Rants

Weekend Update

First the good news: We are finished with Phase Three of Donna’s breast cancer treatment, Friday was #33 and her final radiation treatment. Lumpectomy, chemo and radiation are done. Now we are on to the preventative process. Because her cancer was ER+ she will be taking a drug called tamoxifen for 5 years to help prevent any recurrence.

Now to the mediocre news: We only made it through 18 of 24 episodes of TDTVS, AKA Lost: Season 2. Some of the situations and happenings are just too weird. But mostly what keeps us coming back is the humor, especially Sawyer’s irreverent and on target nicknames for the rest of the survivors. It seems as if some of the back-story we are getting is mostly rehashing of last years back-story with a touch of new stuff added to make the character’s stories meld together with strange coincidences, how their lives interacted in the past without them knowing about it.

Then the bad news: Two help desk tickets, two separate emails and even two phone calls have gotten me anywhere with my current web host, ssWebHost, so I’ll be moving to the .net address soon. The first ticket actually prompted a dialog. They said that I should let them know and they’d send me a link to where I could set up my new credit card. I responded that they should send it to me. 4 days later I still hadn’t heard back so I tacked on another message to the ticket asking again. After a week of no replies, I opened a separate ticket asking for way to change my billing info. I figured the new one would pop up on their radar. Nope.

I emailed the billing department of the web host. Silence. OK, let’s try emailing their support address. All I heard back was the white noise of packets zipping by my node.

Hidden in a dark corner of ssWebHost’s web page was a contact phone number, Friday I gave them a call. After an unusually long time the phone started to ring with a very strange sound. I knew I wasn’t calling Kansas. After about 7 rings an automated voice mail system kicked in. It was not English, could have been Russian or some other middle European language. Having dealt with enough of these type things I figured if I hit the #2 on the phone I might get another language and if I was lucky it might be English. Nope. Maybe I misdialed. The second time I had the same pause as before, but this time instead of the funny ring I was disconnected.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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“Assigned” Parking

Oil StainLike most people who work at places that have their own employee parking lot, the folks at ASCO fall into two categories, the ones who park anywhere as long as it is as close to the entrance door as possible and the ones who park further out so they always get the same spot.

Donna and I are of the second group, we park way out, so we always know where the car is, we minimize door dings, we get in a nice walk just getting from car to door and back, plus we have our own “assigned” parking spot because no one else wants it. Two rows up from us is where the two 2nd shift maintenance guys park and they are in the same group too. One fellow drives a newer Dodge Dakota or occasionally he drives his nicely restored 66 Ford Mustang. The other guy drives this ratted out pickup. As you can see the surface underneath where he always parks looks a lot like the shoreline of Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez. I’m hoping this guy takes better care of ASCO‘s machinery than he does of his own daily driver…

Started up, went down, back up, down again, up again, down once more, still down.
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Now That’s Scary

Candy!Tuesday, August 29th and the local supermarket has an aisle full of Halloween candy. It is more than 2 months away for criminy sakes.

What’s even scarier is that I got a message from my credit card company this afternoon asking me to call them about some questionable charges. They questioned 4 charges, two under ten dollars and a couple of over $300. They read me the names of the companies and I didn’t recognize them, either as anyone I have done business with or had ever heard of. They were all online charges and I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing they caught them using something along the lines of SPAM filtering. Anyway, that account is closed and a new one with card is being sent to me.

I have made several travel purchases in the last 10 days or so, but almost all were from reputable big companies. The timing was curious though, all the transactions were midday today which is just a bout 4 hours after I received my monthly email notification that my web host had hit that very same charge card. I wonder just how secure my CC data is with these folks? I would just pack up and leave, but they are the ones who registered the domain name mr-miata.net, so I’d lose that and y’all would be cast adrift in the rough seas of the internet until you found me again. If someday soon you come here and don’t find this blog, try lifeofbrian.com or mrmiata.com or some other variation on those themes…

I would do it in a heartbeat if WordPress was as easy export my posts from as Movable Type was.

Started down, went up, still up.
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At Least I Thought It Was Great Idea

Cancer Care InstituteThe other day I realized that I wasn’t using my camera anymore, it was just riding around in the cargo net in the trunk. The honeymoon was over. Then I had an idea (watch it, I know what you’re thinking), I would take one picture a day for every day in August. This way when I blogged in the evening describing my mundane day, there would be a mundane picture to help you really get a feel for how my life is being carried out. After all this thing is called “Life of Brian.”

Yesterday’s photo was supposed to be of the local used bookstore where we stopped on the way home and I selected 5 fiction paperbacks to read. I forgot to take the picture. You would have think I would have been reminded to do so when I plopped the books into the trunk, because the camera would have been plainly visible. But noooo.

This afternoon Donna was feeling a bit worn out, so I volunteered to drive her to her radiation treatment and then take her home. While she was inside getting zapped I took my camera and walked to the edge of the property and took a couple of close-up snaps of the Cancer Care Institute sign with the building in the background. Tonight I put the camera in the cradle and hit the download button. Selected the directory, as always I checked the remove from device box and hit go. Everything looked normal until the EasyShare Gallery software loaded and today’s pictures were not where they were supposed to be. Searched the hard drive to see if they went somewhere else, nope. I picked the camera up out of the dock and the LCD screen said, “Memory Card Needs Formatting. Proceed or Cancel.” I hit cancel thinking maybe I can salvage the pictures tomorrow at work.

Started down, went up, still up.
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Brian Buys .06 Gallons Of Gas

We wanted to do our weekly grocery shopping late tonight to avoid the heat, so we left the house at 10PM mainly because that is when the Trading Spaces Donna was watching ended. We shop at Kroger because it is convenient and they sell gas too. Because we have a customer loyalty card I get to save an extra dime off the per gallon cost of their gas. This is usually a good deal as most times their price per gallon is a nickel or so less than the surrounding stations to begin with.

I dropped Donna in front of the store, so she could start shopping while I went and filled up the tank. When I got around the side of the store where the gas is it looked kind of dark. The overhead lights of the gas station were off, but the pump lights were on bright, so I went over. As I pulled in there was an attendant in the booth, so I stopped and opened the gas cap. I scanned my loyalty card and then inserted my debit card. When it told me to lift the nozzle and select a grade, I did just that. I started pumping and it was coming out really slow and then stopped at 17 cents. Hmmm. maybe they are out of premium. I walked over to the window and asked the attendant if they were out of gas or something, when she told me they were closed and that must have been all that was left in the hose.

I went back to the pump replaced the nozzle and closed my gas cap. The little LCD window on the pump asked if I wanted a receipt and I replied yes, to which it told me to see the cashier. Back to the window I go. The attendant said that she couldn’t get me a receipt because she had already closed the register. When I asked her, “If you are closed, how come the pumps would let me even attempt to pump some gas?” Her response was typical minimum wage earner, “I don’t know.”

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
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Because There Is Nothing On TV

I used to think it was the lack of entertaining shows on TV that kept me from watching, but I now realize that it has to be me. Because we have added the digital package to our regular cable, so we can watch le Tour, I now have at my disposal probably twice the usual 60 channels. Including 16 Starz/Encore movie channels (none of whom were showing “The Incredibles”), 10 different channels devoted to religion, a dozen flavors of music video channels (a couple of which are religious themed, even one called, no lie, JCTV), a half dozen flavors of ESPN, BBC America, etc., but there was nothing to watch. The closest thing to holding my interest was an Everybody Loves Raymond repeat on TBS. So here I am listening to RadioParadise and surfing the web looking for entertainment.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 262

Robbinsville

Fun drive up. We stopped a couple times and took short walks. Once at Whitewater Falls which we have visited before and once in Gorges State Park which we hadn’t. Took our usual Wyah Bald Road from Franklin to Nantahala. Instead of fighting the expected crowd at the NOC restaurants, we stopped at a roadside place and had a pretty darn good BBQ sandwich and some nachos.

By the time we got to Robbinsville we were pretty worn out, so we did a little shopping at Ingles and headed up to the Inn. The Blue Boar now has wireless internet, so I could blog and listen to the FRS beat up on the Marlins. I took a few pictures today and about the only thing missing in my mobile office now is a way to transfer images from the camera to the laptop. Kodak had an Easy Share camera similar to the one I bought with wireless connectivity, but it lacked a couple things I really wanted, so I didn’t get it. While looking around on the net for a sort of multifunction USB thumb drive and SD card reader I found the perfect solution. Behold, the transforming SD card that folds to reveal a USB connection – Sandisk 1 GB Ultra II SD Plus.

Later tonight we plan on a quick trip up to the Cherohala Skyway for some star gazing. We get up to almost 5000′ and far enough from any lights that, weather permitting, we can see the milky way. Breakfast at the Inn is from 8 to 9AM, so tomorrow morning we plan on an early rise to get in a out and back run through the Gap and then get breakfast.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
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