I have finally started...

My Europe Scrapbook!

I have only been talking about starting it for about 6 months. So finally over the 4th of July weekend I officially started. Here are the 3 pages I have so far.

Inspired of course by Suzanne's (and now mine as well) crazy tradition of taking pictures of our feet.

Here are a few observations on the scrapbook so far. First, scrapbooking is far more time consuming than I remembered. Or maybe it's just it has been so long since I have worked on a scrapbook that I spent too much time agonizing over the little details. (It being being me this is entirely possible.) Also, I discovered I enjoy shopping for the stuff more than I enjoy doing it. I do enjoy scrapbooking but I really do like looking at all the stuff you can buy for them now. And my third observation, I discovered this as I started to layout my next page - I printed WAY too many pictures to possibly use. (For details see my post "An Overwhelming Task" published in January.) I knew I wouldn't use all them when I printed them but wanted to give myself options. Now I have firmly decided that I gave myself way too many options.

But now that I have completed 3 pages and used 15 pictures I am so close to done that I should start working on my next adventure. Oh wait, I actually have. But more on that later...

My Comcast Afternoon

As I said in my last post concerning my Internet saga my next scheduled appointment was July 21, which was Monday. On Monday I called to make sure someone was actually going to come and I was informed that when they are scheduled to bury a cable they have 7 days to complete it. Once she said that I realized that one of the about 20 people with Comcast that I have spoken to had told me that. And she couldn't really hear me because of my sucky cell phone so there was no point in yelling at her.

So then today I decided to call and remind them they were running out time. The poor guy that answered my phone call. He first told me that it could 4-6 WEEKS because the city had to come out and mark where water, electricity and gas are. At that point I went off about how I had already been without service for a month and if it going to take that long to take care of it I should have been told that upfront. He didn't bother to read enough of my account to see that I had been without service for a month and then went back to work. So he agreed to send a "high level" tech this afternoon. This tech called my cell phone when he got to my house and it was actually the same guy as the last time and he still couldn't do anything. The big problem is that because I am in a townhouse there are 3 sidewalks between me and the cable box. He seemed annoyed that they hadn't done it yet and when he called dispatch he was told they 72 hours from the scheduled appointment to complete it. Notice this is different than the 7 days or 4-6 weeks I have been told. He told me they would be contacting me to bury the cable and to keep his cell phone number and call him if I didn't hear from them and he would harass them to do it.

At that point I was really frustrated because then I didn't even have any kind of time frame of when it would be fixed. Not that it had mattered up to this point but still I was frustrated with that idea. And I gave up on the idea that I was going to have it back in time for the Olympics so I was wondering which of my friends I could crash for 2 weeks to watch.

So I imagine my surprise when an hour and twelve minutes later I received another call from a different Comcast tech who called to tell me he had buried a new cable. I was in shock. He offered that I didn't have to come home and he could tell from his laptop that my modem had a signal. I definitely wanted to come home, I almost didn't believe him - not that I thought he was lying to me but it seemed so unbelievable. I came home and saw that I did in fact have cable and Internet service. YEAH!! What he really did was just bury it under the sidewalks and then did the hid the cable in the bushes the rest of the way. He said they would come out and finish burying it in a few weeks. I am not holding my breath but I don't really care when they come.

All three of the Comcast people I talked to today acknowledged that I had been a victim of poor customer service. Yeah, no kidding, I think I noticed that. Tomorrow I am going to call and tell them I am not paying my current bill because the dates it covers I didn't actually have service. And I am working on the cell phone issue.

And now I can move on to posting about real things without going into work to do it.

Updates on Rain and my Internet Service

So first on the rain, we get three days in a row where it rained for 15-30 minutes and apparently that is our raining season. This week I heard a radio DJ say that were headed in a dry spell and we weren't going to be seeing any more rain for a while. I realize DJ's aren't really the authority on it but it made me laugh that she was implying that 3 days of a little bit rain was a wet spell.

On to my Internet and Cable woes. I still don't have any service at home so I am reduced to staying at work late and coming in on the weekend to check my email and make sure the world around Denver hasn't exploded. I am adjusting to not knowing what is going on in the world but I will would like to be able to know.

You probably don't care but here is my current situation with Comcast and my internet woes. Three separate Comcast techs have been to my house since this started - 2 this week. And the next one is scheduled to come out July 21. Tech #2 should have been able to fix it and he was scheduled to put in a new cable from the box to my house but he apparently left without doing anything (I was at work but the tech called me while I was at work with a question so I know he was there) but didn't bother to tell anyone at Comcast why he didn't or schedule any else to come out. When I got home from work and it didn't work I called Comcast and they have no idea what he did or didn't do or why he didn't fix it. So they scheduled Tech #3 and told me he should be able to figure out where the line was broken and splice it. I didn't believe this - it sounded like a line to prevent me from yelling at him. But it was a good thing I didn't believe him because he tried to find out where it was broken but no luck. So Tech #4 is scheduled to come out and do what Tech #2 was suppose to do.

So far a couple of decisions have arisen from all this. One, I love having the internet in home. I have been reminded over and over how much easier it is to find information with the internet. But I am going to be more responsible in how often I use and how much time I send on the computer. I don't need to check my email as often as I did, I am not going to self combust without it. But then going to the opposite way I have decided to join Facebook. I am really not sure when and how I came to this conclusion but I have been toying with the idea for about a year now and apparently 3+ weeks without the internet is going to throw me into it. Again, I don't know why.

But if Comcast doesn't get my TV working by the time the Olympics start (still several weeks away) they are going to start getting several nasty phone calls from me. They are already guaranteed a letter about how poor their customer service is.

Getting Older

My grandmother is always telling me not to get older. And I always remind her that there is nothing we can do to stop it. Well this weekend I was reminded of why I don't I always like the effects of getting older.

On the 4th of July I was at a friend’s house for a BBQ and during the time that fireworks were going on around the city we found our way to a park close to her house. Because Chrissy lives on the west side of town we could see firework shows from all across town – including the ones from Coors field in downtown Denver after the Rockies game. (For those who don’t live in Denver and this isn’t obvious the elevation on the west side of town is higher as you get up next to the foothills so from that park you could see a over most of the Denver area.) The park had swings so we got on the swings and started swinging while watching fireworks. Initially I was reminded of Suzanne’s list of the 10 things she wants to do before she dies and one of the things on her list being running outside and playing in the rain. Swinging is something that is fun that you loved as a child and it is easy to as an adult but you rarely find yourself in a place to do it. But then after about 15 minutes I found the chains digging into my hips and it made them hurt enough to bother me and make me consider stopping. (Chrissy’s theory was that they are now just making swings smaller rather than our hips now as adults being much larger than they were when we were kids. And then I realized that was feeling a bit sick to my stomach and realized it was from swinging. Which I find very weird because I don’t suffer from motion sickness at all. Hopefully this doesn't become I new thing that start to experience.

I don’t like getting older and I don’t want to turn 30 in a few months but like I tell my grandmother we don’t have a choice so I guess I just have to deal with and hopefully with a positive attitude.

It's Raining!

This weekend I have had quite a few conversations about rain and our absolute lack of it here in Denver. In fact one friend called me just to say "Look, it's raining. Hopefully it will last more than 15 minutes." And also Suz's post about playing out in the rain has made me think about how few opportunities I have had to do that this year. The last time it rained here was probably three weeks ago when it hailed for about 10 minutes and then rained for about 5 minutes. Right now it has been raining for at least 20 minutes. This is an exciting event in Denver. Those of you in Michigan, Texas or Florida can go ahead roll your eyes at me.

Technologically Deprived

Do you every feel like God is laughing at you? Well, recently I have had that feeling.

Last weekend my pastor talked about giving up TV and the Internet for a month. He didn't mention it as challenge but something he had done a few months ago and he talked about some of the benefits of it. I decided to go ahead and do the TV end of it, especially since BSF ended I have found myself turning on the TV and then just not turning it off even though there is nothing worth watching on and then I end up wasting a lot of time. But I did have a stipulation ~ if there was something on that I wanted to watch I was going to watch that one show. But I decided against giving up the Internet because I thought all I really do on the Internet is read my friends blogs and recently I have become started to look at news sites pretty frequently and I thought what is the harm in that.

Apparently God had something else in mind. I got home from work Wednesday and I couldn't get an Internet signal so I turned on the TV and I got the same thing ~ nothing! So when Comcast came out to figure out the problem it turns out the cable running from the box on the side of my building to my townhouse got cut, probably by the lawn care guys. Anyway, normally they would just throw down a new cable and have someone else come out and bury it later but because I am in a townhouse they can't do that. There are 3 townhouses between me and the box and therefore 3 sidewalks and that would be a trip hazard. So Comcast is suppose to come out and place a new cable and bury on July 9. JULY 9TH! Without cable I get one channel and all I have seen on it is Matlock and Tellabuddies, not that matters but the sound is too fuzzy to actually hear anything. So now I get survive 2 weeks without any TV or Internet. All weekend I kept thinking "The whole world around Denver could blow up and I would never know it." I couldn't even check the weather. By Sunday afternoon I decided to come to work and check my email and the news sites to make sure nothing did blow up. It is bad enough that my cell phone hardly works in my house but now I have nothing else. For the functional technology I have in my home it could be the 1950's.

So now I am waiting to see what God is going to teach me through all this. Maybe just the idea that I can survive without it? We'll see. July 9th seems like a long way away still and I know at some point during the holiday weekend I will come into the office to check my email and double check that the world around Denver didn't blow up. If you hear of something you think I need to know about please call. (But be forewarned my cell phone will probably drop you ~ several times if we give it the opportunity.)

Let's Go Red Wings!

So this is a little late and I considered not doing this post at all but I decided to go forward with it. To celebrate I thought I would share some of my favorite photos, quotes and tidbits of information that that I have found since they won.



So this is the traditional photo of the team on the ice with the cup. As a side note, I spent time looking for Steve in this photo and couldn't find him. I later read that he didn't think it was his place to go down on the ice after they won so he didn't. Honorable but I find it rather annoying.

Henrik Zetterberg with the Conn Symthe (given to MVP of the playoffs) during the parade. I like his use of it as a hat.

Russ and I like to joke about the Red Wings being the Swedish National Team because they have quite a few Swedish players. Here are the Swedish Red Wings (that played in the playoffs, there are actually few more who didn't play so not in this picture) with the trophies the Wings had won up to that point. So the players are (left to right) Tomas Holstrom, Andreas Lilja, Henrik Zetterberg, Nicklas Lidstrom, Mikael Samuelsson, Niklas Kronwall, and Johan Franzen. And I had to do some research on this one but the trophies are (left to right) the Jennings (given to the goalie(s) who gave up the fewest goals during the regular season), the Campbell Bowl (given to Western Conference champions), Stanley, the President's Trophy (given to the team with the best record in the regular season), and the Conn Symthe (again given to the MVP of the playoffs). You really have to watch hockey to realize what an accomplishment it is to win all of these in a single season.

This picture is actually from game 4 (I think) of the finals. It freaks me out - I have nightmares about this kind of thing but I like the picture.

This is Pavel Datsyuk with the 2 trophies he won at the NHL awards on Thursday night. The one on the left is the Lady Byng (given for the most gentlemanly conduct) and the on the trophy on the right is the Selke (given to the player to the most defensive forward). He took the puck away from an opposing player 144 times during the regular season which is 82 games long. That is impressive, it is really impressive to watch do it. And again you have to really watch hockey to realize just how good he is.

When I went to the Wings-Avs game during round 2 of the play-offs it occurred to me that I haven't picked a new favorite player since Steve retired and Pavel is in currently in the lead. You don't get to hear him talk very often because he isn't very good at English. Here are a few example from the Detroit Free Press:

Datsyuk left the awards show with a good joke. Asked what he'd done the past
week, he was quick with a reply.
"I try to ask my wife because I not remember," Datsyuk said. "I remember party, but don't remember how I wake up at home."

Just as long as you didn't drive home Pavel.

And on Thursday night for the first time they gave out a new award for a lifetime achievement award in hockey - and it was given to Mr. Hockey Gordie Howe. They had a great little clip on him which can be seen on the Detroit Red Wings website if you actually interested.

And lastly Chris Osgood and Nick Lidstrom were on Jay Leno last week. I thought it was pretty funny - you can watch it here if you would like to. http://ballhype.com/video/red_wings_bring_stanley_cup_on_leno/

And hockey withdrawl has already began because now there is nothing new going on and the Detroit papers have nothing to say about hockey.