May has brought the rains here. I can almost hear the grass growing in my yard. I mowed last night, even with it a bit wet, so that I wouldn't have to catch the clippings if I had given it another couple of days to grow. I wonder if the RCL has a lawn service?
Recognition goes out to 4 today for her move to an apartment in NYC. We'll be anxious to hear some details on her new arrangements in the next few days.
I went through a little exercise with the DirecTV call center yesterday. My monthly bill had crept up by $20-25 over the last few months and with the number of solicitations that I had received in the mail from their marketing department, I felt like it was time that they gave me some of the breaks that they were touting for new customers. After getting through their annoying auto-attendant, I did finally get some concessions. Interestingly, their customer service representatives are compartmentalized, and I actually talked to three different people to get three separate adjustments. With no change in the channel package that I have been using. I'm not sure what the economics are on this, but it goes to show, if you don't ask for a discount, you probably won't get one. Let alone, three.
This little DirecTV experience also highlighted a condition that I will now refer to in future usage here on The Blog as Selective Sometimer's. SS for short. This is when there is physical evidence of my mind not covering all aspects of an event or activity from daily life.
I had made sure that I had a copy of my most recent monthly statement from DirecTV when I made the call to Customer Service. While I was on hold at one point, I noticed that the billing statement had a line-item for "HBO and Sports Package". I had added a regional sports package a couple of years ago to get the Comcast and FOX regional stations, for next to nothing, like $11 a month. The line-item on my bill was for $27 a month. When I asked the rep about that charge, she said, "Yes, you have the HBO channels on your service." I don't even know where HBO is located on the channel listing!
Long story short: I successfully dropped my monthly fees by around $30 and even kept HBO. I'm thinking that they know that I'll forget about HBO again in a few months, and raise the fees back to the standard SS level.
I have now also resigned myself to the fact that, when I travel, I will always forget something. On that Chicago trip last week, it was the travel shampoo and tooth brush that I left in the shower at the River Hotel on Wacker Drive. I keep thinking that I have this mental checklist that isn't all that long, that I just need to go through when I leave from home or the hotel. But I get distracted by the little-est of things, and the in-board computer skips a groove, and that which I vowed to remember is left sitting on the counter.
2 posted this pic on Twitter yesterday. 'Tis the season. I was passing through Dunn's for 2nd coffee on Monday when I happened upon an identical scene in the parking lot. My Mother Duck was similarly, if not off track, at least where she had nothing but trouble in her future. I hung out for an extra 10 minutes and made sure that she got across traffic and toward one of the creeks. The motorists didn't mind stopping. (I still have a bad memory of a Mother Duck and family trying to cross Middle Road a few years ago...and not making it...in front of our eyes from our Starbucks chairs.)Blogger has a view-counter function and the number of views on the Sunday entry was almost double any previous recent post. I'm guessing that it was the reference to Ashley Miller that Google search picked-up on. I can't believe that my S-Corp rant received any attention. But put a pic of a pretty girl in a form-fitting track top, and you get noticed. Just a theory.
I'll add more here later if I can.
BCOT
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