Me and Adawg
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Big 3-OOOOOOhhhhhh!
Yeah, its official. I've just passed on to the "other side." On Tuesday I celebrated my 30th birthday. It just so happens that a good friend of mine turned 30 just two days before me so we decided we needed to throw a little bash. Jamie was nice enough to let us host the birthday extravaganza. We invited about 10-15 of our married friends and their kids and Anthony invited about 20-30 of the singles from our church. Needless to say, our house was packed with party goers. In the end, I ended up with 5 cards (extremely sarcastic of course), $1 bill, an Xbox360 game, and shot glass with 30 plain M&M's. It should be noted that the shot glass came from another one of the elder's daughters!!! Oh the horror! :)
Me and Adawg
Me and Adawg
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Sorry coach, I got a case of the 37's
Found this today, its a boxscore for the Phoenix Suns/San Antonio Spurs game from last week. Check out the line for San Antonio's Robert Horry. Classic!
Note 4/26/07: The above link has been changed. The injury note for Robert Horry in the boxscore used to say "DNP: Old Age". Apparently someone didn't think it was too funny, so they changed it, bummer.
Note 4/26/07: The above link has been changed. The injury note for Robert Horry in the boxscore used to say "DNP: Old Age". Apparently someone didn't think it was too funny, so they changed it, bummer.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Them tail lights are Pimpin'
Well, its been awhile since I last posted. The main reason being that I've been extremely busy, but also because I didn't think anyone actually read this thing. But after being scolded by my cousin Alex for not updating my blog, I've been inspired once again.
So the big news is that over the Easter weekend I traveled half way across the country to get my new pickup truck. It's a long story, and I have time, so here it is. I've been drooling over trucks for the past year, but never felt like pulling the trigger since my car was still under the manufacturer warranty. Well, about 3 months ago when my car hit 61k miles it decided to blow a camshaft sensor. And oh btw, I found out my warranty ended at 60k. Figures. So I started getting serious about dumping my car and finding a truck.
At the beginning of March I found out my mom was having some car trouble. That's when I ran the idea past her that maybe should should upgrade from her '92 Accord to my stunningly beautiful '01 Galant. That was like selling heat to an eskimo, it was a done deal in seconds. Now I just needed to find a truck. Enter eBay. After scouring adds for about 3 weeks I found several Ford Rangers that I wanted to make a run at. Unfortunately, they were all more than what I was selling my car for and Jamie and I didn't want a new car payment. The other problem was that I hadn't really run the truck selections past my wife. Well, with the likely addition of a child through adoption this year, she made having a back seat a requirement. Sooo, I had to revise my search a bit, and that's when I found her. Actually, Jamie did. As soon as I showed it to her she said, "That's the one." The only problem is that it was more than what I wanted to spend, but hey, what the wife wants the wife gets, right!?!? :) If you ask her though she'll tell you that I wanted it and I'm the one who spent all the money, but lets face it, I know she wanted it!
So on Friday morning Jamie dropped me off at the Rochester Airport and I flew all the way out to Queens, NY. While I was out there I was able to hook up with an old friend, James, and we had lunch and he gave me a quick 2cent tour of Brooklyn. Then I bolted for Millersville, PA to spend the night at my sisters place. I spent a few precious minutes showing Sean how to put the biscuit in the basket on his PS3 and then took off bright and early on Saturday for Indiana. After a nice 10 hour trip I pulled into Middlebury. I met up with Jamie and her mom there since they drove my car down to Indiana for my mom after they left me at the airport. Then on Sunday we all hopped in the truck and headed back to the frigid confines of Rochester.
All in all, I traveled nearly halfway across the country in one weekend. I got to spend quality time with myself and Vince Flynn's "Executive Power" audiobook.... highly recommended btw.
So the big news is that over the Easter weekend I traveled half way across the country to get my new pickup truck. It's a long story, and I have time, so here it is. I've been drooling over trucks for the past year, but never felt like pulling the trigger since my car was still under the manufacturer warranty. Well, about 3 months ago when my car hit 61k miles it decided to blow a camshaft sensor. And oh btw, I found out my warranty ended at 60k. Figures. So I started getting serious about dumping my car and finding a truck.
At the beginning of March I found out my mom was having some car trouble. That's when I ran the idea past her that maybe should should upgrade from her '92 Accord to my stunningly beautiful '01 Galant. That was like selling heat to an eskimo, it was a done deal in seconds. Now I just needed to find a truck. Enter eBay. After scouring adds for about 3 weeks I found several Ford Rangers that I wanted to make a run at. Unfortunately, they were all more than what I was selling my car for and Jamie and I didn't want a new car payment. The other problem was that I hadn't really run the truck selections past my wife. Well, with the likely addition of a child through adoption this year, she made having a back seat a requirement. Sooo, I had to revise my search a bit, and that's when I found her. Actually, Jamie did. As soon as I showed it to her she said, "That's the one." The only problem is that it was more than what I wanted to spend, but hey, what the wife wants the wife gets, right!?!? :) If you ask her though she'll tell you that I wanted it and I'm the one who spent all the money, but lets face it, I know she wanted it!
So on Friday morning Jamie dropped me off at the Rochester Airport and I flew all the way out to Queens, NY. While I was out there I was able to hook up with an old friend, James, and we had lunch and he gave me a quick 2cent tour of Brooklyn. Then I bolted for Millersville, PA to spend the night at my sisters place. I spent a few precious minutes showing Sean how to put the biscuit in the basket on his PS3 and then took off bright and early on Saturday for Indiana. After a nice 10 hour trip I pulled into Middlebury. I met up with Jamie and her mom there since they drove my car down to Indiana for my mom after they left me at the airport. Then on Sunday we all hopped in the truck and headed back to the frigid confines of Rochester.
All in all, I traveled nearly halfway across the country in one weekend. I got to spend quality time with myself and Vince Flynn's "Executive Power" audiobook.... highly recommended btw.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Ruminations on a Super Bowl
Indianapolis Colts, Super Bowl extra-large I Champions, I like the sound of that. How often can you say that your favorite sports team actually won it all? Not often (unless you are from Boston recently, more on them later) that's for sure. Its kind of surreal though, I mean, it came and went and yet I don't feel any different. I've waited my entire life for these guys to win and now its finally happened, but I am unchanged. I mean, shouldn't I being wearing a perma-grin or something at the very least? I think I have to blame it on living here in Minnesota. The fact that its -10 degrees every day may have muted my ability to get excited about this stuff. And the level of apathy of Vikings fans I work with every day has reached epic proportions around here. I know for a fact that the missed FG by Gary Anderson back in 2001 ripped the beating hearts out of many Vikes fans, and I don't think they have ever truly recovered. I think they too are rubbing off on me.
But back to the Colts. I think I had more excitement and satisfaction out of "pounding" the Patriots in the AFC Championship game. I don't care if it was only 4 points, as long as the Pats are on the losing end, its a pounding in my book. Suck it Brady!!! Suck it!!! That is probably because I hate the Boston sports scene. Basically it comes down to the fact that I'm a small market guy (Colts, Twins) and I get sick and tired of big market teams spending money to win. I mean, I could have had the best looking date at the prom too if I was willing to fork out $500, but isn't it more satisfying when you have the hottest girl beside you and you didn't shell out a dime? Yeah, I thought so. Big market teams are just a bunch of pimps with a whole lot of prostitutes on their rosters. Chicago is a big market, but the Bears don't pay squat and are essentially small market, so maybe that's why I didn't get so excited. It was like David defeating David.
There was some other good news as well. We spent Super Bowl Sunday at Jamie's aunt and uncle's place. Her uncle decided to put a football board together. This was major high stakes gambling friends, 10cents per square. We contacted Barkley and Jordan to see if they wanted in, but politely declined citing the sizable buy-in. I pitched in $2 so Jamie and I could each get 10 squares. Payouts were $1 for the 1st Quarter, $2-2nd Qtr, $3-3rd Qtr, and $4-4th Qtr. It should be stated that when it comes to gambling I have some sort of a curse. It is impossible for me win money through gambling for whatever reason. So I knew that my $1 was being donated to someone else, I was okay with that. Luckily, the curse placed on me does not hold sway over my wife as well. She took the 1st and 2nd quarter pots (I was thinking a 4 quarter sweep by halftime). Needless to say that was all we got, however, my wife parlayed my $2 investment into $3.... now that's what I'm talking about baby!!!
But back to the Colts. I think I had more excitement and satisfaction out of "pounding" the Patriots in the AFC Championship game. I don't care if it was only 4 points, as long as the Pats are on the losing end, its a pounding in my book. Suck it Brady!!! Suck it!!! That is probably because I hate the Boston sports scene. Basically it comes down to the fact that I'm a small market guy (Colts, Twins) and I get sick and tired of big market teams spending money to win. I mean, I could have had the best looking date at the prom too if I was willing to fork out $500, but isn't it more satisfying when you have the hottest girl beside you and you didn't shell out a dime? Yeah, I thought so. Big market teams are just a bunch of pimps with a whole lot of prostitutes on their rosters. Chicago is a big market, but the Bears don't pay squat and are essentially small market, so maybe that's why I didn't get so excited. It was like David defeating David.
There was some other good news as well. We spent Super Bowl Sunday at Jamie's aunt and uncle's place. Her uncle decided to put a football board together. This was major high stakes gambling friends, 10cents per square. We contacted Barkley and Jordan to see if they wanted in, but politely declined citing the sizable buy-in. I pitched in $2 so Jamie and I could each get 10 squares. Payouts were $1 for the 1st Quarter, $2-2nd Qtr, $3-3rd Qtr, and $4-4th Qtr. It should be stated that when it comes to gambling I have some sort of a curse. It is impossible for me win money through gambling for whatever reason. So I knew that my $1 was being donated to someone else, I was okay with that. Luckily, the curse placed on me does not hold sway over my wife as well. She took the 1st and 2nd quarter pots (I was thinking a 4 quarter sweep by halftime). Needless to say that was all we got, however, my wife parlayed my $2 investment into $3.... now that's what I'm talking about baby!!!
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
January Recap
What a way to break in the new year. There were two big events this month. The first is that Jamie's sister came to Rochester for two weeks and she brought our little niece with her! Poor Doug had to stay Utah and work and did not get to join us this time. However, there are some rumors swirling around that he got a little fiesty with some people on his pizza delivery route one night, so it sounds like he had a little excitement while his two favorite ladies were gone. We have lots of pictures of Ellorie, but I haven't downloaded them from the camera yet. So those will be coming shortly so you can all see just how cute she is!
The other major event this month was that I was nominated and formally elected by the church body to become an elder at our church. It is very humbling to even be considered for this position and at the same time very "scary." I in no way take this position lightly and both Jamie and I have committed ourselves fully to all the time and effort that is required of us. The success of any church rests on the ability of its elders to lead and so I ask all of our friends and family out there to please keep us in your prayers, we will need them.
PS - If you are trying to come up with jokes about me being an "elder" please know that I've just about all of them already :) I guess that's what you get when you carry that title and haven't hit 30 yet.
PSS - Consider Jesus was only 30 when he started his earthly ministry. Since I'll be 30 in a few months it was a sobering realization that age should never be an excuse for being timid or inactive in church leadership.
The other major event this month was that I was nominated and formally elected by the church body to become an elder at our church. It is very humbling to even be considered for this position and at the same time very "scary." I in no way take this position lightly and both Jamie and I have committed ourselves fully to all the time and effort that is required of us. The success of any church rests on the ability of its elders to lead and so I ask all of our friends and family out there to please keep us in your prayers, we will need them.
PS - If you are trying to come up with jokes about me being an "elder" please know that I've just about all of them already :) I guess that's what you get when you carry that title and haven't hit 30 yet.
PSS - Consider Jesus was only 30 when he started his earthly ministry. Since I'll be 30 in a few months it was a sobering realization that age should never be an excuse for being timid or inactive in church leadership.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Christmas Cookies
Last Sunday Jamie and I hosted the 2nd Annual cookie decorating contest at our house. We had a house full. The Asuncion kids, Jamie's parents, and the Kuhlmann family all showed up to do a little decorating.
We had a blast making the cookies. Jamie made about 40 different sugar cookies for us to work on. We had several cookies that looked that they were done by a professional cookie decorator, and then we had others that looked, well, like they weren't done by a professional :) Jamie brought in the rest of the cookies to work and her co workers went crazy over them.
Here are some pictures of the event.
Deepali's 1st Prize and Emily's cookies
Kanani's grinch cookie and Kawika's Santa w/ a lazy eye
Abby's
Monday, December 11, 2006
Don't Use the Internet in Canada
In light of my recent post about how much Charter Communications sucks, here is a great link displaying the total incompetence of customer service in this country. I got this link from a co-worker and listened in horror. Maybe its because I'm an engineer and very analytical, but this seems like.... common cents?
http://www.glumbert.com/media/verizon
Apparently this guy has a blog about this as well, quite humorous.... http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/
For those of you too lazy check out these links, here is the Cliff's Notes of the audio. This poor guy gets a quote from Verizon that he will be charged .002 cents per kB while using the internet in Canada. In actuality, he gets charged .002 dollars. For all you non-math majors, thats 100 times more than he was quoted. He racked up something like 35800kB of internet usage. So by Verizon's math:
35895 kB
x .002 cents
------------------
$71.79
NOTE: This is the definition of "fuzzy math." You have to keep the units the same, if you multiply by cents you gets cents in your answer. So the bill should be 71.79 cents, not the $71.79 he was actually charged.
http://www.glumbert.com/media/verizon
Apparently this guy has a blog about this as well, quite humorous.... http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/
For those of you too lazy check out these links, here is the Cliff's Notes of the audio. This poor guy gets a quote from Verizon that he will be charged .002 cents per kB while using the internet in Canada. In actuality, he gets charged .002 dollars. For all you non-math majors, thats 100 times more than he was quoted. He racked up something like 35800kB of internet usage. So by Verizon's math:
35895 kB
x .002 cents
------------------
$71.79
NOTE: This is the definition of "fuzzy math." You have to keep the units the same, if you multiply by cents you gets cents in your answer. So the bill should be 71.79 cents, not the $71.79 he was actually charged.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Charter Sucks
Well, its time to air my grievances somewhere because calling the service department at Charter is worthless. Charter runs a nice little monopoly here in Rochester so when it comes to cable service they have us cornered. I was getting frustrated so I decided to do a little Google'ing to see what I could find. I typed in 'Charter internet great'. Guess what the first 10 hits were? That's right, charter.com. So then I typed in 'Charter internet sucks'. The results were much different as you might imagine. On the one hand I was comforted that I was not the only one suffering as I spent the next 30 mins reading about other people experiencing the same piss-poor service. On the other hand though, its sad that a business that is this horrendous can stay in business. I am yet to find a single website that has a customer praising the quality of their service.
Here are just a few of the things I've run into:
1. Incorrect Billing - About six months ago we got a letter in the mail saying that Charter was changing their service plans and that we would be forced to "upgrade." Unless we called to change our service our bill was going up $20/month for our package which included digital cable and the slowest internet service. We couldn't afford to pay over $1oo/month so I called them up and asked to drop to basic cable. I had a coupon for the 3Meg High Speed Internet so I signed up for that too. Lo and behold, next month my bill comes and I'm charged twice for the internet service (neither price included the coupon) and I was being charged for two digital tiers (movies and sports) even though we no longer had digital cable. It sounds like I'm one of the lucky ones, but after only the 2nd call to customer service I was able to get my bill fixed.
2. Poor Internet Service - Wow, this has been so bad it makes me want to cry when I think about it. For the past 18 months we have had to deal with our internet connection being dropped repeatedly. It depended on how much we were online, but if I were working from home for the day I could expect it to drop the connection atleast twice. The only way to get it back was to shut down the computer and power cycle the cable modem. On top of that, I'm not getting anywhere close to the service I'm paying for. I've been monitoring my download speed for the past month and the most I've been able to get is 400kb/s. That's not too bad, unless you consider that I'm paying for 3000kb/s! So I'm maxing out at about 13% of what I'm paying for.
3. Charter Phone Service - I don't have Charter phone myself, but have been watching a co-worker deal with this one for the past week. His wife tried changing service from Qwest to Charter a few weeks ago. When he found out he immediately had her change it back, but it was too late. Charter hadn't activated their service yet, but had taken control of their number. So they were left without a working phone in their home. When he tried calling up Qwest to get that service back they couldn't do it because Charter owned their number and wouldn't give it up for 9 days (a.k.a. a cheap way to get people who want to keep their old number to use your service even if they don't want to). I guess over the weekend they went ahead and had Charter turn their phone on with the intent that after 9 days they'll switch back to Qwest. But here's the kicker, he can't call the Qwest 1-800 number from his home phone!!! He can reach it from work, but not from his home phone with Charter service. And you are telling me this is legal?
Again, I don't know how these morons can stay in business. There is absolutely no accountability, honesty, or integrity in anything that they do. I can promise you that if there were a competing company in Rochester (Hello Comcast, if you're out there, we are waiting) atleast 80% of Charter's current customers would switch.
Here are a few other rabid people across the country that I found hate Charter:
http://www.topix.net/forum/com/chtr
http://www.rateitall.com/i-280152-charter-cable-tv.aspx
http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=16573
http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=16334
http://my.opera.com/usability/blog/show.dml/61589
http://solo2.org/blogs/christoc/archive/tags/Charter+Sucks/default.aspx
http://chrishammond.com/blogs/archive/2006/08/15/Charter-Sucks.aspx
At this point I don't even know what to do but bend over and grab my ankles. The future looks bleak.
Here are just a few of the things I've run into:
1. Incorrect Billing - About six months ago we got a letter in the mail saying that Charter was changing their service plans and that we would be forced to "upgrade." Unless we called to change our service our bill was going up $20/month for our package which included digital cable and the slowest internet service. We couldn't afford to pay over $1oo/month so I called them up and asked to drop to basic cable. I had a coupon for the 3Meg High Speed Internet so I signed up for that too. Lo and behold, next month my bill comes and I'm charged twice for the internet service (neither price included the coupon) and I was being charged for two digital tiers (movies and sports) even though we no longer had digital cable. It sounds like I'm one of the lucky ones, but after only the 2nd call to customer service I was able to get my bill fixed.
2. Poor Internet Service - Wow, this has been so bad it makes me want to cry when I think about it. For the past 18 months we have had to deal with our internet connection being dropped repeatedly. It depended on how much we were online, but if I were working from home for the day I could expect it to drop the connection atleast twice. The only way to get it back was to shut down the computer and power cycle the cable modem. On top of that, I'm not getting anywhere close to the service I'm paying for. I've been monitoring my download speed for the past month and the most I've been able to get is 400kb/s. That's not too bad, unless you consider that I'm paying for 3000kb/s! So I'm maxing out at about 13% of what I'm paying for.
3. Charter Phone Service - I don't have Charter phone myself, but have been watching a co-worker deal with this one for the past week. His wife tried changing service from Qwest to Charter a few weeks ago. When he found out he immediately had her change it back, but it was too late. Charter hadn't activated their service yet, but had taken control of their number. So they were left without a working phone in their home. When he tried calling up Qwest to get that service back they couldn't do it because Charter owned their number and wouldn't give it up for 9 days (a.k.a. a cheap way to get people who want to keep their old number to use your service even if they don't want to). I guess over the weekend they went ahead and had Charter turn their phone on with the intent that after 9 days they'll switch back to Qwest. But here's the kicker, he can't call the Qwest 1-800 number from his home phone!!! He can reach it from work, but not from his home phone with Charter service. And you are telling me this is legal?
Again, I don't know how these morons can stay in business. There is absolutely no accountability, honesty, or integrity in anything that they do. I can promise you that if there were a competing company in Rochester (Hello Comcast, if you're out there, we are waiting) atleast 80% of Charter's current customers would switch.
Here are a few other rabid people across the country that I found hate Charter:
http://www.topix.net/forum/com/chtr
http://www.rateitall.com/i-280152-charter-cable-tv.aspx
http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=16573
http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=16334
http://my.opera.com/usability/blog/show.dml/61589
http://solo2.org/blogs/christoc/archive/tags/Charter+Sucks/default.aspx
http://chrishammond.com/blogs/archive/2006/08/15/Charter-Sucks.aspx
At this point I don't even know what to do but bend over and grab my ankles. The future looks bleak.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Blog? What, wait, NOOOOOO!!!
Okay, I never intended to start a blog, all I wanted to do was add a comment to Tim's blog. I unwittingly created a blog by responding, so.....
.... now I'm a blogger. So much for living in a cave. The next thing you know I'll end up getting a cell phone, oh wait, too late.
.... now I'm a blogger. So much for living in a cave. The next thing you know I'll end up getting a cell phone, oh wait, too late.
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