Blah Blah Blah

I recently drove from Albany, NY to the far western suburbs of Chicago (the area between Geneva and Bolingbrook, to be precise).  I discovered a few things about driving I-90 across all those states.

• Western New York is very large and very tedious.
• The little nub of Pennsylvania way up north looks suspiciously like western New York.
• Ohio has the nicest rest areas.
• Indiana has the highest speed limit at 70mph.
• Illinois has built a million new roads since I moved away in 1989.

The drive between Albany and the Chicago area took about 14 hours, with construction and rush hour traffic on I-88 accounting for about 45 minutes of the trip.  When that nonsense happens after one as already been driving for 13+ hours, it gets painful.  I had managed to forget that it’s always construction season in Chicagoland.  The return trip only took 13 hours.

I noticed that Ohio drivers are the most polite and considerate I’ve come across, while drivers in Indiana are even more rude than New York drivers.  At first, I didn’t want to believe it… but after the eighth person cut me off in the first 30 minutes of being in the state, I had to accept the fact that New Yorkers are not the worst drivers.  There was one notable exception… a young man in an F10 pickup truck with whom I played leap frog between Cleveland and Toledo.  Thanks for letting me back into the fast moving lane after that 18-wheeler cut me off.

(Oh, and contrary to what you may have heard, Boston drivers aren’t the worst either.  They’re just the most insane.)

It rained nearly the entire trip on the westward journey.  It snowed much of the way back.  Which brings me to another negative point about Indiana… they forgot they had snow plows and salt trucks.  Not one millimeter of the eastbound highway had been cleared.  Compare this to Ohio, where there was a slighly smaller than one-mile stretch that was kind of messy.

(You see?  Ohio is completely excellent!)

We had a bit of a scare in Pennsylvania on the way back.  Between Erie and the PA-NY border, we drove through a raging blizzard.  I’d like to offer a bit of friendly advice to the individual who spun out in front of me, slid across the adjacent lane of traffic in front of that 18-wheeler and would up sideways in the ditch… do not EVER slam on your brakes on an icy road!  Are you crazy??!?

While the drive was long and, at times, unpleasant, I’d still do it again… because it’s still not as bad as flying.  And I’m sure I will do it again… maybe next fall before there’s much of a chance to encounter snow.

Next time… the adventures I had while in Chicago!

Filed by Kelly at 7:24 am under Rant
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When I was but a wee child, my grandmother taught me to say “please” and “thank you.” And when somebody says “thank you” to you, you say “you’re welcome” back to them.

So when did it because normal to respond to “thank you” with “thank you”? It doesn’t even makes sense! What are you thanking me for? Acknowledging your presence? You need to get some self esteem there, kiddo. Are you thanking me for thanking you? Get off the drugs, dude!

Last year, someone even wrote a letter to the people at NPR about their bad habit. Have they stopped? Are you kidding? If I hear “you’re welcome” once a month, I considerate myself fortunate. “Thank you for being on the show.” “Oh, thank you for having me.”

Stop it! You’re starting to sound like an Abbott and Costello routine.

All right. Rant off. We’ll now return you to your regular programming.

You’re welcome.

Filed by Kelly at 5:29 am under Rant
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Just a quick thought here…

Why do so many people call me on my home phone in the middle of the day and refuse to leave a message?  Do they think I’m going to psychically know who they are and why they called?

Ok, so it’s true that I don’t bother calling most people back anyway, but still…  I had 17 missed calls the other day and one voicemail message.

And do they even listen to my message?  It’s very clever, I tell you!

Hello!  You have reached the home phone number of Kelly and Mike.  We are not answering the phone because it is far away, and we are not going to hurt ourselves or kill ourselves running to answer it before it stops ringing.  Sorry.  We value our limbs.  So leave a message and we will… get the message.  Alright!  Thank you!  Bye-bye!

See?  Clever!  (By the way, in case anyone was wondering, it was my doctor who left the message and he said he valued my limbs, too.  And that the results from last week’s bone density scan were all normal.  Woo hoo.)

Leave a message after the beep.

Filed by Kelly at 5:14 am under Rant
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To the dumbass who turned left in front of me, causing me to nearly hit your frackin’ SUV:

Having previously worked for the New York State Automobile Dealers Association, and having seen the New York State Vehicle & Traffic Law a time or two, I can tell you that article 26, section 1141 of said VTL states:

The driver of a vehicle intending to turn to the left within an intersection or into an alley, private road, or driveway shall yield the right of way to any vehicle approaching from the opposite direction which is within the intersection or so close as to constitute an immediate hazard.

I almost — almost — wish I had hit you so you could have gotten yourself a nice ticket and superior grief from your insurance company. One of these days, I am going to hit you. And then I’m going to have your insurance company buy me a new car. Ha! Fair warning, dumbass!

Filed by Kelly at 5:30 am under Rant
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I use the Akismet spam plugin on all my WordPress blogs. It’s a wonderful thing. I think the thing about Akismet that’s most fun is that it tells me the IP address of the spam originator.

So, get this… on my art blog, Akismet has caught 108 spam comments since I installed the plugin. Of those 108 spam comments, 103 of them originate from customers of the RIPE Network Coordination Centre in Amsterdam (the one in the Netherlands, not the one here in New York).

Isn’t that interesting? I thought it was interesting. It’s so interesting that I declare a pox on the RIPE Network Coordination Centre!

Spam is evil, children. I’m sure if it had existed when I was a young person, my grandmother (bless her heart) would have declared anyone engaging in such behavior was incurring the wrath of God. Who am I to argue with Grandma? Just helping out with the pox here.

Filed by Kelly at 7:51 am under Rant
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Dear Retail Food Service Employee:

I know you get annoyed by customers who are more interested in their phone conversations than allowing you to determine just what it is they want. I get that. If it’s any consolation, I think they’re big fat dodos, too.

But if you would take a few minutes from your horribly important conversation with your coworkers about the movie you saw last night and the latest celebrity scandal and the personal problems of people I don’t even know, you’ll notice that *I* do not have a cell phone attached to my face. You’ll also notice that I am not in the least bit indecisive or conflicted about what I’d like to order… should I ever get the chance to do so. And once you do finally decide to take my order, I’d be ever so grateful if you’d give me your undivided attention rather than continue your conversation with your coworker. Perhaps that way, I wouldn’t have to repeat my simple, single-item order three times. Oh, and maybe you could pay attention while you’re preparing my item so that you prepare it correctly. And while you’re at it, go ahead and take the extra second to wrap it properly. Too bad you were so engrossed in the conversation you were having with your friend who stopped by to visit you at work that you didn’t notice I had to re-wrap my item myself… nor did you appear to notice the three customers waiting for you to finish your fascinating conversation with your long-lost friend.

And so, Retail Food Service Employee, might I suggest you get another job where your mad skill at conversation won’t interfere with a pesky thing like customers? In the meantime, I’ll be visiting the bagel shop near work from now on.

Sincerely,

A Dissatisfied Customer

Filed by Kelly at 6:01 am under Rant
2 Comments

I like having all my stuff in one place, which is why I like Outlook. Up until recently, I really liked Outlook. But Outlook 2007 is the devil. You cannot turn off Junk Mail filtering. Oh, it says you can, but it lies. I set the Junk Mail options to “no automatic filtering” (which you’d think would turn it off) and have absolutely no addresses in the blocked addresses list. I even have a list of addresses in the safe senders list… and guess what? Outlook is declaring them junk mail!

If you go to Microsoft’s website, they’ll cheerfully tell you how to set the junk mail options to “no automatic filtering.” I can’t call them or send them a support request without paying them $49. WTF??? Geez, at least Adobe will talk to me and let me send them notes for free.

I don’t need junk mail filtering in Outlook. I use vqME, which rocks at filtering out spam. Anything that gets sucked into Outlook ought to go into the Inbox. But noooo…

If anyone out there knows how to tame Outlook 2007, I’d love to hear about.

Filed by Kelly at 5:36 am under Rant
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…their customer support, not so much.

I’ll preface my rant by saying

1. I have hearing problems. I can HEAR you just fine, but the translation of the sound waves doesn’t always make any sense once it gets to my brain. I say, “Can you repeat that?” a lot and have learned to compensate by reading lips, after a fashion. So talking on the phone is difficult, and some speech patterns just don’t work for me at all.
2. I love the people of India. They’re fabulous human beings.

So, my desktop computer is crapping out. It’s repairable, but it’s not good for much right now except maybe creating Word documents and a few simple Excel spreadsheets. I got a nice new laptop to use while I figure out what I’m going to do about the desktop. I got all my programs installed, and they’re running nicely.

Until I have to “activate” Photoshop. They want you to enter the serial number and activate online, right? So I enter the number. I’m copying it right off the email I had saved (because I save these things), and I’m entering it very carefully (because it’s just what you have to do). Photoshop tells me I have to enter the CORRECT serial number before I can activate the software. WTF? I check the numbers, and check them again. No, they’re correct.

Fine. I’ll just call the telephone activation people. They don’t make it easy to find the number, but I am nothing if not persistent. I reach a nice young lady in India who has me read the serial number to her, and then she assures me that it’s a valid number. (Oh, good. I was worried. Cuz, you know, I actually PAID for the program, after all.) This is where things broke down, though. I couldn’t understand her, and she couldn’t get my program to activate. Finally, she transferred me to someone else.

Person #2 seemed like a nice enough young man, and he, too, assured me my serial number was valid. (Whew.) He could not get my program activated either. He transferred me to someone in customer service (which is a different department from activation… remember this… it’s important later).

Person #3 also asked for my serial number. Guess what? It was still valid! The language barrier was much greater here, and I wound up being transfered back to the activation people… over my protests.

Ok, so Person #4… yes, they wanted my serial number and yes! It was still valid! (You were worried about that, I can tell.) He could not get the program to activate either, so I asked to speak to his supervisor.

Person #5, the supervisor (maybe), ASKED FOR MY SERIAL NUMBER AGAIN, and by this time I’m so frustrated I want to (a) bang the phone on the desk, (b) strangle everyone at Adobe customer support and (c) cry. Finally, Person #5 realizes that perhaps I have a problem they can’t solve and transfer me to technical support and…

JESSIE! Jessie is in California! Jessie is a geek! Of course, Jessie asks for my serial number, but the thought that my problem might actually get resolved has me nearly weeping with joy, so I rattle it off yet again. Jessie assures me (because I must have seemed concerned) that it was a valid serial number. He checks a few things, we chat a bit and finally he says, “AH! I think I know what the problem is! But you need to talk to the activation gurus down the hall.” I panic, but he assures me these are TECHNICAL people who just specialize in activation issues and they’re right down the hall from him in matching cubicles. He transfers me down there and…

I GET CUT OFF. Perhaps I should just kill myself now. But no. I’m stupid. I call them back.

Person #7 asks for my serial number. All I could chant was “Transfer me to Jessie! Transfer me to Jessie!” I’m sure he thought I was insane. Well, I was! But he keeps asking for my serial number. I finally broke. I screamed and hung up. (My cats stared at me like I was crazy. Yeah… DUH!)

So I go to the Adobe website to enter a ticket, explaining how I can’t get my program activated and that there’s a language barrier (entirely my fault) and let’s please get this resolved in writing. I wait several days. I get a response saying, “Call the activation people.” They closed the ticket. I get pissed. I open another ticket explaining WHY I can’t call activation, and request (for the second time) resolution via email. I wait several more days. I get a response saying, “Call the activation people.” They closed the ticket.

(Did you notice they did the EXACT same thing with the EXACT same response to both tickets? I did.)

But this time (this morning), I’m SOOOOOOO angry I can barely breathe. Still, I DID breathe and wrote them yet another ticket. This one said, in essence, “Thank you for your lack of help. It has been most illuminating. I will be going out and borrowing a copy of Photoshop CS2 from a friend to install illegally on my computer because you can’t seem to allow me to use my legally purchased software. Again, thank you. Have a nice day.”

I’m curious what response I’ll have in another few days. I’m betting on “Call the activation people.”

[Originally posted in the EntreCard Community forum on 14 May 2008. I have not heard from Adobe support regarding my last support ticket.]

Filed by Kelly at 12:46 pm under Rant
2 Comments

I am pro-family. I am pro-marriage.

Now, before you get all giddy thinking I’m off to vote for Hucklebee, let me just say that I’m pro-family, and it’s up to each individual family to define what works for them. If Heather has two mommies, good for her. If she got two daddies, or a mommy and a daddy, or mommy and daddy and step-mom and step-dad… whatever. Is Heather a loved little girl? Yes? Then that’s family.

And marriage! I am married. To a man. I know… shocking. Let me do a little reality check here. If my friends Mike and Ed got married, how would that affect my marriage? Uhm. Nope, no effect. How about if Cheryl and Martha got married? Hmmm. Nope again. I would so love to see them be able to get married! I would love to see them have all the rights and privileges and responsibilities that I have.

Some people say God doesn’t like these things. I’m here to tell ya, I’ve chatted with Her and She’s totally cool with it. So let’s get with the program, eh? Let’s worry about things that are bringing about the downfall of civilization… global warming, war, poverty, famine, disease, rudeness.

Filed by Kelly at 5:13 pm under Rant
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What is it with people who can’t seem to actually use their brains?

It’s snowing here. It’s been snowing here since right around the time I got home from work. It’s that kind of snow that is very messy; little teensy flakes that make the roads miserable. Unfortunately, since FedEx can’t deliver packages to my house when I’m actually here, I had to go to the local FedEx facility. (And as a separate rant, I have to mention that Airborne won’t deliver here when I’m home either, and UPS sometimes will.)

To get from my house in Albany to the local FedEx facility in Menands, I traverse a couple of major city streets, though at this time of day (around 6pm), they’re generally not terribly busy. (That would be Clinton Ave and Broadway, for those of you who care.) Indeed, with the weather as miserable as it was, there were even fewer cars on the roads than usual.

However, there were a few other cars. We were all driving carefully. Props to all of us, I say!

It was the pedestrians who had death wishes.

Yes. Let’s walk across the street on a dark, snowy night… not quite at the crosswalk… against the light… wearing dark, non-reflective clothing. Did I say walk? Oh, I’m sorry. I meant saunter. Or… is there any kind of perambulation that’s slower than a saunter? Yeah, that’s what they were doing.

Saints preserve us (as Chief O’Hara used to say)! (And that’s actually kind of funny, seeing as I now work at Siena College, home of the Saints. But I digress.)

I don’t wish most people ill. (I do sometimes make exceptions for rabidly homophobic persons, though.) I don’t even wish these morons ill. But if they manage to get themselves hurt tonight, it’s not going to be anyone’s fault but their own.

Good grief.

Filed by Kelly at 9:57 pm under Rant
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