out there have wireless networks running at home or at a place of business. You would be even more surprised how many people do not change the factory default settings. I recently set myself up on a wireless network before I even set my router up I was detecting other networks. The hostnames were the router version and the passwords were the factory default passwords and of course their wireless networks had no security. I was amazed to see this, so naturally I had to do something about it. Just what though, ‘I’ll keep it my little secret.’, ‘For all people considering putting themselves on a wireless network, be sure to change the factory defaults. Unless of course, you would like somebody else to take control of your network. It’s not hard to do and takes very little time. If somebody else can control your network, they can see what computers are on that network. Then to get files off those computers it’s even easier. Just a word of warning.
Wireless Morons
You would be surprised how many people out there have wireless networks running at home or at a place of business. You would be even more surprised how many people do not change the factory default settings. I recently set myself up on a wireless network before I even set my router up I was detecting other networks. The hostnames were the router version and the passwords were the factory default passwords and of course their wireless networks had no security. I was amazed to see this, so naturally I had to do something about it. Just what though, I’ll keep it my little secret.’, ‘For all people considering putting themselves on a wireless network, be sure to change the factory defaults. Unless of course, you would like somebody else to take control of your network. It’s not hard to do and takes very little time. If somebody else can control your network, they can see what computers are on that network. Then to get files off those computers it’s even easier. Just a word of warning.
Dell Saga Continues
I contacted Dell again because I placed an order on March 3rd, 2004 and I cancelled that order the same day. Everything in that order was cancelled except the monitor that had already been shipped. Once I received notification of the product being delivered I noted “Return to Sender” on the package. With my handy Fedex tracking number I tracked the package to make sure it had arrived back at Dell. They have had this package for over a month now and still I have not been refunded my money. Once I called the Dell phone number I obtained from their website I had to go through a series of automated phone features, then I finally got some Indian sounding woman on the phone. After telling her my situation she put me on hold for about 5 minutes. When she came back on the phone she said it should take 7 – 10 business days to be refunded my money. For crying out loud it has already been 2 months, how much longer does it take to put my money into my account? Anyway it is companies like this that turn me off from recommending others to do business with them. I’ll keep you posted on what happens next.
My First Xbox Does Not Want to Play Nice
My coworkers have been talking about how great Xbox is and how much fun it is to play online and since I’m still playing Mario cart on Nintendo 64, I decided it was time for an upgrade. I went out and bought an Xbox today. It was fantastic I got 3 games that came with the system, a remote control, and the Xbox itself. I brought it home and was excited to play. After fighting through all the packaging for 30 minutes I finally had my Xbox set up and ready to play, but which game would I start with? I had chosen Grand Theft Auto – Vice City It was great I was learning the game, running people over in my car, stealing a new car after I crashed one, aaaaah the fun of this game. After about 20 minutes of playing I turned the game off because I had an appointment to go to.
After my appointment I was all excited about playing again. So I raced home, came in, and powered on the game. While the game was loading there was a number 7 on the upper left hand side of the screen. I thought, “That’s odd I didn’t see that before.” Then an error message popped up saying my Xbox needed to be serviced. So I called the customer service to see if this was a common problem. They advised me to pack the game back up and take it back to the store because this game could have been damaged in shipping. I felt let down, especially after all this hype from my coworkers. I took the Xbox back to the store and exchanged it. Then I came home and spent another 30 minutes fighting through the packaging to get the Xbox out. When I connected this Xbox up I was anxious to see if this one would work too. Once I hit that power button it started loading. This Xbox works, but I only got to play this one for about 30 minutes before I went to bed. Oh well, all in a game player’s day I guess.
Failure at Everything
I was listening to a radio station today and they were talking about a guy who jumped over Niagra Falls without a barrel or without anything. The guy ended up living, so this was a botched suicide attempt. Now think about this, this guy failed at life so bad that he felt it was better to be dead. Then when he attempted to kill himself he couldn’t even do that right. How low is that?, I say, there are too many messed up individuals in this world that if they want to kill themselves they better at least get it right. The world will be a better place for everyone.
Janet Jackson is Welcomed on My T.V.
I’m still been hearing complaints of Janet Jackson revealing her breast on TV. during the super bowl halftime show. I’m sick of hearing complaining about this. There are too many shows on the air right now that show gays kissing, holding hands, and adopting children and nobody seems to complain about that, but as soon as Janet exposes a breast on TV. all hell breaks loose.’, ‘Only in America is showing breasts considered a bad thing. In Europe and Asia it’s on TV everywhere and nobody thinks anything of it, but in America that is considered unacceptable. Also, in America the producers are going overboard with politically correctness. For example the channel BET (Black Entertainment Television) is ok, but if there was a channel called WET (White Entertainment Television) that would be considered racist. Some shows currently showing gays that is 100% accepted are the famous “Queer eye for the straight guy?”, MTV’s Road Rules and Real World, Survivor with Richard Hatch, Rosie O’Donnell, and of course Ellen Degeneres, just to name a few.
I’m not saying I’m for anything or against it in anyway, but if you’re going to have channels and shows like these at least set some kind of standard and do it across the board. Also since when do people think it’s required to be identified by sexual origin? For example what did Rosie or Ellen gain by coming out of the closet? The point being, if you don’t want to be treated different then don’t identify yourself by sexual origin. I never hear anybody say, “Hi, I’m Suzie. I’m a heterosexual, but I’ve had homosexual experiences.” This is just a little food for thought, you can either take it or leave it. I just felt this excessive politically correctness on American Television needed to be identified and Janet can show her breasts on my TV anyday.
Jerry Springer Rocks!
Jerry Springer should be rewarded for taking the time out of his busy day to go out to every single trailer park and find every bit of trash that he can in order for them to come onto his show and fight. Jerry must have been sitting around in his office one day thinking about who he could get on his show. Then it must have hit him, in all these trailer parks there are many people just sitting around making babies. So instead of them polluting the human gene pool he must have realized he would give them something else to do and that is coming on his show, with all baggage in tow, and duke it out. Our thumbs go up to you Jerry!
Achieving Your Dreams
Reaching the stars may not be as hard as you think. I managed to reach my stars and it wasn’t even by the path I planned it to be. The main thing you always have to be in order to reach your goals is to remain focused. Without focus your goal will not be as clear and you may stray from your path to achieving your goal.’, ‘When I was 13 years old my dad and I used to go boogie boarding in Lake Michigan. Naturally the main time of the year the waves would get big in Lake Michigan was in the fall when the water was 50 degrees or below. I used to read boogie-boarding magazines to see how people body boarded in California and Hawaii. One main person whom I mainly read about was Mike Stewart and how he boogie boarded in Hawaii. This became my dream to go out to Hawaii and boogie board the same waves as Mike Stewart.
After I graduated high school I joined the United States Air Force. During basic training the Air Force gives everybody a choice of bases in which they want to go to. Then the Air Force will try to put you in one of the bases you choose or as close as they can to it. I put down every base I could find as close to Michigan as I could get and I put 1 overseas base in Hawaii. (Hawaii is considered an overseas base because it is not part of the continental US) Well I did not get Hawaii, but I did get a tropical island in the Pacific being Okinawa, Japan.
At first I wasn’t excited about being sent to Okinawa, but after I started to think about it more I thought that since Hawaii was in the Pacific and they get good waves, that Okinawa must get good waves too. Wrong! When I got to Okinawa and saw the ocean for the first time there were no waves. The only waves Okinawa really gets are big ones during typhoons. Anyway, I enjoyed Okinawa so much I ended up spending 6 years there, when the Air Force told me I had to move to another base and since I was enjoying Japan so much I decided I wanted to try to go to Tokyo. I waited for an assignment in Tokyo for a year and a half and I never got it. So I decided to try to put Hawaii down again. Low and behold the very next assignment cycle I got it. I was on my way to Hawaii.
I did it! I finally achieved my dream of going to Hawaii and body boarding the same waves as Mike Stewart. I body boarded at Bellows, North Shore, out west towards Wainae, and all over. I spent 3 years in Hawaii in the Air Force when I decided that I was going to separate from the Air Force. A company based out of Knoxville, Tennessee contacted me saying they had a position open in Hawaii. I applied for this position as a computer systems administrator and got the job. Now I managed to transition out of the Air Force and purchased a place to live where I am now living my dream of living in Hawaii and boogie boarding, working a an all right job, with owning my own place to live. Even though this was not the way I had imagined it I managed to achieve my dream and am enjoying every day of it, making sure I don’t take anything for granted.
Friends is Now Over
The t.v. show Friends had its season finale tonight and it was a sad day for many of the shows followers. Friends initially started in 1994 and ran til 2004, it was a good decade for all the friends fans. Have no fear though because now we have Friends reruns to look forward to for the next 20 years. Yeah!
Roadside Incident in Afghanistan
When one of those things you never want to happen actually happens you just hope it isn’t one of your brothers in arms. This incident happened near Bagram airfield in Afghanistan.
Company Functions Are Not Too Exciting
Last Thursday April 29th, 2004 our office had an outing because different people from the company came to Hawaii for business. Although this was not mandatory it was highly encouraged to attend. I figured that meant you don’t have to go, but we”ll all be pissed off at you later. Since I don’t have a life I decided I would go and try to work on my nonexsistant social skills.
To give you some insite on how I resolve issues, suggest ideas, or criticize something I don’t like with others I work with, I usually do it after we’ve been drinking for a while. That is my way of dealing with sometimes uncomfortable situations. I figure if we’re all drinking and talking about it we are more relaxed and more open to suggestions. Plus everybody is more willing to bullshit, share stories, and talk smack after they have been drinking.
Now that you understand how I like to deal with these kind of situations I’ll move onto how this night went. The night started out with everybody arriving at an over crowded Chuck’s Steakhouse in Waikiki. This place didn’t have much seating, was dark, and over priced. Since for the past couple of days I didn’t have much time to do anything, but sleep on my time and nobody was talking with me. I decided to make a phone call. I kid you not, as soon as I started talking with somebody on the phone then people I worked with started trying to talk with me. Which I nicely shugged them off and identified I was on the phone to them. After I had gotten off the phone I decided to talk with the other guys I work with. During our conversations the staff of Chuck’s Steakhouse kept interrupting us so they could squeeze by.
The time had arrived for us to get to our 50 foot long table. Everybody went to sit down. I ended up sitting in the smack dab middle of the table. I must have figured I wouldn’t be noticed sitting there. The little waiters and waitresses came around asking everybody what they wanted to drink. Since I had already drank about 4 Budweisers, why change? I ordered another. Then the waiters came around telling everybody the specials, I ended up interrupting the guy because I needed another beer. The guy then left and didn’t want to come back. So I decided to call him back over to finish saying the specials. Once he completed his little speal he asked me what I wanted to order. Since I don’t like eating at these types of events I decided to maintain my liquid diet. I ordered another beer. Everybody had noticed that I didn’t want to eat and asked me, “You’re not eating”? I told them I had to watch my figure. The night went on with everybody eating while I drank my beer.
I sat next to a cool guy that I enjoy talking with because he knows the company and he tends to give me some insight and points me in the right direction. We sat there talking trying to keep our conversation private, but I notice others eyes kept peering over to see what we were talking about. Then the waitresses showed up with the bill. Since this is Hawaii and the education level is low here. The waitresses like to put everybody”s bill on just one big check. I didn’t have any cash on me so I ran downstairs to pull money out of the ATM. When I came back like everybody else had left except for a few people. It seemed as though they were all waiting for the first person to leave so they could follow. Since they didn’t know I was only going to the ATM they thought I was leaving and decided to follow.
By this time I was feeling pretty good and was willing to open up and talk with others. Since the only other person staying around with me was the Director of Operations. I decided to open up and talk with him. Prior to this event the only thing I know about this guy is that we retired from the Marine Corps as an officer and he was a private type of guy. So I decided to try to get him to open up. I started out by letting him know my position of wanting to learn from his experiences. I also identified that others find him to be a rather private person and I informed him that since he has been with the company for a while and has retired from the Marines. I feel he has a lot of experiences I could learn from. We all know I can”t really learn from my current supervisor (If you want to know more about why, read the previous article entitled, “Do unprofessional bosses make good managers/leaders?“. I also told him it would be cool to hear about some of his stories, then the Director of Operations basically told me, “What you’re saying is good, but don’t expect to learn everything about me tonight”. I understood this as me making progress. I took this as him saying he may open up with time, but for now he’ll maintain the current level. I respect that and am willing to learn from his experiences when he is ready to open up, for now I’m happy with what I have achieved.
A Difference Between Working Overseas and Working in America
After living overseas for some years it is a shock to see how different people act in America. For example: Americans working overseas, at the end of the day overseas people would usually hang out with the people they worked with. It made an easy atmosphere for resolving work issues. Here in America once the end of the day rolls around. You should see everybody shoot their own direction, like buckshot. This means if you have work issues you better either get over them or make an appointment because people just don’t want to deal with it on their time.
A Little Piece of Loneliness
When you go to another place or country to visit or even live for a while, the people and culture immediately begin to grow on you. Your heart begins to open regardless of the language or cultural barrier. You begin to go out and absorb as much as you can. Even though you may not always understand what people are saying, you tend to feel a comfort in the whole experience. This may go on for the duration of your time in foreign land, but then you’ll eventually have to return home.
When you’re home people get caught up in their day to day activities, but it is when that special song plays or you hear the language or that little hint that helps you remember the time you spent there. You may even begin to miss it and want to go back.
The funny thing is that no matter how passionate or how emotional you are, when you try to tell somebody about how you feel when you miss the experience you had in the strange world. They just don’t understand. Most of the time, you’ll just get a blank stare. Then when you try to explain the things you miss, the person you’re trying to make your point to usually find error or something to poke fun at. It is then you begin to feel alone for nobody else seems to understand your experience and there is nobody else you can talk to who will understand. This is the little piece of loneliness that aches inside me driving me to want to go back.
Issues With Dell
On March 5th, 2004 I decided I had been waiting around long enough to get a new computer. The predicament I kept running into though was that every time I tried customizing a computer on Dell’s website the price would jump up drastically. So I decided to call their phone support to help me with purchasing a computer.
I spoke with a polite sales representative Morgan Owens who informed me that if I ever needed to contact her again about the order I need to call 1-800-WWW-DELL, then press 1, then her number 70510. She informed that I could also contact her via e-mail at the following address: morgan_owens@dell.com I explained to her what I was trying to do and she informed me that Dell has some great deals going on and she can be the one to really help me out. So we went through the ordering process and I had a great computer picked out for only $2,400. After I hung up the phone with her I started to get ready for work as I was thinking about what I had just purchased. Then I started getting second thoughts about the computer. For some reason I just didn’t feel confident that the computer I had just purchased was the type of computer I was looking for.
So I decided to call back to cancel my order. I tried reaching Morgan, but her phone was busy so I had to wait to get another representative. Once I reached the new sales rep. I told her the situation and how I would like to cancel the order. So she walked me through the process of canceling this order, but she informed me the monitor had already been shipped. I told her that it was only 5 minutes since I had placed the order and she told me that they work real fast. This made me begin to laugh. This nice representative informed me that if I don’t want the monitor to just don’t accept it once it arrive to “return to sender” and once Dell received it back my money will be deposited into my account.
Less than a couple weeks later I had received a notification that I had a package. So I went to FedEx to tell them to return the product to the sender. FedEx assured me it would be sent back to Dell.
This is now April 24th, 2004 and I still do not have the money for this monitor back in my account. From this impression, Dell is telling me they are happy to take your money, but they don’t want to give it back. Yesterday I decided to call Dell back and try to figure out what’s going on. This new representative informed me she would have to submit some paperwork for me to get my money back and they still haven’t received the monitor. I’m getting the feeling that this monitor is sitting in Dell’s warehouse somewhere and they haven’t re-inventoried it or something, either way this is truly becoming unacceptable customer service.
American T.V. Channels Suck
I was flipping through channels the other day and realized MTV really sucks. I thought the point of MTV was to play music. Hence the Music Television name. Anyway, MTV would be better off changing their name to “stupid programming and utterly retarded game shows?”.
I base this opinion from numerous things. For example what the hell does “Pimp my ride” have anything to do with music? Although it sometimes is funny, what does Viva la Bam have to do with music? The list can go on and on, but the point being if you’re going to say you are for music you should at least play some.
Don’t worry though, MTV is not the only channel on TV that sucks. VH1 joins the channel ban list. They used to be an acceptable alternative to MTV, but they recently have become boring to. Although some of the programming for VH1 actually has to deal with music or artists for example “I love the 80’s.” Even though it’s not the 80’s anymore this still has some credibility for at least going over artists and songs from the 80’s.
A few channels that actually support their name are the National Geographic channel, History channel, and the Discovery channel. These channels have great programming that uphold their ideals and their name.
The point I’m trying to get at is if you’re going to call yourself something you should at least stick to it and not be a rating whore. It’s because of too many rating whores out there that make TV crappy for you and me.
Chatting on Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
I used to chat on #worldchat on efnet, but it seems the politics of who controls a room really made this room go downhill. I would basically use IRC as a reference tool and I met some real cool people on there who taught me lots of things. It’s always hard to see a change for the worse, but it’s harder when you lose contact with the people who taught you so much. I once heard a saying that later was added to words of a Megadeth song. The quote was, “Moving on is a simple thing, but what it leaves behind is hard?”. I guess that is the case here. This quote seems to apply to a lot of things in life. Sometimes it makes you take a step back and think if the decisions you make are the right ones. Anyway if anybody in which I used to chat with gets this message, don’t be shy shoot a message sometime.
Cell Phone Plus Washing Machine Equals No Worky, Worky
A few weeks ago I had gotten home from work and realized I needed to wash laundry. Since I was washing laundry anyway I decided to wash the shorts I was wearing. So I loaded the washing machine and started the load of laundry. While I was waiting for the laundry to get done I had to make a phone call. After searching all over for about 15 minutes I couldn’t remember where I had my phone last. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, in some attempt that I may rescue the phone I ran to the washing machine and looked inside. There it was. I managed to wash my cell phone. After contemplating the cell phone may not be a complete loss I tried disassembling it and leaving it out to dry.
The next morning I put the phone together to see if it would work. Needless to say it didn’t. I took the phone to the nearest T-mobile store to see what options I had. The clerk told me to leave it out to dry. I told him I did and it still doesn’t work. Then he advised me I need to buy another. After looking around the store I decided to go with the cheapest phone they had the Samsung X105 model. After having this phone for a few weeks I realized why it was the cheapest they had. This phone sucks! I tried adjusting the settings and it doesn’t keep the settings. I’ll be in the middle of a phone call and the phone will disconnect for no reason. I try turning off the password for my voice mail then the phone puts it right back on. I’ve tried everything with stupid phone. This phone does have one feature that works, the alarm works great. Basically this is a high priced alarm clock. The next thing I’m going to do with it is take it back. Maybe it’s just my experience, but I recommend staying away from this phone.