One of Those Weeks

This past week has been a draining one, physically, mentally and emotionally. I've sat down at the keyboard countless number of times the past few days to write something, anything, but ended up staring open-mouthed, dumbfounded, at the blinking cursor, unable to think of a blasted thing to write. I think I even drooled a little bit. Either that or I have a leaky roof to fix. Great.

The main bane of my week has been work. We've been trying to install a new automation system to run most of our on-air hardware for more than a year now. This week the higher-ups decided that come hell or high water, we were going to put that system on the air. Lots of bad things happened and I spent a lot of extra time at work "training", time that I could have been Christmas shopping, hanging lights, or, oh yeah, spending time with my family. These "training" sessions consisted mostly of standing around with arms crossed, watching engineers and system techs scratch their heads in wonder as to why things weren't working combined with several choice expletives.

This was the second time I've been "trained" on this system. The first training session took place way back in February when they were working some of the bugs out of the system. That training went mostly like this: "Well if the system worked, this thingy would do this," or "Now if you encounter this problem, you would do this, if the system were up and running, that is." So basically I spent my days off in a retraining refresher course on a system that should have been up and running ten months ago. And this weekend I have been running solo on this system that was declared "functional" at approximately 5:00 pm on Friday, or quitting time for those 9 to 5er's.

At about 9:00 on Friday night, Diane called me to tell me that the van wouldn't start due to a dead battery. She was at her folk's house and her dad was able to jump start the van so she could make it home, but that meant that I was up early Saturday morning getting the battery replaced. I white knuckled it all the way to Sears Automotive Center as I watched the dashboard digital display blink on and off with every bump in the road. I made it there without incident and later discovered that my Die Hard Gold battery was still under prorated warranty (of course, I missed the full replacement warranty by two months), so I only paid $30 for the new battery. That's the best news I had all week.

And to cap it all off, this morning as I stepped out of the shower I counted no fewer than four grey hairs...on my chest. It's bad enough to have grey on my head, but my chest?

Oh, yes, there will be drinking tonight.

Extreme Makeover...Christmas Tree Edition

This afternoon, Diane made our annual traditional trek to Home Depot to pick out the perfect Christmas tree. It was nearly 80° outside. Yes, Tucson's cold spell snapped over the weekend. There's something very wrong about picking out a Christmas tree when you're wearing shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops, which I wasn't, but I easily could have. There's also something very wrong about picking out your tree at Home Depot, but for some odd reason we've made it a tradition and we're sticking to it.

Our customer service experience at the Christmas Tree Depot was the polar opposite of last year. Last year we were greeted by an attendant on the lot who immediately showed us the perfect tree. We were in and out of there in about ten minutes. This year we were greeted by no one and spent about 25 minutes picking through the 7-8' nobles. I found a beautiful 9-footer that would have been perfect, but it was $30 more than the 8-footers. Thirty bucks for an extra foot? I don't think so. I pulled about ten trees out for Diane to inspect, and by the second one I wished that I was wearing shorts, t-shirt and flip flops instead of my long sleeved shirt and jeans: I was sweating like a pig. Wait, pigs don't sweat. I was sweating like a hooker in church.

We finally settled on a tree we liked, and I hauled it up to the checkout shed where a man looking eerily familiar to Santa Claus sawed off the end and shoved the tree through one of those net things. He and another guy tossed the tree on top of our van then gave me some string. I guessed I would be tying the tree on myself. So much for customer service.

We got the tree home and into the stand without incident...for a change. Some of the lower branches were going to need trimming, but no big deal. Diane went to pick up the girls from school and I retrieved some clippers from the garage to give the tree a little grooming TLC. The main problem area was a clump of branches on the bottom of the tree. But as soon as I sat down and investigated the clump I realized that I was in deep ca-ca. Several of the lower branches had been broken, presumably when the tree was run through the netting machine. If I cut them off entirely, I'd have a large bare area at the bottom of the tree, on the good side. Crap! Crap! Crap!

After weighing my options, I decided to do a little cosmetic surgery, MacGyver style. I went back out to the garage, grabbed some string, and returned to the tree to jerry-rig the broken branch to another higher branch. It held the branch there perfectly. Disaster averted...for now. Now I just need to keep an eye on it and hope it doesn't dry out too quickly, otherwise I'll be forced to, gulp, amputate. Oh well, better that I cut off one branch and stare at a glaring, ugly bald spot than for the whole house to go up in flames. Perspective is everything.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

beep

I have no idea what time it was or when I even became cognizant of the piercing intermittent tone. All I know is that it was way too early.

beep

The sound wasn't loud enough to wake me outright. It eased me out of my sleep and made me question whether I was dreaming it or actually hearing something.

beep

I definitely was not dreaming it.

beep

Smoke detector. Are you kidding me? I was too tired to even look at the clock and tried in vain to drift back to sleep.

beep

Diane mercifully got up at some point and closed the door. I went back to sleep.

beep

Ha ha...not loud enough to keep me from sleeping. Sometime later our bedroom door opened and the bathroom door slammed shut. Kyra. She hasn't learned the fine art of gently opening and closing doors. The toilet flushed and she emerged from the bathroom. "Daddy?" Oh please, Dear Lord, let it be at least 8:00. "The tooth fairy came last night!" she whispered loudly as she flashed a toothless smile and held up a $5 bill. Five dollars! Holy crap! I think I got a quarter per tooth when I was a kid. I gave her a hug and she walked out of the room...without closing the door.

BEEP

Alright, alright. I summoned the energy to look at the clock. 8:00 am on the nose. Now to find the culprit. There are six smoke detectors in our home: one in each bedroom, one in the hall, and one in the living room. I stumbled out of bed and trudged out to the hallway where I stood under the smoke detector there and waited, the living room to my left, bedrooms to my right.

beep

Of course the beep came from my left, from the only smoke detector I couldn't stand on a chair to fix. The living room has a cathedral ceiling that peaks at roughly fourteen feet off the ground. Guess where the smoke detector is located? I couldn't even get at it with the normal ladder. I needed the big daddy of all ladders: my million-foot collapsible, extendable Gorilla ladder. It also weighs about a million pounds.

beep

BITE ME!! I headed down the hall to see if Kailey was up. I peeked in and found her sitting up in her bed looking frizzy-haired and groggy-eyed. Kyra had apparently woken her up with her $5 bill as well. "What's that sound?" she croaked. I filled her in on what was happening and she told me she wanted to help. So she followed me to the garage.

beep

I haven't rearranged the garage since the plumbers were in there fixing our water main fiasco a couple of months ago. In order for them to get to the main water line, I had to move the contents along one wall of the garage to another wall of the garage. Guess which wall the million-pound Gorilla ladder was on? So instead of sleeping in on this glorious Saturday morning, I cleaned my garage, engaged in a major upper body workout extracting and setting up my Gorilla ladder, as well as a good cardio workout as I scaled the ladder into the upper stratosphere of my living room, all just to pop out a little compartment on the smoke detector and replace a 9 volt battery. How was your morning?

beep

What was that?

Gateway To/From Hell

I own a Gateway computer. I bought it two years ago under the impression that Gateway made a reliable computer. Unfortunately, impressions are often wrong, and I soon discovered through Consumer Reports that Gateway has one of the highest repair/service records of computer manufacturers. Note to self: read Consumer Reports BEFORE you buy.

Now to be fair to Gateway, I may be somewhat responsible for the current issues I'm having with my computer, with a BIG emPHAsis on "MAY". My computer was working just fine until I decided to upgrade my operating system in order to be able to use my new Zune player. Then things went rapidly downhill from there. About a month after installing the new OS, my computer completely died. I'd turn it on and it would try to boot, but then a cryptic message of gobbledy-gook would appear on the screen. I wrote it down and called Gateway support. "Oh, that's bad," the tech said with a hint of smirk in his tone. "Your hard drive is gone. You'll have to replace it." I told him the computer was less than two years old, but he was unflappable in his these-things-sometime-happen attitude. I called a computer geek repair dude (who wasn't at all geeky) who verified that my hard drive was indeed dead, and I paid him one arm and one leg to replace it and recover the information from my old drive. Did the new OS have anything to do with the failure of my hard drive? Probably not, but I'm open to the possibility.

So my new hard drive was tooling right along until a couple of weeks ago when my computer inexplicably began to lock up. No amount of CTRL+ALT+DEL could bring it back, so I'd have to power it down and restart the computer. Then the computer wouldn't boot. To make a long story short, I discovered that the registry was corrupt. I have no frickin' idea what this really means, but I do know that it's a fairly common problem to which there is no easy fix. My computer will eventually reboot, but I have to turn it off, unplug it, and let it "rest" for awhile before it will cooperate.

I've used System Restore and tried to reconfigure my settings to an earlier restore point. No good. I've done a full system restore, wiping out my hard drive and starting from scratch. No good. I've used my Windows XP discs to try to repair the registry. No good. Then last night, I did a total XP reinstall that reformatted the hard drive and deleted many of my drivers that I still need to reinstall. It's the last straw. If this doesn't work, I'm going to send my Gateway from Hell straight back to where it came from, and I don't mean Best Buy. Then I'm going to buy a Mac.

Out of the Frying Pan...

Remember how I said I needed a vacation? I now won't be able to afford one anytime in the near future. Two weeks ago, it was new tires for the van, this week it's a new hard drive for my computer. Next week is going to be much, much worse.

This afternoon I was standing in the control room at work when my cell phone rang. I'm normally alone in the control room, but today it was full of people. It's been full of people for the past two weeks. The station is in process of installing a new system and they're having troubles working out all the kinks. OK, that's a lie. They can't get the frickin' thing to work at all. And this week they brought in a trainer to train us on this new system that doesn't work. So as my cell phone rang, I was standing in a group of about ten people all of whom were staring at a computer screen and scratching their heads. The phone call was a merciful reprieve from this torture, so I excused myself. It was Diane.

"Hey hon," she sounded harried.

"Hey. What's up?"

"We have no water. I tried several faucets and none of them work," she explained. Why does this crap ALWAYS happen when I'm at work and can't do a THING about it.

"Well, the only thing I can think of to do is to call the water company and see if they know anything."

"OK."

We hung up and I returned to my head scratching (as if I would have anything to contribute to the flex capacitor problem). A minute later my cell phone rang again.

"There was a note on the door. It says 'Overuse Investigation'."

What the heck?! Did the H2O Gestapo come and shut down our water because I like to linger in the shower? "Well, Hon, what do you want me to do? Did you call the water company?" I know I wasn't helping the situation, but I was frustrated not to be there to handle it.

"No. I just thought you'd want to know what was going on!" She was annoyed at me, and rightly so. Sorry hon. So we hung up again, and I awaited her next report. It was so not good.

As it stands right now, we have a $1,000.00 water bill. Yes, you read that right. ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. I can think of roughly one thousand things I'd rather do with one thousand dollars than pay a freakin' water bill. The water company came and read our meter on Tuesday, and when they calculated our bill and realized the magnitude of our water usage, obviously a broken pipe of sorts, they sent someone out to stop the hemorrhaging. Diane's dad came out to the house (thank goodness) to help her isolate the problem, and it looks like we have a broken pipe between the main shut off valve on the street and the shut off valve to the house. Can someone explain to me the deal with broken pipes and my house?!? It's only thirteen years old!! And there's no physical evidence of a broken pipe: no puddles, no mud, no mushy ground, no water running into the street; absolutely nothing to warn us of a potential problem. It's so frustrating!!

So my in-laws gave Diane the name of a plumbing company they've used and trust. She gave them a call, but they can't get to our place until Monday. I'd much rather wait a couple of days on someone who can be trusted than to rush in and hire someone who will stick it to us. Have you ever been screwed by a plumber? Wait. Don't answer that. I really don't want to know.

For now, we're bunking at my in-laws (thanks guys), and I'm working on a fund-raiser, probably something along the lines of setting up my open guitar case on a corner and performing some choice Art Garfunkel tunes. I may even debut the "Rodeo Days" song. I'm going to need to raise some major cash because my next stroke of fortune will probably be my house collapsing into the sinkhole that was created by a month of gushing water. That would be just my luck.

One of Those Days

I'm tired. Today has been one of those days that I can't wait to get behind me. It all started at around 5:00 am this morning when we were awakened by the sound of Kyra crying and coughing up a lung. Kailey has been sick since last Friday and has missed three days of school, and yesterday afternoon Kyra started coming down with whatever has been ailing Kailey. Diane got up (God bless 'er), tended to Kyra and discovered she had a temperature of 103. Great. Thankfully and unfortunately, Diane had already scheduled a doctor's appointment for this morning: thankful because we'd at least get to the bottom of what's been sidelining the girls for the better part of a week; unfortunate because Kyra knew she was going to see the doctor and she was scared. She proceeded to whine and cry for the next two hours until I got up at 7:00.

I dragged my carcass out of bed and proceeded to get the girls ready for their doctor's appointment while Diane showered and got herself ready. Kyra, being the drama-mama that she is, continued to carry on about her doctor visit. I offered to pick out an "extra special secret video" for her to watch to keep her mind off the doctor. I told her to close her eyes while I dug through the video cabinet. Basically the girls only watch the DVD's that are on top or close to the front, so I thought if I dug one out from the back, one that they hadn't watched in eons, it would be like she was watching a new video. It worked. I popped "Ice Age" into the DVD player...end of crying. I'm a frickin' genious.

The girls left for the doctor's appointment, but I had marching orders of my own: bills to pay and a house to clean. My mom is flying down from Las Vegas for the weekend and the house is a disaster zone. I had it pretty well picked up a couple days ago, but anyone with young children knows that it only takes a couple of minutes for them to completely destroy what it took you hours to clean. Do over. Start again.

I made a pot of coffee, jumped on the computer, checked my e-mail, and went to pay the rest of our bills for the month. This usually takes me about five minutes, but today it took close to an hour. The site that I use to pay bills kept logging me off and then I had to track down two bills because for some reason they didn't post to the site. Turns out they weren't due until the end of the month and I could have waited another couple of days to pay them, but I didn't know that at the time. It's going to be one of those days.

The rest of the morning was spent folding laundry; piles and piles of laundry. I didn't know we owned that many clothes and I certainly don't remember washing all of it. In the meantime, the girls came home. The prognosis: a viral infection. Kyra won't be able to go back to school until Monday, and, barring any setbacks, Kailey can return tomorrow. She should have gone back today because she was bored and bouncing off the walls. She wanted attention, but we had a house to clean. Sorry kiddo. Pick up a mop and earn your keep.

I finished folding the mountain of laundry just in time to get ready for work. Diane decided to make a quick trip to the store while I was still home. So she left and I took a very quick shower so that Kailey couldn't torment Kyra for that long. I didn't hear any screams of bloody murder, so I guess things went OK. I went through my grooming routine, and Diane returned as I was getting dressed. She walked into the bedroom and paused for a moment to behold my glorious physique before announcing, "The back tire on the van is really low." Fantastic.

I offered Diane a deal, "If you'll pack my lunch, I'll fill the tire before I leave." Done. I went into the garage and grabbed the air compressor, set it for 32 lbs, attached it to the tire, and cut her loose. The tire slowly began to fill and after several minutes the compressor reached its target and shut down. But I still heard noise coming from the tire: PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF! Crap! I sauntered back into the house. "Umm, you don't have to go anywhere this afternoon, do you, Hon?"

"No. Why?"

I opened the garage door so she could hear the rapid deflation of the tire. "Holy crap!" My sentiments exactly. I didn't have time to change the tire before work, so guess what I'll be doing bright and early tomorrow morning? Yippee.

I arrived at work where everyone was all atwitter because a new seafood restaurant was providing free lunch as a promotion. I love seafood, but this stuff did me wrong...REALLY wrong. I'll spare the gory details, but suffice it to say that intestinal distress at work is never good. I think the Bluetooth guy even walked in during one of my "episodes" and made a hasty retreat. Add to that the stress of dealing with a of testy, overbearing client and I was ready for the day to end.

And to think I get to start off tomorrow by changing a tire. I just hope it doesn't mean tomorrow's going to be one of those days too.

American Airlines...The Final Chapter

It's over. And while I'm not completely satisfied with the results, I'm quitting while I'm ahead. Barely. Last Thursday I received the "additional" mystery voucher from American Airlines...the offer that was to make everything better. The offer that was to make amends for having to write four letters of complaint to rectify the situation. The offer that was to restore my faith in American Airlines and the whole airline industry. Now I know why John Madden rides a bus. I mean, besides that fact that he's terrified of flying.

I opened the envelope to find a three-page carbon copy form bound by a perforated edge on the left side and the American Airlines logo emblazoned in big bold type across the top. The bottom part of the page held a note: "I'm so sorry for your disappointing experience. Please accept this transportation voucher as tangible evidence of our regret and concern. (Hmmm...I've heard this somewhere before.) I hope you will use it to travel with us again soon." I opened the form to the second page and scanned it for numbers. I found the box entitled "Numerical Value" and my eyes locked in: $200.

I was disappointed...again. If $200 had been their initial offer after my original complaint, I would have gladly taken it. But $200 after all the crap I had to go through seems low. I was hoping for $300, but I'm going to settle for 2. Oh, and they let me keep those 5000 frequent flier miles. Can't forget about that!

The last step was a letter to AA President/CEO, Gerard Arpey, documenting my experience and encouraging him to look at their Customer Relations department. It may be excessive, but, hey, they gave me his name and address. Some excerpts:

I am writing to you today to direct your attention to what I believe is becoming a growing epidemic within the airline industry: poor customer service. American Airlines has always been my first choice in air transportation, and, while I may not be a business customer, I have been a faithful recreational customer, using your airline on average of two times a year. This is soon to change...

...I think that it is utterly ridiculous for me to have to write a letter to the President and CEO of a major corporation over a customer service issue. But quite frankly, these days the whole airline industry seems to be full of customer service issues, and I, for one, believe it is unacceptable. It needs to change. Ms. Scott writes, “Also, you may write to Mr. Arpey at the address below. However, he has delegated the responsibility of responding to customer concerns to our Customer Relations personnel. In turn, we keep him well-informed about customer issues. This designation allows Mr. Arpey and other senior management to devote their energies and attention the daily operation of our airline.”

While I wholeheartedly agree with the principal of delegation, I also believe that when delegated responsibility breaks down, it’s time to draw in the reigns. The airline industry is a customer service industry, and as such, your customers need to be your top priority in the daily operation of your airline. Mr. Arpey, I am not an opportunist and was not looking to “stick it” to American Airlines. I am a hard-working man who spent a lot of money on an airline ticket, only to end up sharing that expensive seat. I simply wanted reasonable compensation, and the process of receiving that compensation was too drawn out and difficult as I dealt with Customer Relations agents who were more eager to dismiss me than to take an honest look at my situation.

I am including in this letter all of my correspondence followed by each reply from your Customer Relations agents to show you exactly what I had to go through in order to seek compensation. It saddens me that I had to become a “jerk” before your Customer Relations agents would take me seriously. I hope that you would investigate and address this issue so that no other AA customer would have to go through the same grueling process that I experienced.

Game over. I'm done. I don't expect anything else from American Airlines. Some people might think all of this is overkill, but I don't agree. I'm proud of the fact that I took a stand against something that was wrong, and hopefully will have an impact on how customers are dealt with in the future.

Oh, who am I kidding?

Getting Used to Disappointment

With all the crap that goes on in my life, you'd think that my paradigm, my default approach or mantra would be somewhere in the realm of "expect disappointment". Like that poor, lovable sap, Charlie Brown, I come truckin' full speed ahead whenever life holds that beautiful football to the ground, fully expecting that this time I'll send it soaring end over end through the golden goal posts, only to have it yanked from my reach at the last second. I end up on my back, again, looking up at the sky where I utter a little prayer, "Why me?"

OK, so that intro is a little over the top (now you know where Kyra gets her melodramatic tendencies), but I'm frustrated. With my Zune. Well, not with my Zune specifically, but with the FM transmitter I couldn't buy at Best Buy but could buy on Best Buy's website, so I did and then had to wait in anxious anticipation for ten days for it to arrive. Pssst, here it is...look at this big, juicy football...

Diane called me at work last Thursday to tell me that my "thing" came. Finally! I arrived home to find a box, much bigger than necessary, waiting for me on the counter. Cool! I opened it, removed two yards of bubble pouches, and found the treasure resting at the bottom of the box. Let's see if it works! I removed the transmitter from its box, grabbed my Zune, and headed to the bedroom. Diane was in bed and she immediately noticed the look of determination in my eyes. "Got your new toy?" she asked.

"Yup."

I sat down next to her and began to demonstrate the capabilities of the long-awaited transmitter, "You plug this into the Zune, dial in an unassigned frequency, then tune the radio to the same frequency." I dialed the transmitter to 90.1, the frequency that worked best according to the Best Buy guy, then slowly turned the dial on the clock radio sitting next to the bed. The radio crackled and warbled as I scrolled through the various stations until Coldplay's "Don't Panic" came roaring to life. "Well, I'll be...it works!"

The real test would come in the car and the results vary. At times it sounds great, but overall I'm disappointed. I haven't been able to find a completely static-free channel, and every time I drive through an intersection with stoplights, I lose the signal due to interference. A couple of friends have told me that cassette adapters work better than the transmitter, but I don't have a cassette player in my car. Once again, I'm screwed. He swings...he misses...he catapults through the air!

I've already invested nearly $500 in the Zune, the system upgrade, and the transmitter in a vain attempt to enjoy my music with a high-quality signal in my car. I guess my next Zune upgrade will have to be the purchase of a new vehicle. At least then I can say I got a car out of the deal.

A Retraction

Decrees are stupid. I mean, seriously, who makes them anymore. And besides, if I have the power to issue a decree, certainly I retain the power to rescind it. I don't even think that a decree is binding if issued while under the influence...of body paint fumes. Not to mention the fact that the Bears didn't play well enough for me to actually carry it through. And this morning I noticed that the pesky eyebrow hair has returned. So decree over. Now hand me those tweezers and my razor...and the nose-hair trimmers.

Accessories Can't Come Zune Enough

I'm enjoying my Zune, but there's no way this thing is going to be an iPod killer anytime soon (I'm done with the puns, I promise).

Two weekends ago I finally updated my computer's Operating System and got my Zune up and running. I then spent the next few days loading it up and reviewing potential accessories online. I do most of my music-listening in the car, so I was specifically interested in a car adaptor. I went back to the Zune website and quickly found what I was looking for: a Zune car pack with an FM transmitter. Price: $80. Basically you tune your car radio to an unused channel, then tune the FM transmitter that's plugged into your Zune to the same frequency, and vua...vou...vwall...ta-daa, you're in business.

In theory. I had questions about how well the thing worked, so I didn't order it right away. I also had a couple of Best Buy gift cards, so I ventured into their local store to check it out. After all, Best Buy had the Zune accessories on their website. Why wouldn't they have them in their stores?

Well, they didn't. Nada. Zippo. Zilch. Not a good way to kill the iPod. I don't know why Best Buy wouldn't stock Zune accessories and their associates didn't seem to know either. Shocker. They simply didn't have them and were surprised when I told them their website did. However, what they did have in excess were iPod accessories...rows and rows of iPod stuff. Death is in the pot! Not!

I decided to check out an iPod, since I had never really looked at one, and compare it to the Zune. As soon as I picked up the iPod I questioned my decision to keep the Zune. The iPod is thinner, lighter, and sleeker than the Zune. And the flywheel on the iPod is simply amazing, making navigation through the music library a breeze. I nearly turned around and went right home to pack up the Zune. Unfortunately I have too much vested in it already.

The three things the Zune has going for it are the larger screen (great picture, but possibly contributing to its bulkiness), a sexier looking interface, and a built-in FM tuner. The feature that Microsoft is touting the most is its wireless file-sharing capabilities, which may prove to be significant in the future, but for now seems to be fairly lame. I haven't used the feature yet, but apparently there are only a limited amount of songs that can be shared, and shared songs can only be listened to a limited amount of times. So overall it seems pretty...limited.

But after spending $100 on a system upgrade and ripping at least 100 CD's, I decided to keep my Zune. I flagged down an associate and asked him how well the FM transmitters performed in general. He told me that he had one and it worked great. Good enough. I thanked him and returned home to order the transmitter through Best Buy's website, using my Best Buy gift cards. That was last Tuesday. Last time I checked the UPS tracking info (ummm, roughly 2 seconds ago), my transmitter was still in Denver. It's been in Denver for three days, which is not a Microsoft issue, but still! Dude, I just want to listen to my Zune in the car!

I do like my Zune. It's much cooler than any player I've ever owned and it puts my other mp3 players to shame. But, come on Microsoft. An iPod killer? Get real. It's not designed as well as an iPod, you can't buy songs as easily as you can with an iPod (I didn't even touch on that one), and I can't even buy a Zune accessory at a major national retailer. And when I do order it online, it takes over a week to get here? These people need to get their shact together. An iPod killer? So far, the Zune doesn't even leave a scratch.

Worth It? Too ZUNE to Tell

My wife bought me a Zune media player for Christmas and I have yet to use the cockamamie thing. It's not out of lack of desire, mind you, just one of those "Murphy's Law" things that seems to have a death grip on my life.

I didn't ask for a Zune, wasn't expecting a Zune, was completely surprised when I opened my present and found a Zune, and was totally stoked that I was now a Zune owner. It was a great gift. I spent the rest of Christmas morning fulfilling my fatherly duties by freeing and assembling the girls' toys.

By late morning I had completed my duties, so I retired to my computer to set up my new toy. To say I was excited is an understatement. I couldn't wait to discover the capabilities of the Zune. I loaded the software CD into my computer and waited for it to download and install. A moment later, however, a message appeared on the screen, something to the effect of "Incompatible with operating system". WHAT? There must be something wrong. I reloaded the disc and received the same message.

My computer is less than two years old. It's a MEDIA CENTER EDITION running Windows XP. How could a Microsoft MEDIA PLAYER not be compatible with Windows XP Media Center Edition?

I soon found out. A quick trip to the Zune website showed me that it was only compatible with the 2005 version of XP MCE. I bought my computer in 2005. What's the deal?

Further investigation showed that I was running Windows XP MCE 2002. Why is the computer that I bought in '05 running an '02 version of XP?

Too...many...questions...head...going...to explode.

The only thing not confusing to me at this point was the fact that I would not be using my new Zune any time soon. I can't handle those wide emotion swings. I went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. OK, maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but not much. Now I had a decision to make: I could return the Zune and get some other electronic device, I could exchange the Zune for an Ipod which most certainly should work with my computer, or I could keep the Zune and upgrade my operating system.

The easy money, the easy solution, was on options A or B. What did I choose? Option C. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment. I don't know why, but I wasn't thrilled with the first two options. I developed an infatuation with my new Zune, and I wanted to see it work. But I sat on it for a couple of weeks just to be sure.

Last week, after much research on upgrading operating systems and deciding that it was something I could do, I ordered the upgrade software, all the while thinking that even though it sounded fairly simple, that something very very bad was going to happen. Murphy's Law, remember? It rules my life.

The software arrived on Wednesday, and Thursday morning around 8:30 I began the upgrade. Reviews of the product indicated that a full system upgrade would take around two hours. I followed the directions carefully, but my computer had other ideas, as computers often do. Four hours later, as I left for work, the update was still downloading. Something was obviously wrong, but I wasn't prepared to deal with it. I phoned home a couple of times that night to see if the download had progressed, but it hadn't. I am sooooo screwed.

I returned home that night to find the download exactly where I left it...not good. I did the only thing left to do...I held my breath and unplugged the computer. The screen went blank. Now, for the moment of truth. I plugged it back in and turned on the computer to see just how hosed I was. The monitor blinked to life and I was surprised to find that it had returned to the previous screen. A prompt then appeared asking for the first installation disc. Well, this can't be bad. I returned the disc to the tray, and lo and behold, the installation continued. A message popped up indicating that installation would be complete in 22 minutes. WHOO HOO! IT'S ALIVE!

I jumped up, grabbed a beer, and returned to supervise the rest of the installation. It finished without incident as I, in turn, finished the beer...without incident. I rebooted the computer just to see if everything was OK, then turned it off and went to bed. I still had a bunch of updates to install, but decided that I'd had enough excitement for one day.

Friday morning I continued where I left off by installing the updates from the Microsoft website. All was going well until my computer froze right in the middle of one of the installations. Ohhhh...Crap.

I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Nothing.

I hit Esc.

Nothing.

I hit random keys all over the keyboard...I panicked, OK? Nothing I did woke up the computer. This is really, really not good. I unplugged the computer, then tried to restart it.

Disc-read error. Restart. Disc-read error. Restart. Disc-read error. Restart.

I couldn't even get it to the Windows XP startup screen. So I tried System Recovery.

Disc-read error. Restart. Disc-read error. Restart. Disc-read error. Restart.

Totally exasperated, I unplugged the computer and flung the plug against the wall. I was going to have to do a total system reboot requiring me to reformat the hard drive...my worst nightmare. I decided to give it one more try. I returned to the stupid frickin' computer and plugged it back in. I turned it on. It worked. Glory Hallelujah. System Recovery ran and restored my computer without deleting any files or programs. Whew! I left well-enough alone and went to work.

This morning I returned to the task at hand: finishing those pesky web updates. They completed without a hitch. My operating system upgrade took three days to complete. I was tired. Why am I doing this again? THE ZUNE, oh, yeah, right. Now for the REAL test and the moment of truth. Will the Zune software load?

It did. No kidding. And it is cool. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly how cool it is yet. I had to go to work while it fully charged. So was it worth all the trouble? I hope so. But for now, it's too zune to tell.

Why Can't Christmas Decorating Ever Be Easy?

I would enjoy the Christmas holiday so much more if someone ELSE did most of the decorating.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Christmas decorations. They make our home feel more cozy and comforting during the Holidays. And I'm OK once we get the Christmas tree up. But it's the process of getting the tree up that is so damn frustrating I could just scream! Add to that the frustration of hanging ANY type of Christmas light ANYWHERE, be it on the tree, on the house, around the house, on the lawn, on a tree outside, on a bush, on a shrub, on any frickin' type of plant life, or just randomly dangling inside the house...something will always go wrong. Just guess what my two main Christmas decorating jobs are. DING, DING, DING!!!

My first job was hanging Christmas lights on the eaves outside our house. I tackled that one last week, but it was a two-day job and it nearly cost me my life...again. There's very little traction on a ceramic mission tile roof, something I get reminded of on an annual basis. Add to that several awkward ladder positions, one of which has me dangling roughly twenty feet over our cement driveway, and Christmas-light-hanging becomes a death-defying experience. Anyway, the only reason it was a two-day job this year was because of the light bulbs. One fricking bulb on a 1,000 bulb strand of lights will cause 50 lights to go out, and it's my job to go through each bulb one-by-one to figure out which light it is. Well, this year I said SCREW IT. I am not playing Find-the-Naughty-Light-Bulb this year. This year, I am going to Target and buying NEW LIGHTS so SCREW YOU!! And that's what I did. I even bought an extra set so I don't have to play Find-the-Naughty-Light-Bulb next year either.

The lights had the last laugh, though. The other night as I drove into our driveway, I noticed a section of lights out on the side of the house. They weren't out when I put them up. Looks like I'll be playing Find-the-Naughty-Light-Bulb after all.

This morning began our annual Christmas tree fiasco. Today was the only day Diane and I could pick out the tree together, so we headed out first thing this morning. We got our tree at Home Depot. That's so depressing. When I was a kid, we used to go to Talbot's Tree Farm, grab a hacksaw and trek for hours looking for the perfect tree. There never was a perfect tree, so we'd settle for second-best while freezing our butts off. On second thought, Home Depot isn't so bad.

This morning was not a normal tree shopping day. We picked the first tree we saw: an eight foot noble. I've never picked the first tree. Today was going to be different. Today we were going to break the curse of the Christmas tree.

We took the tree home where I unloaded it from the top of our van and took it to the backyard. I had some other errands to run, so tree setup needed to wait. The plan for this afternoon was: 1.) prep the tree and get it in the stand; 2.) get lights on the tree while Diane takes the girls to gymnastics; 3.) eat dinner and then decorate the tree as a nice family evening. Why do we even bother making plans?

Everything was going smoothly. I returned after running my errands and immediately went to work on the tree. I trimmed off the lower branches. I cut off the recommended two inches of the trunk so the tree can take in water. I shook the crap out of the tree to get rid of loose needles. I had the tree stand cleaned and prepped and when Diane was ready to go, I carried the tree in and placed it in the stand. Diane held it in place and when I had determined that the tree was straight, I went to work on fastening the screws that would hold it in place. Wham! Bam! Bam! Done!

I grabbed a pitcher from the cabinet, filled it with water, mixed in the preservative that came with the tree, and returned to give it its first drink in its new home. I emptied the pitcher and refilled it to top off the stand. I can't believe this went so smoothly! No sooner had this thought gone through my head than I noticed a puddle of water growing on the tile next to the tree. Our stand had a leak. Diane was minutes away from taking the girls to gymnastics. Plan aborted.

We freed the tree from its stupid leaky stand, and I took it back outside where I placed the trunk in a bucket of water and leaned the tree up against the house. Diane and the girls left and I hauled my butt to the store to look for a new stand. Of course I couldn't find one right away, and it was only as I was leaving the store that I noticed the tree stands OUTSIDE. So I bought the stand, went back home, and waited for the girls to get back so we could put the tree in its new stand. I should have gotten to work on checking the lights, but I didn't. I started writing this blog instead. Yes, I am stupid.

We got the tree in the new stand without a hitch, ordered Thai food to go (Gaeng PaNang is a festive holiday dish), and then I went to work on the lights. Only one strand out of the six I had in storage worked. I already bought two new boxes of lights, but I was counting on at least two of my old strands to work. So guess what I did for the rest of the evening? That's right, I played our favorite Holiday festivity, Find-the-Naughty-Light-Bulb.

So now the tree sits in our family room, unlit and undecorated while I nurse a margarita and put the finishing touches on this blog. Family decorating night has been postponed until tomorrow.

Home Repair, Part 2

This entry should actually be titled "Home Destruction/Home Repair". My last home repair job was the result of an act of nature; this one, an act of me.

A few days after the roof tile incident, Kyra and I ventured into her room on a quest for toys. Each week part of Kyra's homework is to collect objects beginning with the letter of the week and place them in her "letter can". She then takes her letter can to school and presents her chosen objects to the class. Of course, we had waited until the last minute to put the letter can together, so we were rushing to get it done before she left for school.

This weeks' letter of the week was "A", and Kyra wanted an airplane for her can. One of her toy playsets had an airlpane in it and I made a beeline to her closet to get it. The sliding doors of her closet were both open and overlapped in the center of the track. I spotted the playset and tried to push the doors open to get to it, but they would not budge. Kyra, you see, has a knack for knocking her closet doors off their tracks. I have absolutely no idea how she does it. She's just a little thing, and it takes a fair amount of pressure to get them off track. Normally it's a relatively easy fix, just pop the rollers back on the track. But on this special occasion, both doors were off track and completely jammed together. I shot Kyra a look. I didn't have time for this.

"Sorry, Daddy." she whimpered.

At this point I should have grabbed the airplane and left the doors for later, but I didn't. After a fair amount of pushing, hitting, and cussing (under my breath, of course) I finally freed the doors from each other and was able to get the front door back on its track. The back door would have none of it. One set of rollers was off its track and it would not go back in no matter how much I fiddled with it. I was pissed at this point and decided to pop the other set of rollers out of the track and start from scratch. Only they didn't want to come off. "How did she do this?" I said to no one in particular. Sometime in the midst of all the pushing and pounding, Kyra silently dismissed herself from the room. "I'm three times her size, and I can't even get this thing off!!" The door wouldn't go on and it wouldn't come off. I finally gave it one last frustrated shove. CRACK!! That did the trick. The door broke free...literally. The rollers, still attached to a nice little chunk of door, fell at my feet, mocking me.

Expletive. This one was out loud because I noticed Kyra was no longer around. I really didn't want to buy a new door. I picked up the door chunk, inspected it and thought maybe I could reattach it using wood screws. Cool. I'd get to use my drill. Besides, I figured I'd try anything before buying a new door.

I angled the door to get it out of the closet, but before long, it was wedged in tight between the floor and the upper molding of the closet. Remember, the front door was where it was supposed to be and had easily snapped back into place. I didn't want to remove it to get the back door out. Expletive. I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS!

I finally dislodged the back door...again...removed the front door, and freed the back door from my youngest daughter's demon closet. Now we're getting somewhere. I put the door down on the floor of the den and headed out to the garage to get my drill and some wood screws. After digging around the tool box for ten minutes (man, I gotta clean that thing out), I finally assembled a rag-tag team of wood screws. I grabbed the drill and returned to the door. All I needed to do now was reattach the wood chunk and we'd be back in business.

I set the first screw in place, applied pressure with the drill and pulled the trigger. RRR-RRR-RRR. The battery was dead. "I'm really not good at this," I laughed as I finally grasped the absurdity of the whole fiasco. I left the screw half-drilled into the door and put the drill battery in its charger. That was my final clue that maybe I should take a break. I guess I'm not that good at picking up on clues. I'm certainly not stubborn.

I have no idea of what Kyra was doing this whole time. She could have been juggling chainsaws for all I know. What I do know is that I cooled off and we finished her letter can...without the airplane. I couldn't find it. She had to settle for ants, Ariel, and aardvarks. She went to school with her letter can and I returned to the door after the battery recharged and finished the job...without a hitch. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you exercise a little patience. I may not be efficient, but I get the job done!

Home Repair, Part 1

Bob Vila, I'm not. Tim "The Toolman" Taylor...that's closer to the truth. My luck comes in one variety and that's "bad". This past month was filled with an unusual amount of freakish occurances around the house, putting my limited home repair skills to the test. This is part one.

I was at work on a Friday night about three weeks ago. The ten o'clock news had just finished when my cell phone rang. It was my wife. "We've got problems." She said. She had just gotten home from work and discovered various messages from our neighbors informing us that a pipe behind our garage had burst and flooded our side and back yard. They noticed the flooding around 5 pm that evening and turned our water off via the water meter on the street.

"How did it burst?" I asked. I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around the situation.

"It looks like one of the roof tiles fell and broke it." Diane replied.

"A roof tile fell and ruptured a pipe buried three feet underground??!!" Give me a break. I was tired.

"No, there's a pipe coming out of the back of the garage and there's a chunk missing from it."

Great. "Well, do you see a tile on the ground?" I asked as I helplessly tried to assess the situation.

"Ummm, oh yeah...there's a tile right over here!"

That's just great. That's just friggin' fantastic. Out of all the stinking tiles on my roof, what are the odds of one of them falling off and breaking a 3" piece of pipe? When my luck is involved in the equation, pretty high.

I was stuck at work, which made things worse because I was powerless to do anything about it at that moment. If we had to bring in a plumber on a Saturday it was going to be expensive. Hopefully it would be easy to fix. Finally, my bad luck ran out.

Here's what I found when I finally returned home to check things out:

A roof tile had indeed fallen off the roof and ruptured the pipe. The pipe was plastic pvc piping and took all of 30 minutes and less than $20 bucks to replace. Thank God.

Now I'm waiting for my water bill.