Well, this weekend Julie, Grandma and I went to prep her house for the movers. It will take some time to fix things, but we made a good start. Julie was particularly helpful. We're going back in two weeks.
Friday night Jennifer and I saw Angels and Demons which is OK and then later watched a lot of Netflix including Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Doctor Who, Mad Men (which is suprisingly good but not family friendly), this BIZARRE australian claymation thing called Harvey Krumpet and Connections 1. I also got some reading and writing done.
Jennifer did a truly impressive job of making a dent in the jungle that has become our backyard.
I still need to make some long term plans over exactly what to do with my degree at this point, but the immediate plans are to get my PMP (the equivalent of the bar as it is for lawyers) and to get Project Management experience.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Trip to Boston
Normally I would have written this each day as we did it, because there are often so many neat things on such trips, that writing it all up in a summary is just too much. I don't like writing such long posts, and I doubt many people like to read them, so I'll summarize but try to provide relevant details as well. I wish that Boston had not been such an internet deficient city. Oh sure, there was wireless everywhere, but no rentable kiosks of you didn't have a lap top.
We got an early start on Thursday morning, taking the train to the airport and then flying directly to Boston. Did you know that you have to pay an extra $15 dollars now for ONE non carry on baggage? There are no free ones any more. They do (to our pleasant suprise) still offer free peanuts and a single softdrink mid flight, but they're now doing what Aer Lingus did on trip to Ireland in terms of pushing snacks and better beverages to sell. Though they're still not yet hawking random merchandise. I imagine it is only a matter of time. We got a car at the dollar rental place, and while most of the staff was nice, the lady we rented from kept trying (about five or six times) to add more stuff on to the vehicle. We declined. We then went to the hotel, The Inn at Crystal Cove, which we liked quite a bit. We later decided to see a movie, but Angels and Demons wasn't out yet. We ended up seeing X-men Origins which was entirely forgettable and a waste of the $12 a peice we paid for it.
Let me take a moment to talk about Winthrop. It is entirely an accident that we ended up staying there, but the Wikipedia article really doesn't do it justice. It is in some ways reminiscent of Boulder near Denver but it is a bit more than that. The town is full of these majestic (though crumbling) turn of the century three story houses that are absolutely awesome, but the town itself is full of middle class working folk. It is a small town near a large one, and it is very noticiable by the complete lack of corporate logos all over the town. You don't realize how much your subconcious mind accepts these things until you're in a town that doesn't have them. There was a Duncan Donuts, but appearantly they had to fight to get in the town. Corporate america would hate Winthrop, but personally it is exactly the kind of place I'd love to go. The locals seem nice, though I can also tell you don't want to piss them off. Also an attitude I can greatly respect. As a side note, I would not recommend navigating the twisty maze of streets in the city without a handy GPS. We are quite pleased with our Tom Tom which performed much better than the brain dead Verizon Navigator.
Friday was our tourist day and after a bit of a late start (partly getting back late from the mediocre movie) we went to Fenway Park, which is one of the oldest parks in Baseball. Jennifer is a huge baseball fan, and while she is a brave's fan over the Red Sox, she is a massive fan of Ted Williams, whose book taught her a lot about the fundamentals of baseball. We took several pictures which we will post in short order (probably to Facebook). Jennifer bought a few knicknacks including a pennant for her father and two hat pins. Then we went to see the USS Constitution, which is the oldest commissioned active warship afloat. It was a US Naval Vessel in 1796, and is one of the six original frigates commissioned by George Washington. After that, we went to see Boston Park, and then Jennifer did a bit of shopping. We were going to do the "Duck Tour" but decided that since we were both exhuasted and that this was a vacation, we'd do it next time. This turned out to be a good idea since by now I had a small sore on my upper right foot. Nothing major but it hurts a bit.
On Saturday we did Graduation. We had a relaxing Saturday morning (mainly because we decided not to do the Duck Tour) and then went to Boston University. We got there early for the pre reception, but since I didn't know anyone there from Adam, we toured the campus instead. It is HUGE, lenthwise about twice that of BYU, but probably about equal to BYU in terms of total area. The graduation itself went well. Initially, when I showed up to register, they handed me a sign that said "Project Management" and I thought I was going to lead the procession for my group, but it turns out I was just the first guy to show up, and that it was actually carried by the alphabetically first person (probably Aaron Aaaaaace or something). The ceremony was two hours long and they handed me a diploma. I am quite pleased to have the degree, since it is both a life goal and hopefully a tool to help me change to a different career. We'll see how it works out.
Sunday we came home. I picked up Thunder from Mom and Skip. We watched a bit of Lost and then slept. It had been an exhausting trip.
We got an early start on Thursday morning, taking the train to the airport and then flying directly to Boston. Did you know that you have to pay an extra $15 dollars now for ONE non carry on baggage? There are no free ones any more. They do (to our pleasant suprise) still offer free peanuts and a single softdrink mid flight, but they're now doing what Aer Lingus did on trip to Ireland in terms of pushing snacks and better beverages to sell. Though they're still not yet hawking random merchandise. I imagine it is only a matter of time. We got a car at the dollar rental place, and while most of the staff was nice, the lady we rented from kept trying (about five or six times) to add more stuff on to the vehicle. We declined. We then went to the hotel, The Inn at Crystal Cove, which we liked quite a bit. We later decided to see a movie, but Angels and Demons wasn't out yet. We ended up seeing X-men Origins which was entirely forgettable and a waste of the $12 a peice we paid for it.
Let me take a moment to talk about Winthrop. It is entirely an accident that we ended up staying there, but the Wikipedia article really doesn't do it justice. It is in some ways reminiscent of Boulder near Denver but it is a bit more than that. The town is full of these majestic (though crumbling) turn of the century three story houses that are absolutely awesome, but the town itself is full of middle class working folk. It is a small town near a large one, and it is very noticiable by the complete lack of corporate logos all over the town. You don't realize how much your subconcious mind accepts these things until you're in a town that doesn't have them. There was a Duncan Donuts, but appearantly they had to fight to get in the town. Corporate america would hate Winthrop, but personally it is exactly the kind of place I'd love to go. The locals seem nice, though I can also tell you don't want to piss them off. Also an attitude I can greatly respect. As a side note, I would not recommend navigating the twisty maze of streets in the city without a handy GPS. We are quite pleased with our Tom Tom which performed much better than the brain dead Verizon Navigator.
Friday was our tourist day and after a bit of a late start (partly getting back late from the mediocre movie) we went to Fenway Park, which is one of the oldest parks in Baseball. Jennifer is a huge baseball fan, and while she is a brave's fan over the Red Sox, she is a massive fan of Ted Williams, whose book taught her a lot about the fundamentals of baseball. We took several pictures which we will post in short order (probably to Facebook). Jennifer bought a few knicknacks including a pennant for her father and two hat pins. Then we went to see the USS Constitution, which is the oldest commissioned active warship afloat. It was a US Naval Vessel in 1796, and is one of the six original frigates commissioned by George Washington. After that, we went to see Boston Park, and then Jennifer did a bit of shopping. We were going to do the "Duck Tour" but decided that since we were both exhuasted and that this was a vacation, we'd do it next time. This turned out to be a good idea since by now I had a small sore on my upper right foot. Nothing major but it hurts a bit.
On Saturday we did Graduation. We had a relaxing Saturday morning (mainly because we decided not to do the Duck Tour) and then went to Boston University. We got there early for the pre reception, but since I didn't know anyone there from Adam, we toured the campus instead. It is HUGE, lenthwise about twice that of BYU, but probably about equal to BYU in terms of total area. The graduation itself went well. Initially, when I showed up to register, they handed me a sign that said "Project Management" and I thought I was going to lead the procession for my group, but it turns out I was just the first guy to show up, and that it was actually carried by the alphabetically first person (probably Aaron Aaaaaace or something). The ceremony was two hours long and they handed me a diploma. I am quite pleased to have the degree, since it is both a life goal and hopefully a tool to help me change to a different career. We'll see how it works out.
Sunday we came home. I picked up Thunder from Mom and Skip. We watched a bit of Lost and then slept. It had been an exhausting trip.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The incompotence of American Express
Sent to American Express:
To whom it may concern,
This morning I found out that, 4 days before we were to go on vacation, our card was full of over $2300 worth of fraudulent charges. I was informed in no less than 3 phone calls to your customer service department, that it would take 30 days to resolve this issue, that I would get no details about what was going on or why, and that my card was essentially locked for 30 days so I could not continue accrueing rewards. I recently spent 150 hours dealing with someone ELSE hitting my car, I am in no mood to lose more money due to someone ELSE's actions.
Your fraud department has informed me that there is nothing they can do about this, besides, at best, to wipe the fraudulent transactions from our record THIRTY DAYS from now. This is in reference to case XXXXXXXX. Since apparently your fraud and customer service departtment can't do anything about this, I have thus far contacted:
Hank Johnson
Johnny Isakson
Saxby Chambliss
United Airlines
FTC Identity Fraud
Treasury Inspector General
Chicago Police
Illinois Attorney General
Interpol
Guragon Commissioner of Police in India
Georgia Attorney General
And I will be contacting anyone else who I think might be able to do something about this. Furthermore, when I am asked about American Express, I'll tell them "Well they have great customer service, but you'd better hope no one jams up your card with criminally fraudulent charges because apparantly it takes them 30 days to be able to do anything about getting the fraudulent charges off."
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Thomas C. Ricks
To whom it may concern,
This morning I found out that, 4 days before we were to go on vacation, our card was full of over $2300 worth of fraudulent charges. I was informed in no less than 3 phone calls to your customer service department, that it would take 30 days to resolve this issue, that I would get no details about what was going on or why, and that my card was essentially locked for 30 days so I could not continue accrueing rewards. I recently spent 150 hours dealing with someone ELSE hitting my car, I am in no mood to lose more money due to someone ELSE's actions.
Your fraud department has informed me that there is nothing they can do about this, besides, at best, to wipe the fraudulent transactions from our record THIRTY DAYS from now. This is in reference to case XXXXXXXX. Since apparently your fraud and customer service departtment can't do anything about this, I have thus far contacted:
Hank Johnson
Johnny Isakson
Saxby Chambliss
United Airlines
FTC Identity Fraud
Treasury Inspector General
Chicago Police
Illinois Attorney General
Interpol
Guragon Commissioner of Police in India
Georgia Attorney General
And I will be contacting anyone else who I think might be able to do something about this. Furthermore, when I am asked about American Express, I'll tell them "Well they have great customer service, but you'd better hope no one jams up your card with criminally fraudulent charges because apparantly it takes them 30 days to be able to do anything about getting the fraudulent charges off."
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Thomas C. Ricks
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Life
Well we're getting ready to go to Boston this Thursday. We broke down and got tickets, since it would have been a sixteen hour drive. Still, I'd rather have waited a few more weeks before hitting any major expenses, but in this case it was probably worth it. Probably. I guess in some ways I can be a cheap bastard.
We celebrated mother's day with Mom on Sunday with Julie, Skip, Mom, Jennifer, Grandma and I. It was nice. We mainly talked a lot though there was this brief bizarre timewarp where we started watching something on the screen, I remember an instense pain in my forehead like someone was jabbing a spike through my eye on the inside, and then suddenly two hours of my life had been wiped away due to mental defenses erasing the horrific experience that I had just watched. There were vague mental salves of "it wasn't really that bad" and "Hey, there were actually funny moments like um.....well those are all a blur now too because your mind has been forced to heal itself" and "There actually wasn't any dancing...that you remember" and "Of course there won't be any sequels."
We saw the second season finale of Robin Hood. Its convinced me to start a sixth blog about reviewing the stuff I watch, see, hear or read. If I put something there in the future that I refence here I'll link it, but the long story short is this: If you're going to do a television show and the actor wants more money, I'm not a fan of getting rid of the actor, but I understand it from a business perspective. Television audiences are trained to accept this. What I am not prepared to accept is that if you are going to do a show about Robin Hood, you do not kill Maid Marion off and replace her with Guy of Gisborn's sister who is the NEW secret spy inside of the castle and also Robin's romantic love interest. Nuh uh. Off the netflix queue you go like a good little evil stupid thing. I mean...SERIOUSLY...who thinks these things up?
I'm beginning to wonder if the british might be able to make all around better television (scripted not reality-almost all reality television is garbage no matter what nationality) but simply cannot grasp the concept of ending a series properly.
We also saw Star Trek Friday night. It was excellent and I highly recommend seeing it.
We celebrated mother's day with Mom on Sunday with Julie, Skip, Mom, Jennifer, Grandma and I. It was nice. We mainly talked a lot though there was this brief bizarre timewarp where we started watching something on the screen, I remember an instense pain in my forehead like someone was jabbing a spike through my eye on the inside, and then suddenly two hours of my life had been wiped away due to mental defenses erasing the horrific experience that I had just watched. There were vague mental salves of "it wasn't really that bad" and "Hey, there were actually funny moments like um.....well those are all a blur now too because your mind has been forced to heal itself" and "There actually wasn't any dancing...that you remember" and "Of course there won't be any sequels."
We saw the second season finale of Robin Hood. Its convinced me to start a sixth blog about reviewing the stuff I watch, see, hear or read. If I put something there in the future that I refence here I'll link it, but the long story short is this: If you're going to do a television show and the actor wants more money, I'm not a fan of getting rid of the actor, but I understand it from a business perspective. Television audiences are trained to accept this. What I am not prepared to accept is that if you are going to do a show about Robin Hood, you do not kill Maid Marion off and replace her with Guy of Gisborn's sister who is the NEW secret spy inside of the castle and also Robin's romantic love interest. Nuh uh. Off the netflix queue you go like a good little evil stupid thing. I mean...SERIOUSLY...who thinks these things up?
I'm beginning to wonder if the british might be able to make all around better television (scripted not reality-almost all reality television is garbage no matter what nationality) but simply cannot grasp the concept of ending a series properly.
We also saw Star Trek Friday night. It was excellent and I highly recommend seeing it.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Life
Well, we now have tickets and I should have my cap and gown. I also have a new car, a 2008 Cherry Red Kia Rio. Not exactly a mercedes Benz, in fact, not even close, but since our consolidated loans are probably gonna be somewhere in the rate of 330-400 a month by my calculation, I'll hold off on the ritzy cars until we own a home, have children, and I actually have a project manager's job that pays well.
Which could be a while, but it will be a lot sooner now that I've graduated.
Jennifer's birthday was over the last weekend. I got her a gift certificate at a shoe place which she liked a lot and a digital camera. She has also received checks, a magazine subscription and another gift certificate to Amazon.
We declined to watch Wolverine over the weekend after hearing really bad things about it. Instead, on Friday night, we celebrated Jennifer's birthday...buying shoes...which normally I'm not a fan of, but in this case she enjoyed it and it was for her birthday so I dealt with it. We also had Thai food which was excellently good.
Saturday we went to a thing for Mythic Journey's which some friends were doing, kind of a screening. It was rather interesting and we both enjoyed it.
Sunday we both went to Mom and Skip's house where we celebrated Jennifer's Birthday with Mom, Skip and Grandma. We had a Turtle Custard Pie (quite good) and Lasanga. We also watched the second half of the Terry Pratchet Inspired Hogfather, which was fun.
We're enjoying Lost Season 3 right now, which is much MUCH better than I expected it to be.
Which could be a while, but it will be a lot sooner now that I've graduated.
Jennifer's birthday was over the last weekend. I got her a gift certificate at a shoe place which she liked a lot and a digital camera. She has also received checks, a magazine subscription and another gift certificate to Amazon.
We declined to watch Wolverine over the weekend after hearing really bad things about it. Instead, on Friday night, we celebrated Jennifer's birthday...buying shoes...which normally I'm not a fan of, but in this case she enjoyed it and it was for her birthday so I dealt with it. We also had Thai food which was excellently good.
Saturday we went to a thing for Mythic Journey's which some friends were doing, kind of a screening. It was rather interesting and we both enjoyed it.
Sunday we both went to Mom and Skip's house where we celebrated Jennifer's Birthday with Mom, Skip and Grandma. We had a Turtle Custard Pie (quite good) and Lasanga. We also watched the second half of the Terry Pratchet Inspired Hogfather, which was fun.
We're enjoying Lost Season 3 right now, which is much MUCH better than I expected it to be.
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