along the journey

You know how certain stimulations of certain senses bring back memories attached to those stimulations? It’s a dreary day today, as I look out my window and watch the tiny drops of rain darting out of the sky, I was reminded of a childhood experience. It must have been on a dreary day like today, I remember sitting in Fudruckers downtown, the building where Amy works. We were watching traffic down below us, eating our burgers, pushing ketchup around on the shiny white trays with big ol’steak fries. I don’t remember much else, for some reason it seems like this happened during a visit to Baltimore, before we lived here, like we were tourists, sight-seeing at the Inner Harbor.

It comes down to just not feeling like writing, or maybe not feeling like any thing I have to say, or that I’d rather be playing Ghost Recon, or MOH, or Unreal Tournament 2003. Yeah that last reason is really the reason for my not updating in over a week. I’ve got a few new games. UT2003 Demo is available for download…. and it’s completely multiplayer/internet ready…. it rawks.

Hadn’t been updating at work, mostly cause I’ve been working at work, or frustrated with our network here. The last week or so I’ve been able to get away from my desk and setup a few laptops and some desktop machines. Getting my hands into some new areas. I’ve been swamped the last couple days with new user accounts, they’re so time consuming….. and if I don’t take care of a days worth of accounts every day, I’m overwhelmed. If there’s only 2 or 3 it’s no big deal, but lately its’ been 5-9 a day.

My brother Darin is coming to visit this week. He’s flying in from Columbus to BWI this afternoon. His birthday was yesterday for his birthday I was selfish and bought him a plane ticket to visit me! Well, and Caleb and Amy. Hang out with us. I’ve really missed him since we’ve been gone, I’m not really sure why, and when we’ve been out to visit, he’s always got his own thing going on. He’ll be staying with us for a week and leaving next Tuesday. I wish that I didn’t have to work the whole time he was going to be visiting. We’ll probably leave Caleb with him a day or two this week, if he’s up to that.

This weekend I want to go to the High Zero festival of experimental music. It’s $12/person for a 4hr performance. I don’t know if we’ll go or not. Also I want to go to the Ren Fest before it ends, but that’s not until the end of October or so.

It’s been a while since I updated. Some family news. Caleb started talking this weekend. I don’t mean little words. I mean big long sentances, remember that bomb of a show, Baby Bob. It’s kind of like that, only we can’t understand a thing he says. The baby sitter accused him of speaking Chinese. Absolutely all the time, from the moment he’s awake until the moment he’s asleep. It’s amazing. Yesterday I was laying on the couch and he was playing. He walked up to the couch, right in front of me, between me and the tv. And told me something, like I was supposed to understand. I think it’s adorable.

Also, my foster brother William, is getting baptized tomorrow night at CincyVineyard. This is a spectacular development…. just another step along the road to heaven.

Right now I’m testing to see how long it takes for Trillian to update me that I’ve updated this page. This is a feature of the Pro version.

the friday five

1. What was/is your favorite subject in school? Why?

In high school it had to have been lighting design, or film and video. Since I went to an “art school” I got all kinds of fun classes. I also enjoyed costuming. Out of my academics, it would have to have been Chemistry or Biology.

2. Who was your favorite teacher? Why?

My favorite teacher would have to be Mrs. Caldwell. She was a sciences teacher, I had her several years in a row, different courses though. She was a really nice lady, and very appreciative of the input that the students put into the discussions. She was also one of the teachers that you could approach on a personal level and get to know. She was fired/transferred to a different school after I graduated. I’m still trying to track her down. Not very dilgently I must add.

3. What is your favorite memory of school?

I have a lot of memories, especially of high school. I guess one of my favorite would be when we did our annual fund raiser - a performance called Expressions. My senior year I was actually stage managing the performance. It was magical.

4. What was your favorite recess game?

A favorite recess game would probably dodgeball, of course hadn’t played dodgeball since 7th grade.

5. What did you hate most about school?

Um. work. homework. anything academic.

I was a beta tester for the new Trillian Pro. Up until a few days ago, I was not allowed to say anything about being a beta tester, or tell people I had it, or otherwise promote it. It’s been released to the public, Trillian Pro. It does cost you money though. $25/year. The $25 get’s you the software, a registration key, a years worth of support, a years worth of updates as they happen. If you wish to continue updating Trillian to future versions, or wish to continue with the support contract, feel free to pay $25 for another years service. If you don’t continue paying you still get to keep the software, you just don’t have the option of upgrading or getting support, the software will continue to work. It’s like going and buying a box from Best Buy with a disk in it. There are over 100 new features, I use many of them. It’s really nice. Go get it. No not you dad!

ps. if you don’t wish to pay they are continuing to release and develop the free version.

Oh that’s right they changed names- T-mobile. Anyway, this evening we received our T-mobile bill. We’ve both signed up for 500 msgs for $3.00. On my phone it was charging me for over 250 messages, when my total messages used was only 548. So I call them and I speak to the friendly customer support agent who has to take my name and last 4 of my social even though I just entered that into their IVR. Anyway, after explaining my plight to the rep, she puts me on hold for 5 minutes or so and proceeds to tell me, get this, that any messages sent using the AIM service on my phone that is to someone on a computer, or any message from a computer to my phone is chargeable. She proceeds to tell me that text messaging was not setup for anything other than mobile-to-mobile messages using the AIM service. I told her that I didn’t believe her, she asked me what I didn’t believe. I told her that it didn’t make sense to advertise an internet based messaging service, included with my plan that doesn’t let me message someone on a computer. AIM afterall is an internet service and I wasn’t going to pay to use it that way. I then ask to speak to a manager, and she asks me why I’d want to do such a thing. I told her that I didn’t believe her again, and that I wanted to speak to someone regarding the plan that I signed up on. So she said that she would put me through to a manager, what she did was put me on hold for 15 minutes for the phone to be answered by 2nd level support. When I explained things to him he understood and said that the previous agent was incorrect when she told me that.

The reason for the confusion was that when I signed up for the plan they originally put me down for web services, 1MB a month and 300 messages. My phone doesn’t have web access to begin with. So I told them that someone made a mistake that I wanted to have the 500 messages for $3. She said that they would fix it and that I wouldn’t be charged for the messages between 200 and 500. I forgot about it.

Tonight when I asked the 2nd level agent why I was being charged, his explanation, as you may have already guessed, was that my original plan only included 300 messages and that since I didn’t sign up for the 500 message plan until Aug31, that any messages previous to that were counted on the 300 message plan. UGH! When I explained to him that I had this corrected, he mentioned that there was no way to back date a change like that. That made no sense to me. He was nice, I did get the $9.18 waived.

This is our first T-mobile bill, I hope that I don’t have to deal with this every month.

After I got off the phone Amy mentioned that she’d hate for me to be calling her, that I’m a bear with customer service agents. We’ve both done some sort of phone support and both consider ourselves to have excellent customer service skills. I know that I’m a bear. I know how call centers work. I won’t take the crap that they try to pull. You know their trying to pull crap, because you’ve done it too! I want an explanation that makes sense, is that too much to ask?

368 Days ago, Amy and Caleb and I began our new life together here in Maryland. We trekked 500 miles with all of our belonging stuffed in a truck. We unpacked the little that could fit into the room we were living in in Amy’s mothers house and stuffed the rest of it into a 10×10 storage unit.

366 days ago, I woke up in DC. I had stayed the night in a hotel with a co-worker/friend. We took the subway into work, at the Russel Senate Building. I drove home that night to see my wife and kids, weary that I would be commuting my life away.

365 days ago, I drove across town to catch the train. I rode the train to work, returned to the Russel Senate Building, my second day. Phones were ringing, nothing was different. Someone recieved a call and they told us to turn the tv on. We turned the tv on, and knew that something was horribly wrong. We were all watching as smoke rose from the first tower hit. We were all watching as the second tower was hit. People were running in the hallway. Radio’s chirped about fire on the mall. Smoke over the Pentagon. My friend and I left. We met up in front of Union Station, with other co-workers. Frightened, I agreed to ride with a stranger to the nearest train station outside of DC. I got in the car and proceeded to sit there, over 30 minutes….in traffic, going nowhere. I made my way 30 blocks or so, repeatedly dialing the cell phone, trying to reach someone, anyone I loved, or who loved me. I finally arrived at my destination, the hotel I stayed at the night before last. There a bank of pay phones made my attempts at contacting loved ones easier. A convenient 800# back to Ohio, a friendly voice patched me through to Mom and Dad, and Amy. I had made contact, weeping uncontrollably, unsure of what would happen. I spent the night in DC, Butch and I. From the room, peering out into the night sky, we could see our Nations Capitol, lit, flag waving still, not knowing if it’d be there in the morning. Waking with every siren that was close enough to reach my sleeping ears, every truck that hit the bump outside of the hotel.

364 days ago, I awoke in DC, after a sleepless night, Butch and I walked the streets to the Metro station. Past various National Guard outposts. I walked into the Russel Senate Building and found my manager. I told him that I would not be working, that I had not seen my wife and child in over 24 hours, and that I’d be returning to work tomorrow. I made my way to Union Station and boarded the train, my wife picked me up from Penn Station. I can still remember them pulling up. My child safely asleep in the back seat, my wife, bags under her eyes, so happy to see me.

I remember. I don’t need you to tell me again. I remember. And wish that you’d allow us to remember on our owns. It’s not good enough that you’ve filled every empty minute on tv with commercials and promo’s for your 9/11 specials, but now we have a whole day of programming, to remind us. Stop it. I remember.

I remember. I thank God that I’m alive. I remember. I thank God my family’s alive. I remember.

I love you Amy and Caleb, Mom and Dad, Darin, George and Willy. I love you!

We had an eventful weekend. Since Amy has been working until 8pm, I’m left to care for Caleb until she get’s home. I really enjoy the time together with him. Friday night after picking him up from the babysitter we went and visited with my grandfather for a while. It really bothers me that we live so close and don’t visit with him much. So Caleb sat on my lap most of the time we were there, I gave him a sticker from the pile of mail that Pop has scattered throughout the house. After about 15 minutes Caleb decided that he wanted to explore the house, so I followed him around for a bit. We really enjoyed our visit.

Once we were home I orderdered dinner from a local sub shop, and then fed Caleb while I was waiting on it to be prepared. On my way to get it I picked up my Aunt who had volunteered to watch Caleb for the evening. So once Amy got home we worked on getting Caleb to sleep before going to the movies.

We ended up seeing Signs. It was an excellent movie, I’m consistently blown away by M. Night Shyamalan’s stories and vision- his way of shooting a movie from the outside looking in helps keep you on the edge of your seat, not to mention the suspensfull story line.

Saturday we spent the day at Lurman amphitheater listening to a bunch of local Christian bands. My aunt and Amy’s mom and step dad joined us. It was fun, some of the bands were better than others. Around 5pm Paulo called me from down the street. He had been working for several hours to get out to my side of the town. Unfortunately busses on Saturdays don’t run very regularly.

We got chinese food and ate at home, gave Paulo the grand tour, before returning him to his apartment in Little Italy. We talked about city decay, and wondered why Baltimore seems to be falling apart as a city. Neither of us had come up with any reason, but neither of us are city planners or engineers.

Once I got home we flipped channels and ended up watching Apocalypse Now Redux- I’d never seen it before, and the Redux apparently meant that there was 40 minutes of extra footage. I started falling asleep with about 40 minutes left in the movie. I think that I may have enjoyed the original version a little better. I didn’t really get the end, or any part after they met up with that French household.

After church on Sunday we went to TGI Fridays for lunch. Yumm! I had a citrus marinated chicken breast over rice with mango salsa. I ended up dipping my chicken in some Jack Daniels sauce. Amy had grilled chicken bruschetta pasta, it had plate decoration on it that looked like swirled chocolate, but ended up being a teriyaki.

I ended up buying a Linksys Cable/DSL Router last night, and getting it setup and accessible from the internet, as well as my computer and Stacey’s new laptop. At this time both have internet access. Right now I need to figure out how to setup a printer and connect to it through the network using the Mac.

So you’re covering up for the fact that you’re looking for nude pictures of Ellen Fleiss by posting one of your own? I see how it is. I wish I was that smart.