June 30, 2005

Sorry, can't help you...

Ok...so we all have direct lines where I work. Once in a while I'll get random phone calls, though I have no idea why... Just now I got this one...

Ring Ring.

Me: Hello. (Noticing that caller ID says private, which always makes me wary)
Guy: Hello.
Me: Yes?
Guy: I'm looking for Joe Schmo. Can you help me?
Me: No, I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name.
Guy: (gives disgusted breath) oooooooookkkkk (like, what does he WANT me to do?)
Me: Bye.
Guy: Bye.

June 29, 2005

Kidnapping At Gunpoint...

Ok...Monday night we were headed home from King's Dominion. We were looking for the 7100 North exit off 95, near Springfield. For some reason, the exit for 7100 South was clearly marked, but the one that SHOULD have been 7100 North had tape over the sign? But the exit was right where it should be? Apparently, you cannot just get on 7100 North, you must take at least 2 or 3 other streets to get there (no idea why)...so we were lost wandering around..when we drove by what looked like a car accident between a large green Mercedes and an old white Buick.

Right after we drove by, hubby exclaimed..."he's kicking that woman!" and said he saw him shove the lady into his car and they drove off. As they SPED by us, we got the plate then swung a UTurn to go back to the Mercedes and make sure all was ok...we thought we'd witnessed a hit and run, and the man was shoving is passenger back into his car so they could run.

What we found out was the driver of the green Mercedes was a 16 year old girl. The man in the white Buick was an ex-boyfriend that had been stalking her lately (her friend in the Mercedes told us all of this). He hit them until they pulled over, went and kicked in her window (which hubby mistook for him kicking her) and then dragged her into his car at gunpoint and drove off.

Since we had the plate number, we waited for the police (remember after a long day at King's Dominion and a long car ride. This all started at 8:30). Then, when the police figured out what happened, we had to wait for the detectives to show up, which they didn't do until about 11:45...which if you read the article below, is 15 MINUTES AFTER THEY CAUGHT HIM. That's not annoying at all.

But we are thrilled to find out that poor girl is ok.

News Story

June 28, 2005

Really not going to believe me now...

Ok...tile guy comes today @ noon.

He stops up the drain and fills the shower floor. Leaks like crazy into my kitchen, so he then re-caulks the shower floor. He tells me to retest after the caulk has had 24 hours to setup. No problem - I forget about my shower problems for a bit.

Ding dong.

It's the plumber. He says someone JUST called him raising a HUGE stink and that he'd better get his butt over to my house? I tell him he can do what he wants but don't get the caulk wet. He tests the drain and verifies that it's NOT the plumbing leaking. Ok and he leaves.

Ding dong.

It's the builder. He says the tile guy just called him and said it was the plumbing?? So these guys fill the shower (the caulk had actually dried) and it STILL leaked like crazy.

So here's what they think...under a custom shower is a plastic barrier/bladder thing that is supposed to catch water from leaking. Apparently ours is defective and leaking into the house....

So we have 2 problems...leaking tile and leaking bladder. So they have to rip out the shower and redo the bladder, then the tile.

YIKES!

Tomorrow I'll tell you about witnessing a kidnapping last night. Seriously.

June 26, 2005

Not going to believe me...

So I left Friday to run to the craft store to get supplies for son's 4th of July shirt (that HE is making!)...I left @ 12. I returned @ 1. Stepped in a HUGE puddle in the kitchen?

WTF? Not near the sink? I was wondering how son managed to spray water that far w/out me noticing when I put my hand on the counter...in water??? WTF?

Then I noticed...water dripping from the kitchen light fixtures. Nice.

The builder sent the plumber. After re-creating the leaking and cutting TWO holes in my ceiling, he is of the opinion that the grout in the shower is letting water thru?? Of course, that's at 3 p.m. Friday. I call the builder to have them schedule a tile guy, he says there's no way it's tile, he's sending another plumber.

Half an hour later, I get a call from the original plumber (That the builder called) re-explaining the issue to me..Hello!? I didn't misunderstand you, the BUILDER is the one that said your logic was bullshit. I don't care who comes, I just want it (and the TWO HOLES in my ceiling fixed).

Of course, by then, all the builders people are gone and I have to wait until Monday to have someone to yell at.

June 22, 2005

Um, you could call me...

So yesterday son was scheduled for a 1:45 p.m. dentist appointment. I left work, picked him up and drove there.

Oddly, ALL the spaces at the dentist were open??

I go inside...door unlocked, but no one around? This is odd.

Finally, someone comes out, she tells me they are on vacation.

???? I had an appointment

She flips open the book and says, yes, we tried to call you, but no one answered.

BULLSHIT. We do not own a phone that doesn't have voicemail. I'm assuming they'd have called last week (since they've been on vacation all of this week). I never got a voice mail or missed call on my cell phone. I just re-checked my cell voice mail, nope nothing.

At home, we never had them show up on caller id or leave a message.

So, can you guess how my conversation with the office manager is going to go Monday? AND you don't just call once and give up if you get no answer...you try again brainiac. OR you have the office tool that was there today try again. Damn, do all these people not have brains? Unfortunately, I actually love our dentist and cleaning-teeth lady, but apparently the office people are total morons.

Thanks for wasting my time off work. I wouldn't have rather spent that with my son, playing or anything.

Normal you say?

Ok...last night while making dinner (ok, while watching hubby make dinner), I get a super-lightning quick stabbing pain below my uterus.

????

Don't remember those from being pregnant w/my son....oh nevermind.

Then again.

And again.

And again.

And so on. As hubby is considering hauling me off to the DRs right then and there, I call the DR first.

Apparently, quick stabbing pains in the 13th and 14th week (yesterday I was 13Weeks0Days or 13w0d) is NORMAL. Ooooooooooooookkkkkkkkkkk. If you say so. Doesn't feel normal to me to have someone jabbing a steak-knife in and out of my uterus, but ok.

It's funny, when you're pregnant, almost everything is normal. Here's my personal list of things I've called the DR about (with either this pregancy or w/my son)....

  • stabbing pains = NORMAL - as long as less than 1 minute in duration and no blood
  • light-headed and out of breath = NORMAL
  • Chest pain = NORMAL --> it's either heartburn (just got that recently) or ribcage separating to make room for baby
  • non-pain-ful contractions = NORMAL --> these are braxton-hicks contractions, not REAL ones, and no cause for alarm unless you have more than XYZ in an hour (I don't remember now what number XYZ stands for)
  • back pain = NORAML (of course)

    Well, at least today, no stabs yet!
  • June 21, 2005

    Yeah, I'm the dumb one.

    Ok. A couple of days ago my cell phone died. While this is upsetting in and of itself, because it is only a year and a half old, it was very expensive (as any device that is both a cell and a pda is).

    So. I look up the hours for the sprint store near my house. 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Excellent. I motor over there and arrive at 8:02 p.m. Closed. Apparently, the store hours are different than on the website. Nice.

    Yesterday at work, I notice the Sprint Website says there's one right near my work. And only like 3 minutes away. Perfect. Drive there following directions. I end up at a Verizon store? This isn't right is it? Call the store, the directions they gave me on the site WERE WRONG. Had to double back and go the other way.

    So...I get to the store...Sign up on the waiting list (! Who knew they had these at the phone store??) And wait. Luckily, only like 5 minutes.

    I explain to the guy I don't want to spend $500, but would like something with
  • camera
  • address book
  • calendar

    So he takes me to the Treo 650. Which is like $600. Um, no.

    Got anything else?

    So he shows me a decent phone. I ask how one gets the addresses from, say Outlook, onto the phone. He says it comes w/a USB cable. I say, um, ok, but HOW does it do that? What is their syncing software (like Palm OS uses HotSync)? He says there is NO software. You just hook it up and it knows. I am not a moron. I know there is more to it than that. We argue this point for a while.

    So I start playing w/the phone. Goto Contacts. Do "add contact". See that you can store name/email/phone numbers of people. Ask where you put the addresses. He doesn't know. The answer, is NO WHERE. Hmmm. So this is what magically syncs w/outlook? Don't think so pal.

    So I left.

    It really upsets me when sales people (always men so far in my experience) think I don't know anything because I'm female. Please. As my husband says I should've knocked him down a peg or two then spoken to the manager. But I can't think of anyway to do that and not sound like I'm pouting. So I just told hubby today to go get me a phone.

    The same damn thing happened when I graduated college and went to get my first new car, a Camaro Z28. I went, ready to pay cash for my car and couldn't get the sales men to deal w/me. They thought I would think paying STICKER for a demo car with 5,000 miles was reasonable. I had to send my Dad to go buy it (from somewhere else) for me.

    Any suggestions?
  • June 20, 2005

    Shockingly still grumpy...

    and Monday isn't helping. Hubby and son were off to the Baltimore Aquarium and I so much wish I could go. It's not fair that I have to drag myself off to work instead of going w/my FAMILY to do something fun.

    Damn cell phone doesn't work for some strange reason - the pda part turns on, but the phone part won't. The Sprint site said the store hours were until nine, but apparently no one checked w/the actual store, which closes at 8. Idiots.

    Still pregnant and still hungry - that's a good thing though!

    June 16, 2005

    Grrrr....Grumpy has set in....

    Things making me grump...

  • I need some papers from a guy that'll be up here when he gets time. I cannot miss him, so I cannot go out to lunch until he comes by
  • annoying people in the deli when I'm just trying to get a toasted bagel.
  • some people that are just generally annoying, are REALLY getting on my nerves now
  • they've moved people around on our floor and seemed to have only moved total morons to be hanging out near me
  • DAMN people that don't let me OFF the elevator before they try to get on
  • and anything else
  • our network breaking on and off all morning causing me to have to relogin to instant messenger every 3 minutes
  • damn cell phone being flaky again - today, no cell phone calls for me
  • June 14, 2005

    Quiz!

    Your IQ Is 100

    Your Logical Intelligence is Above Average
    Your Verbal Intelligence is Above Average
    Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius
    Your General Knowledge is Below Average




    From Charlie

    June 13, 2005

    Out of the bag...

    Ok - guess what?? I'm pregnant!! (Please take a break to applaud and cheer)...

    I'll be 12 weeks tomorrow and finally told work last week, when I couldn't get my work clothes on anymore.

    We are so excited! My due date is Dec. 27, which is a bit close to my son's bday of Dec. 31, but I'll take what I can get!!!

    I was going to do a post about the sorry-ass person that Mike Tyson has become, but this is SO much more exciting!!!!!

    June 08, 2005

    More fun with warranty people.

    So yesterday my phone rings and it's the builder's warranty service guy, F.

    F: Mrs. Princess, we really need to close out this ticket it was opened in March.
    ME: ok
    F: Can we come now?
    ME: F! I've told you repeatedly when my husband or I can be home, and "20 minutes from now" is not it.
    ME: do you have anything for any Friday coming up?
    F: no, I'm booked for the next three fridays.
    (3 fridays ago I got the same answer. had he put me on the damn calendar then, he'd be fixing that crap this week!)
    ME: can you put me down for the 4th friday, any time.
    F: what?
    ME: can you put me down for the 4th friday, any time.
    F: I don't understand.
    ME: (stabbing self in eye) can you put me down for the 4th friday, any time...If you're full for the next three fridays, can you just put me down for the next available friday?
    F: how about this friday, after 1 p.m.???
    ME: (slaps forehead)

    June 07, 2005

    damn hvac again

    So yesterday hubby calls me to get the number for the HVAC guys (remember dummy #1 and dummy #2?). The heat pump in the attic has a drain tube that apparently they broke and just laid back in there, so the water isn't going out the tube, it's going down into our ceiling. Nice work, assholes.

    So then he calls them. They don't do emergency calls, the best they can do is put us on the list for tomorrow. Once again, nice. It wasn't 95 here or anything.

    So they come this morning and fix the drain pipe. I ask the guy, so if I see water coming out the outdoor drain pipe (that's what the broken pipe was), that's bad, right? He says "yes mam - call us right away if there's water coming thru that pipe.". I try to ask him if, since he knew water was TRYING to come thru the pipe if they looked at what was causing the water to come thru the pipe and he couldn't get it. Do you guys understand what I mean?

    I think we had 2 problems:
    1. whatever was making water go thru the drain pipe
    2. drainpipe was broken, so leaking into ceiling

    He could only see that we had one problem, which was #2 and kept telling me to call him if I see water coming thru the pipe. Finallly I just sent him on his way, thinking that I'll probably have to call them tonight, when I see water coming thru the pipe.

    June 06, 2005

    Another fabulous weekend!!!!

    Let's see...

    Saturday - we had my son's yearly "photo shoot" with our favorite photographer, Doug. He schedules you for an hour, but son was SO GOOD about posing and smiling, we went thru all the film in 20 minutes! I wasn't planning on buying more than 8x10s from this shoot (we bought 2 20x24 portraits last year) but if they come out as good as I think they will, we're doomed! Doomed I tell you!

    Then we went furniture shopping for son's room. I had picked out some really nice Stanly furniture for his room. But when we got to the show room, they had a low-loft bed with a slide and he (and hubby) we smitten. So we bought that set instead (of course, it didn't hurt that the whole set was HALF the cost of the Stanley stuff).

    Then off to price club where we got him the Bounce 'Round double water slide. It's 2 water slides that dump into a kiddie pool. He loves it (so does hubby and neighbors!)...

    Sunday...just played outside...I went for a pedicure w/neighbor L. Then we had a nice dinner at Bob Evan's, so son could have pancakes!

    All in all, quite nice. Today, I'm beat.

    June 03, 2005

    Nothing to add today...

    except me and the neighbor took the kids to Red Lobster where I had an absolutely decadent shrimp alfredo then came home and had TWO spoons of icing (hey, I'd been planning on Coldstone Creamery, but was too lazy to drive there, so I actually SAVED calories, yo).

    Yummmmmm-mmmmmy!

    Oh, and all this rain blows. Having a 3 year old stuck in the house blows more.

    June 02, 2005

    Holy Cow part 2!

    I'm getting on the elevator this morning and I can hear someone running to get on (people in our building are notorious for not holding the damn elevators), so I hold the "door open" button.

    Damn. It's stinky feet woman. Shouldn't have waited - maybe that's why no one holds the elevators, it could be her!

    Today, she had on BOOTS and her feet were just as stinky...how is this possible? How???

    June 01, 2005

    Holy Cow!

    I got on the elevator this morning on the 1st floor. The elevator stopped on the second floor to pick up another woman.

    Oh.My.God.

    As soon as the doors closed I was overwhelmed by this horrible stink of her FEET, in her leather loafers (no socks or hose). DAMN. How can your feet smell that bad?

    AND I feel so sorry for the others that have to work near her. That scent was almost instantaneous, it was so strong. Damn woman.