fatduck!

updated the fatduck weight loss contest chart. here:
/fatduck.xls

For those that don't know, some friends and I started a weight loss contest. it's both cooperative and competitive, in that we have to lose 100 lbs collectively or the money we put in gets sent to someone else. if we make that goal, then the winner gets to pick what to do with the money. Bean has been tracking and updating in excel, but he's on vacation throwing the contest right now. not sure exactly what he did with the chart, but the second graph is smoothed out to account for water weight loss. the long and short of it is that according to that graph, i'm on my way to winning, but we'll see how it goes. that beer in my fridge looks awful tasty...

computers is our friends

On travel near San Diego this week. Have the wife and IAC with me. We got in at 5 local time, but it was nearly 7 by the time we got near the hotel. We went to Target first, to pick up some diapers and milk for IAC, and decided pizza would be a good, easy, quick dinner, so i looked up a local Domino's Pizza. I called and below is basically how it went down:

Domino's: Hello, this is Stanley, how can I help you?
Me: Hey, I need to order a pizza for delivery.
Stanley: What's your phone number?
M: I'm at the Courtyard Marriott, but don't know the number off the top of my head.
S: I need the number.
M: Hold on a second.
S: You can just call me back when you get the number.
M: ok fucker, click

literally 15 seconds later, I call back.
S: Hello, this is Stanley, how can I help you?
M: Hey, I've got that hotel #.
S: Can I have it?
M: blah blah blah phone number
S: what room are you in?
M: I haven't checked in yet, just wanted to call ahead so you could get my pizza in the oven.
S: I need the room number.
M: you can't bring it to the front desk?
S: I need the room number.
M: FUCK YOU! click

seriously, is that kid so stupid he didn't know what the hell to do if he didn't have a number to put into a space on the computer screen? is it asking too much for the kid to think outside the box a little?

New old cars

Friday, on the way to Edinburgh, where the wife's cousin was getting married, we looked at some new old cars at various dealerships in Bloomington, but didn't find anything that met my requirements: newer than 2000, >30mpg, <$10k. After the salesman at the Ford dealership showed his ass by questioning my l33t math skillz, we made a quick exit. He told me I wouldn't be able to get a 3 year loan on $8k for $250 a month, because $250/month *36 months was only $4k, and that's not counting interest...

We got to Edinburgh, checked in to the hotel and saw a Toyota dealership a half mile away...noted. Went to the outlet malls, got some clothes for IAC, then went to the rehearsal dinner, where they didn't have a wagon for IAC to rehearse his ring bearer part, had a good meal, some cold beers and back to the hotel for the night.

Next morning, up bright and early at 8am, ate our continental breakfast, then showered and back to the outlet mall for the pants that we didn't buy the night before, because we weren't sure what color to get since nobody had black pants for a 1yo. After the outlet mall, we went to that Toyota dealership and I saw a couple of Corrolas and a couple of Camry's 2002-2004 years. Then, we went to help set up for the wedding, which was outdoors at a really cool old "breeding farm". After that, I went to pick up BIL1 and test drove a 2003 Corrola, 85k miles, $10k, 35 mpg, score. The 04 Corrola was $15k and the 02 Camry's were $8k and $9k. Long story short, after a little back and forth, I bought the Corrola for $9k. Will PNP's at a later date.

dark ages

my cell phone crapped out Tuesday. First the screen turned green, then scrambled, then nothing at all, so i have no cell phone and no work email access and won't be home until friday. i've been using the hotel phone to check voicemail and using my personal email to communicate. Monday's a holiday, so i won't have a phone until tuesday. this sucks

P3

Last week was phase 3 of the big LCA house remodel, aka P3. P1 was in 2006, where they (I couldn't make it) tore off the front porch, replaced it with a nice brick patio, did some great landscaping and remodeled the tv room, foyer and chapter room. Last year, for P2, they combined two two-man rooms into one three-man room, bricked the back yard, redid the game room and some other stuff, I can't remember what.

This year was the first year I was able to make it, and it was a good time. I wish I could have been there longer than just during the day on Saturday. It started mid-week with demolition work, and they ate some fried turkey nuts at some point. I arrived on Saturday morning, around 9:30. I had a 10:00 Housing Corp. meeting, so I couldn't really get started on any work. I checked the progress out, took a few pictures and went to the meeting. When we got done 40 minutes later, things were in full swing. The major project was in theme with previous years "the brickyard". We continued the brick patio and sidewalk from the front porch all the way down to the road, put in a new entry way at the road, new doors/windows in the chapter room, which are going to be much nicer during parties, as you could never open enough windows to keep things cool. They were also adding some nice stone accents to the front corners and around the door. They used the same manufactured stone as I put on my house, and it makes the front really pop. In the back, we took out all the gravel where everybody threw their smokes between the house and the parking lot and put some paving bricks down and some nice entries into the doors. They put the old front sidewalk (in chunks) in the back yard to accommodate the snakes walking path to their house. It was a better idea than paying someone to haul off a ton of concrete for sure! They also filled in a trench with concrete, that they dug last year to run power to the back yard bbq pit. up to this point it was just full of gravel.

Inside, we were putting up new doors on some of the rooms, and upstairs doing some major remodeling and masonry work. Jim "P-Nut" Benzing was the driving force behind the design and put together some really well laid out rooms. I have a few pics of it in progress, but hopefully they were able to get done Sunday and get it ready for the actives to move in. Of note, they combined the SAC closet with 250 to make it bigger. Not sure where all the bid-tuesday beer will be kept now... Other rooms remodeled were the slug room and geek room, and the other 2 rooms on that side of the hall. I helped hang some trim in there before I had to get back home. There was still quite a bit of work to do when I left, but I'm sure they pulled together and got the hard stuff done, with mostly cleanup left for the actives when they returned, which is no worse than we ever had it moving in.

Hopefully someone else will post some better/more recent pictures, as they had another day and a quarter to work after I left.

Next year, they're not asking for donations, just sweat equity, and the year after that is the big professional remodel. We're tearing that stupid Mansard roof off and putting a peaked roof and HVAC in! I wish all these assholes would have been around BEFORE I joined!

Property Taxes

So we built our house last year. It was started in March, completed in August. I figured our property tax bill wouldn't go up until 2008, which won't be payable until next July. Apparently, I was wrong.

We got a letter from the bank yesterday to notify us that they paid our property taxes out of escrow, and that it would take our escrow account $1700 into the red by the end of the year...shit. They did tell us we could pay into escrow to keep this from increasing our payment too substantially next year (to make up for the deficit AND the increase in taxes, from $100 pre-house to $1700 post-house). It came a year early, but it was about what I expected for taxes.

I decided to call the assessors office this morning to ask why the house was on our 2007 taxes when the house wasn't completed until 2/3 into the year. They told me that the house wasn't added to our taxes until February 2008, so they'll be on our taxes for next year. This year's tax bill should have just been for the property, but the lady didn't have the tax numbers, just the property assessments. She'd transfer me to the Treasurers office for that.

The lady at the treasurers office was not helpful. she simply told me if the bank paid my tax bill that they could send me a copy of it, even though they were supposed to send all tax bills to homeowners at the same time as they sent them to the banks.

currently waiting to hear back from the bank on this whole debacle. i'm going to be PISSED if my taxes went up 20-fold WITHOUT even having my house on the assessment.

UPDATE: I talked to the bank and the Treasurer's office, and got a fax of my tax statement from the Treasurer's office. It showed the house on the taxes. I called the assessor and she assured me that "the house wasn't added until 2/22/08...oh, it was before March 1st. Our tax year goes from March 1st to February 28th"

Those cocksuckers got me by 7 days (leap year)...that's no coincidence.

The good news is that they assessed the house at a reasonable value and i do have my homestead and mortgage exemptions on it.

Seriously???

During the bad storms last weekend, our landline went out. I sent a trouble ticket the next morning via the tubes. They called me Sunday morning (what?) to come out and look at it, but the guy got stopped at the distribution box before he got to my house. Surprise surprise, that's where the problem was. The repair garauntee was moved from 8pm Tuesday to 8pm Wednesday. Well, the wife called and it finally got fixed at 11:40am Friday. I called AT&T customer service to try and get a 25% reduction in my bill. I FINALLY get through to a customer service rep. To get there, i had to enter my phone number in the phone. The lady proceeds to ask my phone number(2st time), name and last 4 of my SSN. She then tells me she needs to transfer me to repair to get this taken care of. Before she transfers me, she tries to upsell me on some long distance plan for $10/month, pass. Then, she tries to upsell me on one that costs $30/month...what? yeah, give me the more expensive one. that's what i was looking for.

Repair has one of those damn automated voice recognition menus, where you have to say what you want, it doesn't understand you, and you repeat it, it does understand, but asks to verify that's what you said, you say yes, and it doesn't understand that, etc. It also asks me to put in my phone number (3rd time) At one point, it says if you want to speak to an agent, say "Agent". After fighting with the thing for five minutes, I tell it I want an agent, and it puts me on hold for 5 more minutes.



the agent answers the phone, and asks my number (4th time) , name and SSN. i'm real frustrated. he looks at my "file" for a minute, and tells me he's going to have to transfer me to repair to get this resolved...



what









the









fuck?



I'm at a loss for words...I stammer about how they already did that, and it sent me back to him, and then I hung up and blogged this blog. It's worth $5 to not have to go back and forth between repair and customer service eleventy times in a row.

Update! I called back, entered my number, told the lady my number again, and she tried to transfer me to repair AGAIN. I told her no, i just wanted her to take money off my bill. I ended up getting a whopping $1.92 taken off my bill...well worth the hassle and 5 years taken off my life from my head wanting to explode.