Usually, SPAM doesn't bother me. I'm a tech geek, so I can filter out SPAM to my heart's content in my many email addresses. I don't have to see most of the SPAM, because my filters are smart and my favorite email addresses aren't used except by real people I know in the real world. For the most part, I'm unaffected.

However, it infuriates me when I receive SPAM text messages on my cellular phone. Not only do I see the spam, but I'm audibly alerted to its presence. To add insult to injury, my calling plan doesn't include text messages, so I'm actually CHARGED to receive this SPAM.

NOT any more! HAHAHAHAAAA!

I just blocked all text messaging (outgoing and incoming) through my cellular service provider. I think I've received half a dozen text messages in the years that I've had my phone. I obviously don't use it, so why pay for SPAM?

Problem solved.

Almost three years ago, I entered an amateur photography contest. There were several categories. I entered this photo in the "Abstract" category:

Photo not preserved: Stained Glass Ceiling

This was taken from a ceiling above a fountain in a shopping area between the Paris casino and Bally's casino in Las Vegas.

Anyway, I won a prize package that included Bose QuietComfort headphones. Retail price: $300.

I know, I can hear you now. "WHAT?? THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS?? They're JUST headphones!!"

But they're not JUST headphones. I've never worn any listening apparatus that comes even close to the experiece of Bose QuietComfort headphones. I use them on airplanes every chance I get. I have been able to listen to symphonic music on jet planes, even when sitting BEHIND wing-mounted engines, and I could still hear the small nuances of the music. I actually FELL ASLEEP while wearing them on a TURBOPROP between Miami and Key West, and if you've ever been on a turboprop aircraft, you KNOW how noisy those things are! If all of that doesn't convince you that Bose QuietComfort headphones are something truly magical, then this will: I was able to sleep through the night while acting as a chaperone in a cabin full of fifth-grade boys. Yes, they're THAT good!

So you can imagine my distress when, during my recent flight between Salt Lake City and Minneapolis St. Paul, I noticed that the headband on my wonderful headphones was CRACKING!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

As I walked from one concourse to another in the Minneapolis St. Paul airport, I noticed a Bose kiosk. I stopped and showed the headphones to the attendant at the Kiosk and he told me that the cracking I was seeing was a known problem in earlier versions of the headhpones and that they had subsequently fixed the problem. He said I should call Bose Customer Service and they would likely replace them.

HOOOOOOOOOORAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

So I did just that. Despite the fact that I had owned the headphones for almost three years and they only had a one year warranty, they gave me an RMA number and instructions to ship them back. It cost me around $15 for shipping, insurance, and packaging materials to ship them.

Today, I received a brand new pair of Bose QuietComfort 2 headphones. I wasn't expecting to receive them for another month or so. They're WONDERFUL. The headband wasn't the only improvement they made. They're quieter and the sound seems better to me. Then again, I could be unintentionally exaggerating because I'm so happy with the customer service I received:

No runaround.
No accusation that I mistreated them.
No questions other than questions that helped them determine what was wrong.
Extremely fast service

I like Bose!

Getting to Charlotte was a bit of an adventure in itself.

On Friday morning, I went to an 8am conference call with a client that was having problems with the software I develop. An hour later, I had booked tickets to Charlotte, NC. I was SUPPOSED TO leave at 3:30 that same afternoon.

I hurried home, packed my bags, returned to work, finished up a couple of things necessary for the trip, and then headed up to the airport. I left a couple of minutes later than I should have and traffic was a little worse than I had expected, and I ended up getting to the airport a little later than I thought I should have.

Unfortunately, I was later than the desk agent thought I should have been there. How much later? ONE MINUTE. The desk agent wouldn't check me in. I tried to check in at the kiosk. By that time, my flight was leaving in 29 minutes. The kiosk won't check you in less than 30 minutes before the flight. Crap.

I called the corporate travel service back and since the flight hadn't left yet and since the ticket had been purchased full-price, they just cancelled the ticket. HA! That'll teach them to not let me on the flight. I was re-booked for a flight the following morning at 6 am.

I am absolutely and totally NOT a morning person, but I dragged my sorry butt out of bed at 3:20 in the morning. I've seen 3:20 am way more often from the going-to-sleep side, not the getting-up-early side. It was NOT fun. No. But I wasn't going to miss my flight by one stoopid minute again.

I parked my car in long-term parking and caught a shuttle bus to the terminal, just in time to see the last of the people getting off of not one, but TWO coach buses. They all got in line at the same place where I had been denied check-in the day before. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Fortunately, I remembered the self-checkin kiosk, and walked right past the line of several dozen people, checked in, and walked over to get through security.

The friendly old gentleman checked my boarding pass, and highlighted four letters at the bottom: "SSSS" In case you're wondering, it means that you're So, So, SO Screwed! Officially, it means something like "Secondary Screening Selection" (with one more 'S'). I got the full treatment, which is basically everything but a body cavity search. The first step was to remove my belt, shoes, watch, and everything metal and put them in a bin along with my jacket. Then my laptop came out of its bag and was put through the x-ray machine. Then I was asked to step into a machine that looked like a metal detector that puffed air all over me and then analyzed the air for traces of explosives. After what seemed like an eternity, the doors on the front of the puffer machine opened and I was escorted to the area where I watched TSA agents go through all of my belongings. They opened every bag, every pocket, every zipper, every case. They swabbed everything electronic item (Quite a lot of them. I'm a GEEK!) with the cloth swabs that they put in the sniffer machine that would sniff for traces of explosives. They swabbed the inside of pockets, all the zipper pulls, the back and insides of my carry-on and my laptop bag. They were VERY thorough.

And FINALLY I was on my way.

The rest of the trip to Charlotte was relatively uneventful. There WAS the free upgrade from Minneapolis St. Paul to Las Vegas that they were giving away at the next gate, but that's a story for another entry.

Kind of.

Work is still insane and will be for a while.

But at least I'm sleeping in my own bed again.

And I REALLY WILL write more later...

A quick hello from Charlotte, NC.  I've been here for the better part of a week and I get to fly home tomorrow.

Suffice it to say that there was an emergency at work and it was better to be onsite with the client.

More later...

The intense activity seems to have passed.

The retaining wall is complete and is almost exactly what I had pictured it would be. The wood framing is done on the steps. I'll try to take a couple of pictures tonight.

My landscaper is a very hands-on type of guy. I see him here and there, working along with his crews in the various yards. He always has muddy, filthy hands and usually a dry, cracked lip. But it's obvious that he loves getting dirty and doing the work himself. That's the kind of guy you WANT to be your landscaper!

When I left home this morning, there was a tractor (for grading) parked in front of my house as well as a truck with a trailer full of sprinkler system stuff. So just to make sure everything was going well, I stopped by at lunchtime today.

Whoa.

The rock wall is aaaaaalmost finished. I talked with the rock wall guy about raising it a little bit in a couple of places and he said that when he gets back from lunch, he'll measure the square footage (the bid was for 875 square feet) and see if he is still within the limit and he'll raise it like I want it. Otherwise, he'll call the landscaper and have him tell me how much more it will cost to add that little bit of height. Cool beans!

There's a large man with lots of power tools putting in the steps that will give us better access to the top of the rock wall. He already had about six or seven steps done. The steps are wood framed and will be filled with gravel, and then some decorative rock (gravel to match the wall, flagstones, or maybe pavers) on top. Very cool!

And when I drove off to get back to work, there was a man standing in a hole up to his armpits in the front yard. He's installing the stop & waste (the main connection to the culinary water system) for the sprinkler system. My landscaper called me earlier from the sprinkler supply place because he remembered part of my address, but forgot the rest and didn't have my paperwork in his truck. He wanted to make sure the parts for my sprinkler system got delivered to the right place.

This is all happening INCREDIBLY fast! I'd probably better make sure to leave the next couple of Saturdays open, becuase they'll be delivering sod soon!

More about sod in a future post. :)

The rock wall is going in FAST. They worked a few hours on Friday. Most of that time was spent moving the rocks from the vacant lot next door to our back yard. On Friday evening, it looked like this:

See the water problem we're having? That area of the yard puddles every time it rains. That will fortunately change, because the landscaper is going to re-grade the place so that the water drains better.

Here's how the wall looks this morning. I think it's looking very good!

They're going to finish up the retaining wall today. Next should be the final grading of the property and then the sprinkler system will go in. Then curbing, then sod, and finally trees and bushes.

The blog is now entirely in its new location! In case you haven't updated your bookmarks yet, you can reach my new blog at http://misterme.com.

Why Mr. Me?

Well, there's a catchy little tune sung by a group called They Might Be Giants that was stuck in my head while I was blogging and I thought it would be a PERFECT blog name.

The lyrics:

Once a boy named Mister Me bemoaned a great regret.
"I've floundered in the misty sea, but can't abide its mystery.
I wound up sad, you bet."

So onward go and Edward Ho into the bounding main.
Enjoy the show look out below but mind the misty sea
Or end up sad like Mister Me.

Chorus:
He ended up sad.
He ended up sad.
He ended up really, really, really sad.
He ended up sad.
He ended up sad.
He ended up really, really, really sad.

So take the hand of Mister Me and mister, make him glad
To swim the Mister Misty Sea and cease the Mister Mystery
That mister, made him sad.

Chorus 2x

No, I'm not necessarily a sad person, but when I am, this song really fits. In this song, the happy tune belies the underlying unhappy message. I'm the same way. When I'm sad, my happy exterior will sometimes completely mask the sadness I'm feeling.

Fortunately for me, I'm a mostly happy person. The happy exterior isn't hiding anything!

Last night I made a pound cake. I'd never made a pound cake before. It was interesting.

Useless trivia: A pound cake is called a pound cake because originally, the recipe called for a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour.

Why was it interesting? Well, this is a blog. If you don't want to know WHY it was interesting, you're going to have to stop reading now.

When you make a pound cake, you beat and beat and beat the wet ingredients. You beat the room-temperature butter until it's light and fluffy. Then you add the sugar, a couple of tablespoons at a time, beating and beating and beating the batter all the time. When the sugar is all in, it's extremely light and fluffy. Then you add vanilla and then eggs, one at a time, beating a full minute after each egg addition. By the time I was done with that, the mixture had the texture of that white fluffy frosting you get on store-bought wedding sheet cakes.

After that, you stir in the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and any spices you might want) until it's just barely moistened. The resulting cake batter is light and airy and NOT pourable at all. I basically had to spread the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Then you bake it for a full hour at a lower temperature than most cakes.

I've made lots of cakes, boxed and from scratch, but I've never made one QUITE like the pound cake.

The result was *burp* delicious! A rich, buttery, flavorful, dense pound cake.

Great. Now I'm craving another piece!