3/2/10 - I'm afraid my website might go away for a little while

Google recently made a change to the way that you can publish your website. I'm in the less than 1% of people who uses the ftp functionality which they are doing away with. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to go forward with the website, so I haven't gotten around to doing anything.

If the website does go away, it will be back, although I'm sure everyone has been excited about the one post per month rate that I've on.

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2/6/10 - I had a beard...then it left me.

As I mentioned I decided to not cut my hair or shave for a full year. I think everyone knew that I would not stick to that, but even I surprised myself by going nearly a month without picking up the razor. Well, that's not completely true, I actually trimmed up my neck and cheeks a couple of times, but I'd be in the loony bin if I hadn't done that. It's amazing how itchy facial hair gets.

So here is a quick before and after picture of the shaving. I need to add the after shot of when I shaved my head. I'll be shaving my head again pretty soon, so I'll remember to take the after picture then.

For the record, I hate taking "Myspace" pictures, but I've recently noticed that the left side of my face droops significantly, so I can't stand how I look in pictures unless my head is slightly to the side.

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1/25/10 - Me and my wife had an awesome date.

Here's the funny part about this: we went to Playtime Pizza. It's basically the same concept as places such as Chuck E. Cheese, and what use to be Showbiz (man, that place rocked).

Anyways, we decided it would be fun to have a date where we were kids again, and what better place that a big ol' arcade. Of course, there were other things such as go-karts, lazer tag, and rock climbing, but we were interested in the mini-golf and some of the arcade games. Plus, they had mini-bowling which we were looking for.

I had not intended on putting up a review of the joint, but that is probably how it is going to work out. First of all, they had a "100 foot pizza buffet". This is quite misleading, because although it probably is 100 feet long, they only use about 20 feet of it. leaving a gap of about 80 feet between the pizza and the rest of the food such as mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and a reasonable salad bar. The food is about what I would expect for a free all you can eat pizza buffet (free with the price of admission = $9). We ate when we first got there and had a wonderful conversation about bedroom furniture for our little girl.

After a quick walkthrough of the joint, we decided on mini-golf. They had an indoor 9-hole black light mini golf course. Completely flat, limited obstacles, horrible visibility and poor hole design. Otherwise, it was fun. The art in the rooms were very impressive, especially with the black light. Since we had a coupon for a free attraction, I guess the mini-golf was worth what we paid, but barely.

The lazer tag looked pretty cool, but I've been told by others that the area is too small for the amount of people they allow in each game. The walk climbing wall was very impressive although we didn't actually participate in that activity. They had a go-kart track which looked respectable, but it was just a simple oval track and some of the karts looked severly underpowered.

Once we got into the arcade games, we started with air hockey...which I won. 6-4 was the final I think, but I was afraid I was going to lose at several moments of the match. We were going to compete at the mini-bowling, but due to some confusion on how the thing worked, we decided to share the responsibility of the bowling so we traded frames. We bowled a 77 :(

I played a shooter simulator, but did pretty poorly. I think the sites were out of alignment. After seeing my subpar performance, Cristi decided she would pass. They had a couple other really cool games, but none that were priced where we thought it would be worth it. Either that, or we didn't want to look like a fool. Two almost thirty year olds dancing on the ground might look a bit strange.

That brings us to the ticket earning games. I remembered myself to be a pretty good skee-ball player (I'm friggin' awesome on the iPhone). So that's where we started. Cristi went first because she got really excited when she saw these. Apparently she was a big "gamer" in her younger years. This is somewhat hard to swallow, but I'll say it anyways: Cristi is better than me. and not just better, I mean a whole lot better. Good enough that after my first two rounds, I didn't want to play anymore. She got us a ton of tickets, and I'm pretty sure she had a lot of fun too. (As a side note, Playtime Pizza does not have actual skee-ball, they have Fire-Ball and Ice-Ball. I think that was their names. They were a little different, but the same idea and layout).

To break up our playtime, we alternated between Cristi playing skee-ball and me playing the basketball aracde. Let me say, I'm really good at the basketball arcade. I've got a pure shot and I've played enough aracde bball to know that you have to bank every shot to be good. I actually set the high score on one of the machines at 102, followed by an 88 with my free game. Here's where things went downhill. When I put up that score, the ticket dispenser jammed, so someone came over to fix it. Well, he fixed it and then handed me like 20 tickets. I was not happy because I was getting 25 tickets for putting up 140 point rounds, and I just set the high score with a total of 190. I should have gotten close to 35 tickets for my performance.

I'm not going to lie, I'm still a little bitter about it. I've gone back to 10 year old DJ, but I still want to be recognized for the score. I made sure one of the kids playing next to me knew that I put up the high score that was being displayed, but by golly, I want my tickets.

So, anyways, after we added up all our tickets, we bought a few rings and bracelets for our beautiful daughter and headed on home. Total tally, we spent $20 admission, and then added $13 for the arcade games and attractions for a total of $33. This resulted in two all you can eat pizza buffets, two rounds of mini-golf, some air hockey, bowling and probably way too many rounds of skee-ball and basketball. With our 250 tickets we got 3 rings and 3 bracelets that Makenna has loved, so I'd say that it was worth every single penny and then some (even though I got jipped out of about 20 tickets).

I wouldn't be surprised if we go back sometime, just for the skee-ball and basketball.

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12/26/09 - So...I'm going to let this picture make the announcement



For those that don't understand the picture and the t-shirt (Jessica and Greg), Cristi is pregnant with our second child. As of now, that is the only news we have. We don't know when we are due, the sex, or anything at all. We go on Wednesday for our first appointment, we might have more news then. If Cristi had to guess, we are looking at some time in August.

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12/21/09 - I ran out of blog posts...

A couple of months ago, I had scheduled multiple blog posts to appear every Saturday. I thought I had them through December, but apparently I was incorrect.

Instead of Saturday, here is this week's update. This past weekend was my baby brother's wedding. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say about it. As a guy, it was a day where I got dressed up in tuxedo, posed for a few pictures, decorated the groom's car and then went home. A female on the other hand, might say that that day was beautiful, magnificent and all that stuff. As the brother, it was good day with only minimal conflict (that I was aware of) between families, which I think is common in ALL weddings.

Makenna came so close to actually walking down the aisle this time, but she took two or three steps and froze. For abot 2 seconds I thought she might keep going, but she turned around and started crying. As discussed, I once again walked down the aisle and escorted her, along with the other flower girl who also decided to just stay at the end of the aisle. I guess things could have gone worse, but they definitely could have gone better.

I've been playing a crap ton of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 recently and just yesterday leveled up to Prestige 1. Those that play the game, know what that means. Those that don't play, just know that I'm awesome.

We recently had our roof replaced, and with insurance and discounts, we got the whole thing for free, and actually made around 2 dollars or something due to a miscalculation on the part of the roofing company. The roof looks great (I guess, I couldn't tell you if a roof looked bad), but they did something with out satellite which has resulted in us losing our locals in HD and ESPN comes in and out. We've already called once, and they did fix it to where we could get our locals in standard, but that caused us to lose ESPN sometimes. I absolutely dread calling them back and am beginning to wonder if it is worth it to not have HD locals just so I don't have to deal with them. Along the same lines, I've been documenting my frustrations with Dish for quite some time and I thought I had it sorted out. They had agreed to 10 months of $10 credits after everything was sorted out. That worked great for about 5 months, then the credits disappeared. Sadly, their customer service is so bad, it would take more time to call them and get it straightened out than that $50 is worth.

Christmas is coming up, and I've got all my shopping done except for one very, very good friend of mine and my dog. We know we are getting my dog a new bed, but I have no idea what to get one of my favorite people in the world, how horrible is that?

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12/12/09 - My wife does her research, and it's interesting.

Since getting pregnant with Makenna, my wife has really found her calling (at least I feel like she has). She typically spends a majority of her free time researching things regarding natural living, from natural child birth to home remedies. Since my wife (as any female) loves to talk, she shares most of this information with me whenever she gets a chance. I'm not going to say I'm not interested, but it's not on the top of my priority list. I'm pretty sure my wife knows this, and I'm hoping that by her reading this she isn't finding out for the first time.

In the process of her discussing these things with me, I've learned quite a bit. At first, when Cristi said she was going to have a natural child birth, I just shrugged it off and figured that she would be like everyone else where she "tried" to go natural then gave in after her first labor pains and got the medicine. I figured she had seen something that made it sound like a good idea and she went with.

Boy was I wrong, she researched all the medical, physical and emotional benefits and shared lots of good information with me. We went to a natural birthing class and I learned tons. Pretty soon, I was on board with her decision completely, and she went through with it. I could not be more pleased with the results.

After giving birth, breastfeeding became one of her favorite topics. I've read study after study (although I can't currently provide sources, Cristi can provide this at a moment's notice) explaining the medical benefits and she made a good argument for why breastfeeding is such a good idea. Although I was a bit reluctant to continue the breast feeding even after 6 months, the research showed that the ONLY negative to breastfeeding later in life is the rest of American society looking down on this. I was fine that Makenna nursed until she was almost 20 months old, I see nothing wrong with it at all and am very grateful that my wife spent the time to finding out how good it was for her. Notice I mentioned American society specifically; the entire world is light years ahead of where our culture is in regards to childbirth/newborns/infants.

Along the same lines, being in the medical field, she has started researching vaccines. H1N1 vaccine was recently all the rage, as well as just the common flu vaccine. Once again, I don't have sources for this information other than my wife (who I completely trust when it comes to medical information, she should have been a doctor). But apparently, of individuals who receive the flu shot, 7% of people still get the flu. Those who don't take the flu shot, 9% of those individuals get the flu. That's only a 2% reduction in your change of getting the flu. Factor in all the adverse side effects of the flu shot, and I don't see how a trained medical individual can recommend this process.

Here's what amazes me. The things I have mentioned are all things that go against the current thought process of the medical community. Natural childbirth is almost considered taboo in America, especially states such as Arkansas that does not recognize home birth or birth without the aid of a doctor present as coverable by insurance. Vaccines are being pushed by the medical community everywhere you go. Forumla use is pushed on new parents before they even leave the hospital after giving birth. Yet, in each of these situations, the commonly accepted procedure is not the best for those involved.

There are other things as well. Home birth in and of itself for example. Show me one piece of research that shows where a hospital birth, on average is safer for mother and child and I will eat my shorts. Yes, every once in a while there will be a complication with a birth, but without going into too much, the complication is usually a result of medical intervention when it was not even necessary. Even still, the odds of complications are much lower than you would imagine. Remember, people have been giving birth for thousands of years (millions depending on your creation/evolution beliefs) and it seems to me that the human race is still multiplying just fine.

Circumcision has been a hot topic for us as of late. Think about it, can you name one medical reason why a boy less than 12 hours old should have his penis basically mutilated? I think I'll save the rest of this for another post.

Wow, once I started typing this up, it started to get away from me. Apparently, subconciously, these things really mean more to me than I realized. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that my wife has these views based on sound research; yet, even some of her peers in the medical field refuse to listen to the information that is available to them. My point is this, just because society says that something is right, doesn't make it so.

I'm just glad my wife has the desire to research these things, because without her, I'd be in the dark.

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11/28/09 - You have to be able to laugh at yourself

So, right now as I'm typing this, my weight is around 165 pounds. By no means would I be considered "fat" by the average American, but considering my family background, I'm "chunky" as my middle brother calls me. High school was a different story for me. I graduated at 118 pounds.

Please understand, my parents fed me and I ate. And I ate a lot. I averaged 3000 or 4000 calories a day, probably more. I also worked out quite a bit when it came to basketball and other sports. I tried protein shakes and powders and all sorts of special diets to put on weight, but it just didn't work. Instead, I looked like this below. Please don't confuse this with an ad for hungry children in Somalia, I'm not asking for money, I'm just making fun of myself.

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11/7/09 - AT&T and there stinking modem

Recently, my XBox360 died. Although that is a story all in itself, short story is that I went ahead and bought a new Xbox 360 Elite. I got it home, hooked it up and realized I couldn't connect to XBox Live. I went and checked our modem and sure enough, we had red lights.

I went through the typical troubleshooting but couldn't get it work. At this point, I was forced to call tech support. Typically, this is a nightmare, but this time around they were very straight forward and told me that I would have to buy a new modem. There is a 1 year warranty and mine lasted 1 year and a few months. Apparently, after reading several reviews online and seeing if I could buy one outside of the AT&T network, this is quite common with this particular modem. So, if you have AT&T DSL service, started saving some extra cash, because it appears that after about 14 months, they just stop working.

After weighing my options, I decided to go up to the AT&T store to see if I could talk them down on price for a new modem ($100 for wireless, $75 hard-wired). Knowing that new customers get a rebate for free equipment, I was hoping to at least get the price reduced by half. I didn't think this was too far out of the question especially after walking in and seeing a large advertisement for the free equipment deal (after rebate of course).

Once I was able to speak to a salesman, I went straight to the point. I explained the situation and told him that basically, I wanted to get my internet back up and going, but I didn't feel that after being a loyal DSL customer for nearly a year and a half, I should have to pay for a crappy piece of equipment that they required you to have. He quickly explained that there was nothing he could do, and amazingly, there was no one he could talk to about it (this of course, seemed like a big fat lie, but we continued anyways).

Next, he suggested U-verse. I think I have written about this before, but the television service that u-verse offers, in my mind is priced higher than just about any other package I have compared. To get the same setup we have now with Dish, u-verse would be an extra $36 a month. This immediately rules out getting tv through u-verse and since we don't have or need a home phone, we don't need that service either.

The salesman explains that if you get internet and tv, there is no installation charge, but if you only get internet, they will charge you $150. I'll repeat that, $150 if you only get internet. I attempted to negotiate the price on the installation, but he again stated that he could do nothing and there was no one that could.

Timing on these also came into play. Basically, he explained that with u-verse, you had to shut off your DSL for 5 days before they could setup an appointment to come setup the u-verse service. This makes no sense to me, but I'm not familiar with this technology, so I can't comment on the validity of this statement. Of course, their scheduling was about 10 days out, so I would be without for over 2 weeks. With DSL, in order to maybe, try to get the rebate, he said I would have to shut off DSL service for 5 days, and then sign back up and hope that they don't notice I just canceled service. Basically, I could wait 2 weeks with no internet and get u-verse for $150, wait 5 days with no internet and hopefully get a free wireless modem, otherwise I could get it that day and pay the $100 and be good to go.

Being frugal, I still felt there was a better way. After not giving the guy an answer, he finally came back with a deal he "just found" that gave a $100 rebate for u-verse internet setup. Immediately, this was the best deal in regards to price. However, Cristi and Makenna were leaving in 3 days and considering my time alone would be spent playing video games online and surfing the web, I couldn't be without for 2 weeks. Finally, the guy said that I could just buy the modem that day, and bring it back within 30 days.

So, with that said, here is how it was supposed to play out. Mind you, this conversation with the guy took 20 minutes or so. I purchased the modem that day. I kept all the receipts and boxes ready to be repackaged and sent back to the store. When my family got back in town, I was going to be taking the modem and canceling my DSL service. As soon as possible, I would request the u-verse internet installation and wait for that to be turned on. I planned on making one last attempt at getting the entire installation fee waived, otherwise I would have just covered the $50 fee (after rebate) and moved on. The price for service is identical so I would have been gaining the option to upgrade speed and have AT&T take responsibility for the hardware. Sounded like a win-win to me.

On the 3rd of November, I decided to put my plan into action. But, before doing so, I thought I would just hook up the old modem, just to make sure it was really broken and it wasn't have a bad day when it "broke". Guess what, it worked just fine. However, I was using the new power cable, so I'm guessing that something was actually wrong with the power cable, and not the modem. I quickly packaged up the new modem, put it back in the box and took it back to get a full refund. That part of the plan went flawless.

I made the mistake however, of trying to get more information on U-verse. I asked how long it would take to get U-verse internet turned on. The lady quickly responded with, "You can't do that". So we had a nice discussion about how u-verse is a package deal and you have to get at least two of the services. I objected stating that the previous salesmen had tried to sell me on just the internet and I had a friend who was using only internet service under the u-verse label. She insisted that you had to get internet packaged with a home phone (which we don't need) or a tv package (which is grossly overpriced).

To summarize, I now have internet, it works fine and for the most part at no out of pocket cost to me. Had I needed to get U-verse, I would have been out of luck (according to the saleslady I talked to), I would not have been happy. For now though, all is good.
Now

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10/24/09 - My website makes a difference

Quite some time ago, early January 09 actually, I posted about envelope budgeting. I had received a few questions from my readers and since it is something I believe in, I thought it would make for a good post. There were several more follow up questions, but all from my base of normal readers.

Then, about a month ago, I got an email from an address I was not familiar with. This is not the first time this has happened, but it is usually due to the p90x review. This time, it was in regards to the envelope budget.

After a few emails back and forth, I gave him a call and we had a nice longer conversation where I tried to get him started with some of the basics, and gave him several examples and reasons why this works and how helpful it is has been for my wife and I.

I think we spoke one other time on the phone and haven't really heard from him since. Based on his accent, I was pretty confident he was from New York, and after a quick look-up on his area code, sure enough, New York City area.

The last conversation we had, he had setup his different categories and was in the process of setting up a method of when and how to fill those categories each paycheck. He really sounded like he had everything under control, and I could tell he was excited about getting his finances in order.

He had mentioned wanting to buy a house soon, so I really hope that he is able to stick to this and save up the money he needs. I don't know if he ever reads this blog anymore, but if he does: "Good luck dude!"

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10/20/09 - September Amazon Sales

To my loyal readers who have recently ordered items through Amazon, thanks.

Purchases last month included hairspray, an external hard drive and what appears to be a devotional book.

Going back to the beginning of this year, we've also had headphones (which my wife bought for me, so that doesn't really count), some computer software and some shoe dryers which were then returned. A DVD storage case and another external hard drive round out the purchases.

All those referrals have really added up and I have almost broken even on the purchase of my domain name for this year. I joke, but I really do appreciate any reader who even remembers to click on the Amazon link.

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9/11/09 - I'm a vigilante

I think I might have outrun a cop the other day. I was cruising down the interstate on the way to work and in an attempt to pass another vehicle, I got up to about 80 or so...in a 60, as I went by a cop setup on the side of the road. As I passed him, I looked in my rear view a couple of times and eventually so him pull on to the interstate. He never turned on his lights, but the next time I looked in my rear view, he was gaining pretty quick.

I decided I would go ahead and take that exit in the hopes that he might not see me take the exit and keep heading down the road. As I took the exit, another car or two took it behind me, and as I checked my rear view again...here came the cop.

Apparently, the cars behind me were in no hurry because by the time I hit the end of the exit, I couldn't see them at all. I came to the stop sign and took a quick left only to catch a glimpse of the cop car as I went down the road. I then pulled into a parking lot and drove around behind stuff as much as possible only to come to a dead end. I was forced to go back the way I had come, but I was relieve to see that there were no police cars in sight.

I can only assume one of two things happened that day. 1) He was not actually after me, it was only a strange coincidence that he went speeding down the interstate, taking the same exit as me only moments after I went flying past him setup in an obvious speed trap. 2) He actually was coming after me, and I was able to keep just enough space that he was not able to track each one of my turns, probably the turn into the parking lot.

During this time, I was also thinking of the worst case scenario. Assuming he did finally catch up to me, what was I going to say. I had no business being in that parking lot, or in that area alotgether as it was out of my way to get to work. Sadly, I had come up with a line about how my wife (who worked at the building adjacent to the parking lot) had seen a truck in that lot the previous day that was for sale. Since I've been looking for that truck, it seemed pretty believable to me.

So, that's my story for the day, and the moral of all this is...Kids, don't do drugs, and don't speed.

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8/17/09 - I have no excuses

I haven't been motivated. Nothing exciting has been going on in my life. I had a trip to Nashville, we played softball, we lost, we came home. Other than that, I work, come home, mow some nights, play with Makenna, put her to bed, then play video games before going to bed. Weekends haven't even been that exciting. Sleep in on Saturday, wake up, maybe run an errand or two, mow if I need to, watch tv, then play video games before going to bed. Sundays have been wake up, go to church, come home and lay around watching TV, then play video games before going to bed. Oh, and mow if I need to.

If anything happens, you guys will be the first to know, but until then, I've got nothing. In fact, I can't really think of any bad customer service stories that are worth sharing, or any other random rants that cross my mind for that matter.

Getting old is apparently pretty boring.

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7/2/09 - People amaze me.

As I've mentioned before, I play a great deal of Gears of War 2. Primarily, I play online with people all over the world. I am amazed at several things when playing. Primarily, the language that people use when the assume they are anonymous, would make sailors blush and you better believe it would never be considered "politically correct". I typically take my headphones off so I don't have to hear the mess, but last night seemed pretty mellow, so I stayed in. It was during about a 5 minute span that I received these following gems.

Let me begin by saying that the people that I was "talking" with were 11 and 12 years old. First, who lets their children play an "NC-17" rated video game. Second, who let's them play at 2:00 in the morning. Third, how in the world would you let your child use that type of language.

So, the first conversation started by finding out that the 11 year old lives in Canada. The 12 year old then asks if they celebrate July 4th on July 1st since he had heard fireworks going off through the mic. They then began to argue when Canada celebrated the fourth of July. That's right...the holiday of July 4th...the one that celebrates the independence of the United States. I had to step in after a about a minute of arguing to inform them that Canada had no reason to celebrate July 4th. Besides that, I would think that the 4th of July would be celebrated on....oh, I don't know...July 4th....morons...

Later on, the 11 year old once again quoted a movie line, he said "Get to the Choppa...". The 12 year old started repeating it as well and eventually asked why he was saying it. The 11 year old said that he just thought it was cool, and that it was a quote from Family Guy. Once again, I had to step in and correct and explain that it was from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. I wasn't sure at the time, but now know that it was from Predator. They were silent after that...for a while...

A few moments later, the 11 year old stated that he remembered that it was from a movie but he had more recently seen it on Family Guy, he said the line must have been from Rambo or something like that...yea...Rambo...remember when Arnold was in Rambo? Great movie...EXCEPT IT NEVER HAPPENED. I had to explain that Arnold was not in Rambo, and I'm pretty sure that Sylvester Stallone never said "Get to the Choppa" in any of the Rambo movies.

Granted, as I'm writing this, I can attribute the movie quote fiasco to me being quite a bit older than these kids, but the Independence Day issue is inexcusable. I'm pretty sure you start learning history as early as 3rd grade or so. Even earlier I would think considering that it is a primary subject in school. Whatever the case, you've got to know this type of stuff.

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6/30/09 - One thing after another

Last week, I was at church camp, had a great time, no real great stories to share, although we had a great time turning an old hotel (close to 100 years old) into a haunted house in about 15 minutes. The results were great. I did get a great tan, good times with friends, and helped mold the lives of 200 children...that is a scary thought.

Got back on Saturday...I was too tired to do anything, but it was really nice to see my wife and daughter again.

Sunday I had 6 yards to mow since I took Saturday off. The first yard was fine, the 2nd yard was horrible. I nearly knocked myself out when a tree limb got caught on my mower and flipped back into my skull. No more than 2 minutes later, I pinned my foot between my stand-on and the mower. This left me screaming in anger more than anything, but also put a pretty good gash in my ankle that bled all over my sock and shoe. Cristi later said it looked like I might have gone into some of the muscle with the cut. After mowing, on the way back to the trailer, I got a flat tire.

This flat was not going to be fixed by me as I didn't have the parts or equipment. I figured Monday afternoon I could get it fixed no problem. I could not have been more wrong. Since I was without the big mower, I had to push mow three of my lawns Sunday afternoon.

Monday afternoon I started calling around to make sure they would fix a lawn mower tire. I talked to 3 shops and they all said that they did not work with small tires. One of the shops was actually my favorite outdoor equipment shop. The other call I made was to a company that has apparently now closed. At that point, I figured I would change it myself so I bought the replacement tube at TSC. Got home, tried to change it and realized that the tire was on the rim pretty tight.

Monday night I push mowed my two largest yards with a push mower. This morning, I asked my dad to call around until he could find someone who could do it. The only place he could find was a little joint called Discount Tire where a friend of mine works. In fact, I think the only reason that that shop did the work is because my friend worked there.

I couldn't believe that you can't find a tire shop that will change a friggin mower tire. I've still got 7 yards to go in the next three days, so I'm very thankful that my dad was able to get it taken care of. I don't know what I would have done if I had to push mow all my yards this week.

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6/15/09 - Museum of Discovery

On Sunday, Cristi did not have to work, and I had no yards to mow. Since this rarely happens, we have agreed that on weekend days that neither of us work, we will start doing some sort of outing with Makenna. It just so happens that the 2nd Sunday of every month, the Museum of Discovery provides free admission. From 1-5 you can come and go as you please and do whatever you want at no cost to you. This of course, has it benefits and some downsides.

The plan was to let Makenna take a nap right after church so she would be well rested for fun times at the museum. Although she is only 15 months old, I assumed there would be lots of hands of stuff that she could interact with. I wanted to make sure she was awake enough to take some of it in. She, of course, had other plans. Instead of taking a nap, she just talked to herself in her crib, so Cristi and I decided to get her up and head on out.

It is located right next door to the River Market in downtown Little Rock, in the same building as Boscoe's and Sonny William's Steak House. We were able to park in the River Market parking for free and walk a block to the actual museum. Upon entering, I immediately noticed a fairly large number of unsupervised hoodlums. Although, I was expecting a much larger number of people to be there.

The first area we came to was an area that was for children ages 6 and under. Although there were plenty of kids that did not quite meet this age requirement, it wasn't that big of a deal as Makenna had plenty of room to play around without getting knocked over constantly (of course, at her size it does not take much for her to topple). She immediately found a few toys laying around which she picked up and carried around. I think that might be her favorite thing to do in the world...just carry something around. She really liked (monkey-)crawling through a caterpillar and although the first few times down the slide were surprising...she quickly got the hang of it and really enjoyed it.

I believe Cristi will be posting a video of this later, but there is an area full of large building blocks. Being the kid that I am, while Makenna was walking around elsewhere (under my wife's supervision) I started stacking the blocks. As soon as Makenna saw this, she came over and her first thought was to knock it over. She thought this was so funny and squealed every time she did it. Normally, I would have been very frustrated, but since it was my own daughter...I couldn't believe I could have so much fun watching someone destroy my towers.

Outside of those few things, I was pretty disappointed. The only thing I really "discovered" was that unsupervised kids will destroy almost anything. I'd say that a good 25% of the exhibits needed some sort of repair or were just downright broken. Watching how some of the kids played with the areas that were working...I'd give them about a week before they were no longer functioning properly. This was a little upsetting for me, not because the things were broken, but because I saw many of the "parents" sitting over to the side not saying a word while their "kids" were obviously misusing items.

There were very few hands on type things which was pretty upsetting as I remember the museum of discovery that used to be in Hot Springs (I don't know if it is still there or not). I felt like the one here in Little Rock had lots of things that you could read, but not a whole lot that you could actually experience. I doubt we will be back for quite some time, both because Makenna is still too young to really enjoy a lot of the stuff, but simply because the price of admission to me really doesn't match the quality of the items there.

I will say they had a Robotics lab that looked pretty sweet...of course at 15 months, I don't know how long Makenna would have lasted, so I didn't get a chance to see exactly what they offered in that area of the museum.

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6/8/09 - My baby bro got married

Saturday was a big day for our family. I gained a sister-in-law (I think that is the correct relationship). Greg got married after what might have been a 4 or 5 year dating relationship. It might not have been that long, but I do know that it was a while. The wedding went off with no major problems.

Of course, my daughter was the wildcard as she was the flower girl and did not get her nap before the wedding which meant that it was a toss up how she was going to act. The poor thing was nodding off as we started walking down the aisle. Luckily, she was in her good mood sleepy which is simply her not crying and walking around in a daze. When it came time for her to walk the aisle, I was at the front of the church as the best man, and she was at the back of the church just kind of standing there. Greg and Jessica agreed that if this were to happen, I would go get her and walk her down the aisle. I personally think it turned out to be very cute, but I was really hoping she was going to perform like she did in rehearsal, where she just ran as fast as she could to me standing at the front of the church.

Other than that, I don't think there were any problems. None of the bridesmaids or groomsmen fell, no one passed out and the audio went great including my wife performing a solo during the candle lighting.

As I am typing this, greg and his wife are "ON A BOAT!!!" I can only hope that they have been listening to The Lonely Island song non-stop since boarding yesterday afternoon. I know they are stopping in Jamaica, but other than that, I don't know where they are docking.

That's pretty much it, the wedding itself was awesome, it was trying to juggle a crying sleep baby and trying to help my parent's clean up the wedding site, and so on, while still getting my lawns mowed that was the problem. It was a huge honor for me to be the best man, I just hope I was able to do all the best man stuff I was supposed to. I thought we did a pretty good job on the car and of course my morals prevented me from throwing the the bachelor party of the century. I didn't lose the ring and I paid the preacher-man correctly so I think I had it all covered.

I didn't mention how cute my daughter looked and although I'm partial to my daughter, she was very very close to being just a beautiful as the bride that day. I do think she will go down in history as the cutest flower girl ever, with her big white dress and big pink bow. There are pictures on facebook now if you want to go check them out, I'm pretty sure she was tagged in most of those pictures. And if you aren't friends with Makenna on Facebook....why not?

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6/2/09 - I had a great idea for a blog post

And apparently, I should have written it down when I first thought about it. I have since completely forgotten what it was that I was going to write about. Something interesting is bound to happen in the next couple of days, I need a run in with a horrible customer service experience....oooo....I haven't posted about TruGreen yet....I'll start writing that one. Anyways, something else has got to happen pretty soon, keep your fingers crossed.

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5/24/09 - Hollywood Studios

On Wednesday of our vacation, after the fiasco that was Makenna getting sick, us spending all morning at the hotel room, Cristi and I spending a couple hours by the pool in the afternoon, followed by one of the worst rain storms I've ever been in (with dime-sized hail and 55+mph winds) we finally made it to Disney Park.

The big ticket items for me at Hollywood Studios were the Rockin' Roller Coaster and the Extreme Stunt Show featuring high speed car chases and stunts. Of course, the Rockin' Roller Coaster was only a feature for me after riding Hulk at Universal.

I don't remember the exact order we went on the rides, but the first ride we went on was Toy Story Mania. We waited for about 30 minutes on this ride (twice as long as any ride at Universal), so we were hoping we hadn't wasted our time. By the time we were done with the ride, we both agreed we would be back as many times as possible that day. It was awesome. It's basically a 3-d video game where you have a cannon attached to your "carnival car" and you ride around viewing different screens where you shoot at targets for points. I beat Cristi twice and then on the last round, she finally beat me.

Some of the attractions we did but weren't all that excited about were The Great Movie Ride which was pretty slow and boring. Walt Disney: One Man's Dream was simply a museum type walkthrough of an overview of the Disney company. We did learn some pretty neat things about how advanced some of the Disney stuff was for the time, but nothing real exciting. And then there were a few that we just simply didn't care for so didn't bother with. These included the live performances such as the Narnia experience, Little Mermaid and Playhouse Disney. Also, during the course of the day there were Star Wars fights and a Highschool Musical Dance off which we also didn't bother with. Sounds Dangerous and the American Idol Experience were both closed although the American Idol experience we would have passed on anyways.

Hollywood only had one 3-d attraction we cared about (we later found out that skipping the Star Wars 3-d ride was a good idea because apparently it's not all that great). The Muppets show was pretty cool though and although Shrek and Spiderman were far better, knowing the age of the Muppets show, I was very impressed.

There was a "Studio Backlot Tour" which was very similar to the "Disaster" attraction at Universal only about 20 times better. I wouldn't have waited more than about 15 minutes for it given a 2nd chance, but I'm glad we did it.

For the kids, there is a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground, which we had a quick look at. I was saddened that 1) I was too big to play on the slides and climb through stuff and 2) that I did not have Makenna with me which would have given me an excuse to try to play on the stuff anyways.

One of the live shows was an Indiana Jones stunt extravaganza which was really impressive because they recreated 3 different scenes from I believe Temple of Doom all on one stage. The sets were MASSIVE and so watching the stage change was really cool. The stunts were really neat and the comedy relief got me laughing pretty hard at times. my only complaint is that it seemed to take quite a while and some parts seemed a little slow. I'd watch it again in a heartbeat though.

The other live show was in fact the Lights, Motors, Action car stunt show. We watched this twice during the course of the day because it was so good. It's a recreation of a small European city where basically cars and motorcycles chase each other. They would drift around each other and corners, do donuts and make some pretty impressive jumps. Of course there were plenty of explosions, so all in all, that show was just about worth the price of admission to the park.

Tower of Terror was pretty wicked. Cristi doesn't do heights or big drops so it was out of the question for her to get on the ride. It was honestly nothing like what I had imagined, it was actually quite a bit better. I'm not a big fan of big drops myself and having my stomach in my throat is not my favorite thing in the world, but the rush of not knowing how far, how fast or when you were going to fall or go shooting straight up was quite a rush. I'd ride that ride multiple times given the opportunity.

Rockin' Roller Coaster was AWESOME!!! I can't put it on the same level as Hulk because the Aerosmith themed thrill ride made me a little sicker. I was disappointed that the entire ride is in complete darkness as being able to see that you are updside down is pretty cool. Of course, for my money, the start is worth standing in line for a couple of hours. Going from 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds while you have 125 speakers, 24 sub-woofers, and 32,000 watts of Aerosmith blasting in your ears is a rush that i can't describe. Cristi even enjoyed it and I'm really not sure why we didn't ride it a 2nd time.

So there you go, there is my summary of Hollywood Studios. I can't really say if I liked Hollywood or Universal best so hopefully I never have to pick between the two in the future. One piece of advice that we didn't find out about until later is that the FastPass at Disney is free. All you have to do is walk up to the kiosk and slide in your ticket. It will tell you when to come back to use your fast pass. You can still stand in the long lines if you want, but the FastPass, since it is free, would get you on twice the rides as if you didn't use them (which is what happened to us). We assumed that it was like Universal where you pay an extra $30 and get to jump lines. Now that we know, we probably would have ridden the toy story ride 10 times by the end of the day.

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5/22/09 - Islands of Adventure

This is the 2nd part of our day at Universal Studios. They technically have two theme parks. Of course, to make more money, even though they are right next to each other, you are charged extra to go to each.

We hit this half of Universal around 2:00 after spending about 5 hours in the first half. The parks closed at 6:00, so we actually skipped over some stuff to make sure we were able to see the main points we were interested in.

Our first trip through Islands of Adventure was Seuss Landing. Growing up, I was a huge fan of Dr. Seuss and am now attempting to pass on that love to my daughter. Getting to walk through a world that appeared to be designed by the good Doctor himself was awesome. Several of my favorite books were featured with characters "life-size" lining the walks and buildings that came right off the pages of some of the best books.

We actually didn't ride anything in this area of the park as they were all for children and didn't look all that interesting. We instead went on through to the Lost Continent area of the park. This area had three attractions, and we actually passed on all of them. The roller coaster was passed because I had never been on a roller coaster before and once again, wanted to make it through the rest of the park. There was a live action stunt show that we passed on because we didn't think it would be all that exciting (We learned at Hollywood how wrong we were). Finally, there is a walking tour of Poseidan's ancient temple. We assumed this would be a "history lesson" and although we love museums, we were more interested in riding non-roller coaster attractions. Reading reviews, and since seeing a video of what it is about, I think it might have been one of our favorite things of the park had we actually done it. If you make it to the park, please go through this attraction for me.

Jurassic Park was next in the park and we finally came to a ride we wanted to go on. Although I wanted to go on it more than Cristi. We asked the guy at the front if you got wet on this ride as we had seen several people walking around drenched from head to toe. He said that you got "a little more wet than Jaws". The thing is that at the Jaws attraction, you don't really get wet. So we decided to go on this ride, almost blindly, only knowing that we would be on a boat going through water. Beyond that, we had no idea what to expect. Of course, those that have gone on it, or know anything about it know that at the end of the ride, there is a probably 50-70 foot drop where you get pretty wet, especially if you are sitting in the front row...which we were. Cristi has a fear of heights, so as soon as we came to the ledge, she immediately grabbed my arm and held on for dear life. We both enjoyed it, and if we had known what was going to happen at the end of the ride, we probably would not have ridden it. I'm glad we were clueless.

As we went through Toon Lagoon, we picked up a quick bite to eat and headed on through to the Marvel Super Hero Island, taking note of the log ride and raft ride. The main reason we were at this park was for the Spiderman 4-d Adventure and we were not disappointed. This was the very same concept as the Shrek and Simpsons ride, only the "car" you are in actually makes its way through the theatre and you are treated to different scenes on different walls. On top of the three dimensions you experience, the movement seemed very real in comparison to the orientation of the screen. Basically, when the screen went sideways, you felt like you were sideways. Also, the additional effects, including blasts of air, water spray and intense heat made this one of the best rides we were on. I will say this, if you are prone to even the slightest of motion sickness, I highly recommend taking ginger or some sort of motion sickness remedy before this ride (as well as most other 3-d rides).

After Spiderman, we weren't going to ride on the Dr. Doom or Storm ride as hundred foot drops and spinning around while spinning in circles are not something we are interested in. Since that was the end of the park, we went back and I went on Ripsaw Falls in Toon Lagoon. Cristi didn't want to get wet (this is funny in a second) so I went on this by myself. Luckily, I was back row for this which I was pretty sure would prevent me from getting super wet. Quite possibly one of my favorite rides of the day, there are multiple short drops and a very smooth ride in general. And to top it off, outside of a little bit of spray from the big fall, I was pretty much dry at the end of the ride.

After the log ride, we managed to get lost trying to find the exit (this was a recurring theme all day that I have simple not mentioned due to the frequency that it occurred). While lost, we came across the raft ride and since we assumed we were headed to the car, we decided to jump on one more ride. After we were in line and about to get on the ride, we realized that this is where all the drenched folks had come from. If you have never been on a raft, you know what I'm talking about. Why I didn't put two and two together before this, I have no idea. I was okay with getting wet, but Cristi on the other hand wasn't excited about it. Even still, she knew I wanted to ride and she was a trooper and stuck it out. Luckily, we managed to avoid most of the worst parts of the ride, and the worst that either of us got it is Cristi got targeted by the water cannons at one point in the ride.

Now that we were fairly wet, we didn't want to get in the car all wet, so we were going to walk around a bit more and on the way out we passed Hulk. Now, I will say again, I have never been on a roller coaster that can truly be called a roller coaster. Mini-mine train at Six Flags doesn't count I've been told. The problem was that I didn't want to leave a theme park, having spent so much money to come all this way and not ride on a "TRUE" thrill ride. Finally, I talked myself into it and got on. I can't believe I waited that long to get on a roller coaster...that thing was AWESOME. I will say, had it not been for the motion sickness pills I had taken earlier, I probably would have either passed out or thrown up or both as I was still a little sick when I got off.

After riding that roller coaster, I then wanted to go back and ride the Mummy ride at the original Universal since we had passed over it earlier in the day. Cristi agreed only if she got to go see Shrek again. On our way out, we stopped and got a churro, made it to Shrek and headed to Mummy. When we got there, I started handing Cristi stuff out of my pockets only to find out that the camera was no where to be found. I was still on an adrenaline high from the Hulk, so I wanted to get on Mummy and forget about the camera assuming that someone had already taken it home as a souvenir. Cristi on the other hand was heartbroken immediately realizing that we had "lost all of our memories from that day and we'd never get them back" (she can be dramatic at times). Being the husband that I am, we retraced our steps.

Now, I did not mention that this happened at 5:30. By the time we checked the Shrek theatre, and walked back over to the other park, it was 5:55, and I wasn't going to ride any more coasters. We found the camera at the Churro stand where I had emptied my pockets to get to my wallet. The lady there had sent it to lost and found and we picked it up with no problems. Identification was easy as there were pictures of Cristi and I in it.

After that adventure, it was time to leave and get some well earned dinner. We were both exhausted and the conversation was basically dead as we both barely had the energy to lift our food to our mouths.

That is our Monday story for the Universal Parks. I'll have more followup posts about Hollywood Studios and a few other interesting (I think they are interesting) stories.

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5/19/09 - Universal Studios

This is somewhat a followup to the previous post - My first trip to a Disney Park. Although Univesral is not a Disney park, it all has to do with the same week of vacation.

There aren't really any good stories from this park, Cristi and I mainly had just a great time, but I figured I could give some quick reviews on some of the attractions/rides we went on for those that might be planning a trip there in the near future. I will say this, apparently a Monday in the first part of May is the perfect time to be at a Universal Park. We did not stand in line for more than 15 minutes for a ride, and that was only for E.T. The rest of the time, we pretty much walked up, went through the queue line and immediately got on the ride. It was wonderful. No fast pass required for us.

First of all, we got to eat at the one and only Burger King Whopper bar which wasn't all that exciting. We ordered what we normally would for breakfast, drink some nasty coffee and that was about it.

The first attraction we hit was Shrek 4-D, we wound up seeing this twice during the course of the day and HIGHLY recommend this. The 3-d was excellent, making me actually move in an attempt to miss things that I thought for sure were going to hit me. The fourth dimension of interaction was also pretty cool with moving seats, splashing water and bursts of air.

The next and worst attraction we went on was the Simpson Ride. We waited about 10 mintues for this crap and based on the length of the queue lines available, you might have to wait for as long as over an hour and more. Not only did it make us both sick from the motion and screen, the actual content of the ride was pretty crappy. Too much too fast prevented you from ever really knowing what was going on.

Because we were sick, we skipped over the MIB ride. After our trip to Hollywood Studios (more on this in a future post), I wish we would have gone back and done this.

Next were the Jaws ride and Disaster (previously known as Earthquake). Jaws was a pretty big let down. If we had not been the first people in line for this attraction and I waited more than 30 seconds, I would have been upset. The only upside was a big fiery explosion at the end. Everything else about it was lame. The same can be said for the Disaster attraction except it was a large gush of water instead of a fiery explosion. The lead in to Disaster was pretty cool though with riders being part of a movie shoot directed by a hologram of Christopher Walken (who might be one of the greatest comedy geniuses of our time).

From this point, we made it over to the Twister attraction. Once again, the lead in to this ride made it seem like you were really in for a treat. Unfortunately, I did not feel like the ride itself lived up to the hype. They could have made the effects a bit more intense and possibly a little longer. It was fun and I'd do it again, but don't expect to be blown away (pun intended) with excitement.

When we passed the Jimmy Neutron ride, we made it all the way past it and decided to turn back around. It was still early in the day and we didn't have many more things to see so we figured we'd go ahead and see what it was all about. I wish we would have kept walking. Just like the Simpson's ride, I don't really know what was going on, but was only concerned with not throwing up on the kid sitting next to me. I did feel really bad at the start of the show as they had to ask one guy to leave the ride because he was too fat.

As we made our way through the park we stopped at the Terminator show/attraction. It was also 3-d and had live actors as well. Some of the effects were pretty cool, but for the most part I would say it was average. The best part of the show for me was how they included smells in the act. I guess they pumped "perfumes" into the theatre during different times to give the feel of actually being there and smelling the gun powder and the burning rubber.

The next thing we came across was a Horror Makeup Comedy Show. The best part of this portion of our trip was that as we were walking in, the usher snuck out a fake hand and grabbed Cristi's arm causing her to shriek. She was very scared and it made me laugh a lot. The show itself was pretty lame. The guy and his assitant were funny, but I guess I was expecting a little more information on the way they do makeup in horror films. Not a waste of time, but I wouldn't do it again given the opportunity.

Next on our list was to make it to the E.T. ride which turned out to not only be the longest wait we had all day but also about the only ride worth that long of a wait. Some parts were pretty cheesy and showed their age, but for the most part, it was really cool with the bike style seats and just the way things were presented.

We bought the park jumper thing so we could go to both parks. It was only an extra 20 bucks or so and we were wanting to see the Spiderman attraction at Islands of Adventure so we figured it would be worth it. We were correct and recommend both parks in one day if at all possible. Now, to save time and give me something else to write about, I will be posting another follow up that will have all the Islands of Adventure reviews. Look for that in the next couple of days.

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5/16/09 - My first trip to a Disney park

Well as some know, I spent the last week or so in Florida. It was my mother-in-law's 50th birthday party, so we went down to celebrate with her. Of course, the party was only one night, so we decided to turn it into our summer vacation. The plan was originally to get to Tampa Bay around noon on Friday and drive straight to Clearwater. On Sunday night, Cristi and I would drive to Orlando (leaving Makenna with Cristi's mom in Clearwater) and go to three different parks in the next three days. We would then return to Clearwater for one evening and fly back home on Thursday.

Unfortunately, Cristi's mom got really sick about a month ago and wound up having to have emergency surgery. This turned out to actually be a blessing in many ways. First, her mom has had almost persistent medical problems for as long as I have known her (over 10 years), and the surgery may very well have fixed most of it. Second, this gave us the idea to have Makenna and her travel with us to Orlando so we could see our baby at nights, but still have a babysitter during the day.

That worked out well, but then we had a problem with getting back to Clearwater as they would have to check out early on Thursday with no place to go. That set us back to only 2 days at parks, which I was not too upset about...yet.

So, everything worked out well in Clearwater for the most part. Spent pretty much the entire time by the pool, in the pool or within view of the pool. we never made it to the beach which is awesome because sand pisses me off. The only downside is that I think i got dehydrated Saturday and puked in the middle of the night. The bed also wasn't all that comfortable, so I didn't sleep great. I would still trade that for the lack of responsibilities I had those two days.

We made it to Orlando and checked into our hotel only to find out that it was FRIGGIN' SWEET!!! It was a one bedroom suite with a fully stocked kitchen, living room, dining room and bedroom. The sectional sofa seated 6 comfortably and pulled out into a bed. The television was what appeared to be an old style projection big screen, around 40" or so...if not larger. the bathroom had a jacuzzi tub that seated 4 comfortable (I know this because there were actually four "seats" in it), a large stand up shower, dual sinks, a toilet, and of course, what fancy bathroom would be completed without a bidet. The balcony had another dining table and a lounge chair with a partial view of the nearby lake. I should also mention it was within 10 minutes of both the Disney parks and Universal. (oh yeah...since it was cristi's mom's timeshare, we got all of it for a total of $130, and yes, that is for all 3 nights).

So Monday we decided to go to Universal as we had heard lots of good things about it. We were not disappointed, but I'll have another post for that later. We had a great day which wound up including two parks instead of just one, and were looking forward to another day of the parks on Tuesday.

That is until makenna started vomiting at 11:00 that night as we were trying to sleep (theme parks will wear you out). She threw up multiple times over the course of the next 5 hours which prevented either of us from getting any real sleep. Lack of sleep plus a sick baby meant that there would be no park for us on Tuesday. Now, flash back in this post where I said that I was okay with only having two days to see parks, now I was upset about the fact that once again I would not make it to a Disney park.

Flashback - When I was roughly 10 years old, my parents made a deal with me that they would take me to Disney World when I was 13 years old. I was pleased with this and reminded them on a fairly regular basis. When I turned 13, I do not know all the details, but I know there was a large family financial crisis that zapped pretty much all of my parent's money. This meant no trip to Disney World. i still do not remember why we did not reschedule for the next year, or the year after, but whatever the case, I never made it.

About 5 years ago, just before Cristi and I got married, my parents had another opportunity to go to Orlando for the parks with my brothers, but unfortunately, I was unable to go. I don't remember why, but it was probably due to work and lack of vacation time.

Needless to say, you hopefully can see why I was so upset. Since I was about 10 years old (about 18 years ago), I've wanted to make it to these parks, if for no other reason, just to say I've been there.

With that out of the way, and several arguments with my wife, a couple of hours of pouting and moping and several phone calls, it was decided that we would stay one more night in Orlando, skip our return trip to the beach and go to a theme park on Wednesday.

My choice was Hollywood Studios (previously known as MGM). It seemed to have the type of things I was most looking for in a theme park, and it was a Disney park. I was pleased to have finally made it to a Disney Park and can now say I have been to one. I'd still like to go back and do Epcot and Magic Kingdom, but I'm pretty sure I can wait until makenna gets a little older so I can be sure she has chance to see the parks before she is nearing her 30th birthday.

The rest of the trip was pretty cool as we woke up Thursday and spent a few minutes at the pool before we packed up, made a quick stop at the Outlet mall, ate dinner at International Plaza and flew home. Of course, anyone following me on twitter knows that adventure we had coming home was quite the blood boiler.

I've already got 4 other blog posts I'd like to write about. Our trip to the Universal Parks, the Hollywood Studios day, the return flight story and more recently, my run in with a horrible driver in a McDonald's parking lot.

For the record, Makenna is still a little sick, but doing much better from just a day or two ago. At this point, she is mainly just sleepy and doesn't really have much energy to play like her normal self.

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4/27/09 - My summers are way too busy.

Here is an average day for me.

-Wake up around 7:00.
-Get myself ready (sometimes I have to get Makenna ready and drop her off with my mom or cristi's aunt), including a shower and breakfast, plus pack my lunch.
-30 minutes or so commute to work to hopefully be there by 9:00.
-work until around 5:00 (later depending on when I got to work that morning), which includes me wearing multiple hats and working through my lunch break.
-30 minute drive back home
-typically load up the trailer and go mow 2-3 lawns
-if I'm not mowing, I probably have a softball game (sometimes I will mow and have a softball game)
-come home and try to spend a minute or two with Makenna and the wife before it is time to put Makenna to bed which includes at a minimum a bath and story time.
-eat dinner (hopefully I've eaten lunch and snack since breakfast, but not always)
-work out (I have recently started p90x again, have I mentioned that I love the stupid thing?) for about an hour
-wind down while playing video games for a while
-manage to get myself in bed before 1 or 2 in the morning.

I'm working on getting up a little bit earlier because I'm going to need to start getting off earlier. This current schedule leaves very little time for running errands and just generally getting stuff done. I really, really need to clean up the office as there are papers and boxes all over the place, but I just don't have the time, and when I do have the time, I don't have the energy.

I've got all sorts of ideas for future blog posts, including several that are going to include pictures from when I was younger, as well as several readers of the website, they should be fun, if I could just get them scanned and uploaded.

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4/16/09 - A quick poem

Roses are red
violets are blue
I've been busy (and sick)
How about you?

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4/9/09 - Branson and the black screen of death.

As Cristi posted on her blog, we took a weekend trip to Branson. We had a great time where we spent too much money and ate way too much. My main reason for going was to get away from things for a couple of days, but also to get some new shirts. I haven't bought new clothes in probably a year or more, and was in need of some new shirts. As luck would have it, although the Polo outlet is already discounted, they were having a sale on top of that so the shirts were just about 50% off. I got 4 new shirts and love every single one of them.

We ate out every meal (for obvious reasons) and had some wonderful food. At Joe's Crab Shack, I got the Surf and Turf burger which is without a doubt the best deal on the menu. Where most dinners are in the 15-18 dollar range, my burger was just under 9 and came with a quarter pound beef patty, a side of onion strings, an order of popcorn shrimp, the usual hamburger fixings and a side of fries. The hamburger meat itself was not all that great, but even if you wanted to leave the meat off the burger, you had plenty of toppings, food and flavor to fill you up.

One of the most interesting, scary and frustrating parts of the trip was when my iPhone crapped out on me. Saturday afternoon, the screen went black and there was nothing I could do to get it to come back on. I couldn't take phone calls, place calls, or really do anything with it at all...it suddenly became a really expensive paper weight with a really expensive data plan attached to it.

When we got home Sunday night, I did a quick google search for something in regards to iPhone and black screen and found out about the "Black Screen of Death" (a play on the Microsoft BSOD). Turns out it is not really a screen of death, just a signal to reset your iPhone by holding the home and power key for 10 seconds. The phone resets and comes right back to life. This was great to know once I got home, but could have really used on saturday when I wanted to use the phone to catch up on scores while we were at the haygood's show (which turned out to be really really amazing).

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3/26/09 - Now I'm on Twitter

I have still not figured out what the big deal is about twitter, except for the fact it's a great way to let more people know about your random thoughts more often. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to use it for my purposes, so for now, I have about 2 updates a day and they don't mean much.

Whatever the case, if you want, you can follow me. I don't have a widget on my website because quite frankly, I'm not sure where I would put it. I'll work on that later.

If you have a twitter account, let me know in the comments...I need more things to distract me during the course of the day.

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3/4/09 - More things that make the internet great.

I am not political. Nothing about the presidency and government appeal to me. With that said, this might be the most interesting artist's (and i use the term loosely) rendition of our current president that I have ever seen.




If you enjoy that, you might enjoy clicking through this website - Bad Paintings of Barack Obama. There are quite a few gems in there. Just keep clicking the image and a new one will appear. Some of my favorites are Barack in a D.C. basketball jersey, in a field of flowers with a half open white shirt on, Mr. Obama with a third eye and of course the image above.

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3/2/09 - This is what the internet should be about.

YouTube Symphony

Apparently, YouTube had a competition, where they chose 90 incredible musicians, playing 26 different instruments from 30 different countries who were judged on a clip they uploaded to the site. They are being brought to New York to perform on April the 15th as a group.

That just amazes me. 90 of possibly the greatest musicians in the world (at least those who knew about the youtube competition and access to the internet) were brought together by this wonderful thing called the internet.

Oh...and then there is this stuff too.

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2/23/09 - Things that make my heart melt

I'm a guy with certain female tendencies. For instance, I know how to crosstich, and although I have not done it in a while, I used to really enjoy doing it. I knew how to knit at one point, and have completed several hook and weave (I think that's what it is called) patterns, including a very large eagle crest that is currently displayed over my parent's staircase. I tend to cry at sappy stories; you know the ones that just really give you hope that there are still decent people in this world. For some reason, sappy sports stories really get to me. These are just a few things that would cause people to question my "manliness".

With that said, here is a list of things that I think would make the heart of even the manliest of men melt.

1) Not long ago, Makenna learned how to give kisses. Although it is not a true kiss as there is no puckering going on, it is the thought that counts. Depending on how "busy" she is, it takes a little bit of coaxing, but eventually she'll cut her eyes, open her mouth and lean in, usually initiating the contact. I can't imagine there is anything sweeter than getting a kiss from your daughter.

2) A while back, about the same time she learned to give kisses, she starting giving high fives too. Although not really as sweet as kisses, it is another one of those things that makes me just say "That's my girl."

3) When she gets tired, and I mean, when she gets really tired, to the point of almost passing out, she will eventually give in and lay her head on my shoulder. For most babies, when they get just a little sleepy, they will lay down and fall asleep just about anywhere. I know this, because I've seen it on many occassion. Makenna is the opposite, she will fight sleep for as long as possible. But that is what makes this point that much sweeter for me. It's a very rare thing, and she won't do it for just anybody. In fact, I've found that she is more likely to lay her head on my shoulder than Cristi's. Not to take anything away from my wife, but that makes me feel so good that there is an area that I can provide just a little better than she can. (Trust me, these are few and far between, Cristi gets credit for pretty much everything else).

4) She is such a charmer. Anywhere we go, she likes to wave at people and get their attention. If someone doesn't pay her enough attention, she will wave and wave until they leave or until they look at her. I have seen grown men with a scowl on their face, turn into a massive grinning child if Makenna waves at them long enough. It's so fun to watch and of course to get constant compliments about how cute your daughter is.

5) One of her first noises she starting making on a regular basis was "dada". It started out as a long string of "da"s but eventually shrunk to a simple "dada". I do recognize that to some extent she has not equated that noise she makes with what it really means. But every once in a while, she'll point right at me and enunciate those two wonderful syllables and it just brings a smile to my face.

6) The final thing that really gets me is that recently she has started reaching for me (or running away, depending on her mood). If I reach for her to pick her up, she will do one of two things. The first is to lift her hands up to me which is just so awesome knowing that what she really wants at that moment is to be held by her dad. The second is to scoot off as fast as she can, the whole time looking over her shoulder laughing. This is just as sweet to me because I interprate it to mean that all she wants to do right then is play with her dad.

So there ya go, a list of just a few of things that remind just about every day why I think it is so great being a dad. I know this list is just going to grow and grow, but for now, it's hard to imagine that I could fall in love with this little girl any more than I already have.

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2/20/09 - Dish...resolved?

I made call number 5 on Wednesday which I expected to be fairly painless. After finally receiving the $300 credit nearly a month after it was first charged, I was out to finish things off.

Appparently, Dish has a department by the name of ERT. I believe it stands for something like Executive Reimbursement Team or something like that. Basically, there reason for existence is to refund customers money for stuff they shouldn't have paid. I take this to mean that I'm not the only customer who has had a very similar situation.

The problem with this department is that they only reimburse for actuall monetary losses, and to make matters worse, they don't cover interest charges on credit cards (although apparently they might make an exception for me). We pay off our credit cards, so there was no reason for me to talk to these people.

I still felt that I was owed some sort of compensation considering I got the $40 in credits and the "free" HBO and Starz on only my 2nd call trying to get this taken care of. This being call number 5, I felt that $20 a phone call was reasonable since that was apparently the going rate. With this in mind, I was going to get another $60.

When I spoke with "Harry", at least that is what he claimed his name was. I immediately went in to a complete recap of my last month of phone calls, account checks, so on and so forth. When I finished, I flat out said "What I want you to do, is add 6 months of $10 credits to my account". After a slight hesitation, he simply said "OK". I didn't really believe what I was hearing, so I specified that this would be on top of the other credits I was already recieving for a total of 10 credits of $10. He said that he could only add 6, but then I reiterated that this would be on top of the other credits already on...and he again responded with a postive answer.

Now, I like to think the best of people, even after I've been round and round with these people, so I am going to assume that Harry actually added this to my account. I will wait for my next bill to see if the original credits were added correctly, and assuming they were, February, March, April and May will include the original $10 credits, and April through whatever will have the next 6 credits. Of course, what would be even better in my book is if the next four months have a $20 credit, and so on.

Whatever the case, I'm currently satisfied with the results of everything. I would have preferred to not have gone through all this, but I think the compensation is sufficient.

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2/18/09 - I'm all hyped up on Mountain Dew

I'll have a better update in the next couple of days, in fact, I'll have two scheduled over the next couple of days to update on the resolutions, as well as some info on Makenna.

For now, I wanted to mention the effects of caffeine. I went without caffeine since I started the diet about a month ago or so. I went cold turkey. I had very little chocolate, no cokes or other soft drinks, and I had coffee maybe once (black, no sugar or creamer). Over the weekend, I was very very tired and had to drive to Greenbrier kind of late at night, so I went ahead and got my favorite energy drink Monster Khaos. I really didn't feel the effects too much, possibly because my sleepiness was beyond what caffeine could impact.

This morning, I was pretty tired, so I thought I would drop by the gas station and fill up the truck as well as get a few drinks (2/$3.00). I picked up a new (to me) flavor of Amp...Lemonade. I wasn't very hopeful, but turns out it is pretty good. The downside is that I have the jitters really bad, I can't stop bouncing my leg and sitting still is the last thing on my list of things to do. The crazy thing is, I haven't even finished the can yet. I don't plan on having the other (grape flavored) until at least tomorrow, so hopefully I won't go into cardiac arrest.

In the immortal words of Rick James (slight modified for my pupose): "Caffeine's a helluva drug"

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2/13/09 - Dish...again...almost there.

Yesterday I made the dreaded call to Dish to hopefully get things straightened out. I was very pleased to speak with a gentleman by the name of Pat. I can honestly say that after getting off the phone, my blood pressure was lower than when I started, which is the complete opposite of my last handful of calls.

I told him why I was calling, which was to discuss my bill. I explained that the $300 would be addressed the next day if I did not get the resolution I was expecting. He voluntarily explained to me that it did appear on my account that it was being processed as expected. This pleased me although he did explain it would probably be three to 5 days before my credit card company recognized the credit. (Side rant at the bottom of this post). More on this in a moment. When I started explaining my problems, he was more than patient with me and offered to explain one by one.

The service fee was removed with no hassle whatsoever. I truly believe I could have just said that I didn't want to pay it and he would have removed it. The part that was the most confusing to me was the multiple line items for multiple premium packages pro-rated on different dates. He too was completely confused by them, but tried to explain the best he could. The point is, he genuinly tried and didn't try to make something up. When I mentioned that I was not receiving my $10 credit as promised, he asked to put me on hold, came back and explained that it had been applied to my account, but wasn't showing up on my bill. I said that his comment made no sense, but we would move on for the time being. The next question was in regards to the taxes. He explained that when the credit was truly applied, the taxes would also be removed and my account would display this.

So, after he made a few modifications to my account and bill, I asked him what I could expect to be applied to my credit card (automatic bill pay) on the 28th of this month. He said that he couldn't give me an accurate figure because the taxes might be different but that the best he could tell it would be around $47. I was very satisfied to hear him through out a number that I had basically calculated before making this phone call.

Back to the $300 charge, today, I got a phone call from Dish, an automated system. They informed me that my refund had been processed. That's great, I'm glad that happened, but the bad part is, it is 24 hours too late. I was told 2 days, and after this much trouble, I'm holding them to that. Because of this, and more thoughts I had, I will be making a call to a different department, probably on Monday to request more monetary compensation for the my trouble. On top of that, it just so happened that my credit card billing cycle starts and ends on the 15th. If I did not have the money to cover this charge, that $300 would sit on my account, and accumulate interest to the tune of 13% (we pay our credit card bill off every month, so this percentage rate does not bother me). Because of this, I feel that I am entitled to at least $40, plus compensation for the more recent calls I've had to make, as well as to make up for the poor attempt at appeasment by offering a programming package that was offered to all customers (I believe I've mentioned my frustrations in previous posts with offering new customers one deal, and not providing the same, or comparable deal to current customers).

*Footnote from above - why do companies say things take 3-5 business days, or 5-7 busienss days. That's a bunch of crap. We live in a world where technology rules. Computers and networks are advanced enough to do millions and millions of calculations and transfers in seconds. I also know for a fact that this mega corporations spend millions a year on technology infrastructure and software. It is more cost effective to have stable software as opposed to the possiblity of manual calculation errors when it comes to bills and financial transactions. At the end of the day, I could understand 1 business day. The first day, the customer rep would have to process a form (probably electronic) which was sent to the accounting department or some other similar department for approval. Upon approval, that would be immediately queued up for that evenings processing. Upon processing, the bank or credit card system was be alerted of the debit/credit immediately thanks to the use of ACH. This is a technology that I have worked with personally and it is awesome. So...don't give me this crap about how a credit/debit will take 3-5 days, much less the 61-90 as promised by the first lady I spoke with. Oh, and don't get me started on rebates...

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2/11/09 - Dish Network, revisited

Well, my incredible story gets even better. I'm sure everyone has read about my my previous dealings with Dish, so I'll jump right into it.

Five to seven business days passed as of Tuesday, the 11th of February. I called and spoke to a nice girl who seemed to have no knowledge of my previous calls. I can only assume that the service reps are required to log notes in the system explaining previous dealings with customers. Either this girl did not look for this information or it simply did not exist, and the previous two people were just pulling my leg about getting that money back.

I had to go through the whole thing from the beginning, explaining that I only had one receiver in my house, how I should not have been charged this money, and I needed the money returned. She put me on hold, only to come back to tell me that she did some research and sees where she needed to fill out a form, send it to another department, and someone would contact me with 7-10 days. As soon as she started talking, I knew I was going to get the run around, so I stopped it right there, and explained that I would be getting the refund today.

Again, she put me on hold, only to come back moments later to let me know that she had talked to the executive department and they would be able to expedite my request and I would have the money in 2 days. It's still on my account, but they still have 24 hours to get it on there. On top of that, I've decided to give them until Friday, just in case there is a lag in the update on my credit card statement.

With that out of the way, I began asking about the movie package that I was offered for all my trouble. The reason for this is that I was informed by a friend of mine that they were also being offered 3 months of free HBO and Starz....yet they were not going through my same hassle...(a different hassle, but still). I asked the girl about this and she stated that since I had been so adamant about getting my $300 back, they waived the 24 month contract extension. That didn't make me happy, but the movie channels are just a bonus as far as I'm concerned...it just frustrated me that I was led to believe I was getting this great deal with all these new channels, when they were offering this anyways.

Move on to later in the afternoon when I got an email from Dish. When I first saw it, I thought it was going to be an apology letter, or some form of confirmation that my refund was being processed. I was quite surprised to see that it was a Bill notification. Since I'm on paperless billing, I get an email when the new bill is processed. I immediately went to check it out and was very intrigued by what I found.

Where we normally are charged about $55 a month for our services, the bill showed $110. In this, was the charge for the service call ($29) which will be waived. I just have to call and explain that to them. The service guy himself stated that he had to fix the crappy job that the previous guy had done. There were also 3 seperate pro-rated charges for multiple premium packages. At the same time, there were 3 seperate pro-rated credits for multiple premium packages. They were all different dollar amounts, so I don't know what they each are for. I just know that totalled up, I was still charged around $4 or so. Last, but not least was $27 in taxes. Most of this coming from the now infamous $300 charge. After all this mess with the charge itself, and explaining that I shouldn't be charged, they went ahead and are making me pay a sales tax on it now.

I will be calling tomorrow about my bill, and again on Friday if the money does not show up. I promise you there will be a follow up post to this one.

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2/7/09 - It's the little things in life

Last weekend, I made a purchase of clothing. In the last year, this is the only clothing I have bought in the last year...maybe even a year and a half. The other purchase was 3 pairs of jeans (1 of which I wound up returning the next day).

What was this purchase that was so important? Socks. That's right, I bought socks last weekend. A 10 pack of Hanes Crew socks size 6-12 for $8 (if I remember the cost correctly).

Why am I blogging about this? And why do I keep asking questions in my blog about this? Well, it's because I have forgotten what it feels like to wear new socks, and the questions...I don't know, it seemed like a good way to get my point across.

The thing is, although I haven't bought but 2 pairs of jeans and socks in the last year and a half, I probably haven't bought socks in closer to 2-3 years. Over the last couple of weeks, they started getting holes in them (holes and strings are a completely other blog post) and that is a big no-no as far as my wife is concerned. If a sock has a whole in it, no matter the size, it goes in the trash. Fair enough, I don't have a problem with that.

So I was down to about 3 pairs of crew socks, and maybe 2-3 pairs of no-shows. Now that I have 10 new pairs of crew, I'm considering either tossing the remaining pairs of crew or using them as garage rags. I'm also going to be buying a new pack of no-shows as I will definitely need more than 2-3 pair during the summer since that is all I wear.

So here's the big idea...I love these new socks. I feel like I've been walking on pillows all morning. My feet feel cozy and cushioned. The elastic is still new so they stay up on my calves and in places much better and just knowing that I'm wearing new socks puts a little pep in my step.

My last post was in regards to what I should write about, and everyone basically said right anything. Well, I'm putting that to the test with this post...if I can write a psuedo-interesting post about socks...I guess I really can write about anything and get away with it.

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2/4/09 - What do you want to see on here?

I have had zero motivation recently to make posts. I don't know why, but it has been about the furthest thing from my mind. I have a string of posts that I want to finish, but just haven't gotten around to it. So, since I am stuck, I extend to you, my very few readers, what type of posts would you like to see more of?

You can very easily leave an anonymous post in the comments (trust me, it is anonymous, it typically drives me nuts when I can't find out who posted a comment).

So, here are a few thoughts, but feel free to throw out your own.

1) More rants about my thoughts about customer service, companies, etc, similar to my recent Dish Network post or possibly the one about Airlines.

2) Product reviews, which would primarily consist of children and baby products, such as the Jumperoo or the Diaper Champ

3) More updates about my beautiful daughter Makenna, such as these posts here.

4) CD reviews. I've only done two so far, the Pink cd and of course, the NKOTB review.

5) Updates about the progress on my resolutions

6) Recipes? although I've only ever had one on my website, and it was for Cookies

7) Unfortunately, I do not plan on doing another McDonald's experiment, so there isn't much more I could post about that.

8) I've considered doing something along the lines of a Steve! Don't Eat It!, from over at The Sneeze, but on my diet right now, it might be tough. However, I'd like to know if this is something people would actually care about.

Outside of those, I don't really have any ideas. I do have a string of about 8 posts regarding my car history, similar to what Roxane did on her website, but I'm still trying to put all those together.

Seriously though, give me some ideas...things you would like to see me chronicle. Do you want a 10 page essay about the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? I'm open to absolutely anything, and as my post about the Envelope budget system shows, I'm pretty quick to get on things that my readers want to see.

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1/31/09 - Dish Network, what am I going to do with you?

We are going to go back in time to start this post. Roughly two years ago, my wonderful wife and I were living in Conway where Conway Corp reigns supreme. We were paying about $20 a month for basically all the cable channels we needed (although we didn't get Food network at the time). Life was good.

Then we decided to move to Sherwood, where we knew that Conway Corp would not be providing service and instead we would have to deal with Comcast. I have NEVER had a good experience with Comcast. Not to mention, in order to get the same service we had in Conway, it would have cost roughly $60 a month. (although we would have been getting Food network). Internet was also issue, but that is a different story (and on that note, I can't recommend AT&T DSL service more...it rocks).

In an attempt to save us some money, and stay as far away from Comcast as possible, I looked into getting Dish or DirectTV. My research showed that Dish had better service for a better price. I knew going in that the price listed on their website was not the final price as they would manage to sneak in fee after fee. After several phone calls, I was right. There was a fee for local channels, fee for not having a phone line hooked up, so on and so forth. I also asked about HD services as I knew that at some point, I would upgrade to that. I was told it would be an extra $10 a month, end of story...I know, I know, I should have known better.

So here we are, about 3 months ago, and I have now bought a new TV and need HD service. I call up, and ask them to add the HD service at $10 a month. Then I find out that I will need to upgrade my dish AND receiver. It would be an additional $100 to upgrade my receiver. This, of course, did not make me happy. I explained to them that I had apparently been lied to when I signed up, and I pointed out that if I were a new customer, I could get all of the equipment free of charge. They were "nice enough" to discount the installation by $50. The put the $50 on my bill, and we had our stuff upgraded and after a wonderful conversation with the installation guy, found out that when I signed up for the new service, everything was great except for the fact where they didn't actually sign me up for anything. After more conversations, everything worked great on the HD end, as I believe I reported on multiple times.

Next billing cycle, I check my bill and see a charge for $100, with no $50 discount. I had to call which takes time out of my day. The phone call ended with them crediting my account for the correct amount. Problem solved, all is good.

Now comes the really fun part. Last Thursday, I checked my credit card only to find a $300 charge from Dish. Immediately, I called to find out what was going on. Again, I had to take time out of my day, to fix something that shouldn't have been broke in the first place.

If I had to guess, I would say it was about a 30 minutes conversation. During this conversation, I had to explain that I only had one receiver set up at my house, forcefully request that they credit my account, and then explain that getting my refund in 61-90 days was unacceptable. This conversation ended with the $300 being credited back to my card on that day. I said I would give them 5 business days, and then I'd be calling back.

This afternoon, 6 business days later, the money was still not back in my account. That really ticked me off (the fact that our dish has been reliable about 25% of the time over the last two weeks doesn't help this story). I called and spoke with the first Caucasian male I've ever talked to on Dish support, and explained that I was not happy and basically had no reason to continue service with Dish. He said there was a problem with the refund and he had reprocessed it. At that point, I told him flat out that I wanted to know what Dish was willing to do to keep me as a customer. This conversation ended with her saying that the money would be credited to my account in 5-7 business days, I would start receiving HBO and Starz free of charge, and I would be getting a $10 discount for the next four months. They are also coming out Tuesday afternoon to try to fix the problem with our dish.

Altogether, I still prefer Dish over Comcast, I still think Dish's prices are better than DirectTV, but if they screw up this $300 credit again, and if I have any issues with these new "free" services and discounts. I don't think I have a choice but to move on.

I'm sure there will be a follow up to this episode....stay tuned.

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