SwimFinsSF

Friday Stuff

just a few things that made me smile for your friday..

First a silly thing.. Little goofy jingle that made me smile so I had to share.. Click here

Then a wrap up on the democratic presidential forum on Logo last night. I only caught parts of it but its on the tivo so i’m going to check it out this weekend… but Logo has a good wrap up and discussion on the forum here…

Customer Service HELL

So this week has been one of those weeks where any interaction I’ve had with companies providing services has gone wrong…

Lets start with Comcast… Fucking Comcast… I got a shiny new HDTV and a new Gen 3 TiVo about a week and a half ago and to go with it I decided to order Digital Cable (I had DirecTV but they dropped TiVo – but thats a different rant).. Well I scheduled a service apointment for last Saturday from 12-2pm. I’ll skip the gory details but suffice it to say they never showed up after many phone calls and waiting around till 6pm that night for them.

So I reschedule for Wednesday over lunch (another 12-2 apointment). Well this time they show up and install the cable however of course they forgot the CableCards I need for the new TiVo. The service guy points to his invoice to show I didn’t ask for it to which I reply ‘I didn’t write your invoice – all that shows is that the person I set up the apointment with didn’t listen when I said VERY CLEARLY that i needed 2 CableCards’. So he proceeds to promise that his supervisor would come by by 5pm that night to deliver the cards. Well 6pm rolls around and no cards.. So I call to see what gives and they tell me that since its 6:05pm they can’t call the supervisor and I just have to set up another apointment.. (Imagine steam coming out of my ears). So I have to set up an apointment for this saturday cuz I have a JOB and can’t be there thursday or friday…

So today i’m driving to work and thinking ‘can’t I just swing by their office and pick the cards up rather than sitting around all day saturday (2-6pm) wondering if they’ll show or not’… So I call comcast and ask to which the guy says ‘Sure – you can just go by the comcast office in sunnyvale and get them’. Sweet… So much easier and I can use my TiVo tonight. So I show up to pick them up and the poor woman at the counter tells me ‘We don’t have the hardware here – the operators have been told not to send customers here’…

This is when my head spins around and I come completely unglued. I start nearly yelling at her about the cascade of fuckups i’ve been through. I know full well there is nothing she can do but i’m at a loss as to who I can talk to who can actually make sure something happens… So now I just getta sit around saturday afternoon and HOPE that they get it right this time. My bet? either they don’t show up at all, or they show up with 1 card instead of 2..

And then there is the Shower Glass folks for my remodel – I’ll keep this one short.. Short story is its 2 Months late and I still don’t have a shower in my house. They’ve used every excuse from ‘we can’t measure till the tile goes in’ to ‘we don’t schedule appointments until the glass has been deliverred’ to ‘the glass showed up but one piece was cracked’ to ‘we forgot to order the hinges’ to ‘turns out the chanels we cut don’t fit’…. AHHHHHHHH… I don’t care about any of that shit – it all boils down to DO YOUR FUCKING JOB… So now monday is the current date they’re supposed  to do the install – but I don’t believe it for a minute…

So thats been my week.. My blood pressure is through the roof and I’m very likely to rip someone’s head off if they look at me funny.. And all because I’m an individual consumer that actually expects that people do their job but one that has no pull to make sure that they actually do..  So I have to sit here and take it while grunting ‘Thank you sir may I have another’..

So right now Comcast and E—- Glass are on my shit list. Can’t wait to see who’s next.

Sorry.. I promise the next post will be friendly… I just had to rant…

I’m back

Just a quick post to say i’m back and i’ll fill ya in later.. But here’s the reader’s digest version: Belize for the holidays – 7 days on a dive boat – Dove the ‘Blue Hole’ – 1 night in Belize City – 2 nights at a super cool spa in the jungle – lots of skeeter bites… Pictures to come! :):)

A few things for a monday morning

Not much to report here… Just getting to work and figured i’d post quickly before I start in on real stuff… Weekend was actually pretty low key which was very nice.. Hung out with Matt and Audrey on friday night – got to read her her bedtime story and then just hung out… My parents came out saturday morning to see the state of the remodel (and gave me t he appropriate ‘WOW’ that I needed after all the pain) and then we went to the Universal Cafe for brunch which was very nice. The rest of the afternoon and evening I spent shopping and doing chores including … wait for it…. LAUNDRY… I know… boaring and lame – right? Well not so much when you haven’t had a washer and dryer in the house for 4 years now… so being able to throw a load in the wash is GREAT… I went a little nuts and ran around the house finding everything I could to wash.. I’m SUCH a dork…

Yesterday was very lazy too – more chores.. cleaning the house.. then went to Drew and Adrian’s for their yearly Yule party which was very fun…

This morning was with my trainer at the gym – OUCH… He’s great but I managed to torque my right arm last week so i’m hurting a little bit.. He’s watching it to make sure I don’t do more damage but, being the good trainer that he is, he’s not letting me just nurse it and not workout… So i’m a little sore this morning again. Suppose thats part of the process! 🙂

This week is gonna be a little nuts – I leave to meet kevin friday night for a week (YAY) so I gotta get everything done before I take off… Got shopping to do. Work to do. and packing. and i’m sure more that i’m not remembering…

Anyway – thats bout it… Gotta get back to work.. But while i’m trying to be productive, check this out… Just made me giggle so I had to share! 🙂

Some things never change

I just wandered into this post when I was looking at my server logs at what people were searching for. Its a pretty good run down of me and the scary thing is that, even though it is kinda old, nearly everything still applies.. I’m even wearing the same black and white soccer shoes. Maybe I need to mix it up a little and see what things on there I can change. 😉

Begging to feel like a home

View out the back of the house

Originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

Our house is finally starting to resemble a home rather than a construction site. Our contractor spent a fair amount of time friday removing construction shrapnel from the bathroom and putting down fresh protection on the floor so, while there is still a fair amount of work to do, it is actually presentable.. And yesterday he did the same with the kitchen as well as getting nearly everything in working order. So now we have a working washer, dryer, fridge, oven, microwave, dishwasher, and sink… All of the protective paper is off of things and it is actually pretty cool… There is still a ton to do (cooktop isn’t functioning, bar counter is still missing, electricial details, paint, and a bunch of other stuff – but its definitely cool… I even got to cook my own meal at home last night (don’t ask what – the dishes and stuff are still all packed away so it was a microwavable something or another.. but still cool)…

a few more pix are posted… :):)