It all started when some guys at work told Steve that he’s eligible for a discount through his employer.  He kept telling me to do that… ha.  I kept saying “YOU need to find out how,” and he finally did.  Just take a paycheck stub into one of the stores, he was told.  So last Sunday we went in there together but it was just as I predicted…

The account we had was the same one Steve first got in early 1999.  Somewhere along the line, I believe when we added my phone, so around 10 years ago, someone with AT&T screwed up and the account changed over to have my name on it, Steve’s nowhere to be found.  It was never a problem though, so I never said anything about it.  But, of course, because it was his paycheck stub and his discount and my account… no dice.  So the guy in there is telling us we can change the name on the account… for $18 a line.  Let’s see, $18 a line times 5 lines… oh, yeah, $90.  Not happening.

That’s just stupid.  $18 to change the name on an account, PER LINE?  Not even just a per account fee, but one per line!  I don’t usually act this way but I got kinda loud, I stated that I was NOT paying $90 to change a name on the account, it’s asinine.  Everyone was looking at me, heh.  We ended up leaving, the guy wrote his number on a card and told us to call if we got the account changed over.

The next day we called with the plan to ask them to please waive the fee – after all, look back in your records, it’s your fault the name’s not correct anyway.  Steve takes the phone after I’ve authorized him to speak (see: asinine) and then the woman tells him oh, yeah it is $18 a line but if you do it on the internet, it’s free.  Say, what??  Couldn’t have told us that in the first place?  (But again we’re back to why is it free online but not free in the store or on the phone??)

I started the process right away and was told that we were waiting on a credit check for Steve, check back later.  So I did.  Same thing.  Again on Tuesday.  Again on Wednesday.  Finally, on Thursday, when we were both present, I called in.  Something wasn’t happening like it was supposed to online, so back to the phone we go.  The guy we got on the phone said that he’d waive the $18 per line because we at least tried to do it online.  (He was really nice about it so rather than saying it, I only thought “heck yeah, you will.”)   It took for.ev.er.

Finally we were finished with all five lines and he’s telling me how we’re going to get two bills this month, both pro-rated, and that all our plans and features have transferred over.  This was also good because online it was going to raise my internet costs by another $10 a month, though I don’t know why.  I figured I’d complete it then go into the account later and put it back, or call them… again.

Also stupid: I lost the insurance on my phone by doing this.  You can only add insurance within like the first 45 days of getting a phone and apparently you can’t transfer it, so I didn’t get to take it with me and I don’t get to re-add it.

Half stupid: all lines now have an 11 month contract on them.  Steve is not going to like this one when I finally get around to telling him.  On three lines, having an 11 months on them actually shortens the contract but on the other 2, Steve’s and his dad’s, they now have a contract where they didn’t have one before.  Steve’s has been out of contract for years upon years now and his Dad’s a few years as well.  Neither of them want theirs under contract, they want to be able to cancel at any time if they want.  The real sad part about this is they’re forced back into contract without the benefit of getting a new phone.  As for mine, it takes 2 months off my contract and I think it takes a year off of Sarah’s, maybe about 9 months off my mother-in-law’s phone.  So I’ll be able to get a new piece of crap in October rather than December now.

Not finished yet, though, of course not.  Early this morning, I got an email from AT&T stating that Sarah’s line was about to go over her text message limit… um… what??  We’re supposed to have unlimited family messaging and even if we didn’t have unlimited, we only had this new account for 2 days.  Over limit!?  After a lot of trouble getting the online account going again I was able to get in and see that we were going to have all these overages of 20 cents a message and 50 cents for a multimedia message.  Of course, I flipped out, but I couldn’t call, it was about 5 am.  Instead I added family messaging and went back to sleep for a while like usual.

Getting home later I called up AT&T and asked them to back date the family messaging plan.  Unfortunately I apparently screwed that up because supposedly they can only back date it when it’s first added, however, the woman I talked to said she will put a note to refund the overages.

Just… really?  Unfortunately, this IS worth my time, Steve’s supposed to get a 19% discount.  When you’re spending $200 a month on cell phones… that’s a lot.  However, we don’t have the discount yet!  Of course.  I called the number the guy wrote on the card for me, turns out it’s his personal cell phone and he’s not working today.  What an idiot.  So he says to go in at any time and tell someone else that HE said it’s ok and started, just to send it through, or wait until he works on Monday.  It’s gonna have to be tomorrow, on Sunday, because… duh duh duhhhhnnn… now my name’s not on the account OR the check stub so is someone else going to work with ME on this?  Doubtful.  This is just ridiculous.  I don’t see why both our names can’t be on this account, but whatever.  Oh, I also failed to mention that this guy told us the discount could take months to start applying… what the heck!?  I swear, if it wasn’t such a good discount…

Sheesh, I can’t wait for this to be over.

Let me just begin by saying I hate GoDaddy. I really, do. I was with them for years but finally made the move away based on their television ad content that I feel are obscene, demeaning to women, and insulting to the intelligence of all, men included. I feel like that lends me to less bias, since one would think I would be more likely to be against anything concerning this company. With that being said, I am even more disappointed in my current registrar, Namecheap, by sending out the following in their newsletter:

It’s not often that we would disagree publicly with a competitor, but we at Namecheap are very disturbed by this video of a competitor killing an elephant for sport. Check out the ABC News Report (Warning: Very Graphic!)

We’ve decided to throw our support behind our Elephant friends by offering domain transfers at a price where we actually lose money.

Show your protest by saying BYEBYEGD again and transfer your domains to Namecheap for $4.99 for the next 24 hours through 11:59pm EST on 3/31/11 (limit 10 per user, valid for all com/net/org domains).

On top of that, we’ll donate $1 for each transfer to Save The Elephants at http://www.savetheelephants.org/

Use coupon code BYEBYEGD and let’s help the Elephants together!

This is ridiculous. I am more disappointed that Namecheap is so blatantly trying to profit (in the long run, if not now) by what should be considered a non-incident with GoDaddy’s CEO Bob Parsons. They are attempting to use this situation to their own gain.

Backstory: Parsons was in Zimbabwe this March on a hunting trip. Farmers expressed concern that several male elephants were tearing up their crops. Parsons and party hunted and killed one of at least three elephants in the night. The next day, villagers split up the elephant for meat and from what I gather, the other elephants have not returned to the area where they were damaging crops.

An animal who is damaging crops (or livestock) must be dealt with. Here in Missouri, if an animal, such as a fox, for example, is attacking and harming your other animals, you have the right to trap and/or kill it, in season or not. This is not a small matter for farmers in the US but it’s an even bigger problem for people in places such as Zimbabwe where there is not enough food for the people. If you watched the video, you will have seen where they said more villagers showed up and though the elephant was large, there wasn’t enough food for everyone. You can bet these people did not waste any part of this elephant. I would put money down that they ate everything but the bones.

Parsons shot and killed an animal that was damaging crops and then the animal was put to use, it was not just dropped there and left. Yes, he may have had an enjoyable time hunting, but it was clear that he was not hunting purely for sport. The people were helped in that they were fed for a time AND their crops were protected. I don’t understand what the big deal is here. The people who are complaining that he shot an elephant and some are even saying horrible things such as he should be shot himself – do they expect these people to just let the elephants destroy their food source? Come on! If not Parsons, someone else would have shot it. The only reason this is even an issue is because Parsons is someone of high profile. He’s a CEO, he MUST be bad, right?

I think another big problem for these complainers, at least in the US, is the type of animal. It’s cute, you see it in zoos, so it must be wrong to kill one. We have hogs that run wild here, damaging crops and land and killing other animals but they’re not cute, so I guess it’s ok to kill them, I don’t hear anyone whining that the Conservation Department says shoot, shoot, shoot, we want them gone. Just because your culture does not eat a specific animal or because you think it’s cute, does not make it wrong to kill it and/or eat it. I’m not sure I would want to eat elephant meat myself but I haven’t been raised in a culture that does and, at least for now, I’m thankfully not starving for lack of food. Mountain Lions are beautiful but do you think if one is stalking a farmer’s cows and probably his family, too, that he’s not going to hunt it and kill it?

I’m getting a bit off track here. Here’s a report by ABC:

Can you hear bias in their voices? Well, at least the woman on the right, very slanted.

And in case you didn’t catch it, what did PETA say in their “official” statement?

I am writing to present you with PETA’s first-ever Scummiest CEO of the year award… you deserve the reward for your egregious disregard for the life of the elephant you shot and killed for your personal enjoyment. Such behavior only shows a poverty of understanding and a deep insecurity, perhaps in your own masculinity…

Way to go, Tracey Reiman… let’s resort to name-calling like children, shall we? Name-calling and pokes at someone’s masculinity. Nice. HOW PROFESSIONAL. Not to mention, ignorant, as we have already established this elephant was not shot for personal enjoyment. Just, wow. Not even my 7-year-old acts like that.

PETA excluded because of their desire to make everyone vegetarians, but the average person who is having a conniption fit over this needs to take a close look at their own life. This is not any more extraordinary than the hamburger you eat at McDonald’s or your Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken. The only difference is that you didn’t cut the meat off the cow or chicken yourself. Get off your high horses. Really, you KNOW that not everyone who is complaining is a vegetarian. (Though one of these days, I do want to ask a vegetarian a question: what about the life of the plants that you take?)

I’m glad that Bob Parson’s response is included in the video, however. He states that there are actually too many elephants running around in this area. I am not surprised. When you tag a deer for hunting season here in Missouri, the computer on the phone thanks you for helping to manage Missouri’s deer population. There is NOTHING wrong with hunting when it is managed properly. I am not talking about going out and just shooting everything you see for fun, which you should know by now if you’ve already read all of this. It needs to be properly managed and the animal, whatever it may be, needs to be properly taken care of and not wasted. There are even places you can donate deer meat here to people who are hungry – essentially what Parsons did with the elephant. Do you know what happens when there becomes too many of an animal in a specific area? They not only tear up crops and property but they can become a danger to people’s lives, being more on the highways, for example, or breaking into people’s homes — imagine a set of antlers coming at you or your young child through a plate glass window at 20 mph — and disease will break out among the animals’ ranks therefore causing even more problems. Taking care of this planet doesn’t mean preserving everything, it means managing it properly.

So, Bob Parsons, I stand behind you on this. No, I won’t be returning to GoDaddy but I am seriously considering my decision to be with NameCheap…

So we set up a new account and started taking donations on it only to find out that we are unable to add his bank information for withdrawal or anything else. The reason? It’s already attached to the previous PayPal account. So back we go with trying to log into the old account and remove that bank account, but nope, it’s locked, can’t even log in and now the message reads: “This account has been permanently locked with a $0.00 USD balance. All information associated with this account has been blocked from the PayPal system and cannot be registered with another account.” (Thank goodness there’s no money stuck in there!)

Finally we get an email response back that helps and we’re told to email compliance@paypal.com and state in some “official” jargon that we authorize removal of bank account with the last four digits of xxxx to be removed from that account and our reasons why. That was what we were told to do and that was it. So when I was at his house the other day, I sent the email for him from his account.

The response we got back was less than helpful. Now we’re told that we have to submit a bank statement to them! I mean, really, is it PayPal’s business what’s on his bank account? I’m sure they’re using it as a way to verify that he owns the account but, really, the email was sent from his account that is associated with the PayPal account and had all of his information in it and applied to an account that one can see is not even used. So that should be enough. But to make things even more wonderful, they want us to either upload the bank statement into the account or fax it in with a specific cover letter that can be downloaded from within your account. See where this is going? We can’t get into the account!

It is so frustrating. In part, because this is just plain ridiculous and in part because they should be up front about the hoops we’re going to have to jump through to get this resolved. Stop adding new requirements whenever you want to and just tell us what is going to have to happen.

So now he has money in his new account that he can’t withdrawal and he can’t even use to pay for an Ebay auction because you still have to add bank information. Pretty ridiculous. I’m about ready to give up and I’m wondering what other payment gateways we can use to take some donations and start fresh. I’m sure I can get his money out of there even if I have to open a temporary bank account to do it. I’m hesitant to try to remove my business account from my PayPal and add it to another one but maybe that would work. Unfortunately, none of the ways I can get the money out of there are going to look good – it’s going to look like money laundering or something (which is why he’s hesitant to do anything but get his bank account removed from the old account and to the new one). And I’m also left wondering what might happen with my accounts – not because of this situation spilling over or something but because PayPal seems to wield way too much power over people.

Ugh!!

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I had some potatoes in the microwave, baking in a plastic bag. The bag sealed itself shut so I stopped the microwave and waited for it to deflate, then I opened it. Big mistake. There was still plenty of pressure and the steam burst out and I guess I have a 2nd degree burn on my left thumb now. It blistered up immediately.

I immediately put it under running cold water and ended up doing that several times before getting some ice on it. Any time I’d take the ice off for more than 20 or 30 seconds, it would start burning again.

I had to go to the grocery store bakery (our only one in town!) to order a cake for this weekend so while I was there I got myself some stuff for burns and once it took effect, it really felt a lot better.

Hopefully this blister and stuff will go away soon! Eventually I’m going to need to do some dishes, and type with two hands, lol… Oy, but will there ever be an end to my stupidity??

I was at a group with some other ladies last night and they started talking about Christmas decorations and what not. One of them brought up the topic of ceramic Christmas trees with the little plastic lights in them. Let’s not discuss how these ladies discussing these trees are quite a bit older than I am (in years not actual age, heehee) and they were actually making fun of these trees, saying they were something their grandmothers would have liked. I laughed because I have one of these trees and I bought it simply because it reminds me of my grandma and the one she had when I was little. So that reminded me I have one and tonight I decided to dig it out.

So I head to the basement and found it rather quickly and brought the bag upstairs. A quick look through the bag revealed the base, without a light bulb, and the tree, missing several of the plastic bulbs. I was quite baffled. I distinctly remembered having a bulb for it that should not have burned out and having extra little plastic bulbs that the lady gave me when I bought it. So I shuffled back to the basement, had another side adventure that shall not be mentioned, then went to the Christmas decorations.

No light bulb. No extra plastic bulbs. Blah. I started searching all over the basement. I knew there was a lamp somewhere in storage that had a bulb that should go in the tree. I was looking for something small and pointed, like for a night light or very small lamp. I could not find this little lamp anywhere.

I’d almost resigned to buying a bulb later when I went upstairs and found where I’d stashed the little lamp. Unfortunately, I the bulb was dead. I thought about raiding my nightstand lamp when I remembered I had extras for that in the nightstand. Sure enough, I found a bulb. It seemed a little big, but, oh well. Headed downstairs, put it in the tree, plugged it in and turned it on.

I was sitting here back in my chair for a few minutes, not very long, when I started to smell something. It smelled like hot glue. You know the smell, right? It’s almost sickening. I thought, “shoot, I guess that bulb is too big for that tree, it’s melting the glue holding in those plastic bulbs.” I turned off the tree and sat back down. A few minutes later, I turned it back on and took a couple of photos including the one above. Turned it right back off and I thought I’d check it and I started lifting the tree off the base.

I almost fainted when I realized what had happened.

Yes, the tree DID have a bulb and it DID have extra plastic bulbs. Oh, and it DID have bubble wrap around those things. They had been all shoved up inside the tree but were now all melted to the bulb that had been turned on.

Oy. :)

It was still really, hot, too. I had to let it cool some more before getting it out of there and I was left with bubble wrap and about 7 plastic bulbs all melted to the light bulb. I was able to salvage another one or two plastic bulbs and thankfully the tree’s actual light bulb wasn’t attached to the bubble wrap so I was able to pop that puppy in and light up my tree again, smell-and-melting-stuff-free.

And through it all? Yup, the husband was snoozing on the couch.

Lesson learned: just because you carry the ceramic tree at the bottom and your fingers don’t feel anything inside the tree, doesn’t mean that the light bulbs and bubble wrap aren’t in there waiting for their moment to strike. :P