Really annoyed with Earthlink right now

Not the best customer service and now are charging me NOT to see banner ads?

I've been with Earthlink (first Mindspring) since 1995 or 1996. I know it was before the Atlanta Olympics. When we moved into the current house I upgraded to DSL for $50/month.

Last month I contacted them to see if I could get the faster DSL that AT&T was pestering me about (I know Earthlink leases the DSL line from Bellsouth/AT&T). They upgraded me and even told me it was a lower price.

After several hours of troubleshooting my DSL and internal network after the 'no interruption update', I finally got things working.

Then they billed me the old price. I got on a chat with a guy in India, who resolved the charge 'next month'. Well, next month is here and the price is still wrong.

Then I find out that for $1 a month they will turn off the banner ads in the webmail client. How nice of them. Show me crap not related to what I am interested in, slow down the UI because the ad servers are slow, then charge me to make it go away? And I pay them $50/month.

I had been hesitant to get rid of them because I've had the email addresses for so long, but I just found out they have a $5/month email only account. So I'm looking at getting a cable modem now and pay the $5 for access to my accounts.

In the clock ...

That is where we found Christopher's toothpaste. It disappeared a week or so ago and we've looked everywhere for it (or so we thought.)

Today Meghan, Courtney and a friend were working on a puzzle on the dining room table, he climbed up on one of the chairs, opened the clock and took it out. It was like he knew it was there.

I wish he could talk more, I'm sure there is a good reason for putting it there.

Yes, boys are different ;-)

Hannah Montana 3-d Glasses don't work?

I have a very pissed off tweener right now.

Seems the glasses from the theatre don't work on the TV. Both the LCD and the old tube aren't showing correctly.

wonderful.

I am recording it on the DVR so we'll see what we can find for new glasses.

Update: Walmart didn't have any more, but I got points for dropping everything and taking her to see if they had any.

Time for some football!

The Superbowl Champion Giants opened camp today, starting their repeat planning ;-)

You have to love linemen. From The Blue Screen Blog:

The first pass of the first team drills was a perfect, 40-yard spiral from Eli Manning to Amani Toomer, who made an over-the-should catch in double coverage along the sidelines. Toomer actually had several great catches, picking right up where he left off after a brilliant minicamp in June. For what it’s worth, center Shaun O’Hara said we shouldn’t get excited about the first pass of the season, but he did note that there was “obviously great blocking” on the play.

(Yes, I played offensive line in High School.)

Interesting way to teach about science

On my way to work on Monday I was listening to the Bert Show on Q100 in Atlanta when they started talking about a teacher who had been bugging the producer to let him on the air. The reason he wanted on was to talk about how he changes the words on popular songs to include science topics that he was teaching that week. They DJs joked that writing each of them every week wasn't the way to get on the radio, but they let him on any way.

To my surprise, it was Mr. Limpert from McClure Middle School. Meghan is a rising 8th grader at McClure. Mr. Limpert teaches 6th grade but Meghan didn't have him when she was in 6th.

While I didn't get to here one of his 'lectures', he did describe how it works: every Friday he does an acapella version of a popular song, but changes the words. He said he teaches the kids the chorus, and makes them sing back to him. Sounds like a lot of fun and something most tweeners would find funny and unique.

I think it is great that he's doing this. While I've been impressed with most of Meghan's teachers so far, this guy is going well beyond presenting the materials. Reminds me of a couple of different teachers I had in school. One, who taught Anatomy, went out of his way to inject some humor, social responsibility and 60's Rock into the Catholic education we received. He's the reason I started listening to 60's groups like The Moody Blues and Jeroth Tull. He was also the first teacher who talked about cars with me. (He had a 65 mustang before he sold it to have kids. I had the 80 Capri). For example, extra credit questions were to define what group sung specific lyrics.

I'm surprised I hadn't heard of Mr. Limpert before, since we have friends with kids in all grades over there. Next time I'm in there for a career day I'll see if I can find him.

Paula's 40th Birthday bash

(From left: Deb, Dolly, Paula, Maile and Cathy)

Yesterday our friend Paula turned 40. Saturday night her husband Karl and 8 of us took her out for dinner, dancing and Michael Jackson.

The night started at Dante's Down the Hatch for dinner. If you haven't been there, it is a Fondue restaurant with a really nice wine list. A few bottles of wine and a lot of laughs later Karl brought out an incredible chocolate cake. It was covered with strawberries. Of course, the ladies all wanted to know what the strawberries were covered in (they had a gelatin coating to make them shiny). The service was great, the waitress and the wine steward all indulged our silliness.

Some strange conversations about Diego; some horse that bothered Maile on her vacation and Karl's mistaken identity.

Next we went into the bar district in Buckhead. Personally, I hadn't been in the bar district with my wife since before Meghan was born so this was quite the unusual. I was also 23 or 24 last time, not 39.

First stop was East Andrews for a few drinks. Then we went upstairs to Andrews Upstairs for a concert by a Michael Jackson cover band. The place was packed and the crowd was singing along. I doubt there were 10 (other) people in the place older than 40 ;-) They carded everyone going in, but Dolly didn't have her license so she was giving the kid a hard time about how she was not going to walk back to the car in those heels to get her license!

The band was actually pretty good and the ladies all had fun dancing.

After the concert we went back to East Andrews for a few more drinks then we were going to head home. Then the DJ started playing 80's dance music like Bon Jovi 'living on our hair', Neil Diamond 'Sweet Caroline' and a number of other songs we danced to in the 80's. The ladies and most of the guys started dancing and there was no going home. Reminded me a lot of the bars from college. (Anyone else go to Vermont because the drinking age was 19?)

The birthday girl had a great time. Even the 20-somethings were dancing and cheering her on. At one point she and her brother did a swing-dance like dance to one of the songs. I'm guessing they had lessons because they made it look so easy. A lot of people were watching them and cheered.

We finally left at 2:30 am. Yes, I was up at 2:30 am and there wasn't a sick child or a trip to the ER involved. Damn I'm getting old.

Cathy and Maile were the designated drivers, so no fear of Deb or me driving. When we got home the girls had locked all the doors and put the chains on. I tried calling the house 3 or 4 times, kept opening and closing the doors loudly etc. trying to wake them up. Even the dog came to the door once, barked, then saw it was us and stopped.

I finally kicked the door in, breaking the chain. Of course, Deb was already in from the front door, having woken up Courtney. One second Deb was behind me, the next she's in the house after I kicked the door in. No damage, I just need to replace the chain this weekend.

We got Meghan and Courtney back to sleep around 3:30 and passed out.

Looks like I need a new Giants Jersey

Jeremy Shockey, who demanded a trade back in the spring, finally got his wish Monday when the Giants reportedly traded him to the New Orleans Saints. The Giants apparently got a second- and a fifth-round pick in return for Shockey.

Details here.

Dad, your grandchildren don't have current jerseys any longer (neither does your son. Deb is okay, she has a Manning Jersey ;-)

Movie Review: Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

Today Courtney and I had some "daddy and me" time together. She's been a big American Girl doll fan for several years, she has three of them and a ton of clothes.

Since they announced the movie a couple of months ago she's been asking me to take her. This morning we finally had a chance. Courtney put on the red T-shirt from her visit to the American Girl boutique a few years ago and brought one of her dolls with us. I'm pretty sure it was Nellie O'Malley.

Since we were going to a movie we had to stop and get candy. Even though it was 10 am. A bag of Skittles, M&Ms and we were set.

We arrived a few minutes early so we went to the Best Buy first to look at home theater receivers. Not sure why she wanted to do that, but I humored her ;-)

During the previews there were a couple of dog movies coming out this fall, so she of course asked me to take her to them. For those who don't know Courtney loves anything with dogs.

The movie plot is pretty basic: 10 year old girl during the great depression goes from leading an easy life to having her father lose his job, leave her and her mother to move to Chicago looking for work. Her mother had to take in borders to pay the mortgage. She dreams of being a writer and keeps writing articles about the 'good hobos' while most of the adults talk about how bad the hobos are.

Think of it as the anti-Disney movie. This time the Dad is gone and the mother is who keeps things together.

The plot was pretty heavy for a little kid and I think Courtney didn't get all of it. As a parent, several of the scenes were heartbreaking. Without giving a lot away, I'd say that one of the fears of a parent, especially in this economy, is to not be able to provide for your family and they hit that emotional button several times. It also touched on what the changes were doing to the kids. Again as a parent that was hard to watch.

The scene where the young boy tells a hobo to write his son, because the boy hadn't heard from his own father in months was gut wrenching.

One of the characters was the daughter of the bank president. While she wasn't as bad off as the others, she did learn first hand what the depression did to families. There were some funny moments, showing that not everything during that time was bad. There was even a few jokes aimed at the parents (pay attention during the magic scenes and you'll get them.)

In the end there is a little mystery, Scooby-do like chase and the 'good hobos' doing what is right so it had a good ending. It ignored that the depression went on for several more years.

Courtney enjoyed it and only asked one question about the plot line.

I wasn't prepared for the presentation of the great depression since it was rated G and based on what I'd read in the reviews, but otherwise it was a good movie for a 10 year old. I think my older daughter would have been bored.

We then went to TGI Fridays for lunch.

FYI: one of favorite books I read with both girls is going to be a movie this fall, they showed a preview of it: Tail of despereaux

That was different ...

Tonight the little guy was overtired. When I got home from work the family had just come back from the pool and he was pretty tired.

During dinner, he decided that Mom's salad was better than his, so he ate from her disk, with his fingers. Deb really likes ranch dressing. Apparently the little guy does too. He had it all over his face and belly.

I gave him a tub to get him cleaned up, THEN he pooped. Typical little boy. Can't be clean for 5 minutes. After changing that he kind of just wandered around, bouncing off stuff, banging his head, knees etc and generally being whiny.

I took him up earlier than usual, expecting he'd play or give me a hard time. Nope. We brushed his teeth, washed his hands again and sat down to read a book. He actually sat through all of 'Goodnight Moon'.

After I turned off the light he started to do his usual routine: sit on my lap, facing out for a minute. Then placing his head against my chest for a minute, then flip flopping repeatedly until I had enough and I put him in his bed. However tonight he sat on my lap, then turned completely around and put his head on my chest and his full body on me.

I usually just make up the words to songs like 'hush little baby' but tonight I couldn't get the Adam's Family theme out of my head, so I hummed that. He looked up at me a couple of times, but eventually put his head down and passed out cold.

Compared to the fun the first part of the week with him getting out of bed, turning his light on, getting books out or throwing his stuffed animals for 30 minutes, it was nice.

But the Adam's Family? No, I don't know why I was humming it.

Now I can go watch SciFi Friday while Deb is out shopping!

New Niece Molly!

John and Katharine have made it public so I can talk about it now!

John and Katharine will be adopting a baby girl in a few weeks. Some details here.