Otterpop.Org

Is it selfish that I don’t want to have my birthday this year? On one hand, I think it might be, but my logical side just wants to take a huge break from all the stress. In case anyone is reading, and they didn’t know, my dad had lung cancer. He passed away this morning. It’s been really tough on everyone, and we’re all handling it in our own ways.

We tried to get in touch with our mom, but her father hasn’t heard from her in a long time. So if she’s out there, reading by chance, go ahead and give us a call. Also, she should call -her- dad. Everyone should do it, just as a matter of practice. Life is short, and you never know how it’s going to come crashing down. Cherish it.

So my birthday is in an hour and 20 minutes, but I seriously don’t want to participate. Everyone has been very supportive, and has offered as much help as they could. I just don’t feel festive. On the positive side, he knew that we all loved him, because that was the last thing I got to say to him before he went. I hope that there is some kind of afterlife, and that he’s safe and no longer hurting. I’m really dreading going to sleep tonight. Perchance to dream. Goodnight.

I found the cable, so here it is.

Well, it’s a really nice day out, when they called for rain and misery. Loving the spring so far though. Right here would be a picture of the lovely spring day, had I been able to find my transfer cable for my digital camera. Use your imagination.

Since moving into the new apartment, one of the worst parts has been the back yard. it’s about 15×15, fairly small for a yard. The strange thing is that we have no lawn. Whoever lived here before had no grass or anything. So yesterday we borrowed tools from my dad’s house, and dug up part of the yard. Turns out the ground is mostly clay, and has gravel and huge rocks under it. I had to do most of the actual digging, but we got a few plots done, and got some strawberries in the ground. It happened to sprinkle a little last night, so it helped perk them up.

I had to rake up all the leaves in the yard and grade out the dirt pile into a yard. The hardest part is going to be getting rid of all the garbage that was left in the yard. If only they had just composted the leaves, it would have been ok, but there are tons of garbage scraps and all kinds of beer bottle caps, batteries, and junk. So we have to get rid of all that. ick. It’s going to take a while, but I think we will have the ground ready for grass seed in a week. I’m too sore to do anything more at the moment.

Today was a good day. Not because of any of the big things that I got accomplished, but because I got my way. In February, I had to get a new debit card because there had been a whole batch of cards comprimised at the bank. So I got a call from Gold’s Gym about my card not going through. I went down there to give them the new card number and all was well. So today I checked my balance and what did I find? I was overcharged. They had charged me $53 in February, which I figured was fine, if they felt they needed to take March’s dues at the same time. But then I got charged again. So, I did the logical thing and called Gold’s to tell them they had double charged me.

I told the young woman on the phone what happened, and she tried to tell me to call their billing company, but before she got their number out, I said No. I told her, “No, I’m not going to call them. I’m not going to spend the day on hold playing phone tag.” She put me on hold. A minute later, she came back and told me that they had charged me a late fee and a finance charge. Again, I said “No.” She was shocked. “I do not accept that charge.” You would have thought I kicked a puppy. She had no idea whatsoever what to say back to me. I continued, “You are not going to charge me a 100% service charge for something that was not my fault.” Again, she was speechless. You would have thought that sometime, at some point, someone else would have tried this. She told me that they had not processed the new card until the 18th.

“That’s not my problem, and it’s not my fault.” I told her. She told me that it can take up to 15 days to process the change of the card. I popped back again, “So you expect me to accept a 100% fee because it takes YOU 15 days to do 4 minutes worth of work? NO. I do NOT accept that charge.” Again, I found myself on hold. After a disconnect and a quick call back, she told me they had decided to remove the charges.

It works folks. I know it seems so simple, but when some corporate greaseball tries to poke you for something unfair, tell them that you do not accept their charge. Tell them No.

Sorry I’ve been offline, there were server issues followed by moving. Things are settling now, but I have way too much work to do right now to update much. Maybe this weekend.