February 28, 2009 at 5:45 pm (Sports)
Tags: basketball, Duke
I hate the Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball team. I hate them as much as I could possibly hate anything. If you like them, I think you are a terrible person. If I found out Mother Theresa rooted for Duke when she was alive, I would find her grave and urinate on it.
The refereeing advantage that Duke enjoys is one of the most obvious and wretched things in the history of organized sports. I am too angry to continue with this post.
February 19, 2009 at 9:31 am (Charlotte, Sports)
Tags: Adam Morrison, Bobcats, Boris Diaw, Charlotte, Gerald Wallace, NBA, Pacers, Ray Felton, Vladimir Radmanovic
As promised in yesterday’s post, Janice and I went to the Bobcats-Pacers game last night as guests of my friend Eric, who was generous as always. We had a good time and watched the ‘Cats grab a win. Ray Felton made a 3/4-court shot at the buzzer to cap off the first quarter, and G-G-G-Gerald Wallace was nice as usual. This is a great example of fun to be had in Charlotte. Because the team isn’t that good (but is clearly stockpiling some talent while getting rid of some terrible draft picks like Adam Morrison), it’s easy to get tickets on the cheap. I look forward to attending more games in the future.
Gerald went 25-10-7 Wednesday night
We’ve got no pics b/c it was rainy outside and Janice gets camera shy when she thinks her hair is frizzy. However, we did decide to name one of our future fish after her favorite player’s name, Vladimir Radmanovich, and one after mine, Boris Diaw. Gerald Wallace will get a namesake as well.
February 18, 2009 at 9:26 am (Blacksburg, Charlotte, Clothing, Contemplation, Divorce, Dog, Happiness, Janice, Love, Moving, Sunshine, Weather)
Tags: Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, Blacksburg, Bobcats, Charlotte, Christiansburg, Divorce, Moving, Valentine's Day, Wii
Monday afternoon, I received an email from my mom containing this:
Hi! Just thought I’d pop in and see how you are doing. I’m sure this past weekend was abit rough for you, esp. Friday…
What’s funny (and awesome) about this is that I actually had to stop and think about why she would say that. Oh yeah, that’s right, Friday was the one year anniversary of the day my ex-wife left me! (Yes, the day before Valentine’s Day, how apropos.) That was easily the darkest time in my life. It may not seem like it now, seeing that it triggered such a grand rebirth in me, but I was a blobbering, depressed mess that day.
Think about it, though: It was an extremely easy date to remember, and since I have a new Valentine, I certainly had enough reminders of the holiday in the weeks and days beforehand. But not once did I think about last year’s events until a couple days later when my mom emailed me. I think that’s pretty great!
Valentine’s Day itself was a great time! First we had Laney’s obedience class, where she had her best session ever. We stayed in with dinner and wine and played games on the Wii (I got crushed in Bowling but came back to win in Tennis) and watched some of our Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations on DVD. Janice got me some clothes (I love having someone with good taste to pick things out for me) and a dog devotional book (which is hilarious) and I got her one of those hot new Electrolux mini-vacuums (do NOT disparage me for giving this gift; she demanded it!) and a bluetooth earpiece for her cell phone.
Yes, ladies, I got her a vacuum for V-Day!
In other news, the weather has turned to utter crap this week after 10 days or so of warm, sunny days in the first half of February. Today it’s dark and pouring rain. But Janice and I are going to the Bobcats game tonight, so that should be fun! The 10 day outlook doesn’t appear to be that great, but with the historical average high around 60 and rising quickly, it’s only a matter of time until outdoor activities become feasible again.
One last note: Welcome to Charlotte, Keith! He’s pretty much the last one of ‘us’ (former Blacksburg and Christiansburg residents who harbored a desire to get the hell out of there and move to Charlotte), but he did eventually get here. Our migration is complete!
February 6, 2009 at 9:34 am (Anger, Phones, Stupidity)
Tags: Chase, Circuit City, Circuit City Rewards Card, credit score
Well, this week I started receiving the harrassing collection agency phone calls again. Yesterday I had about 10 on my cell phone, plus they called my work number 5 times. To make things worse, almost all of these were hang-ups.
This morning they called me and I finally got someone to respond when I answered. I stopped their collection routine and informed them the charges are under dispute (which they should have known) from over a month ago. I was transferred 3 times, each of them needing my information all over again, until I reached a woman who wanted to conference in Circuit City’s customer support and asked me not to hang up. I promised her I would not. After 5 minutes of her going through their menus and us getting a CC CS rep on the line, the woman who told me not to hang up dropped her connection. %#$%^#$@^!
So I called the Chase Credit Card dispute line. The woman who answered took my information and told me that because the charges are 3 months old, there is nothing I can do. She told me this was my fault for failing to make payments. As my voice rose in volume and intensity, I told her that I did not actually owe anything, so there was no need for a payment. She became audibly angry and put me on a deaf hold, which is basically purgatory where they wait until I hang up. So I did.
I called the number back immediately, knowing how different CS reps can be from one another. The next lady was my angel. She already knew my customer info, listened to my story, read the notes on their system, apologized for ‘ the ridiculous amount of trouble’, and promptly wiped off the charges. All of them. In less than 5 minutes.
What in the hell? It’s over a month after this began, and I have made dozens of phone calls and sent letters here and there, and then I get ONE good rep and it’s all fixed? I mean, thank goodness for that lady, but what is wrong with this system? Geez!
Note that I am going to wait until I see a zero balance statement before I close this case for good.
February 4, 2009 at 12:51 pm (Divorce, Happiness, Janice)
So yesterday marked six months to the day since Janice and I started dating. Yay us!
The happy couple, cheesing it up back in Month 1
After the end of my marriage last summer, I really dreaded having to go through the ‘getting to know you’ phase of whenever my next relationship would be. Other than the financial security and the dogs, a big thing I knew I would miss when I left is that for many years, all my stories, my opinions, my habits, and my foibles were already known by my ex-wife, and I knew hers (well, most of them). I just didn’t want to go through re-explaining and re-learning all that stuff again with someone else, because it sounded like a lot of work just to get back to a comfort level where I’d already been for so long.
But once again, I was wrong. This six months has been great in that regard. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. And now we’ve attained a great comfort level even though we still have much to learn. So here’s to many more half years of enjoyment!
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