Happy Easter all!

So, as a good morning present, Mother Nature awoke me at 5:25 AM (it should be illegal to be up then BTW) with a storm.  Rain in itself wouldn't be so bad but it was raining in my room.  Yes folks, I said IN MY ROOM.  See, I live in a good part of Texas.  Storms form right over the top of us with no warning on occasion.  Sometimes they roll in west - east.  Then we have warning.  Sometimes, they just form.  One such storm hit us about a month ago.  It did some shingle damage.  We have been messing with our insurance company who shall remain nameless because they won't be our insurance company for much longer ever since.  They sent us a check that isn't anywhere close to what the repairs themselves will touch.  We have been trying to reach them for almost 3 weeks by the phone.  They finally set up an appointment for my wonderful roofing guy to speak to them on Monday at 9.  That's after 2 weeks of wonderful roofing guy calling them no less than 3 times per day for 2 weeks straight.   There is a state minimum that they have to pay contractors per square for roof repairs.  The check they sent us is for less than 1/2 of what the state minimum is.  And it's not only supposed to cover the roof but assorted other repairs from the same storm.  Monday, I will be calling around looking for someone else to hand insurance money to.  After speaking to my roofers (who should be here shortly to tighten up the existing tarp) to find out which insurance companies actually have decent customer service.  There are too many companies out there to keep handing money to those with poor customer service.  It's my new motto.  I'm so tired of giving people money to be treated badly.  I've decided that this year is my year to not give my money to companies who don't appreciate my business. 

I'm in the middle of making Easter dinner.  All my monsters will be here today.  Well, except Tara, my daughter.  I have declared my house a neutral zone with the boys.  Whatever issues they may have with each other, they are not in any way shape or form to be shown, discussed, or brought up today.  They will be nice to each other.  I don't care if they're "fake" or anything else so long as they're nice and polite.  If they start with common decency then maybe somewhere along the way, real liking will follow.  I have no idea if Hurricane is bringing Donna with him today or not.  He never answered me.  I haven't asked if they're back together or not.  I don't really want to know right now.  The boys asked for fried potato salad for dinner.  We're not going the traditional route for Easter dinner this year.  We're having ribs with fried potato salad and coleslaw.  I don't make fried potato salad often.  It's not that it's awfully expensive because it's not.  It's the time involved to do it.  You have to make a bit of it then wait.  Cook some more then wait.  Wait for it to cook.  I guess it's because I'm basically a lazy cook.  I don't have enough patience unless I'm in the mood.  And I don't get in the mood often enough I guess.  If anyone wants the recipe of the fried potato salad, let me know.  I actually just fielded a call from my daughter, Tara, asking for the recipe for potato salad so she can try to make it.  She also asked for the recipe for my homemade noodles.  That's something else I don't make frequently.  When I make noodles, I usually roll out several batches and freeze some.  That way I get all the mess and the headaches out of the way at once.  

Well, off to watch the Ranger game.  After 3 wins at home, they dropped the last 2 to the Tigers.  With Millwood on the mound today, maybe they can pull one win out.  They're up by 4 now off a 2 run shot by Hamilton and a 2 run shot from Kinsler.  Here's hoping that they can hang onto the lead.  

Happy Easter all!

XBOX and Microsoft Customer Service are worthless....

B had an xbox.  We did the big debate about whether or not to buy a PS3 or an xbox and settled on an xbox. Big Mistake!!!  I will be buying a PS3 and the first possible opportunity and tossing that piece of junk xbox in the garbage.  (Actually, I'll be selling it back to gamestop to recover some of the money I wasted but... that's beside the point).  Like Sears, xbox has outsourced their customer service to someplace out of the states.  This makes them very hard to understand and makes dealing with their customer service very frustrating.  When you try to call their customer service, you first spend 5 minutes while a recording tells you how great their website is, how you will get a big discount doing your business on the website, and otherwise wasting your time.  At which point it asks you questions that you mostly won't have the answer to while telling you to go to the website (which has been down for days) in between every question.  After about 5 minutes of aggravation from the recording which can't understand your voice answers and makes you answer every question twice, you finally get to a non-english speaking person who gives you a name like george or sue.  I think in the last week, I've spoken to "george" 6 times.  Of course, "George" can't pronounce "Amy" and has to ask how to spell it 3 times before going on to ask how to spell "smith" which I've already spelled at least once.  Then you can try to get to explain the issue you're having.  After you go thru your explanation then they will ask you a minimum of 4 questions that you have already given an answer to.  They won't understand the answer you're giving, will re-ask several questions at least twice and frustrate you a little more.  After which they will put you on hold to "look for the answer" and you will get disconnected at least once.  At which point, you will have to go back thru all of the aggravation above.  By this time, steam is coming out your ears and you have an urge to start pulling the hair out of your head strand by strand.  By the time you get off the phone with them, you will have wasted a minimum of 45 minutes of your time, you will still have no idea of what they had to say, you still won't know what's going on with your machine.  

I, personally, have been going thru this for 3 weeks now.  B got the "red ring of death" on his xbox even though it was only a few months old.  We called xbox and started the process.  We sent the machine to them for the "free fix".  A week later, they sent it back.  It. Was. Still. Broken.  It still wouldn't work.  So, we began the process again.  And this is where the headaches have begun.  The can't find the records of the 2nd time we've sent it back.  I can't find anyone who speaks English well enough to understand that this is the SECOND time I've sent the thing to them this month.  They keep trying to tell me that xbox was already returned to me.  I think they've lost B's xbox and it's missing someplace.  I have a tracking number from when I sent it back to them.  I can prove when they received it.  They can't find it.  And the last fool I spoke to would not listen at all.  He kept trying to tell me that the xbox was on its way back.  I asked him for a name or number to identify him in the complaint that I'm going to file if I can get a HUMAN at microsoft (parent company) on Monday.  He refused to give me any type of identifying information I can use to file the complaint but that's not going to stop me from working on this again come Monday.  Eventually, I will get someone who has a brain and speaks enough english to differentiate between one and two and I will get this taken care of.  I really think that they know they lost it because the last fool I spoke with told me that I couldn't file for a lost xbox for at least 2 weeks.  

UGH!  And B is oh so much fun when it's 30 degrees out and he doesn't have his xbox to keep him occupied.  Because if he doesn't have his game- he expects ME to keep him occupied.  And I'm wanting to be a vegetable today.  ;)

Have a great weekend all!  

Sears Customer Service and the Sit-Com day....

One of my friends told me that my life reminds her of a Sit-Com.  I always thought it was more of a soap opera but I'll buy Sit-Com.  I wish I was as funny as some of the parents in those 1/2 hour episodes.  Of course, when you look back on it- then some of the stuff is funny but at the time.....  Well, lets just say I'm not always a laughing.   Yesterday being one such day.

Monday, my washing machine broke down.  Ok, it's been about long enough.  If I don't see the washing repair man every other year- I start feeling scared.  I mean, when all 4 boys were at home and playing ball- the dirt build up from baseball pants was enough to put the machine on the fritz every year.  So every couple of years feels lucky about now.  So, I requested to be the first appointment of the day.  They told me absolutely no problem there.  No repair man.  No call.  So I tried to call customer service to see what was going on.  14 calls later I got someone who spoke english.  Seriously.  For some reason, Sears outsourced their call center and for 14 calls, I couldn't get anyone who could pronounce my name right or speak well enough for me to understand them or them understand me.  Now I could understand them not being able to pronounce my name if it were a complicated name- multiple syllables.  But I have a single syllable name - along the lines of Smith- and they didn't just mispronounce it- they massacred it.  It was horrible!  On call 14, I finally got transfered to someone in Alabama.  Thank you!  At this point, I had been trying to find out what was going on for 3 hours.  So then we get the rip-off man that Sears sent out.  Who obviously thought I was stupid.  He wanted (and I kid you not) $12 a MINUTE to fix my machine.  It was a $40 part and he wanted $180 in labor for 15 minutes.  But he's steadily trying to convince me to BUY a new machine from sears.  So, for $200 - I told him just fix the darn thing.  It was a rip-off but I needed my machine.  Well, apparently I agreed to getting it fixed too easily because 3 minutes later he had found something else wrong and doubled the bill.  Well, end of that.  Good-bye to the repair man and I'm afraid I wasn't real nice to him as I shooed him out the door.  Because the chances of me paying $500 to get a $300 machine fixed are zip, zero, none.  Besides that, I'm not stupid.  I know my machine was working other than the door latch that he wanted $12/minute to fix.  Meanwhile, on his way out the door- he's still trying to convince me to buy another machine from sears.  Now, does anyone want to guess what the chances of me spending another penny at sears are at this point?  Right.  So, off to Home Depot I went  where I bought another machine, had Ice Cube and Little Man pick it up and it's on it's 4th load.  And sears.....well, they just lost a 25 year customer.  

What helped none of this was that I stayed up too late the night before and in my sleep deprived state.....  and yes you can laugh.....  knocked my blackberry off the counter and it fell into the TOILET.  Yes, my friends, the toilet.  Now, this woke me up quickly but not fast enough to save my poor little crackberry  and I spent the first 15 minutes I was up on the phone to the insurance company getting my phone replaced.   Lucky for me- I pay for the insurance so for a mere $50 deductible- my new phone should arrive today.  Not bad considering that I cracked the screen on my old one last month and was too cheap to replace it.  ;)

And the reason I had to request the Sears man come early- Little Man had to go to court yesterday.  Yes, I had to take my 16 year old to court on a Minor in Possession charge.  Now, you may ask what this is.  This came about when instead of going straight into school one day when his brother dropped him off, he saw a group of his friends and went over to talk.  A teacher driving by said he saw smoke coming out of his mouth.  Well, it was 19 degrees out that morning.  Smoke was coming out of everyones mouth.  So, out of a group of 6 kids (at least 3 of which WERE actually smoking - his brother saw the whole thing) mine was the only one grabbed by the teacher.  The kids actually smoking lit up again as soon as the teacher walked away.  Anyhow, they wrote him a ticket on the spot for minor in "consumption" but when the subpoena came is said minor in "possession".  Well, they searched him on the spot- he was in possession of absolutely NOTHING.  So, we go to court and wait.  They told us to be there at 1:30 so we were there early and of course, the judge was late.  45 minutes late to be exact.  So, when the judge came in he said "is anyone here pleading not guilty" and Little Man raised his hand and out the door we went.  After the judge came in, we were out the door in less than 5 minutes.  UGH.  Of course, now we get to go back again the first week of March but oh well.  It isn't the first minor in possession ticket I've had to fight.  They wrote Ice Cube one once because he had black specks in his teeth.  Teacher said he was dipping.  No dip - no dip cup- possession of nothing but black specks.  What. A. Crock.  

The final sit-com moment of my day (and this one really was sit-com funny) was me sitting on the floor behind the new washer trying to hook it up and I couldn't get the cut-offs to turn all the way off on the water hoses.  Well,  I turned the main cut-off to the house off and got the hot to stop dripping and just stuck the cold in the drain pipe.  So, since the hot wouldn't drip if it was held straight up, I hung it on a hook from a hanger about where my washer and dryer go.  So when we got the new washer and I hook up the cold water, water starts pouring out of the hot water hose which is hanging Above. My. Head.  And it's not hot water coming out.  It's cold.  Cold water POURING down all over me.  So, I'm frantically trying to get the water hooked up to the washer so it quits dumping on me and at this point I'm soaking wet and sitting in a puddle of water.  The perfect ending to a perfect day!  (But I did get it hooked up and got 3 loads done last night).  

Off here to try to help my girlfriend order Cubs tickets.  It's amazing that she tried last year for 5 hours to get in and I got in and got her tickets in 20 minutes ..... from Texas.  Oh well, such is life.