Awkward Work Conversation

Colleen to Dwayne: "I was talking to Michael in the chemsitry lab and he did the hardness test on those balls from the ballnut from 2 weeks ago. They were hardness 54-58. Were they in spec?"

Dwayne, smiling and blushing, speaking slowly to Colleen: "Ummmm. No. The balls were soft..."

Colleen: "Yes, I know this is an awkward conversation. So the balls were soft. Now what?"

Dwayne: "Well I guess I go back to the supplier and talk to them about their balls..."

Just another day as a steering gear engineer...

Late Fee Waived

I pay bills twice a month and two weeks ago, there was a breakdown in my bill paying system. I was excited about visiting my niece and nephew and was paying bills right before I left. I thought I paid all of the bills that were due. I even recorded in my Excel spreadsheet/checkbook that I had paid all of my bills. Late last week, I realized I forgot to pay one of my cridt cards and they immediately charged me a late fee. I hate that I screwed up. But I immediately paid off the entire account balance and vowed to call them this week to ask for a refund. I prepared myself to go to battle today so I called BP Chase and politely asked them to waive my late fee since I have always paid my bill on time. They promptly (and without further whining from me), refunded my account. SCORE! BP Chase has forgiven me, I have forgiven me, and now I just need to not make that mistake again.

Thoughts on Michael Vick

DISCLAIMER: I was not the originator of these thoughts. I just agree with them and think they deserve to be noted.

The dog fighting investigation all started when a drug-sniffing dog found pot in Vick’s cousin’s car. That sent the authorities to Vick’s property, looking for drugs and instead, they found evidence of a dog-fighting operation. Do dogs look out for each other?

Lucky for Vick that the Atlanta Falcoln’s owner didn’t hang and drown him after he had a bad showing, Mr. Lifetime 75.7 Rating, Mr. Lifetime 53.8 Completion Percentage...

I'm not one of those crazy PETA people, but what was the purpose of hanging and drowning a dog? Why the mistreatment?

The Treadmill Was My Bitch

Monday night is usually softball night for me but since it had rained all day for 2 days in a row, my game was cancelled. My lifting buddy (who plays soccer on Monday nights, which also got cancelled) and I made plans to meet at the gym. My workouts for the summer have consisted of softball games every weekend, waking up at 6am 3 times a week to run 2.2 miles (or something like that), and doing pushups. My weight loss has stalled but I’ve been feeling really great. I don’t feel lazy, I’m only tired when I don’t get enough sleep, and I just generally feel like I’m in a constant state of readiness to kick ass.

Last night, I decided to run a timed mile on the treadmill. I looked back and saw that my previous lifetime best on June 1 was 8:26, setting the treadmill to 7.0 mph until the 7:30 mark and then upping the speed to 8.0mph. Last night, I started at 7.1 and was going to follow a similar procedure, if possible. As soon as I started running, I was thinking, “damn, this feels really good. I don’t even feel like I’m trying hard.” I resisted the temptation to speed up. (I’ve fallen into that trap before and then been disappointed when I got too winded too early.) I got the ¾ mile mark and still felt really good so I sped up to 7.3 and then 7.5 and then 8.0 and then 8.4 and then ran the last 40 seconds at 9.0. I smashed my personal best and finished at 8:12. I was absolutely delighted. I had no idea I would close in on an 8 minutes mile so quickly. Losing 10 lb and continuing to run 3 times a week should get me there before new years. Hell yeah!

Successful Cell Phone Surgery

I bought a new cell phone a couple months ago and I’ve been generally dissatisfied with it. My Nokia 3595 was on it’s last leg and I figured it was time to upgrade. The obvious choice would be to sign up for a new plan and get a new phone but I have a really fabulous plan that is so wonderful and cheap that ATT/Cingular won’t renew it and no other carrier will match it. (For $80, I have 3 lines, unlimited ATT calling, unlimited nights and weekends that start at 7pm, and 900 anytime minutes.) I’ve repeatedly asked ATT if they can renew this plan and they always tell me no and give me unappealing options.

So my way of “sticking it to the man” was to buy a phone off ebay. I researched for about a month, reading phone and seller reviews and ended up getting a Motorola V300 camera phone, with all accessories for just under $50. The phone had issues from the beginning.

The hands-free ear piece has never worked quite right – people can’t hear me when I talk on it. The most annoying thing is that sometimes, pressing the buttons towards the top of the number pad would reset my phone. So if I was talking to someone and tried to put them on speaker, they would get hung up on. If was a dialing a number and pressed the call button, the screen would flash like it was having a seizure and then boot me back to the main page, without ever making the call. But it would only happen sporadically.

After much googling, calls to T-mobile, Att, and Motorola, trips to phone stores, I was fed up. I wanted to perform surgery on the phone but needed a special tool – like a baby Torx wrench which I bought at Lowes. It took me days and further googling to figure out how to completely disassemble the phone. I found it to be completely unintuitive, which I guess Motorola does on purpose so that people aren’t constantly taking apart their phones. It made me long for my Nokia.

I took it apart repeatedly, checking for bad wiring or shorts or something. Truthfully, I didn’t know what I was looking for.

I had been composing a nasty letter to Motorola in my head. I was going to lambaste them for allowing such a piece of crap to be allowed on to the market.

Then, one day, it finally hit me. All I needed to do was torque the screws down tighter and that would stabilize the number pad and then my phone would no longer have seizures! I performed the operation and now have NO PROBLEMS WITH MY PHONE!!!

Finally, my expertise in screws (from work) was useful.

Just when I was feeling really great and really smart (two successful experiences with threaded parts – shower head and cell phone), I realized that I forgot to pay one of my credit card bills and was 4 days late. Stay tuned for my battle with the Chase BP Visa people about getting a $39 late fee waived…

I <3 Google

I celebrated the 4th of July by painting my bathroom. I truly enjoy painting when I’m in the mood for it (which doesn’t take much) and when I have the time to dedicate to it. There’s something therapeutic about giving a room a new beginning. I also take a lot of pride in my work – I like to do a good job. I usually throw some music on and go to town.

I didn’t have enough time to finish on the 4th so I put off completion until the following Saturday. So for 4 days, I showered in the other bathroom.

About a year ago, I got fed up with the $7 showerhead in my bath and indulged in a wonderfully luxurious, full-body shower head that and I quickly realized how inadequate my showerhead in the guest bathroom is. It paled in comparison to the showerhead in my bathroom. The high end shower head is one of the best things I've spent money on.

I was shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond for a friend’s wedding gift and ended up buying a second luxurious shower head, this one for my guest bath. I tore open the packaging and eagerly attempted to install it. I remember the last installation being very simple – screw the old head off, screw the new head on. I worked for about 20 minutes to try to screw the old head off (it was metal threads mating with plastic threads) and actually worked up a sweat. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I couldn’t get the old shower head off, especially since I had already destroyed the packaging that the new shower head came in.

So I did what I always do when I have a question and don’t know the answer. I googled “loosen overtightened shower head.” After searching through about 20 webpages, I read a tip that said to soak the old shower head in vinegar. So I put some vinegar in a grocery bag and then twist-tied it up to my shower head. It looked pretty silly but soaked for almost 24 hours and when I went at it again with my wrenches the next day, to my shock, the head came loose! I can not believe that the vinegar worked! I love that I learned from another adventure in home improvement.

American Idol

This morning, I heard that the American Idol summer tour is sponsored by Pop Tarts. I smiled to myself - doesn't AI produce pop tarts?