I think that David Hasselhoff is one of the 4 Horsemen.
And he’s captured on video.
Good God.
I don’t really get the whole mystique about DH. Yeah, he was on Baywatch; yeah — he drove a kickin’ car. But singing? Puh-leeze. But I really like him in that eskimo getup. That’s pretty cool; especially when he eats the salmon.
For those of you interested, or for those of you who I haven’t vented to yet, I have joined a gym.
I’ve now been going consistently for the last 10 days. Be proud; this is big for me, as I tend to not stick with anything, other than chocolate & Coca-Cola.
Meet my new nemesis; the Precor Elliptical Machine.
Besides having a new hate of fitness equipment, I have also found that an old High School ailment has re-returned. I used to play field hockey in HS. I was OK, not great, but not too sucky either. I also realized a few things about me & physical activity:
1) I hate to run without purpose. You need to either:
a) place a bear or bull or angry carnivore behind me or
b) you need to put me on a field with an opponent and a goal at the other end.
In other words, I would rather die than run laps. This makes the gym awfully interesting, because — honestly — I have to get myself up, exercise on a stationary piece of equipment that goes nowhere, in front of attractive muscular people for 30 minutes to an hour each day. Rather a contradiction in terms, for me.
2) Running on non-grass surfaces is not fun for me. I get shin splints. Apparently treadmills & the like are non-grass. So the shin splits have quasi-returned. So, because they’re not going to sod the elliptical & the treadmills, and I won’t see grass here in VT until June, we’re going with option #2 — sole cushioners.
So I got myself some Dr. Scholls’ gel inserts…you know the ones, where the corny dudes rhyme with “gellin’” with crazy words such as, “Felon, Magellan, etc.” Hopefully there’s no chemicals in the inserts that make you start acting all stupid like the commercials.
Wish me luck.
Luckily, Clarkson compiled everything you might need to know about Men’s Olympic Hockey here.
I hope that no one seriously tries to grab any of my time between Feb 10th - 26th. I’ll be in front of my TV, or DVR.
We haven’t written yet. And thought we’d say hi.
This is David-roo… We have been stalking the flying burds & rat-critters through the patio window for a while now. Mumma & Dadd have been very good about feeding the burds. They fly around and eat the seeds and we get to watch them. And its fun, until either Maggie or I jump into the window because we get excited and try to pounce.
This winter, Dadd & Mumma got some more feeders for the burds. They thought the burds would get hungry more often. So they put a new feeder out in the middle of the backyard. They also got some of those fake corncob things for the squirruls & a sqirrul feeder on the deck.
The squirrul feeder is an open hatch at the top. The rat lifts the lid, drops down in, and the seeds are there, nice & dry & safe. They put the feeder where us kitties can see it. Stupid tree rats don’t like it so much. UNTIL TODAY…
For some reason, today they figured it out. Dadd is all excited. Mumma seemed to be pretty excited too, but not as much as Dadd. Probably because he’s the one who goes out in the cold and fills up all the seed, when Mumma tells him to.
Here is another picture of the tree-rats. Enjoy. MEOW!
– David-Roo & Maggie
The Clarkson/St.Lawrence game was Friday night. Excellent game, and excellent crowd. The gold-out was very effective, the cheers were great & clear (minimal “Team/Ref/Player Sucks”). We won 3-2; with a lot of nervousness in the 3rd due to the puck being almost exclusively around the CU net. Leggio played a great game for the Knights, and once again Mr. Nick Dodge hustled his butt off. Great times all around.
I set up a Photo Album of the game photos that we took here….
So…3 things…
First off — Rob is LUUURVING the whole face recognition page. We’ve gotten most of our friends pegged with that. You should really give it a try.
Second — we’re going on a cruise. In April. We’re excited. I love cruises. They make you all gluttoned. And sunburned. I see the Carnival commercials, and they’re getting me all aglow.
Third — most of you know that we’re big college hockey fans. This weekend is the big game: CU against SLU. We have seats. It was always a big deal for us, but now we’re glad to see that the University/Athletic Association/Students are making a big deal about it. You can find out more from Clarkson’s non-sanctioned student-run info page; the Jolt…
More to come on Sunday…stay tuned.
A great link. Go ahead — see who you resemble….
We got:
I could be Penelope Cruz; really I could. With a lot of work, some un-freckling, and a WHOLE lotta Jenny Craig. But it’s a goal; and goals are good things to have.
Selden’s birthday was Thursday night. Jenny surprised him with a group dinner at the Arrowhead Bar & Grill
A few photos from the night…
Selden, his hat, and his drink.
Shawn, his hat, and his drink.
Selden again, with his cake & candles.
Jenny gets multiple gold stars for:
- Getting everyone together
- Surprising Selden
- Home-made cake (Yummy!!)
- Getting all the guys to wear party hats (with minimal harumph-ing)
So I have spent the entire weekend fighting with Fedex over a late Christmas Present.
My parents live in Maine, and bought me some flannel PJ’s for Christmas. They were the wrong size, so Mom went to replace them with some ones that would fit better. BAD IDEA
Mom sends me the Tracking #, and I keep tabs on the package. Says its supposed to arrive on Thursday. Great!!
THURSDAY
We get home Thursday night; no package. I check online:
You got it. No package at the house; but it says its delivered.
So I call Fedex Customer Service. The phone call went something like this….
“Hello Fedex; this is Jorge (mumbles last name), how may I help you.”
“I have a package issue”
“Can I have your tracking number?”
“Sure……”
“Says the package was delivered…what’s the problem?”
“The package wasn’t delivered.”
“It says its delivered”
“It wasn’t.”
“But it says it was.”
“I believe your drivers actually delivered it to A house. Just not MY house.
“Well, I can do nothing for you tonight. The dispatch station will call you tomorrow. Thank youfor using Fedex.” {Click}
FRIDAY
11am comes & goes, and I decide to call back. Same deal with customer service.
I notice again, that no one gives their last name…interesting. Speak to a woman named Jackie, or Jack-aay. Which morphed into “Jack-ass” after about 5 minutes of speaking to her. Jackass talks to dispatch for me. Then lets me know that the driver might call me.
11:30 or so, I get an outside phone call.
“Hello Heather…”
“Um…yeah…you say I didn’t deliver your package?”
“Excuse me; may I ask who I am speaking to today?”
“This is your driver, Mike.”
“Hi Mike. From Fedex?”
“Yeah. What’s your problem with your package?”
“The package wasn’t delivered.”
“It was.”
“Not to my house. Which house on the circle did you deliver it to?”
“I think the 2nd one.”
“Mine’s the 3rd one in on the left, or on the right; its the one in the middle. It’s brown & red.”
“It was dark.”
“Where did you leave the package, Mike?”
“On the left most side of the garage; right next to the breezeway.”
“The left most side of our garage is the woods. Our house is to the RIGHT of the garage.”
“No, it’s not.” (why he would argue still amazes me)
“Yes it is. So how are you going to fix this, Mike?”
“I’m not doing anything. I’m getting a temp to help me {belches}. He might be around later today.”
“Mike; this needs to be re-delivered. I expect this to be fixed. Thanks for your help” {Click}
8:00 pm.
So the delivery time for Mike-y has come & gone.
I call Fedex Customer service again.
This time, I speak to a man named Chris C. Chris actually gives me his last name. And appears competent, and has full use of the English language. So I’m hoping that this gets me somewhere. He tells me that:
1) It was Mike’s responsibility to get me my package within 48 hours of being notified of the mistake
2) If I do not receive my package in 24 hours, I am within my rights as a consumer to escalate.
3) I have to reach the dispatch office by close of business Saturday. Which is by 4pm.
4) If I have to escalate, first & last names of people I speak with, plus involving the shipper (in my case LLBean) is required.
Which leads to the following discussion:
“Chris–did you just say first AND last names?”
“Yes. You’ll need both.”
“So is this why the first 2 service reps I spoke to mumbled their last name?”
“Probably. Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“This is making more sense. Thank you so much. Please know that if I do have to escalate, I will make it perfectly clear that out of all of the people I have spoken to thus far, you are by far the most helpful & competent.”
“Thank you. Have a good night. And good luck” {Click}
SATURDAY
This has started to get irritating now. I’ve called my neighbor to see if they’re home. They’re not. And I’ve checked the outside, looking for green packages. I don’t see any. Because I’m firmly believing that I can handle this better without help from the big-bad-Fed-Ex.
1pm rolls around, and no PJ’s. I’m starting to keep track of things, and recapped the last 36 hours in a word document, for my reference. And I decide to call the fedex customer service cold-line again.
This time, I speak to Patty K and had to ask her to repeat her name THREE times. But I got it. Went through the whole, “My system says, you got your package; why should we believe you” schpeal, and then she connected me to dispatch. This is the first time in 3 days I have gotten to speak to the main warehouse. I get to speak to Jamie.
Jamie initially seems pretty OK. He calls the driver, and checks on the status of my package. And I’m OK; he’s working on it. Until he calls me back.
“Heather — it is Jamie, from FedEx. I have a status on your package.”
“Great. So what’s up?”
“The driver said he left it in the car of the garage of the 2nd house.”
“EXCUSE ME? THE CAR?”
“Um yes. It should be in your car.”
“No. The Second house is NOT my house. SO IT IS NOT IN MY CAR. And for your drivers to be putting packages inside vehicles does not sound professional, and sounds like an invasion of privacy. This has worn my patience thin. I’m escalating this one”
“Please don’t. We’ll fix it by end of business today. The driver will be right over.” {Click}
So I’m in rare form now. This is pretty insane, if you ask me. Over a pair of freakin’ pajamas.
I’ve wasted a good 2 hours of my life, and an afternoon at home waiting for Mike the belching driver.
I get to meet Mike about 3:45 pm.
First thing he does is drive over to the neighbor’s house, and finds the package. Walks to my house in the snow, and I greet him in the driveway.
He looks grizzled and annoyed. Excellent.
“Here’s your stuff.”
“Great. Thank you.”
“Could have walked over there to get it you know.”
“From our conversation, I had no idea where you put it. And you told your boss you put it in a CAR. Better directions would have helped. And besides, I’m not the one who screwed up. So here’s the house; you know for next time.”
“{mutters something under breath; appears to rhyme with ‘itch’}”
So I now have my jammies. Which is excellent. LLBean is getting a nice letter. Which is probably OK for them, and not excellent for all of the people I have spoken to; last names or not. I can’t say, “Don’t use FedEx.” Because that’s not realistic in this day & age. But I can say now that you have all been forewarned.
And I write this, sitting in my nice LLBean jammies. And yes; it was worth it.
We had a New Years Day party at the house.
Lots of fun.
Football, Napoleon Dynamite, Pictionary, Guesstures, and South Park.
What a way to bring in 2006.
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