echodrift

Bizarro World

(Turns out the major problem was actually my fault. It supposedly wasn’t the previous times this same issue seems to have happened. See updated post here.)

Well folks, once again it looks like I can’t access my sites from my home computer. The only reason I’m updating right now is that for some unknown reason, if I use a proxy server I can get to them no problem. This has happened in the past with my host and I have NEVER got an answer. Somehow after days, weeks, whatever, it fixes itself. This is hardly acceptable. I haven’t found any other sites that I’m not able to access except for ones that are also using this particular web host.

Really, I don’t know what’s going on and I’m really frustrated. I am trying to decide if I’m going to find new services or what. I’m sorely tempted to but I don’t want to end up in the same sort of situation. (Read: bad.)

The most frustrating thing? I was working to try to get some things updated. A tiny, small update, but update nonetheless. Then WHAMMO: can’t access the server. It just irks me that nearly every time I want to work on any of my sites they’re down. I’m serious: this is NOT the first time this exact same thing has happened. More like the fourth or fifth. And, like most sites, they claim a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Know what that translates to? Less than 9 hours of downtime in an entire year, if I’ve done my math right. Less than eight hours and forty-five minutes, to be more exact. Of course, they will tell me that right now my sites ARE up and it’s no fault of theirs.

So until I get things figured out this is just going to have to sit. Not like it hasn’t been but what can I say. Life’s been a little rough.

Last week? It was bad

Last week was a nightmare through and through. I’m having a hard time comprehending what all happened but that might be the migraine talking. Migraine? What migraine? That will be at the end. First, everything that happened BEFORE. Note: I’ve been pretty whiny lately and I’m pretty sure a lot of people would call these “first world problems.” It’s also a wall of text and I have no pictures (that’s also in here somewhere). Also? I didn’t really proofread.

Last weekend- actually, August 22, we picked up the remains of my husband’s computer. He had shipped it to a friend back in October of 2009 through a company that uses Big Brown Trucks. The package was damaged and we hadn’t actually seen it for ourselves yet. It was a little shocking. I don’t mean a dented case or a slightly damage USB port. The thing is basically not salvageable. We have been going back and forth for over nine months now to resolve the insurance claim on it but still have heard nothing. I wrote up a long entry with details and pictures but delayed in posting it. I contacted a customer service representative and was given a magic phone number that was supposed to fix things. We’re still waiting. Depending on the outcome of a phone call that husband is going to make tomorrow I might just push the Publish button and name names. Waiting over nine months on a legitimate claim is ridiculous. I’m talking call the BBB AND email The Consumerist ridiculous. I probably should have done something like this sooner but I am too much of a forgiving person.

So that took place on Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday I sat down to work on my pictures from the weekend and also from the beginning of August. My thoughts were to use some of them for a Wordless Wednesday post. Little did I know that more than two thirds of the photos had been corrupted. I’m using a temporary set up for my hard drive because my own computer is definitely out of commission. The hard drive containing my photos, though, is so far fine and I wanted to remain consistent with my storage methods. The hard drive is jury-rigged using a SATA to USB cable. All that I can guess is that somehow when I transferred my images from my camera card straight to that hard drive the files were corrupted. I did find a free program called PhotoRec that allowed me to bring back most of them. The others I think are lost because my genius self said last Friday (the 20th; this is what happens when you don’t update for so long- last, next, etc lose their relevance) “Self, you should format your card because that article you read said that regular formatting made it easier to retrieve accidentally deleted files.” Oops. But in the days between realizing the original copies were toast and being able to resurrect (some of) them I was a total mess.

Also, that whole week, The Place I Don’t Talk About Much was causing crazy amounts of stress. I don’t go into specifics about my job but some things happened that make me question what some people I work with really think of me. I’ll give you a hint: it’s definitely not like an equal. There is so much more I wish I could say but the Internet Police might get me. So in a word: stress.

Thursday night terrible things happened. Things were fine until around 8:00 when what turned out to be one of my worst headaches EVER started. And I do mean a literal headache. Sharp stabby hot poker-like pains behind my right eye. I thought no big, that usually goes away after a half hour or so. NOT THIS TIME. It progressed in to something bad so I took an Excedrin Migraine. I used to swear by the stuff; just a half a dose usually gets rid of whatever I have. It didn’t. So about a half hour later I took the second half of the dose. Instead of anything getting better it settled in to a mixture of a steady/sharp headache that after 2 hours was no better. Thinking that I could sleep it off I went to bed. WRONG. I woke up a few short hours later. I think it was from the headache itself. After sleeping just a little while longer I continued to wake up and eventually emailed in to work to say I couldn’t come it.

All day Friday I waited for it to go away. And waited. Once again I tried sleeping and got the same result: a nice, painful headache that woke me up. Since my go-to medicine had failed and you’re only supposed to take 2 every TWENTY-FOUR HOURS (read: eternity when you have a headache like that), I didn’t take anything else. Come Friday night I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep lying down so I tried to sleep in our papasan. That didn’t work. At 4AM I was literally counting down the hours until the weekend clinic would be open. That wouldn’t be until 10AM so I eventually gave in and slept on the couch.

I dragged the husband out of bed at 9:30 (ON A SATURDAY) and asked him to drive me which he did without fuss. The doctor there told me pretty much what I expected to hear. Need to visit my family doctor… oops, I really don’t have one of those yet. Should probably get a referral to a neurologist to schedule a CT scan “just in case” this is something abnormal. Was not pleased at all to hear that I had been on Accutane this year. (Oh hmm. I never mentioned that here, did I. Maybe another day.) Said I should also visit an ophthalmologist because it’s been way past time I do that anyway. My last pair of contacts? They’ve already gone past the time I should still be wearing them but I don’t know that I can get an appointment before SEPTEMBER 28th.

In the end I walked out with a prescription for Fioricet, which the pharmacy took over an hour to fill. Thought that was a bit crazy. Anyway, got the medication, took it, and waited. Nothing much happened. Four hours later took another. Still nothing. Yet another 4 hours later I took another and decided it was time to sleep. AND I GOT TO SLEEP. I can’t tell you what really getting to sleep for several hours straight and not waking up with a raging headache was like. Some of you might know but it felt AWESOME. I continued to feel good for most of Sunday. I did end up taking more medicine once but that was it. Decided I could go to work on Monday (meaning this morning) so I did. Most of the day I felt pretty fuzzy headed and was told at least once that I didn’t look so good. –Doesn’t that always make a person feel GREAT? For other people to go “You look terrible” or “Your eyes make you look exhausted”? I always just have to kind of smile and nod and try to go on.– I ended up leaving a bit early because I felt extremely tired and thought a nap would help. I also have a meeting in the morning that I need to go to and I didn’t want to make myself sick by staying.

So I came home and tried to rest. And woke up with my head hurting again. It’s like I can’t shake this at all. From all of my 4AM Googling and research I keep wondering what if something is truly wrong. What if there is no cure? What if I’m stuck with chronic headaches for life? WHAT IF I NEVER GET TO SLEEP AGAIN?? I know it’s crazy but I’ve talked about my irrational fears that I continue to have even when I know they’re irrational. I’ll find some way to deal. I’ve made one of the appointments I need: ophthalmologist (I have said that so much in the past few days that I don’t need spell checker for it anymore). I didn’t get an appointment until September 28 (as mentioned) so we’ll see.

I have started keeping a headache journal to see if there is anything I can identify that triggers these things. There hasn’t been a single thing that I can remember but I don’t think my memory is sharp enough to keep up with every headache I’ve had.

Oh, and Sunday? (I had written “Monday” but realized that today is Monday, so yesterday was Sunday. GAH.) My host had the motherboard go out on the server I’m on. Had I sat down to write when I intended I would have found out then but I didn’t until later.

I almost forgot this part: on Thursday night I had tried to order my computer. I found what I thought was a decent priced pre-built computer that should suit my needs. It should definitely be faster than what I had. But the company’s website wouldn’t let my order through. Friday the husband tried to order it for me but the free shipping coupon wouldn’t work (my order was totally eligible) AND the site still wouldn’t let my order through. He started a chat support session with the company. I don’t know what all they said but they were like “If it’s eligible the shipping coupon should work. You have to create a profile to order the computer. That computer isn’t eligible for the 25% discount coupon. The site still won’t let your order through? Just give me your credit card number in this chat and I’ll order it for you.” That last bit is where I put my foot down. Putting a card number in a secure cart system is one thing; giving it to an agent in a chat session? Totally out of my comfort zone. They ended up calling us and getting the computer ordered on their side. I still feel like they should have given us something extra for the trouble but OH WELL. My computer should be here September 8 or earlier. I will finally have something to really work on photos with.

So that is all of last week’s tweets in the expanded form. I think. I have a few other projects that I’ve been trying to work on and here I go being cryptic but I may also have some hopefully good news to share. I’M NOT PREGNANT; my family always seems to jump to PREGNANT when they hear things like “good news.” If by some chance I actually am (I SHOULDN’T BE) I would probably pass out and you wouldn’t hear from me a for a while because I don’t think I could handle the shock.

I’ve got to do something about writing these massive walls of text.

Today my blood boiled

Recent events have set me on edge. I usually do not write about certain things because I try to keep certain areas of my life separated. But earlier today some of my rage spilled on to twitter. My short, 140 character thoughts were fairly vague. I had even posted on Facebook, also a bit cryptically. I hardly ever post anything like this on either site due to wanting to keep areas of my life separate. Several hours after this particular incident I don’t think my blood pressure is anywhere back to normal; I am that upset. So I have decided to exercise my First Amendment rights. I say none of this lightly and I have not said anything I would not say to someone’s face.

Let me start with telemarketers. No one really likes them, right? They call and try to sell you things and waste your time. They interrupt your dinner. They’re annoying. But they are still people. People in need of jobs. Human beings who are just trying to make a living. I’m almost certain that most people who find themselves in that position would probably prefer a different job if they could find one. Some may like it but I don’t think the job itself has a ton of appeal. I could be completely mistaken as I have never had to work as one. How can we demean people who are just trying to survive?

Next, consider that the United States has outsourced many jobs. Labor is cheaper in other parts of the world. It’s a fact. This is a capitalist country and full of greedy (and non-greedy) people. Guess what? People in other parts of the world are ALSO human beings. They may not look like you, they may not have grown up speaking the same language as you, they may practice a religion that is different from yours but it doesn’t make any difference. All human beings on this earth were created equally and are equally deserving of respect.

Take those two points and put them together. What do you get? A large portion of telemarketers who were not born in America, did not grow up speaking English, and most certainly don’t sound like you do. True, some of them have English that is a little hard to understand. Or really hard to understand. Some of them have better English than us, if you can imagine that! I will make this point again and again in this post: they are still human.

Now consider how you respond to telemarketers, especially those that are “foreigners.” Do you simply hang up? Do you politely let them know that you are not interested before hanging up? Do you fabricate some ridiculous story and waste their time? Cause that would just be so funny. (What’s the internet symbol for sarcasm?)

Or do you start talking in a fabricated accent that is some twisted version of how you assume someone from their country would sound, openly mocking the individual on the other end of the line?

Unfortunately, that is exactly what I witnessed today. Someone in a professional institution answered the phone and treated another human being in this completely disrespectful way. I was so angry that I began to immediately speak out to my superior about the situation to try to get it stopped. After the call was finished, the person who behaved in this despicable manner was slightly reprimanded. Slightly. The lack of repercussion has only escalated my outrage. I wish that I could apologize to this person because there was absolutely no legitimate reason for the treatment they received for doing their job.

This is not the only event that has contributed to my reasons for writing a post like this. Recently, I have seen many people “liking” statuses and pages on Facebook that go something like this:

WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Press 1 for English. Press 2 to disconnect until you learn to speak English.

Shame on them. They obviously do not know their history if they think that English is the only language that should be spoken in America.

I am having a hard time wondering if I should be amazed that bigotry like this exists or outraged that people think behavior like this is OK. The two are nearly inseparable. I am both speechless and livid. How do we live in a world where people think that it’s all right to mock someone simply because they were born somewhere that isn’t America? Or because their last name looks “foreign.” How dare we treat other humans like this?

Again, I am speechless. The thought that the world is filled with so many racist, bigoted, xenophobic, intolerant, prejudiced, and close minded people is both maddening and profoundly sad at the same time. I have no more words to express my complete and utter disbelief.

It is no wonder that many “foreigners” think that all Americans are assholes. It is a shame that Americans have to try to hide where they are from when they visit abroad. All I can say is shame. Shame on those who act like this. You should remember that most of us didn’t come from America either. At one point your ancestors were immigrants in this country who probably didn’t speak English, either. How dare you disrespect human beings because of the things they were born to? Just because they are “different”? Every human on this earth was created equally. You’d best not forget that.

Civil comments only, please. This is my house and I will not tolerate intolerance. Wow. How’s that for a contradictory statement. I mean it, though.

(Please note the quotations I use along with the word foreigner. I mean no disrespect but have tried to convey how other people view those not from the US. Also please note that I am not bashing patriotism; people need to know that “A-muhr-ica” is not the only country in this world.)

Walmart irritates me

Let me start by saying that I have pretty high respect for retail and fast food workers. During high school and college I worked in both industries, primarily as a cashier. Customers can be irritable and highly irrational at times. There are instances, though, where their anger is justifiable.

Such was the case at Walmart last night. To start with, our area was getting some snow off and on all day yesterday. Snow isn’t all that common here so when we do get any quite a few people freak out and swarm the grocery stores because “It’s a blizzard!!” In my town that would mean Walmart and Save-A-Lot. By the time we got in line there were at least three people ahead of us with overflowing carts.

Oh, that raises a question that has almost nothing to do with this story. What do you call the metal thing with wheels at a store? A cart? A shopping cart? A buggy? See, all my life I called them buggies. Where I came from that’s what they were. No one would ever call it a shopping cart; it was a buggy, plain and simple. Then I came to college. One day I went to Walmart with some friends and I guess I asked if we needed a buggy. They looked at me and said “A what? Do you mean shopping cart??” Ever since then I have been trained to call them carts. It doesn’t help that my husband is from Wisconsin and laughs every time I say buggy. But I digress.

I didn’t look at the time when we first got in line. I later regretted that because I would love to know just how much time we spent in line. For a while the line did move. While we were waiting a lane beside us opened but before we could move over two other people with carts full jumped in line. We decided to stay put because it always seems that when you try to jump in a shorter line something happens and you end up taking more time to finish than if you had stayed in your original line.

Eventually, we got far enough to be able to unload our cart onto the conveyor belt. Then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. The customer in front of us had tried to purchase two Tracfone cards. The cashier had swiped and activated one of the cards but couldn’t remember which. After some time she got a CSM involved. Moments later a second CSM arrived. I think they eventually figured out which of the cards had been activated but I could be wrong. They were trying to determine if the woman had been over or undercharged and why the second card wouldn’t activate. At least, I’m guessing that was going on. They never once spoke to me and my husband to let us know that it might take a while or to let us know we should move to another lane.

Continue reading…

Bombardment

Getting married soon? Thinking about getting married? Never planning to get married? What ever the case may be I’m pretty sure you’ll find this entertaining. If you’re one of the first two: prepare to be bombarded. People tend to ask a lot of questions around wedding time, some genuine, some humorous, and some not so polite. Even people you barely know will come up and ask these questions when they find out you’re getting married or were recently married.

In the short weeks leading up to my own wedding I was bombarded with questions like “Are you nervous? Are you ready?” My fiance was constantly reminded that he had “X days to run!” It got old fast. And I bet you everyone thought that they were the first to ask or tell us that! We were both ready to punch people’s faces in after a while. I did get one comment from only two people. Once our engagement picture ran in the paper two different people told me that they had “found a new picture for their garden.” I was baffled at first but then some one told me they meant to use it as a scarecrow. It was a pretty bad joke (as in corny) but at least it was something different.

Once the wedding was over the questions and comments didn’t stop; far from it, actually. When we returned from our honeymoon every person we met would ask “So how’s married life?” How could we possibly give an answer to that question? We had been married for mere days! Did they expect us to discover that we absolutely couldn’t stand each other? Did they want to know if we were fighting? Or are they asking just to make small talk and it’s just as insincere as a “How are you doing?” kind of question. Of course they all asked it as if they were the first person to say it. It got old. People continued to ask me this for quite some time after the wedding. Sometimes I had the urge to just flat out lie and start making horror stories up. I never did, though.

What was worse, though, were those who asked “How was the honeymoon?” I mean really. What is it that people really want to know when they ask that kind of question? I’ve always thought it was a little more than rude. Are they just asking about the trip or do they want to know more? Even if they aren’t wanting to delve into your personal affairs they’re asking about your honeymoon for cryin’ out loud. Then again I’m a rather private person when it comes things that are that personal. (That reminds me: I have a draft about discretion, especially on the internet, that I’ve been sitting on for a while. One of these days I’ll finish it.)

Thankfully we’ve managed to avoid (for the most part) the next question: So when are you having kids? Not that it hasn’t been asked. I’m sure it was right after some people’s “So how is married life?” It’s just not come up as frequently as the others seemed to have. (For the record, the answer is “Not for a while.”)

Anyone else have a similar experience with people asking the same questions over and over again?