Thursday, March 13, 2008

Redecorating

Katie and Max enjoy helping us redecorate. Only problem is that they do it without consulting us first.

Max prefers to use latex paint on plain wall as his artistic medium. Notice the nice straight strokes:



Katie prefers magic marker on anything:



Say what you will, you can't accuse us of stifling our children's creativity.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Thomas is getting in the Christmas spirit early this year

A new song composed by my second-born.

Bow down, bow down
To the power of Santa.
Or be crushed, be crushed
By his jolly boots of doom.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

I feel like I've just been serviced

You'll remember from my previous post on this subject that we were stuck with no phone or internet (through no fault of our own), and I took matters into my own hands and self-serviced.

There have been some developments in the last few days. First, was a very long, detailed voice mail message on my phone at work yesterday. The caller was a PR person in the executive suite at QWEST who went out of her way to explain the Local Number Portability (LNP) process in agonizing detail. She then confirmed service would be restored today, and invited me to call her back if I had any further questions/concerns.

I decided to take her up on her offer, as I still had some questions that her message didn't answer. I didn't really need the overview of how LNP works, as I was familiar with it from my consulting days when I worked at AMS.

Much to my suprise, when I called back, she answered her phone, and was very pleasant and articulate. Our conversation went something like this (I will paraphrase a bit):

Paul - How did this happen and who did it?

Qworst Lady - Your phone number was requested to be ported by First Digital on 1/23.

P - Okay fine, but who are these guys?

Q - Don't know, but you can call them and find out.

Nice.

P - Why wasn't I notified before you switched off my service?

Q - LNP requires that a phone number be immediately ported if a valid port request with all the confirmed account information is given to the carrier. The carrier cannot contact the customer to confirm port requests before doing them, because "waiting to contact customer" could be used an excuse never to port a customer's number -- that is, if carriers were all allowed to contact the customer before switching service, then carriers would have no incentive to really try to contact customers, and would just let the process linger, thereby extending their revenue stream.

P - Hmmm, I *guess* I understand why you didn't call me, but how was my complete contact information provided, if I didn't initiate the request?

Q - I don't know, but you can get hold of First Digital - see if they can explain it.

Great.

P - What's to prevent this from happening again?

Q - Short answer, this could happen again -- but don't be overly alarmed, it was probably just a clerical error.

????

Q - You know, this seems to be happening a lot more often now - it's sort of like long distance slamming in the late 80s/early 90s. This process could probably be improved.

No kidding.

P - So you're saying there's nothing to prevent this from happening again?

Q - Well, you can call customer service and have them block your number from being switched or ported. Then no changes can be made to your account without your authorization.

Seems to me like this should be the normal way to handle these things, not by request.

P - But you don't set this up automatically for all new customers or anything?

Q - No, often our customers don't want to have to call us to make changes to their accounts.

Geez, I wonder why.

P - Can you do that for me now?

Q - Not until your service is established, then you'll have to call customer service to put the block on. You might want to think about doing that.

Yeh.

P - Well, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions, you didn't call me back within 48 hours like your customer service people promised, though.

Q - Oh, I was responding to your complaint filed with the FCC and PUC of Utah. I responded within the time frame required by law.

Ohhhhhhhh. There, my friends, is an important life lesson. If you're unhappy with the service (or lack thereof) provided by a monolithic utility, don't waste your time with the customer service folks, put your tax dollars to work.

Qworst lady DID let me know that they would be crediting my bill for one month's service because of the inconvenience.

Fast-forward to this morning. Qwest called Sherise on her cell phone to confirm they would be coming out today to re-establish service. About an hour later, the phone was turned back on. Hooray.

After she called to report this to me, I decided to call the First Digital people to see what I could learn. Again, paraphrasing my conversation:

F - Thank you for calling First Digital, how can I help you?

P - Your company ported my number away from Qwest without my permission. Could you help me figure out how this happened?

F - Sure. What's your phone number?

P - 801-XXX-XXXX.

F - Okay, our records show that number was ported back to Qwest yesterday.

P - Right. But, how did you guys get my information to request my number initially?

F - I don't know, but somebody probably just typed your number in wrong.

P - But Qwest tells me they will only port if they receive the correct name, address, and phone number. How would you know my name and address?

F - We only have to provide the phone number - Qwest would have completed that information.

Nice. Glad to see the new phone company is as good at blaming the other company as Qwest is. They'll go far.

P - Fine. I need you to confirm you're not going to be billing me for this.

F - Correct - an account was never set up for you because the port did not complete successfully.

P - Are you guys going to request my number back and put me through this again? I need you to confirm that you aren't going to try to take back my number.

F - No, your number is no longer in our system. But I would recommend you call Qwest and have them block your number so it can't be ported or switched. In fact, funny thing, this has happened to me like three times. I kept porting my number away from Qwest and they kept porting it back. I finally had to block my number. It's a really good idea.

Fan-freaking-tastic. So the one thing both companies agree on is that this LNP thing really doesn't work all that well. And it sounds like my options are:

1. Block my number and it won't get stolen, but then I can't port it to Vonage.
2. Hurry up and port it to Vonage, but then Qwest will probably fork the whole thing up and just take my number back anyway.

Tomorrow I'll call Vonage and see if they allow customers to block their numbers.

There has been one nice side benefit to having my phone number disconnected - the phone didn't ring, and I didn't have to talk to anybody from Church. I'll miss that.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

The Food Fighters

When I came home from work last night, I was very surprised to see something that probably wouldn't even pass for a garage band in my Family Room. Sherise picked up Rock Band as a Valentines's Day present for the family. The original idea was to wait until Feb 14 to open it, but the resolve quickly passed, and what you see below is the result.



The family that plays together stays together.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Spirit of [dis]Service

I write today about Qwest, also known as Qworst or Qweerest.

You see, our phone and internet service with QWEST was shut off the night of 2/4. When we called the next morning, QWEST confirmed that our bill was current, but our number was being ported to another carrier, and that was the reason for being disconnected.

Problem is, we never requested having our service ported. So we asked QWEST who initiated the request, and to which carrier. We were told they had that information but were not allowed to share it (nice). We asked about having our service restored, we were told the port had to complete, and then service would be restored 5-6 business days after that.

I asked to escalate the matter, as this is completely unacceptable, and was told someone would call me back within 48 hours. It's been three days, and yup, you guessed it, never hapened.

So there we were, with no phone and no internet through absolutely no fault of our own, and the phone company didn't seem particularly motivated to do anything about it. I should add that I have to work from home a fair amount during evenings and weekends, and this would likely force me to drive into work at odd hours when something comes up. I couldn't sit still knowing I pay these people nearly $1000/year for phone and internet access, to receive such poor service.

So I took action.

I filed a complaint with the FCC and PUC of Utah.

Then I called the people at Comcast cable. I asked about their Internet service. It's over twice as fast as my old DSL line and costs $5/month more. They said they could be out the next day to install it. Done.

Then I stopped by CompUsa and picked up a Vonage VOIP adapter. Activation took 5 minutes. Once the internet was up running again, it took 5 minutes to connect to my router, and I was making phone calls. A Vonage line is $10 - $15/month cheaper than a Qwest line, depending on the features.

So, I solved my internet problem and my phone problem over a week faster than the supposed experts BY MYSELF. And my internet service is twice as fast as before, and I'm now saving somewhere between $5 and $10/month.

Ironically, the president of the Utah division sent us a letter in the mail, letting us know we were one of their best customers, and don't hesitate to let the company know if there's anything they can do for us.

I'm going to take his letter, staple my first month's bills to it, and mail it back to him, thanking him for setting me free. Maybe the company *IS* service-oriented, and I just failed to see it.

Friday, January 25, 2008

I left my [wife for] San Francisco

Well not permanently or anything.

You see, I was invited to speak at a sales conference hosted by the fine folks at GoldenGate Software. This had been pre-arranged some time ago, and I thought it would be a non-event. What I didn't know was that I was the keynote speaker at this conference. I guess they didn't want to burden me with that pressure.

Anyway, they say getting there is half the fun. I wholeheartedly disagree, but staying there was ALL the fun. I will explain.

Monday past, we received the largest snow storm in quite some time here in the SLC. The official measurement was 16 inches at my house. 14 of them had fallen on the ground by the time I needed to leave for the airport. I taught Sherise how to use the snowblower and then let her make a hole while I showered and finished getting ready to leave. The fine folks at Delta reassured me that despite the large snowfall in such a short time, that my flight was still on time.

So I had Sherise drive me to the airport. My rationale being that the time saved not having to figure out parking on a very messy snowy day would give me the precious extra time I would need to offset the longer drive time due to weather. This proved to be academic. While having her drive me certainly saved time and frustration, the fine folks at Delta announced 10 minutes before boarding that our plane had not yet left San Francisco. And oh, by the way, it's approximately a 2-hour flight. In other words, they knew 2 hours before scheduled boarding that the plane was going to be late but didn't bother to let anyone know. Did you know that DELTA is an acronym for Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport?

There was one other problem with having Sherise drive me - she couldn't get back home. The 14 inches on the ground when we left were 16 by the time she got back home. Only problem was the snow was still on the road leading up to our house. And the snowplow hadn't been by yet. And it's uphill to our house. You can see where this is going, Sherise got stuck trying to turn into our street. With the help of a neighbor, she dug herself out and was able to get back onto the main road.

He suggested that she go around the block once, and then take a big run at it. She tried that. And got about 20 feet further up the street than she did last time. She called me and asked me what to do - I suggested that she back out, turn off the traction control, and take an even bigger run at it. She did that too. And got about 20 feet further still.

Sherise managed to get the car over to the side of the road where she parked it and hoofed it back to the house. Another neighbor watched the whole thing (from the comfort of their home) and offered to help get the car back to the house. The solution? He'd fire up his snowblower, Sherise would fire up ours, and they'd dig - he from the car, she from our driveway and they'd meet somewhere in the middle. And that's just what they did.

I want a refund on my property taxes.

Anyway, after 3 hours of delay, I finally got on the plane and left the SLC for San Francisco. Upon landing, I found a nice guy holding a sign with my name on it, and a lovely Town Car to take me to the St. Regis Hotel downtown.

The cool part was the hotel itself. I've stayed in a lot of hotels through all my years as a traveling consultant. Some were very nice, some were holes. They all suck compared to this place. These guys thought of everything when they designed the rooms. The lights turn on automatically when you open the door to your room. The alarm clock controls every light, the window shades, the climate system, the TV, and the media center. It even knows your name:



They also solved one of the age-old problems present in every hotel room I've ever seen in a very clever way. Finally, you can have the big bathtub right next to the bed (where it belongs) but also provide privacy as needed:



Brilliant.

The view out the window was also quite nice:



The sweet little girls in GoldenGate's marketing organization who coordinated the whole thing also left a HUGE gift basket full of every kind of chocolate Ghirardelli makes:

Big ass basket

As for the rest of the trip, it was much like attending any of the other conferences I've gone to. The feedback on my presentation was good. The food/socializing/etc at the conference was good. I got to explore the city for a couple hours the next morning. The trip home was boring. You can hardly see my house from the street because of the huge snowdrift in front of it.

And I really like downtown San Francisco.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Happy New Year!

The holidays are always fun.

This past week has featured at least 3 forays outside with the snowblower and high temperatures below freezing. Winter is finally upon us. We need the snow so that people from out of state can come and ski on our mountains, and so we can meet our legal obligations to ship our water to Nevada and California (who don't appreciate it, but are happy to waste it).

Cleaning the dreaded basement finally percolated up to the top of the to-do list this past week (remind me NOT to take vacation days unless I'm going somewhere), and the junk has been a-flyin. Highlights of the treasures found so far:
- My 1992 COBOL text book from college
- Hate mail from the parents of the girl who was not accepted into Madrigals when Sherise was teaching high school choir
- Multiple Franklin Planners and binders of "archived" pages
- A trash can full of ... trash
- A dead plant
- Marketing swag for large companies that no longer exist, such as MediaOne Cable, AT&T Broadband, and American Management Systems

We really shoulda cleaned out the basement before letting the big burly movers come and pack it all up.

However, there were some high points. Sherise's brother and his family came to visit, and his kids and our kids couldn't have been any happier if they were pigs in $@!+. We were pleasantly surprised to see that they have been training their (almost) three-year-old to be a cage fighter:



Video footage comes courtesy of Calvin.