Snow (hey-oh)

Two posts in one day. Wowee. But anyway I had to post these shots of my handsome little man just because he is looking especially handsome here. Totally vain and gratuitous, I know.

Don't Leave Me Hanging On the Telephone: A Rant about DSL

My DSL line and I have developed a very dysfunctional relationship. A few weeks ago, I procrastinated on taking care of some business and ended up with a disconnected phone line. For some strange reason too complicated to explain, this caused my DSL line (provided to me by DSL Extreme, a company totally unrelated to my telephone company) to have to be "disconnected and reconnected" and would apparently take 7-10 business days. That was three weeks ago.

I spoke with DSL Extreme Customer Disservice over the weekend* and was told that I was disqualified from receiving service. "But but but," I cry, "I ALREADY had service."

"Too bad," they said. "You are now too far away from thesomethingoranother to get service."

"Did thesomethingoranother move?"

"No, the rules changed."

Okay so let's review, I live in one of the largest, most modern cities in the world. I have already had DSL service at my current address for 6 months but suddenly it is not available and my only option is dial-up which I never have been able to make work.

Customer Disservice lady (who was actually nice in contrast to the folks I dealt with later in the saga) agreed to try to "override" the disqualification but could not attempt to do so until Monday when the phone company opened. Splendid!

Tuesday I call DSL Extreme to follow up. This time I am not quite as lucky. I speak with a horrible woman named Christine who, after a long explanation of what I need, still does not get it. Instead she tells me that I can no longer receive service at my current address so I have two options - I can pay the $250 early termination fee and terminate my contract or I can pay $81 to "buy my contract out" and they will "cancel" the contract and "waive" the early termination fee.

You might note my excessive use of quotation marks here. That is because I find it hard to understand how my contract is being cancelled if I will still have to fulfill my obligations under the contract while DSL Extreme no longer is willing or able to provide me with the service for which I contracted. Moreover, buying my contract out puts me in worse position than if I simply kept paying each month because I would have to come up with the money up front.

I explained to Christine that *I* was not terminating the contract but instead DSL Extreme was terminating the contract and therefore I should not be paying any type of fee whatsoever nor buying out a contract. She simply wasn't hearing it. I asked to speak to a supervisor.

After Christine condescendingly told me to "have a nice day", I was sent to Vanessa who, unbelievably, was even ruder and less helpful than Christine. She acts as if the buy out my contract option is a big favor she is doing for me and maintains that I am at fault for the whole thing because I did not fulfill my obligation to maintain a working phone line at all times. Apparently this gives DSL Extreme the right to rip people off for $250 according to Vanessa's interpretation of the contract. At this point I am starting to get ticked. I ask to speak with Vanessa's manager and she . . . HANGS UP ON ME. Nice.

Okay, here is the happy ending. I dashed off an irate email to the General Manager of the company. I think I might have thrown around some of that fancy lawyer talk (have I mentioned I am a lawyer on this blog yet?) There were suggestions of violations of unfair business practice laws. Terms such as "unfair adhesion contract" and "consumer unfriendly" were bandied about. I have to say that although I am proud of what I do for a living, I rarely if ever play the lawyer card. In fact, mostly I downplay my occupation so I don't get stuck hearing about someone's Child Support issues in Texas or whatever. Here, however it seemed to work.

I got two voice mail messages from DSL Extreme today. First one told me that the "override" went through and I would be back on-line as of February 5. The second one profusely apologized for the ill treatment I received and promised to waive any fees I paid for the time that my service was down. Sometimes, it pays to be a squeaky wheel. With a JD.

*For the sake of brevity, I will spare you the excruciating details of how many calls I had to make, how many minutes I had to wait on hold per call and how many times I was redirected to call a different number. Suffice to say that by the time I finally spoke to a live person who had a clue, I was speaking through clenched teeth. I should also note that the primary reason I choose DSL Extreme to service my broadband needs was because they are a local SFV company and I thought perhaps their technical support was less likely to be outsourced to a country where people speak very good English with very thick accents.

A few pictures from the desert

So I have had a brutual few weeks - putting out many fires at work and having lots of Babymamadrama (about which I am debating whether to blog.) Meanwhile my home machine is not internet worthy right now so I have to do all my extraciricular cyber activities from work. Boohoo. No porn shots today, kiddies.

Anyway, a friend who lives in the desert about an hour, give or take, from the EncinoPad invited MyKid and I out for a visit. It was great. She has the cutest house with nice views of the desert and the mountains from every window. The inside is mostly tongue and grove pine and feels so warm and cozy. It is a far cry from the EncinoPad where one sees my gangsta neighbors '69 beater Chevy Nova from every window.

She took us on a nature walk in the desert and then here for sweet treats. It reminded me of Trader Joe's back in the day. MyKid was . . . well, like a kid in a candy store.

MyKid also had a lot of fun with her girlies who are probably the cutest kids I know that are not related to me (in case one of my sisters or psuedosistersinlaw ever reads this.) So I posted a few pictures and I am assuming I have her permission since she kinda promised I would over at her blog. Hope you enjoy.

He Loved It

Remember this?

The smile says it all.

Weekends were made for fun. Right?

Okay, warning, this one has a lot of whining. So I fucked myself over this weekend by goofing off too much this week. (Have I mentioned my unmentionable addiction to Craigslist?) Thus, it left me with work to do somehow over the weekend. Not easy if one has an almost three year old trying to give up his nap. I tried to line up babysitting or a visit from babydaddy to no avail.

My alternative strategy was to wear MyKid out so he would for sure nap. Yesterday I took him to see Happy Feet (minireview - Cute in a way. A little heavy handed yet overly simplistic on the environmental message. Outstanding animation. Some scary moment for really little kids and why the fuck did the main penguin not look like the other ones. was he a different species of penguin or was he not maturing quickly enough or was his different look just to show how he was a quirky different kind of bird?) at the IMAX at Citywalk.

Unfortunately this plan was definitely Plan B because Auntie T. my sister and usual kidoutingcompanion did not get it together early enough to go to Venice Beach and return in time for an afternoon nap so mama can work. Anyway, both of us were tense and we ended up in a screaming match about where to park which resulted in me demanding to be let out of the car (I did not really think she would do it!) I did take MyKid to the movie but then we had a long bus ride involving several transfers and a 2 mile walk in the dark with no jackets to get home. Oh yeah, we came home and I realized that Auntie T. had the key so we had to sit on the porch until she finally responded to one of my hundreds of messages and came over to unlock the door (giving me the silent treatment the whole time.) Needless to say, no work got done yesterday.

Today, I managed to get us out of the house for a visit with Auntie Lee. We walked to a nearby taqueria and had lunch. MyKid is beat and fell asleep in the car on the way back. So here I sit procrastinating. MyKid is napping and will be for another 2 hours if I am lucky. Instead of working I am updating this neglected blog.

When I get around to making some new year's resolutions I am for sure going to have to tackle that procrastination thing.

Tonight's Dinner

MyKid is eating for dinner tonight:

1 handful rye toast crackers

1 string cheese

1 precut apple

1 carnation instant breakfast

I suck.