The day's humor

Ok as usual I was working late last night and I stopped by a user's desk who had a simple question.

This/last week I have deployed about 10 new blackberries in the company upgrading various people's cell phones. Normally this is a simple proceedure especially when cell phone company does the upgrades correctly. Well this was an exception. It seems that when her cell phone was upgraded they forgot to carry forward the "Call display" feature.

So the two of us call up tech support and say "Hey I'm missing the call display can you please add it?" after a little bit of a discussion between the user and tech support it is agreed that it is wanted, far more effort than required really.

Anyway it turns out that the users are allowed to ADD any features that they want but they aren't allowed to remove any features without an authorized representitive!

Someone, ANYONE, please tell me how that makes sense!

Evening Humor

Ok most of you know that I have a real talent for wounding myself on blunt objects. I have done nasty damage to myself with cutting boards, tables, floors, human hair and the like. Naturally because of this talent I'm reasonably save against sharp or pointy objects like knives.

Anyway the humor for the day is that I managed to do some really painful damage to myself with a toothbrush. Didn't think it was possible but there ya go. Now laugh it up and make yourself feel better that no one could do worse than that.

Birthday fun

Well as many of you know I had my birthday a couple of weeks ago. We went out to a great italian place that is open buffet style. Yum! There was the usual family there as well as my cousin and hubby. We all ended up rolling out of there even though half of us had to leave early because of work related duties.

The following weekend Bubbles and I went S.C.U.B.A. diving. For anyone who hasn't done it I really suggest that you do it. It is a lot of fun! It is a lot of entertainment! It is scary. The fear isn't that bad though. The issue is that when you go under for the first few times you actually have to fight the instinct to not breathe. For your entire life you learn that breathing underwater is a bad then you have to. Kind of strange.

Mad Max and the Russian Mafia

Ok some of the stuff in the old place was just too big to move on my own or with a little help so I hired a moving company to help me get from a) to b). Since I had already moved most stuff out the movers were really taking care of the large things. A couple of desks, a queen size bed, a dresser and other large random junk.

Simple job for a moving company. Well it turns out that the movers got to the house before I did and man was I surprised when I saw them. They seriously looked like a couple of guys from the Russian mafia. They were a couple of brutes that easily moved everything that was put in front of them. Kind of scary really. They were a lot nicer with my stuff than my parents stuff when they moved a few years ago.

Posting and moving

Ok so it has been a while since I have posted but I have good reason to. Unalike those around me I will just make a bunch of smaller posts and let the comments individually be entered on a more topic based approach.

For the last week of February I was busy packing stuff up to move out of my old place and into my new one. The new place is great since it is about twice the floor space than the old place for only $200 more a month. A great deal I figure.

I did a bunch of pre-moving on this week to by bringing stuff over to Bubbles' parents place. This took a major load off the actual move since we managed to get rid of about 1/3 of all the stuff that had to be taken out of the old place.

Job security

Let it be known that you saw it here first!

Ok so the place that I currently work has really great job security. Not many people actually leave here unwilling. Most people actually leave on their own accord. There have been a few people that have lost their jobs some rightfully so. Others because they actually did their job and no one liked it. The problem when you want a "Yes man" instead of an effective manager.

Anyway events of late have really pointed to the fax that my employment here may not be as long as I would like it to be. Anyway I know this isn't a problem because sometimes this place is really depressing. Eg out of the three people in my cubicle area all three agree that being at a funeral is less depressing than working here.

So my going bet right now is that by May I won't have a job here. Hopefully that will be true because then I can be in Austrilia without thinking about the office and spend my settlement package out there (yes I know I shouldn't do that before you financial/commerce people tell me)

Good news

My place is actually getting clean. I mean I might actually be able to see the floor in a little while :) I figure that this will be more true when I manage to get the recycling out. I have three garbage bags full of the stuff so it will be nice to see it all gone.

Parts of the house are nicely packed up right now so at least it looks like there is an effort going forth to move out. I figure if all goes well I should have at least the entertainment room packed up, minus computers, by the end of the week. Now that the floor is visible I can put boxes on it :)

A cure for AIDS?

THIS! is incredible. A potential cure for AIDS?

Over all I'm impressed. I just hope that it turns out to be everything that people think is it.

Micorosoft support

Sure they are great and get you an answer but why does it have to take more than 2 hours to solve the question of:
I can't delete a folder in windows explorer in a junction
I can delete it anywhere else.

I didn't think it was a difficult question. I guess I thought wrong. Well I'm up to 122 minutes now. Still waiting....

*falls asleep waiting for microsoft*

Fun with doors

Ok I should have posted this last week but oh well.

Last Friday I did the pinnicle of all great things. I locked my keys in my house. Normally this would not be a problem but for some cosmic reason I couldn't contact the landlord so he could get me in the house.

After jumping through a couple of hoops and taking advice from a couple of co-workers I managed to get in the house from a couple of friendly locksmiths. Three hours of waiting later I was finally in my house and back out again to places I should have already been at.

The entire event left me with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, and bank account. Note to self: Call the fire department next time. They will probably be faster and cheaper....and more professional.

Topic

Ok I was thinking at the start of last week to write about "faith". That was over ruled with my previous posts which I think is fine.

Then I thought I would post about things going on in and around my life. This would make sense since this is my blog. I decided against this.

Then I thought and decided, that I would write about "confusion". This seems to be a constant theme running through my head. I'm not confused about anything in particular but just confused about everything. It is like I'm constantly looking through a fog.

Anyone else suffer this?

Surprise!

Look another post in seven days! Aren't you all surprised?

Actually my boss is in a meeting and I'm just sitting here so I thought I would post.

Anyway I have a new appartment rented that I can move into in the last week of February so now I start getting to plan that out. Yea!

The new place isn't much more expensive but I get about twice the floor space which is great because Bubbles will be moving in with me in April. I'm happy about the new place. Not so happy about having to move though. On the great side it isn't far from a subway station so I can start walking to the station AND I get a pool. Exercise here I come. Much needed for the future trip in May.

Blah I say!

Ok so it has been a long while since I last posted. Things have been going well for the past month and a half.

Christmas was great all three versions of it had many friends and family around so it was a warm and fun time.

New Year's was a good party too as usual. The surprising thing is that people seemed more sober this year than the previous year.

Right now I have a big challenge of trying to get over the winter/Christmas reprise blahs. *sigh*

I just want to sleep for the next month.

Right now I'm still trying to catch up on my comics. Actually just one SinFest. I have just been really distracted playing a game on my PlayStation2 though. Dark Cloud 2 and it is taking a lot of my time. So far this week I have managed to pass about 15 hours of play. It is also making not sleep until later than I should.

Oh Bell, will you ever get it right?

Ok so as a few people probably noticed I have an interesting Bell issue.

Back in May I got my phone line transfered from L to T. One would imagine that this is a simple process. That wasn't the case and there were many calls to Bell about getting the line transfered. This on it's own can be a rant but this would be 6 months too late so I won't bother. After it got transfered it turns out that the phone line in both locations then started to work. Again a few calls to Bell to try to get this straightened out was met with "Bell the wise" saying "We can't do that." Not sure what they ment but just kind of let it go. At least I got my phone line and I could make calls at will once again.

Last month I gave up Bell completely, mostly because of service like the above, one can only hear "Sorry we can't give you a phone line at that address even though you are calling from there." excuse so many times before you start to realize that the people that are are dealing with can't find their ass with both hands and a mirror.

Well Bell sent me a final bill to cover the disconnect and final long distance calling that I had done for the month. Fine all is good. I paid the bill and made the mistake that I would never hear from them again. On Monday I got another bill from Bell. First thought was "Oh the mailman didn't want to deliver this to the right address no problem. I'll just file under "R" for recycle....No wait. It has my name on it? This isn't right. I get inside the house and find out that I have now been charged for 4 month of long distance from a phone I don't own. I wouldn't mind this if it was only $2 because it wouldn't be enough to squable about but it is close to $150!

Anyway tomorrow I will call Bell and find out what kind of drugs they are on and ask if they are willing to share. I figure this way I can at least come half way to find out how I got charged for stuff I didn't do.

....Maybe if they don't agree with me I will invoice them for $200 for technical services rendered in repair of their.... um .... automatic banana pealer.

So I have been bad

Ok first off I must admit that it has been a while since my last post. I have a good reason for it....Sort of.

I have been working with another company lately in my off hours helping them sort out some networking issues. It has taken a lot of time but I think I'm at the end of it all.

Not only has that been keeping me busy but I also had two more things to work on. I'm still working on doing some MP3ing for a friend's co-worker so that has been keeping me going but that is over for the time being because I have run out of CDs.

My Aunt's system had a few issues so I took some time out to also do that as well.

My actual job hasn't been keeping me very busy as it seems I have hit a recent low in overtime which is nice to see.

Hopefully I will now be able to get back to a little more stable posting.

Scripts

Before you start thinking too much I'm not speaking of VBScript or JavaScript. I am also not talking about play scripts....exactly.

It was brought up in my company that while the earnings cycle is going on that we should have extended support hours. I find this funny because the normal line around the office is that "earnings never ends" due to work load. So anyway we the IT staff now get to humor the rest of the staff. I figure that this was something fine and dandy as I could finally have my old shift back, 12:00 to 20:00. No such luck. I was told that right now the other admin that I am working with isn't completly up to speed. He still says "I don't know how Phalse did."

Now this is a problem. The new guy has been there since January/February so one would think that after actually working in a company at an Administrator level would actually understand the systems after eight or nine months later. Now this guy is from a big bank and his normal troubleshooting is through a simple script. If something falls outside of that script than it is the next level ups job to fix.

Now I know that some people have some experience with this, eg calling the telephone company or ISP, but does anyone work with someone like this outside of those groups? Have you seen situations where this caused problems with no way of going higher?

For those outside the know

I would just like to say that I'm now engaged to Bubbles as of last friday. (cheer)

At long last

I have finally got everything finished up with Look Communicaitons....Ok not completely they still have a couple of things to do but at least the billing end of things is now done.

Here is the story in it's long windedness.

Six years ago I ask them to take payments off my Visa and start invoicing me. They didn't so five years ago I called them and asked them to change it so I was. I figured a simple clerical error and it will now be fixed. Boy was I wrong! Fast forward with annual calls say "Please change your billing arrangement."

This year I got fed up and I asked Visa to not pay them. I only found this out after a while because Visa called me saying "Why haven't you payed your bill?". Only to find out that I forgot to inform them about my change of address. Anyway they wouldn't deal with it because of the age of the billing. I then called Look to yell at them saying pay off Visa because they are on my back. This at least had their attention. I asked them to take care of the problem and send me an invoice. It seems that I had too much trust, one would think I would learn, but anyway it wasn't done. Try again two months ago. No luck. Last month I just demanded to speak to a supervisor and someone who could actually work the accounting system. They told me that someone would contact me in 72 hours.

24 hours later no call.

48 hours later no call. So beings the weekend. At this point I don't care that it is the weekend.

72 hours later still no call.

I call in the morning on Monday saying "Where is my supervisor call?". It turns out that a bunch of the supervisors decided to go on vacation and leave it all on Alex's plate. To my delight I get a call at 5pm that day. I outline the situation to Alex and he confirms it on the system that they have there. Promises again are made. After the initial billing issue is sorted out it seems that Look Communications can't pay back Visa because it was more than six months ago. So I pay off Visa and make them happy.

It is now on record that IF anything like this happens again I will get free webhosting and dial up for a year until the problem is corrected.

Now if any of you are asking why I am still with Look after this issue I have actually been with them since .... 1989. Ya before the internet went commercial and a high speed connection was considered 14.4kbps and T1 backbones were considering screaming fast. However I can actually say that this has very much tainted my view on the company.

Is it really that hard to get a simple request filled?

That time of year

Ok it is that time of year when I find that people go funny. Some people are walking around in T-Shirts while others are walking around in deep freeze parkas with everything in between. I find this funny on so many levels and yet I think it is also a tribute to those who fail to see the truly unique nature in people. Right now I am running around in my trench coat but only because of the great amount of rain that is happening. I am sure otherwise I would be wearing a heavy sweater.

For those that are abroad are do you see the same thing? Will I be seeing the same thing next May?

Servers and their joy

Ok I am helping a company move into a co-location here in town but because of some wacky settings that are going to be used I need to use the server in my office first. Nice and simple right. So I pick up the server and I go for about a 15 minute walk around down town.

Now someone in reason I think would at least stare at me odd with a 1U server under my arm but nothing. Not even either of the security guys batted an eye. Oh well at least it was fun walking around with a nice server in my hands....Even if it isn't mine.