Freakiest Hotel Ever

Last fall, I went to a business meeting in Houston, Texas. The meetings were located at the Hotel ZaZa. This is the most inappropriate location for a business function ever. As you walk into the hotel, immediately on your right is the bell station. Behind the bell staff are a bunch of pictures of women and men in various stages of undress. This sets the tone.

As you walk farther in, you see a sort of fantasy exhibit that has a woman in a cage hanging over some water. Yes, you heard me, I said a woman in a cage. Well, technically, it's a mannequin in a cage, but I think you understand my point.

If you look to your left from the point of the display, there is a neon sign that says "Peep Show." I never went down that hallway. Too scary. After you walk past the poor woman in a cage, then there is a lobby area with some interesting chairs:

The one on the left is blurry, I know. I was freaked out that the management might ask me why I was taking photos of their decor for some reason. I guess I was nervous because the whole situation was so surreal. The left one is a naked female torso with some sort of animal head, maybe a deer. The one on the right is a female torso, partially dressed this time, with a cat head. FREAKY. The rest of the hotel had this theme. There were pictures of all kinds of men and women all over the walls in various stages of dress and undress.

Can you imagine trying to have a serious technical conversation with someone while staring at some boobs? Let's just say it was awkward.

So, go to the Hotel ZaZa in Houston if you are on a romantic getaway, or maybe for your bachelor party. However, I would avoid it for business meetings, unless, say, you are in the adult entertainment industry.

Xbox 360 HD-DVD Saga

Well, you may remember my earlier post about the torturous experience of contacting Xbox 360 support to fix my HD-DVD player. If so, you might recall that I was still waiting on them to send me replacement cables for power and connecting to the Xbox 360 console. Last Friday, I received a power adapter in the mail. However, the box didn't contain the power cord that goes from the dvd player to the adapter. The next day, my postman brought me another package (that had first been misdelievered -- don't even get me started on the postal service here). This one contained the power cord to the adapter. Now, I still haven't received the USB connection cable so that I can hook it up to the 360 console. Argh! Was it ever sent? Was it misdelivered to the house in my neighborhood with the same street number but different street name (a common occurrence) or to a random house on my street (also a common occurrence)? Oh, please save me from having to call Xbox 360 support again!

No Grass

Well, my grass seed hasn't sprouted. I suppose that means it was too early to plant it, even though it was 60 degrees today! I guess I'll have to try again later.

Mick of Time

What is the Mick of Time, you ask? It is the absolute last moment an action can be taken before everything falls apart and the world explodes. This is the moment that Mick does things. Hence, the expression, it happened in the Mick of Time.

Moss

Well, given that I live in Portland, I have moss growing everywhere in my yard. I work a lot, so I don't have much time to keep on top of it and it can get out of control. I've tried a few things to get rid of it, but nothing has really worked. I have one sunny patch of lawn where it really bothers me, because while it's nice and green in the spring, it dies during the hot months and looks really bad. Also, when it rains it gets really muddy. I read that moss likes a low ph, so I figured my lawn must be acidic. I thought, what's cheap and basic? Baking soda! So, I got a big bag of baking soda from Costco and sprinkled it liberally all over the area where I want the moss to die. In a couple of days, it looked like this:

Ignore the mole damage for now; I'll tackle that another day. See how there's a bunch of yellow spots? That's dying moss! Very exciting. It looks pretty bad, but not much worse than it usually looks, so my neighbors probably aren't too upset. A few days later, I got went out and pulled up the dead/dying moss in half of the area and planted some grass seed. This is what it looks like now:


Hmm, not so pretty, but if the grass seed germinates, it will look better. I'm not sure if it's too early for the grass seed to sprout. That's why I only did half of the area.

Big Ben

This is my dog Ben, aka Benny Ben Ben. As you can see, he's very big. He weighs about 200 lbs. Ben is not smart, but he's loyal and sweet and happy. When I call him, he runs to me and then presses his body into my legs to let me know he's really there. It's comforting, but destabilizing, given that he is almost twice my size. When we first got Ben, I was not a fan. He's really messy and not so bright. But his sweetness has won me over.

My hero

I got a flat tire on my way to work today. Some city crews had been doing some work and didn't clean up their mess very well. There was mud, big sticks, rocks, and random debris in the bike lane. Of course, the car lanes were clear! Anyway, I was looking in my rear view mirror because I needed to merge into traffic to cross a bridge and didn't see whatever it was I hit. Whatever it was gave me a flat tire half way across the bridge, which is a very short bridge by the way. D'Argh! Of course, I was not prepared with a repair kit of any sort, so I was stuck.

At first, I thought I could take the bus in, but I was pretty loaded down with my backpack and saddle bags and thought it would be a great big hassle. Then, I remembered that Mick was still at home! I called him and he came to my rescue, my knight in shining armour, thundering up in his monstrous F-350. It's funny how I respond to the sound of a diesel truck now that Mick has one. I'm like one of Pavlov's dogs :)

Save Fatty

My poor kitty is too fat. I know it. The vet said we have to do something about it now. I switched him to senior kitty food on the vet's recommendation because kitty is now 7 years old. However, the food switch does not seem to be helping him lose weight. I am feeding him less than the recommended amount printed on the bag. Perhaps I have got to figure out how to get him to move more. He mostly sprawls on the floor all day. When I show him toys, he's not very interested. The only times he seems very motivated at all are feeding times. He makes a lot of noise and pesters me to let me know that he's hungry.

I can't let kitty outside because there are a lot of coyote here. Their favorite dinner is kitty cat. So many cats have disappeared in our neighborhood. I don't know why my neighbors keep letting their cats run around outside.

Portland

I love Portland. I hope I never have to leave. I took this picture last fall on my bike ride home from work. Portland is so beautiful. You wish you lived here.

Equal Opportunity Hater

Now that I've griped about my Mac, I will even it out by whining about Microsoft.

My husband got an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player. We probably watched 3 movies on it before it broke. We're both really busy folks, and so we didn't get around to trying to exchange it or get it fixed until about a year after we purchased it. There's only a 90-day warranty on those things, so our only option was to pay MS ~$60 to have it fixed. We looked around thinking that it might be better to just purchase a new HD-DVD player, but the prices were still high enough that repair seemed like a decent option. Mick said that he would appreciate it if I would handle the repair for him as a Christmas present. This sounded OK to me, so I obliged. Now begins the horror.

First, diagnosing the problem was awful. I called support a few times (see below for how fun that is). Each time the person would have me repeat the steps the previous person had had me do and then tell me one more step. "Ma'am are you sure the dvd player is plugged in? [yes] I see. Are you sure that the dvd player is turned on?...." Finally, I got them to agree with me that the problem wasn't "stupid user error" and that it needed repair.

I shipped the dvd player out the week before Christmas, and saw by the tracking number that it had been received 12/24. About mid-January, Mick said, "hey, have you heard anything about the dvd player?" Since I hadn't, I gave them a call. If you have ever called Xbox support you know what a terrible experience this is:
First of all, they have an automated voice recognition menu system that is STUPID. "Hi, I'm Max and there are a few things I can help you with. If you're calling about the Xbox console, say 'console'...." Blah Blah Blah. I wish you could just short cut the menu by entering or saying a reference number, but no, they want your name, the serial number of your xbox, etc. Anyway, after a really long frustrating time, you get through to a person. This person happens to live in India and tells you his name is Dave or Bob or Mike (one time a woman helped me - her name was Anna). Then, they have to ask you your name, how you spell it, your phone number, and address EVERY TIME YOU CALL (apparently getting this information one time is not enough). Then, you tell them your reference number and they look up your past information.
Okay, so the first time I called them, they were unable to give me any information about the dvd player. I didn't worry at this point since it hadn't been very long and told them thanks, I'll call back.

A couple weeks later, I called them and they still couldn't give me any information. I asked them how long the process usually takes. The helper person said 2-3 weeks. I said, well, it's been 5 weeks, what is the hold up? The helper guy said, hold on, let me see if I can find out for you. He put me on hold for about 30 MINUTES. (The 30-minute hold repeats itself several times in this story). When he came back I got to talk to a "supervisor" who told me that I should just wait until I hear from them. I said, okay, I'll call back in a week. He said, "no, don't call back. We'll call you." I said "How long am I supposed to wait? Indefinitely? You have my property and you have my money to fix it. I WILL be calling back to check on the progress."

At this point, I was angry and was looking for a place to vent. I contacted the main MS support via a web form. I wrote about the poor service and how I was on hold for 30 minutes and how much I hate the automated voice recognition menu system. I received a reply from a person who told me to contact Xbox support with any problems concerning my Xbox and gave me the phone number. YES, THIS REALLY HAPPENED.

So, a week later, I got a message on my answering machine saying that my hd-dvd player had been shipped! Oh, Joy!

About 5 days later the dvd player arrived. I was so happy! Unfortunately, my joy was short-lived. When my husband got home, he noticed that the power cord and connection cable were missing (I had mailed them with the dvd player in case they were the problem). So, I called up stupid xbox support again. This time the automated voice recognition system was EVEN MORE FUN. Now, it recognized that I had an open repair (which was nice), but would only tell me it had been shipped and I ended up in an infinite loop in the menu system trying to get a person on the line. Finally, I found out that if I didn't try to use my existing repair ticket and started a new repair that it worked. I got on the phone with a person finally and told him what the problem was. He didn't seem to believe that I had sent the cables. However, I was insistent and finally he said that he was going to write an email describing my problem and he was going to put me on hold for 5 minutes. 30 MINUTES LATER he came back on the line. I asked him what he was doing. He said I was reading over the notes of your ticket. I said, "That doesn't take 30 minutes." and I admit I was really grumpy with him. I didn't curse or say bad things to him, but I wasn't sweet. Anyway, the end result was that he said he had sent the email and that the order was put in for the cords. Whew. I thought I was done.

Then, a week later, I got a message on my answering machine that said that there was no record of me sending in the cords with the dvd player. At first, I thought I must have misunderstood. Obviously, English was not the caller's first language, so I might have misunderstood. I braced myself to call xbox support again. I got comfy on my bed, turned on Judge Judy, got a snack, and dialed. Since I already knew the trick of starting a new repair on the phone menu, I got through to a person pretty quickly. Her name was Anna. I really like Anna. She was the most reasonable person I talked to at Xbox support. I hope she gets promoted soon. Anyway, Anna told me that my record showed that a higher up supervisor had written that the cords were not sent in with my dvd player. I made some sad, anguish-ridden noises and said "I did send them in. I don't have them here. Why in the world would I lie about this? Why would I make it up? Is there anything we can do?" Anna sounded like she believed me and told me my only option was to hold for a supervisor which would take a really long time. She did not have the authority to do anything because a higher up supervisor had marked my record. I told her I would wait. After about 10 minutes, Anna came back on the line and told me that she was still waiting and did I want to continue to hold or would I like a call back (This was a very nice touch by the way. The others just left me hanging...). I opted to hold. About 30 minutes later, Anna came back and there was a supervisor on the line. This supervisor's name was Rain. I liked her too. I think she should be promoted, too. Rain was able to make the order for my power and connection cables and told me they would be shipped out soon.

So, only time will tell. Will I actually ever receive the cables? Will I finally be able to watch "Children of Men" in HD?

Knife the Mac, cont.

Bad things about Mac:
4) My Mac can't keep track of the time. It is always drifting towards slow. It is about 2 minutes slow right now. I tried setting it up to use a time server (time.nist.gov), but that doesn't work. The only thing that seems to work is manually setting the time every now and then.

Knife the Mac

I consider myself to be an equal-oportunity operating system lover. I generally feel that all operating systems, whether they be closed or open source, have their places. I have a PC at home that dual boots Windows XP and Linux. At work, I have a Mac, and log into various forms Linux, AIX, and Solaris machines to do work. Mac OS X is pushing me away.

The past two security updates that I have installed (including the one I installed today) have erased all of my network printers. When this happened the first time, I was flabbergasted. How could they not have tested this? I searched the web and found that other people had also experienced the problem and the solution was to install an older version of CUPS. Coincidentally, at the same time I was dealing with this problem, a co-worker walked up and said "Hey, how do you like your mac?" Let's just say that I didn't have anything good to say at that point. He had obviously drunk the kool-aid and assured me that everything was so easy on a Mac that he could have my printers back in no time. Well he started working on it and about 30 minutes later, I said, why don't we just try reinstalling CUPS? We did that and my printers were back. So, now, it's about a month later and this new security update did the same thing to my printers. There's no excuse for that. If Microsoft did it, everybody would be up in arms over it. I've never had a MS security update mess up my computer like that.

Cool things about Mac:
1) How you can use Expose to set the corners of your screen so that when you move your mouse to them, the windows rearrange in different ways.

Bad things about Mac:
1) Everytime you install a security update or even an update to stupid Quick Time, you have to reboot.
2) I would say the 1-button mouse, but I have a Mac mini, so I use a USB Microsoft keyboard and mouse.
3) No taskbar. If it weren't for Expose, I don't know how you could find all your open programs. I tend to be one of those people that has about 1 million apps open at a time.

Baby Snakes

So, I don't like snakes. I used to not care about snakes either way until one horrible hot summer day. My cat was acting strangely in the basement. I went to investigate. He was playing with something... I went closer to see... and it was a baby snake! There were, in fact, several baby snakes squirming around in my basement. They must have been sunning in our driveway and gotten too hot, so they slipped into the cool garage and then into the basement. There were several more incidences of snakes coming into the basement that summer.

That is when the irrational fear of snakes started. Ever since then, I even freak out if I see a stick on the ground out of the corner of my eye that might be a snake. I am quite disappointed in myself, because I sort of pride myself in not being a girly girl. What makes it worse is that my yard is full of snakes. They're just the little garden kind, but snakes just the same. When I mow the lawn I am forever almost stepping on them or accidentally chopping them to bits with the lawnmower. I actually feel bad when this happens even though we are not friends. They constantly freak me out as I walk up to my house because they are sunning on the sidewalk or creeping around in the bushes.

We've been having an early spring here in Oregon. The bulbs have started to come up already. I saw the first robin redbreasts about a week ago. I even saw that the slugs have woken up and started to eat my garden. Two days ago I saw a little snake. Of course, I jumped in the air and make an embarrassing girly noise. Then, I thought, it sure is cold and early in the year for that little snake to be awake, but I figured he knew what he was doing, using his instincts and all. Then, last night when I came home I saw him on my sidewalk too cold to move. First, I yelped, but then began to worry. Even though he was icky I didn't want him to die. I wondered what to do. Mick's idea was to put him in a box and bring him in the house. I immediately dismissed this as beyond reasonable. I talked to my son mentaljr to see if he had any ideas. He said, why don't you use a lamp to warm him up. Brilliant! I got out a lamp with an incandescent bulb and put it pretty close to him.

He started to wiggle a little. However, an hour later he hadn't really moved. I couldn't leave the lamp out all night and risk a fire (not water-safe, and this is Portland after all), so I left him in the dark. When I got up in the morning he was still there. I assumed he was a gonner. But, when I got home from work, he wasn't there any more!

Will someone please think of the children?

I just don't understand it. I was watching TV and one of those commercials came on for anti-bacterial wipes, Clorox wipes I think. They showed the lovely wife cleaning her kitchen counters with the wipes, going on about how the wipes keep your family safe by killing 99.9% of bacteria. Then, she wipes off her baby's high chair tray with it. I don't get it. Why would putting a substance intended to kill things on something your baby eats off of be safe? Oh, you say, the government wouldn't allow them to put anything harmful in those wipes! Right, and there's no lead in lipstick, and even though scientists knew that trans fats were harmful over 10 years ago it's just now that they're being removed from products.

In spite of the fact that I am a firm believer in the hygiene hypothesis, I do actually own some anti-bacterial wipes. I bought them last winter for my emergency stash when I was freaking out about the flu pandemic. I figure if that happens I won't care about potential unhealthy side-effects; I'll just be trying not to die.

Mental Jr

I have a son who is even more mental than his father. He's quite smart, but sometimes you wouldn't know it right away. Here's an actual conversation we had near Christmas. Keep in mind, he is 17 years old.

MJ = MentalJr
K = Katie
[] = comments

MJ: "So, I don't want to freak you out or anything, but I wanted to tell you that I haven't brushed my teeth since we got back from vacation. I haven't been able to find my toothbrush since we got back. I found it last night."

[They got back from vacation the week before Thanksgiving. He only found his toothbrush because I was making him search his room for his learner's permit (to drive) which he hasn't been able to find since they got back either. I only found out his learner's permit was missing that day....]

K: "What!?! So, every time I told you to go brush your teeth, you were lying to me?"

MJ: [long pause] "Yes."

K: "Why didn't you say: hey, Katie, I can't find my toothbrush. Can I have another one?"

MJ: "I thought you would be mad that I couldn't find my toothbrush."

K: "I wouldn't have been NEARLY as mad as I am now."

MJ: "Oh."

My first post

I am starting this blog for fun. Let's hope I don't post something stupid that gets me fired.