Today is my 1st day in Boston. It's a pretty nice city. It reminds me of home.

My flight was good. No hiccups...

When I got to Logon, I saw Nick and Kyle. We changed up the car plans a bit and ended up taking a shuttle the hotel. After a company sponsored dinner and open bar, we went to the movies. All in all a good night. I just wish Steph was here.

So, I think it's been raining for about 2 months straight here in Austin, TX. You see where there is a "low pressure system" flanked by "high pressure systems", it make the "low pressure system" NOT MOVE EVER. As a result, the rain has a nice clean and clear roadway to drop all of its wetty goodness on us at least 3x/day. I'm all for non-drought and stuff, but this is ridiculous. Is the world ending? I think I read about this somewhere...

I actually had to use my poncho today. I realize that that sounds totally retarded, but, I do not own an umbrella capable of standing up to such torrential rain. The poncho worked out great and kept my bag dry too.

Class was cancelled last night b/c Master Joe was not at the school. I did some iron palm, practiced my stuff and went home. Man, it's nice to get home around 745/8.

I think that my presentation for the PSM seminar is almost done. The content is in a good place, but I just need to add some stuff to make it interesting like funny fonts and clipart. Many thanks to Tina for helping me with it.

Tonight should be relaxing. I am not doing anything after work. We might go to Nik's place to watch a movie, but not sure about that yet.

On a final note, I think that my MP3 player has finally bit the dust. It can no longer hold a charge. This makes me very... very sad. If anyone would like to buy me a new MP3 player, I would be happy to accept it. 30Gb or higher please = ).

So, it's been a while... what's up you ask? Here are some random updates in bullet point format:

• I've been really into Bleach lately. I've got a torrent going of every episode ever, but, it's taking well... forever.
  
• I got a new job. I am starting up with Lotus L3 on August 1st ( that is in a few days ). I am looking forward to starting on something new.
  
• We have been working constantly on our house. We have now painted the dining room, kitchen, and living room. We have also cut and hung the chair rail. We have gotten all of our furniture except for the sectional. That should be coming around the 2nd week in August; just in time for us to host the next UFC party! The card looks awesome - check it out.
  
• I have all of my material to test in August for Kung Fu and Tai Chi. I will be testing on the following:
• Kung Fu
• 3 Crane Forms
• Night Battle Broadsword
• San Ye
• Tai Chi
• Chen Tai Chi
• Yin/Yang Dagger
• I am going to Boston on 8.5.2007 to speak at a Lotus PSM Seminar. I will be presenting on the topic of "Database Corruption". It has been tough getting my presentation together with everything that has been going on, but I am getting there. I was also supposed to go there to visit my new manager and my new team, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Most likely, I will go there from 8.5 -> 8.8, then fly to NYC until 8.11 to visit, then fly back to Austin.
  
• I got into a minor car accident yesterday. That sucked but it could have been worse.
• My parents are entertaining the idea of buying a house down here... that is awesome.
  
• We went to see Transformers and I loved it. Watch this, it's hilarious.
  
• We went to see 1408 - eh...
  

Anyway... I'm pretty tired... I'm out...

Screw you, Vonage. I hate you. You have made the past 2 days miserable.

What an ordeal. Here is a word of advice; if you have something that is auto-debited from your checking account, make sure you check it every month. I had auto-debit for Vonage all set up. All of my information was correct, yet, they did not debit my payments for about a year. I now owe them that money. I am angry both at myself for not catching it as well as Vonage for not notifying me at all that my account was in this state. If you don't pay your gas bill for 2 months, don't they threaten to turn it off?

I then spent hours dealing with their support which, I think I spoke about last night. My whole experience is summed up in the letter that I sent to the Customer Care Department:

To whom it may concern:

I would like to take this opportunity to voice my displeasure with Vonage billing and customer support. I had auto debit set up on my account at some point. Yesterday I noticed that my account balance is $<a lot>; an accumulation of around 13 months of phone service. I did in fact verify that all of my account information is correct.

My account had not been debited in over a year. I would like for it to be clear that my anger is not displaced. I absolutely should have noticed that this was not being paid via my checking account.

My displeasure stems from the way in which this was handled by Vonage. I received absolutely no communication from Vonage indicating that my account had a balance or that a single payment was late. My account never went into a grace period and was never terminated. Additionally, I spent upwards of 2 hours on the phone yesterday with one of the most subpar customer support teams I have ever experienced. After 2 hours on the phone I felt more frustrated than when I initially called and felt that I was no further along. As a support engineer myself for a very large company, I make it a point to not waste people’s time on the phone. I suggest your engineers attempt to do the same.

I am now in the process of paying my balance to Vonage. Once it is paid in full, I do not plan on using Vonage services again in the future.

On a positive note, the only engineer that I felt really helped me was Sal. He did not give me his last name, but his ID number is 24856. He was extremely polite, efficient, and about 1000x more helpful than the first line of outsourced people that you have “helping” your customers. Had I spoken to Sal initially, I probably would still be a Vonage customer.

Sincerely,

Bryan <last name>

If you ever have any issues with Vonage. I will be happy to give you the address that you need to write to.

Note: The opinions expressed here are my own. If you have Vonage and you have had good experiences, more power to you.

Well... things have been sort of crazy lately. I know it has been a while since I last wrote so I will try to sum it up.

I guess, really, the biggest thing to say is that we are getting house. The process is almost done. We actually close on Friday and I absolutely cannot wait for this all to be over and for us to move so life can finally get sort of back to normal.

We spent this entire week packing. Almost everything in the apartment is in a box somewhere. Even the bed is ready to go. We have actually been sleeping on the futon. It's been like a slumber party every night. I can't actually remember the last time I woke up in the morning and felt like I had rested.

I had to call to set up my utilities today. I wouldn't recommend this as an activity to pass an afternoon. For any of you that have had to do this before, you are probably with me when I say that it suuuuucks. Mostly, my biggest gripe is with Time Warner. I waited on hold for about 45 minutes today, then gave up and hung up. I decided that I would go to the office which is usually like a ghost town. When I got there, there were 33 people in front of me. It was like the DMV. So I gave up on that for today.

Next, I was showing a friend of mine the dashboard for Vonage. As I was going through the tabs, I realized that they had not auto debited my account since last April. Oh yeah... that's 13 months of bills that have not been paid. Granted some of this is my fault, however, I do know that with ANY other service, if you are past due on one payment, you certainly know about it. I have received nothing from Vonage.

I thought to myself, well, maybe my checking acct information is wrong. So I checked it and it was all perfect. I then made the dreaded decision to call support. After an hour of "oh you need to talk to <x> team, let me transfer you", wait 10 minutes and repeat, I finally got to the people who I had hoped would help me figure this out... only to have the call drop. Without a ticket number, I had to call back and do it ALL over again. I finally hung up at 530pm b/c I needed to go home. I'll try again tomorrow.

I know that this wasn't the direction that I was going in when I started writing this, however, a point that I would like to make is that Vonage's customer is support could have been better if I didn't call at all. It did nothing but further frustrate me and almost 2 hours later, I was no further along than when I started. This it totally unacceptable and a stark reminder of why outsourcing sucks more than I can explain. Sure, the tard that I was talking to on the other line who's first name contained more consonants that the English alphabet ( who asked me to call him "Joe", by the way ), was very nice and courteous and I'm sure costs a fraction of the price of someone here in the US, however, when is it no longer worth the savings when all of your customer's are frustrated and think that your customer support is a joke?

I work in a call center. That is what I do. I talk to people on the phone all day long. My biggest goal is to not waste their god damn time otherwise they will not want to call anymore and I will not have a job and that would be bad. I don't care that I can call you "Joe". I don't care that you have perfect manners. All I care is about is that you can solve my god damn problem. That is why I am calling you. This is such a simple concept. Why in the hell does no one get it?

I guess while I am on a roll, I might as well talk about how utility companies rape the shit out of you when you sign up with them. Why in the hell does the electric company need a $150 deposit? Why does the gas company need a $65 fee? Why do I have to pay $100 for water that is already on?? For the record, all of these things are already on in my house. Why do we allow ourselves to get suburbanly raped like this?? Why do these companies get all of this money for putting a record in my name for some shit that is already turned on and working just fine. WTF man... I don't get it. My ass hurts. Apparently, the lube is extra.

I need to go to sleep... or hit something... really hard... jgdfc.... ( figure that one out )