Someone at either Verizon or Audiovox needs to be smacked upside the head. I'm just not sure, yet, who it is. But I volunteer to knock some sense into the guilty party(-ies) as soon as they can be IDed.

Verizon murdered my cell phone. They required users with several different kinds of devices, including mine, to download an upgrade from their website and install it. They provided detailed instructions that DON'T WORK.

Why? Because their upgrade failed partway through and transformed my phone into a paperweight. Their recovery instructions are useless... they say "if the upgrade is interrupted, reconnect the device to the PC and resume from Step 6." But once the upgrade fails, the device is totally hosed and the PC doesn't recognize it as something it can talk to anymore. Since all the PC will do is provide error messages that boil down to, "What the heck is THAT thing you just hooked up? I can't communicate with it", you CAN'T restart the upgrade once it's been interrupted.

[insert long, colorful list of expletives in English, Italian, and ASL here]

I was on the phone with tech support from Audiovox and Verizon until the wee hours last night. Since I get up at 4 AM, it basically means that I've had about three hours' worth of sleep.

Verizon is overnighting me a replacement phone, which should arrive tomorrow. Not a freaking moment too soon, either.

Until then, I've set up the extended absence greeting on my cell phone number, alerting callers (what few of them I get) that for the next couple of days, my cell phone is out of order. They can leave a message on the cell phone voice mail (which I will check), or on the voice mail at my home telephone number.

I am so freaking aggravated. You have no idea. Or maybe you do, if you know how often I use the wireless internet on a daily basis. What a BORING commute I had today going to and from work! I usually use that time to surf and check email. Not today, I didn't! GRRRR...

The good news is, if Verizon keeps their word, then my phone will arrive tomorrow and life can go back to normal.

Oh, and I'm going to take the phone to the VERIZON STORE and let THEM do the upgrade next time. This is what I get for following their upgrade instructions on the same day I got the notification in the mail... mark my words, I won't be alpha testing their darned upgrade procedure again. Let them work the problems out first, and THEN talk to me about upgrades.

I'm going to take a nap now. I need it.

Captain and Stanley, our two-year-old pair of stripey critters, are puzzled.

They can't understand why Meowmy and Paw would go to all that effort to set up a big, green cat toy display, right in the middle of the living room, and then refuse to let them play with any of the toys. I don't know if they remember that we did the same thing at this time last year. Judging by the way they're openly coveting the tree ornaments, my guess is that they don't recall last year's tree. Yet. By the end of Christmas season last year, they were aware that they at least had to employ some stealth when attempting to play with the tree decorations.

Fortunately, Mark and I have plenty of unbreakable Christmas ornaments. So even if the Kitty Committee does knock anything off the tree, the ornament probably won't be damaged. We left all but two or three of our fragile ones off the tree entirely.

I just hope they don't knock the entire tree over, in their zeal to examine every object in this time zone. That'd be a mess.

Since the squirt bottle and I have been thwarting their attempts to turn ornaments into toys, the cats are getting the frustration out of their systems by playing their favorite game, Chase My Brother All Over the House. I hope they tire themselves out and forget about the tree for a while.

P.S. The appearance of the squirt bottle seems to have jogged a couple of kitty memories, regarding not being allowed to stalk and kill the Christmas ornaments. Now they're being a bit more covert about it; they're trying to keep the tree between themselves and me when they get into mischief. Of course, the fact that the whole tree suddenly starts moving and rustling generally blows their cover. ;o)

I expect to make frequent use of the phrase, "You're lucky you're cute!" over the next few weeks.

Captain thinks he's Cheerios... here he is in an empty, jumbo-sized cereal box. :o)

That was fast: for about a week after the return to Eastern Standard Time, by the time my subway train came above ground at Fern Rock, the sun was fully up and the streetlights (which I believe are activated by the light levels in the environment) were off. But of course, the sun is continuing to rise a bit later and set a bit earlier, every day, so the level of daylight decreases every morning.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, as I departed Fern Rock on the regional rail train, the sky was so dim that the streetlights were still on. In this case, it's because the clouds were so opaque that they blocked most of the sunlight. (I know this because on Thursday and Friday, when skies were clear, the streetlights were on when I arrived at the station, but they'd turned off by the time I caught my train.) However, I guess if my assignment lasts far enough into December, I'll see days when the sky is still fully dark when the regional rail train pulls out. Already, I'm seeing only a tiny bit of twilight when I leave in the morning and arrive home at night. I'm resigned to seeing sunlight through the windows of my own house only on weekends for the next few months.

Returning for a moment to the subject of Fern Rock: if anyone here has a favorite Philly-area investigative reporter, email me the person's name because I have a task for them. My screen name on AOL.com is the same as the six characters that precede ".blogspot.com" in this blog's URL.

The task I have in mind is for someone, somewhere, to convince SEPTA to do something about the mess that pigeons have made at Fern Rock. Both the subway and regional rail portions of that station have some areas where it's obvious that pigeons have roosted in the rafters for some time. It's as disgusting as it is unsanitary to have to walk through areas of pigeon mess all over the floor that are so widespread as to be unavoidable. This is especially true on the huge (higher than two stories tall) stairs that extend from the inbound regional rail platform up to the Subway fare booth. Pigeon droppings under one particular beam not only extend the entire width of the stairs, but cover a portion of the RAILINGS as well. I was so revolted by this, the first time I saw it, that I became unwilling to touch ANY of the railings in the station from then on. Anyone who knows me offline is aware that I normally rely on the rail when I navigate on stairs, due to chronic knee pain, but not
at Fern

Anyway, I should think that a good investigative reporter would welcome the opportunity to educate SEPTA, and any other operator of an outdoor area used by the public, on the need to clean up after unsanitary hazards. I don't dislike pigeons at all, but if they've taken up residence anywhere that their mess could make people sick, they need to be evicted from that location.

When I arrived at work this morning, I discovered that my cubicle (foreground), as well as the cube of the person I'll be filling in for when her maternity leave begins, are decorated for our mutual birthdays. :o)

What nice people work here! What a complete turnaround from the way that people behaved at my previous job!

Mark and I will celebrate the Big 4-3 by going out to dinner when I get home.

This [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] train operator is trying to kill us. This train station is at ground level, so we have to take a giant step up to reach the entrance of the train car. There are platforms... actually, they're more aptly described as blocks made of 2x4 planks, in place to help us reach the train.

Too bad the unprintable dunderhead in charge of applying the brakes hasn't stopped the bleeping inbound train even ONCE this week in a place where the doors are anywhere near said wooden blocks/platforms/whatever the heck they are.

My knees have been KILLING me all flipping week, and the megastep I've been taking every afternoon is responsible for a good part of that. Imagine trying to step up from ground level onto a step that's waist high to you. Now imagine trying this feat with one borderline arthritic knee and one that's having sympathy pains because you're favoring the bad ("worse", really) knee. If your mental image includes knee pain that leaves you wondering if you've done some sort of soft-tissue damage, then congratulations. Welcome to my world.

I'm all kinds of sore after a week of these contortions and as you may have surmised by now, I'm NOT happy about it! They either need to instruct the train operator where to stop, or if he's stopping where he should, then they need to move the &#$%* blocks to the place where the doors will be. The way they're doing things now is a flat-out hazard. My knees are screwed up enough as it is from the combination of my injury history and heredity. I don't need to mess them up worse than they already are.

LOL! There's a jewelry vendor in the cafeteria today, and they have this sign on display. :o)

As long as I'm ranting anyway, let me continue. I process incoming faxes, as well as incoming mail. This means weeding out spam like "Lowest Mortgage Rates Ever!" and other unsolicited ad faxes (which are supposed to be illegal, so why are we still receiving them?).

Today, I had to filter out multiple copies of ads for two business seminars. One was "Get Organized!", and the other was, "Managing Your Time: Work Smarter. Not Harder".

How ironic. I'd have more time and be more organized if I didn't have to weed out multiple spam faxes from the valid documents every freaking morning. Go figure.

Oh, and we have a new record-holder for "smallest change-of-address letter". Yesterday, I received one written on a 3"x3" post-it-note.

I hope I don't get one that'll break *this* record. If the freakin' papers come in any smaller sizes than that, I'll need a magnifying glass to find them!

My car battery appears to be on its last legs. First of all, there's a momentary delay between the time the ignition key turns and the time the engine turns over. Then, although the car seems fine at first (once it's actually running, that is), by the time I drive the mile or so to the park-and-ride or to my home, when I use the turn signal, the radio "blinks" on and off, in a pattern that's the opposite of the turn signal lights.

Last time I had a "turn signal and radio are mutually exclusive" situation, I wound up stuck in Norristown with a dead alternator before the day was out. This time, I'm crossing my fingers that it's only the battery (since no warning lights are coming on), and Mark will take the car to the mechanic tomorrow.

In other news, it's a small world. I overheard a conversation at the next desk over, which concluded with, "Run that by Tim S[...]s and see what he thinks."

I thought, "Tim S[...]s? That's the name of someone who was in my wedding party!" I looked him up in the company directory and found that he works in another office, one that's close to where I know our former groomsman lives.

I emailed Mark about it, and sure enough, it's the same person. How funny is that? :o)

You see some interesting things when you process the incoming mail for an entire department.

One of the tasks our department performs is taking care of customers' change of address requests. If they send a letter stating their new address, one of our processors takes care of updating the customer's information.

I got a letter yesterday that makes me wonder if the customer's first attempt to have their address changed got lost in the shuffle before it ever reached us.

The letter itself was written on a 3"x5" piece of paper that was obviously taken from a memo pad. In fact, it was on the BACK of the piece of paper from a memo pad. The pattern on the front of the page was so obtrusive, it left very little blank space on which to write, so the customer flipped it over and wrote on the blank back of the memo sheet.

The actual content of the letter was similarly memorable. "To whom it may concern: My address is [address info]. If you get it right this time, I'll appreciate it. Sincerely, [name]."

My first thought was, "This person is sending their information on a piece of paper the size of a sugar packet, and they're telling US to "get it right"? How much do you want to bet that *IF* they previously sent information scribbled on a miniscule paper that looks like scrap, it somehow got accidentally lost before it ever reached us?

Here's a helpful hint: If you're sending IMPORTANT CORRESPONDENCE with information like your NEW ADDRESS to any company with which you are dong business, use a sheet of paper that's larger than the POSTAGE STAMP you're using to mail the letter.

At least the good news is, THIS time we actually did receive the information, and it's definitely going to be processed. The customer can rest assured that this time, we will "get it right".

O say can you see, by the dawn's early light...

that the sun has not yet cleared the horizon, nor have the streetlights turned off yet, at the time when I get OFF the train.

As the sun rises later every morning, I was wondering if there'd be a day when I arrived in Fort Washington prior to sunrise. As of today, the answer is "yes".

We revert back to Eastern Standard Time this weekend. After that, I expect the sun to already be up by the time I exit the train. But this concept of witnessing sunrise fron the inside of a SEPTA bus is a new one on me.

Sunrise over Fort Washington. Did I mention that it's early?

Sunrise over Philadelphia. DogGONE, but this is early! And I still have two more segments of my commute left to go, to boot. I'd never have believed it possible, but I actually woke up before the alarm this morning. I'm nearly over the jet lag, I guess.

Last night was a good news-bad news kind of game for the Phantoms. The good news: we had yet another come-from-behind win last night. The bad news: two of our players left the game injured. In the first period, it was Riley Cote (see the myspace link on the left side of the screen), and in the second period, it was Martin Houle, our starting goalie (and one of the two players whose scrapbooks I did last season). From my seat next to the tunnel, I could see that each of them was having trouble making his way up the tunnel once he got off the ice. In Riley's case, he was having so much difficulty maneuvering, I took a closer look because I was afraid he was concussed and "out on his feet". But he was perfectly lucid, thank goodness, and when he flat-out roared an expletive, I was sure his head was fine. Nobody who's half-dazed could have summoned that much vehemence. Unfortunately, since dented players don't tend to fly into a rage about it, and since Riley's not prone to losing his temper, I fear that he could tell that whatever was wrong would put him on the sidelines for a while. I hope I'm mistaken, but fear I'm correct. This rots: he was supposed to get called right back up to the Flyers after getting some playing time in with the Phantoms this weekend, or so I read. If my fears are on target, this will delay his NHL debut, in which case it's no wonder he was furious. DId I mention that I hope I'm mistaken?

So I posted a well-wish on his myspace page. On checking the site again this morning, I saw some other posts from people he knows face-to-face, and their tone leads me to believe that he's headed to the IR. Sigh.

OK, signing off. I want to rest my eyes before I spend a whole morning reading small print.

Yet another video. I got the link to this from a Flyers fan board, and laughed myself silly when I watched it.



What can I say? "You're the shih-tzu!" cracks me up.

In other news, I'm almost recovered from the jet lag that my new, radically different schedule is causing. Of course, that could be because I got a ton of sleep yesterday. We'll see how I feel tomorrow when the whole "crack of dawn wakeup call" cycle starts rolling again.

By the way, on Friday, I had my first migraine since May. Was I carrying Imitrex with me? No, of course not. Because I hadn't had a migraine since May. [mumble grumble]. So I put up with the headache, starting from late morning, all the way through until I went to sleep on Friday night. (I went directly to the Phantoms game after work, so I didn't have the chance to stop at home and take any meds.) Once I got home, I hoped that just going to sleep would be enough to make the headache go away.

But on Saturday morning, I woke up, and no dice. I still had the migraine. At that point, I figured that 22 hours was more than enough time to deal with feeling like my head was about to fall off, so I took Imitrex for the first time since I got the prescription last spring. It's a nasal spray, and it took me a little while to determine how to use it. The problem was that the dosing instructions are hidden somewhere on the package insert. That would be the giant sheet of paper, folded like a road map, that's covered on both sides with freakin' MICROSCOPIC print. I don't know about other people, but an enormous page full of miniscule print is just what I need to try and read after putting up with a migraine for 22 hours. (Grrrrrrrr...) It's a miracle I even found the *%$#& dosage instructions at all.

In any event, as I said, the med is a nasal spray. And it turns out that the dosage is pretty straightforward. It's a little tiny spray thingy that, when you press the plunger, sprays one dose of medicine into your nose. No fuss, no muss.

But, as with everything, it comes with good news and bad news attached. The good news: it really did work on the headache, and fast! Within the hour -- more like within the half-hour, actually -- the migraine faded away. I've NEVER had a med that worked that well and that quickly before! This freakin' stuff costs a fortune, but it definitely works as advertised. The bad news: you know that saying that what goes up must come down? In this case, the nasal spray is what comes down after a few minutes, and it leaves an absolutely AWFUL aftertaste in the back of the throat. This lasted several minutes, until the medicine finally finished succumbing to the force of gravity. Oh, BOY, was that nasty... imagine what it's like to chew up an aspirin, and you'll have a decent idea of what I'm referring to. But when the options are having a few minutes of "Bleah! Yecch! Bitter!" or having a migraine, the horrid aftertaste is definitely the lesser of the two evils.

In other news, the cats are in a major state of culture shockn now that I'm working. They've gone from having me home to dote on them all day, every day, to being left alone all day, and they are NOT liking the new arrangement one bit. I have two furry, stripey critters literally shadowing my every move from the moment I walk in the door... they want their daily dose of attention, and they want it NOW. :o) If I'm not attentive when I'm walking, I'm sure to trip over at least one of them.

I'm going to have to figure out a way to ensure that I fall asleep early tonight... because I sure as heck am going to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, regardless of HOW much sleep I actually log tonight. I have a feeling that I'm going to be in Jet Lag Mode again by the time tomorrow's out. We'll see how it goes.

You know, one benefit of commuting at this UNMERCIFUL hour is the chance to sit in my *favorite* seat in the whole train, for the entire length of the subway route.

I do have to say, though, that this is a bit of a shock to my system. When I walked out my front door, crickets were chirping and there was no hint of imminent sunrise. That, I expected to see.

What surprised me is that by the time I got to the regional rail station, crickets were STILL chirping and the eastern sky was only slightly pale. Dang, this is early.

As I sit on thr boarding platform now, the sky has become noticeably brighter, but not bright enough to trigger the streetlights to turn off.

I really could use coffee. Caffienation is high on my to-do list for when I get to work.

Well! THIS trip home couldn't have worked out better!

I took the regional rail train from work to Fern Rock and connected with what I *thought* was an express subway train. It was actually a train for the Broad-Ridge spur line. For kicks, since it runs to 8th and Market, I took it. To make a long story less long, this unplanned decision allowed me to connect with one of the FEW buses that stops across the street from my house. Those run maybe once an hour, so whenever I catch one, I feel like I've hit the jackpot.

This cuts at least ten minutes off my commute home, since the closest buses other than this one all stop at least that far of a walk away.

Thank you, God. Color me happy. :o)

Oh, boy. In order to accelerate my training, I've been asked to come in as early as the person I'll be filling in for. That way, I can shadow her all day and learn her job more quickly.

She begins at 7 AM.

I'll be aiming to catch the subway at Pattison at (are you sitting down?) 5:41 am.

[I am gonna be a ZOMBIEEEE... thank goodness I can vegetate on the subway and the train.

Oh, BTW. I was wondering what kind of desk situation I'd get. Would it be Someone Else's Desk, full of Other People's knickknacks, with the photos of their family, friends, and pets staring down at me all day? Or would it be Nobody's Workspace? Which could be anything from a totally empty cubicle with the half-broken chair that someone swapped for a functional chair, no computer, no phone, no pens... or else it could be the official dumping ground for spare stuff that there's no room to store anywhere else?

It's the latter option, which I prefer, as it's depressing to look at Other People's Decorations every day. It has a nice chair, desk supplies, a PC, and a phone, but they're going to have to do something with the megaton of report printouts stacked 6 inches high on every inch of available desk space. I?ve been promised the reports will be gonr in a few days.

Lunchtime.

Yes, the bus waited. Yes, this building has a cafeteria. And yes, the dress code is business *casual*, not business professional. ::happy dance::

I got a reminder that the mindset of the 'burbs is noticeably different from that of the city. At the train station, there were a bunch of campaign ads on little signs stuck into the ground. The candidate's slogan, apparently, is "SECURE OUR BORDERS NOW!", as though this particular area was being overrun by undocumented aliens. Then the bus pulled away from the train station, and within a minute we passed two car dealerships located, across the street from one another.

They were a BMW dealer and a Mercedes Benz dealer.

Ya think this area has anything to fear from illegal aliens taking away the residents' jobs? I sincerely doubt it. If anything, people who live in ritzy areas will be worried that their "don't ask, don't tell" maids, nannies, and other staff, the ones they're paying inder the table, will get caught up in the dragnet if this candidate has his way. Then the affluent cheapskates of the region might have to pay their staff a living wage (or at least the minimum wage), perish the thought.

He'll probably get votes with his scare tactics, too. Nothing like worrying the constituency about the big, bad illegal immigrants when they SHOULD be focusing on the fact that the number of our dead military in Gulf War II has exceeded the number of casualties at the WTC. How many people from the US and other countries are dead because we went after nonexistent WMDs? I'd like to see some campaign posters with THAT slogan on them, but I won't.