Damn Colts...
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: ramblings
I am doing fine now...but I certainly was pissed earlier (5ish). I've been waiting all year for the NFL playoffs to begin...the Colts won last week with a major ass-kickin' against the Denver Broncos. Today they fought against debatably the best team in the NFL, the New England Patriots, and boy did they get their clocks cleaned today. 20 - 3 the Patriots whooped 'em. The team that had the NFL leading 32.5 points per game average was snuffed to just 3 today. Boy did it piss me off...

But...I'm ok now. Now I just need to focus on the Steelers and hoping they can kick the livin' crap outta those damn Patriots.

Does saying that make me un-patriotic? lol

Qwest DSL, part 2...
Mood:  irritated
Topic: ramblings
Ok so I get off of work at 5pm last night and bust ass to get home ASAP in case "Rob from Qwest" is there waiting for me. He's not, so I sneak in the apt and start cleaning whatever I can to make the place look decent (yes...I do have a problem lol).

Anyway, Rob comes by at about 5:15pm. I open the door and jokingly forewarn him about not having the cleanest apartment. He doesn't say a thing, just walks in, puts his equipment down on my futon and turns to look at the television. I just so happened to have "Fear Factor" on tv and he paused for 4 or 5 seconds to watch it. I know it's not a big deal, it's just strange that this man enters my apt, doesn't say a damn thing, and gets mentally sucked into a tv show. Don't worry, the strangeness continues...

He asks me "is anything else plugged in?" I assumed he was referring to electrical stuff because he had to do something that either involved pulling some plugs or potentially blowing a fuse or something. I start to mention the surge protector that the computer is plugged into and then turn to the tv to mention all the electrical stuff plugged in there...

"No, I mean like a telephone..."

"Oh," I said, "yeah I have a telephone right over here." I then pointed over at my telephone.

He then asked if my phone line was connected directly from the wall to the computer, and I informed him that my phone line actually was rewired through my surge protector (that way, if an electrical surge hits, it doesn't blow the DSL box that I don't own). He informs me that he has "never seen a DSL connection work after being filtered through a surge protector." Well, mine worked just fine for over 3 months, and I told him that. Doesn't sound like he believed me. So he unplugged it from the surge protector and started testing the phone line.

Long story short, we checked the wiring to see if it was bad, then we checked the wall connection to see if it was bad. The original wall phone outlet I had used successfully for 3 months aparently was not getting a dial tone anymore (maybe once or twice did I have a slight connection problem to the internet...99.9% of the time tho it worked fine). He then tested the outlet that my phone has also been working just fine for 3+ months...you could hear (through his equipment/instruments) a dial tone that had hissing/interference on the line. So, apparently I've gotten DSL from an outlet that doesn't have a dial tone, and have been using my home phone on a line with a bunch of static. Yet, before Rob showed up (and two days before that) I never had any trouble with DSL or my phone. At this point I asked "well maybe we should try connecting my DSL box to the line with static that my phone used to be plugged into. "No that wouldn't work," he said confidently. "You're lucky you can even make a phone call with that line."

He mentioned to me a couple of times how he would "have to get back there and look at it." "Back there" meaning getting to the phone outlet that is kinda hiding behind an end table, lamp and whatnot. So I offered to move the table if he needed to "get back there" as he claimed.

"Well, I'll have to charge you," he said. After a few questions such as "why would you guys charge me just so I can get DSL connection back?" he mentions that the charge would be $100! $100 just so I can continue to spend nearly $70/month for my phone and DSL?! That's ridiculous!

I told Rob what I thought of this and he kept claiming Qwest would go out of business if they gave away stuff like that for free. He claimed that their computers show that the DSL is "working fine" up until it reaches the box outside, and that it is something inside the apt that is causing the static/bad line.

I figured that Qwest must have the following philosophy:

If something causes a main phone line to go out (affecting multiple customers) Qwest will fix it for free (or sneak it into the phone bill as hidden fees perhaps?). This way, they don't lose a chunk of business.

If, however, it only affects one customer (such as my case, where only my apt appears to have been affected) they will make the resident pay for it. If the resident doesn't pay for it, they will only lose that one customer instead of a chunk.

It's too bad that the execs at Qwest don't know simple business concepts: let's assume it takes Rob an entire hour to fix the problem (I doubt it would even take that long) and he's paid $20/hr (I would hope they don't even pay him that much). Qwest would then be out $20 for labor. Hell, we'll even through in another $20 for the very slight depreciation of his equipment and perhaps new wiring for the apt. So, Qwest is out $40 now. What do they get in return? Well they get to keep me as a customer for one. My happiness wouldn't be measurable monetarily, but my business would be. Every month they would get $60 - $70 from me that they otherwise would lose. In ONE month they would have made back what Rob fixed. Even if it truly costs them $100 (assuming they only charge me exactly what it costs them) then by month TWO I would have paid them back. Each additional month is now profit for them.

Instead, I told Rob if it was going to cost money I'd check with the landlord. If they wouldn't be willing to help, then I would just go with cable internet (it's only a little more $ than DSL, and I wouldn't have to pay $100 to fix anything). I know it wasn't Rob's job to try to keep me as a customer of Qwest or "sell me" on anything (and I can definitely testify that that's TRUE with Rob) but he just shrugged and said "ok." So I helped him out the door.

Out of curiosity I went back to my DSL box and hooked it up to the old phone line (with the static issues). The modem did it's checks and whatnot and within a few minutes: BOOM, the INTERNET LIGHT WAS BACK ON!!! I clicked on the internet explorer button and sure enough I was online.

So much for paying $100 huh? Ridiculous...

Now I have to check my phone bill to make sure the SOBs don't charge me for Rob's visit. If anything, I should be charging them for wasting my time...

Good ol' Qwest DSL...
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: ramblings
So I go home for lunch yesterday and the internet is still down in my apartment. I've had issues with it for over two days. I called Qwest on Tuesday night to see if they were having issues: the woman on the other end (from a call center in North Dakota I found out) says that everything is ok on their end. She tried to contact someone in their technical support department (or something like that) and everyone was gone for the day. So she offered to have someone contact me the next day (which was yesterday).

So I am at home during lunch and I started making some food when the home phone rang. I figured it was either a telemarketer or my gf. (I thought maybe she would call to talk since I couldn't get online). I answer the phone and I hear someone mumble something followed by "Qwest." I said "excuse me?" so he would repeat it. "This is Rob from Qwest" is all he said. I waited for him to say more...a few seconds went by and nothing. "Ok..." I said, "what can I do for you?" He then mumbled something about my DSL box (which I obviously knew was having issues, I was just waiting for the person who called to explain why he was calling lol). I mentioned to him that my DSL connection was down and which lights were/were not on or blinking on the box. He then said, "Ok I can be over at 1:30." I explained to him that I had to go back to work and would be home after 5pm and asked if he could come then. He put up a little fight but eventually said he thought he could come around then.

He then asked for another # to reach me at, so I gave him my cell phone. He said he would try some configurations internally to see if he could get my box to work and then call me later. Isn't it a little scary that Qwest can configure things on my DSL box from another location? Wonder if they are able to tap into anything else through my phone line that way lol

Anyway, I told him to leave me a msg on my phone since I wouldn't be able to answer it. Sure enough, around 2pm he leaves me two messages. The first message is just background noise/blank (which makes me think this guy is in his 50s like my dad lol) and the second message is "this is Rob from Qewst. I did some configuring on my end and as far as I can tell the DSL box is running fine. If you have any questions, call me at..." and then he finished it with "I will see you around 5."

So he says it's fixed yet he still needs to come by my apt? I mean I want my DSL connection back...but couldn't they have given me more of a forewarning so I could have either cleaned up a little more or shoved more in the closet? lol

Crazy huh?

Anyone else agree...?
Mood:  happy
Topic: ramblings
If only it were socially acceptable...I could spend 24/7 on the computer. Sure I'd have to get up every once and a while for regular bodily functions and to eat and whatnot (not to mention, give my ass a chance to breathe lol) but other than that I could EASILY spend whole days at a time on the computer downloading stuff, surfing the web, working on my websites, etc...

On second thought...screw whether it is socially acceptable or not...

Enough is enough...
Mood:  irritated
Topic: ramblings
You know what irritates me? People who are using the recent tsunami in SE Asia as a means to vent their frustrations about the war in Iraq. They say things like, "It is very sad that mother nature has unleashed something that has taken so many innocent lives. What is even worse is President Bush sending troops to Iraq for his own selfish reasons so him and his cronies can get richer while more and more American soldiers die. Now more than ever we need to tell Bush we're tired of it and we want..." yada yada yada

Certainly my heart goes out to all of those who have been affected by this tsunami. There are literally millions of people who will never be the same now because of that one fateful day in December. What irritates me to the bone, though, is people comparing "mother nature" to the "mother !#(*&" (as they would call the man in the White House). I understand that many, if not all, of these people who are so against the war are just clouded with their deep seeded hatred for Bush, republicans and general, and anything involving conflict. But to try to compare a natural disaster to a decision to the removal of a brutal dictator just irks me.

Even the loss of life inflicted by the tsunami is comparable to Saddam's executions. One article in particular lists Saddam's death toll at 61,000 (found by polling Iraq's population) but they said that when Saddam was removed from power, upwards of 300,000 were found in mass graves, whereas human rights officials estimate that the total could be upwards of 500,000 to 1 million. If that is the case, then Saddam would be "worse" than the tsunami when it comes to loss of life(considering it would be hard to find anyone who agrees that this many people "should" have died from either horror).

So did Saddam kill this many people or not? Did he order the execution of even 30,000 people? If he did, would it not make sense that his removal would be a good thing? Perhaps "democracy in the middle east" is a far fetched hope, but shouldn't we at least give the Iraqi people a chance to decide for themselves whether they want a dictator or a free country? Soldiers returning from Iraq will tell you that the people of Iraq are happy...there are some terrorists and insurgents who are not happy (and never will be unless the US withers and dies) but those who were under Saddam's reign are no longer...

So, please, if you disagree with the war in Iraq, fine, just say it. If you don't like the fact that he is replubican or Christian or rich or white or whatever, fine. You can disagree with his economic policies or his public speaking abilities, but please don't go so far as to say what Bush has done is worse than the tsunami (or worse than Saddam, as some claim). There is just no basis of truth behind that.

Feelin' crappy...
Mood:  down
Topic: ramblings
Well...let me start out by saying I need to start looking for another job now more than ever...

...and secondly, I hope what happened last Wednesday doesn't get me fired.

I'm assuming you want an explanation now? lol

Well...last Wednesday I was tellering. A shared branch member (shared branch = other credit unions around the country who can come to our branches to perform transactions) came in to deposit a check and get cash back. I can remember the guy like it was yesterday...faces I'm not too good with but I definitely remember him. He handed me a check for $4185 and some change...he told me a good story (I know now it was just a story) about getting into a car accident months ago and finally getting his settlement check. The bottom of the check even listed "Memo: Insurance claim pay-out" or something along those lines...I hadn't noticed that the issuer was a doctor's clinic and put two and two together: a doctor wouldn't pay out an insurance claim, that's what insurance companies are for. So, the issuer of the check should have been an insurance company.

As if that oversight wasn't enough, Shared Branching rules usually state if the check isn't guaranteed funds (i.e. cashier's check) or payroll (next best thing to guaranteed) that a hold is to be placed on the check. Well...this guy told me a good story about needing the money desperately because he's been without a car and he's found a good deal on a new car (also a complete fabrication I'm sure). I made the deposit and asked if he would like any cash back. "Oh...well...I was wondering if I could get $4,000 of it?" he asked. The answer should have been no. The mere fact I gave him so much cash in and of itself could get me into big trouble...regardless of the fact that he was a shared branch member.

Well, I gave him the $4,000 left the other $185+ in his account and left it at that. He had a good story and he didn't want the whole thing cashed out so I figured it was a good check. Well, needless to say, it turns out the check is counterfeit. And it turns out that a teller at our other branch deposited a check in his account for just under $4,000 that turned out to be counterfeit. But what's the big difference? When I went into the shared branching system I accidentally pulled up the wrong members' account. As if the day wasn't bad enough, I come to find out that our credit union might have to eat the $4k loss because I put it in the wrong account! Needless to say, I feel pretty crappy right now.

And, to top it all off...the same guy who deposited two bogus checks with us and got $4k in cash back came into our other branch and cashed a payroll check. Normally not a big deal, but for a guy who owes us $4k and is known to conterfeit checks, those funds should have been held regardless of any permission that his branch (Barksdale CU in Louisiana) gave (and they did give permission believe it or not).

So yeah, it's 3:15pm...and I wanna go home...

Spoke too soon...
Mood:  blue
Topic: ramblings
Well now the phone calls have been just flying in...at least they have been low key though (yeah I probably jinxed it again). Sometimes you get the really crazy time consuming kinds (fraud, disputes, members wanting detailed explanations for things, etc) but today has been mostly easy (balances, transfers, check withdrawals, etc). So gotta love that at least lol

Monday morning...
Mood:  blue
Topic: ramblings
Well here it is Monday morning...last Monday at this time I swear I had taken 3 times as many calls! It totally sucked! So I'm feeling pretty good about the fact that today I've had a fairly slow day and the calls have been simple...

But I also feel pretty crummy because my girlfriend's mom had to go to the hospital today to have a procedure done to make sure there aren't any blood clots or anything since a preliminary check showed a blurry spot which may or may not be something serious. So I've been keeping my gf's mom and the family in my prayers lately. I'm sure everything will be just fine though.