End of Silence

With the amount of work that I’ve got going on right now, it looks like it might be a while before I resurrect my PC. I did download some hard drive diagnostic tools from the manufacturer today at work. While you’re waiting for me to regain access to our photo library and the pictures from Memorial Day weekend at my parents, here are some photos of Lily and the rest of Baby Chaos from yesterday. Oh yeah, my condolences to the Mavericks. It was a hard fought game. I blame old man, Steve Kerr, and his 4-4 from the three point line. I’m wearing my Mavericks Western Conference Finals t-shirt today in solidarity.

In addition to the crap that RoadRunner is putting me through today, I’ve been battling my hosting provider, MCHost for the past couple of weeks over billing issues. They’ve double-charged me for hosting for January-April. They don’t post a phone number, so I have to go through their web-based support tickets. I must say that their turnaround time and response quality are horrible. Between the service when something goes wrong and the fact that my server was up and down a lot in March, I’m seriously condsidering moving hosting providers back to Avid. They cost more, but it appears that you definitely get what you pay for when it comes to support.

While I’m bitching, I might as well also complain about UnitedHealthcare’s dental insurance. There was a mix up with our enrollment where they originally thought something wasn’t covered, but it was and we had to file the claim ourselves as Mary’s dentist doesn’t file claims (gee, I wonder why?). We’ve gone back and forth with them about 5 times now about what is required for the claim ($1600, I might add). We had the dentist send x-rays. UH claims not to have them in their system even though they “have a record of receiving something”. Getting an insurance company to pay for a legitimate charge in a reasonable amount of time is a nightmare.

I’m really getting fed up with all of this crap. It’s not like I don’t have enough to deal with at work and home without having all this other shit go wrong. Mmmmm…venting.

Two links from BoingBoing:

• Vonnegut rocks.
• Happy fun photos from NYC.

Anthony Swofford is going to be at BookPeople tomorrow. While his book (in the Legere block to the right over there), is interesting, I don’t think it’s interesting enough to motivate me to go see him. On the other hand, Eric Schlosser is going to be there next week promoting his new book,
Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap… . I’m still kicking myself in the head for missing Tony Bourdain’s appearance last year.

This falls into the don’t-believe-everything-you-read-on-the-Internet category. If this chart is true, then I want to know how I got gypped out of my John Holmes-like endowment. My size 15 shoes aren’t even on the chart.

Happy anniversary to The Wife and I and a belated Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms out there. My mother was in town for the weekend. We went to Hoover’s for Mother’s Day brunch yesterday afternoon. The Wife and I both had the smoked pork tenderloin with raspberry chipotle sauce. We all shared a slice of banana pudding cheesecake and a slice of sweet potato praline cheesecake. I think I was partial to the latter of the two. I think we got some pretty good photos of the kids. I’ll try and post them tonight.

In addition to the Hoover’s trip, The Wife and I managed to sneak out on Saturday night for an early anniversary celebration. We started out at the scene of the crime two years ago, the San Jose, for a drink. We moved on to the Stephen F. Austin bar where we watched the Mavericks beat the Kings in double-overtime and then one last quick one at Casino. We watched Le Pacte des Loups last night. It was mediocre. I give it a B-.

I’ve written in the past about the Parking Walrus. I hadn’t seen him in a while and thought that perhaps the daycare director had struck some kind of deal where he gets all of the smelt that he wants and we get to use his beloved parking spaces for 5 minutes while we drop off our kids.

This morning, the daycare lot was full and I parked in one of the Walrus’s spaces. I noticed him on the other side of the lot , checking the self-serve pay box. Thinking nothing of it, I took Henry into daycare. We said our goodbyes and I headed back out to the parking lot.

Much to my delight, the Walrus was standing in front of my car, writing me one of his Walrus Tickets. As I walked up to the car, he gave me the evil eye. I said that I thought everything had been worked out and that it was ok to park there briefly. He asked where I got that idea and informed me that it was not ok. He then told me that it would be ok to sit and wait for a space to open in the daycare lot (pointing to another parent next to me who was doing just that), but as soon as I physically left my car in his lot, he said, “It’s mine.” I pointed out that I probably would be spending more time in his lot waiting for a space to open than if I simply parked and ran my kid in. He dismissed this bit of logic and proceeded to tell me that the parking lot was a business and that they were in business to make money. He then went into a rant about how there were empty metered spaces on the street that were available and that I should use those. I once again pointed out that there were plenty of empty spaces and that I wasn’t preventing him from making money. He then tried to compare his lot to a movie theater. If I was the only one in the theater, I’d still have to pay to see the movie. If anyone out there can show me how that comparison makes any sense, be sure to email me and explain it. I told him his analogy made no sense and that I had to get to work. I got in the car and once again left him with a half-written Walrus Ticket. Poor impotent Parking Walrus. He tries to defend his territory with all of the the bluster he can muster, but there’s just nothing to back it up. I’m in and out of there so fast, that there’s no way in hell that he could ever hope to get a tow truck there before I return to the car. There’s really nothing he can do to deter me. I almost feel sorry for him…almost.