Where B the Queen?

So last week was a nice tour of the South... Dallas to Oklahoma City to Austin to Dallas. Amidst my drive back to Dallas on Friday afternoon, I managed to sign myself up for another trip to OKC this week. The person we had assigned to work out of that location is needed back in Dallas, and I can pretty much do my job from wherever, so I signed up to hang out in OKC until a permanent replacement is found. I was clear that this is NOT my long-term plan, but I'm a good team player ;)

Bonus of being up here this week is that the A&M women's basketball team is STILL in the big tournament, and this round (Sweet Sixteen!!) is being played in OKC! A&M matched up with Duke last night, and Duke would have to be my second-favorite college, since my li'l brother went there. I coerced my parents to come up for the game, since it was one of those situations where no matter which team won we could be happy for them.

The plan was that if A&M managed to win that they would come back up here Tuesday night for the Elite Eight matchup against Tennessee. If Duke won, I would still go to the game, by myself. I made sure to pack both an A&M shirt and a Duke shirt, so I would be appropriately dressed for Tuesday night!

Long story short... A&M managed to win last night! Yippee! Our best player didn't even play the second half due to severe dehydration, but we still managed to pull it out. That's the good news. The bad news is that Tennessee is freaking good, but I'm very hopeful!

Where to Eat at DFW

I have done some research for those of you who posed questions on where to eat at DFW airport. I am working for you. There are 91 dining locations at DFW, 5 of those being Starbucks :)

If you have at least 1.5 hours until your flight leaves, I would have to recommend heading to Terminal D near gate 30. Terminal D is phenomenal. There is great shopping and great dining. Also, if you're driving/parking at DFW, I have to recommend just heading to terminal D because parking and security checks there are much better than any other terminal.

If you are not able to make it to terminal D, never fear. In terminals A and C, there are a couple of great options. Those terminals + D have a Chili's and Friday's. In addition, A and C have Dickey's, which is great for some Texas BBQ. Terminal A has East Side Mario's, which is not too shabby for Italian. I have to recommend Friday's if you're looking for a good LIT or any kind of alcoholic beverage. They rock for those!

Terminal D... ahhh... here I would recommend Cantina Laredo for Mexican. They also have Fuddrucker's, which I totally dig for burgers. And if you're looking for a good Bloody Mary or to watch some sports, gotta go for Champps.

Happy Travels! Let me know if you need the full list of locations. I have a nice pivot table I can send your way ;)

Travel Issues

I should have known just in trying to coordinate my travel plans for this week that things would not go totally smoothly. The latest hurdle is that American chose today to cancel 300 flights (31% of their total flights through Dallas). Luckily, I had signed up for a flight status notification email. Before I even saw the news, I got an email from AA.com at 10:45am notifying me of a change to my flight. I was perplexed at first because you generally only receive the emails in the 2 hours prior to the flight, and my flight was not for 7 hours. After reading closely, I found the flight was Cancelled (Oklahoma City to DFW leg). Argh. Phone call to American got me on an earlier flight to DFW and then an earlier flight from there to Austin. Bingo. An hour later, I got another Flight Status notification email telling me that the DFW to Austin leg had been cancelled. Another phone call to American got me back on my original Dallas to Austin flight. This is no biggie... it means I get to have dinner at DFW airport. There is no better airport to eat at than DFW, in my opinion.

So, I went to www.dallasnews.com to read up on the cancellations. I LOVE this quote... "It would be really irritating as a passenger to be delayed,” Greg Goodman (a random traveler) said. “But it would be more irritating if you crash and die.”

He raises a very good point!

Customer Service - At Its Best!

The story starts off badly, but I swear it has a potentially happy ending. Many of you will recall that I moved back to Texas from Cali last October-ish. We had just paid the 6 month premium on the husband's motorcycle insurance around then, but I got all of our insurance transferred from our State Farm agent in Cali back to our State Farm agent in Texas. I was actually really less than impressed with the person who was handling the Texas end, the first time in 12 years with State Farm that I have not been happy with my liaison-type person. I kept mentioning that we had just paid the premium, and she kept telling me that it would get calculated out and we would get a refund if there was a credit.

 

Last Thursday, I updated my phone information on statefarm.com. I got a phone call from my Cali-based State Farm agent's office stating basically that they had received contact info change notice from me and that if the motorcycle was "living" in Texas now that I would need to get it transferred over to a Texas agent. So, freaking out when I got the message last night, I promptly called their office this morning. Since I'm on the road, I don't have my Texas agent's contact info, but I gave the friendly Cali agent his name and city and she told me that she would give their office a call. I said, "Can I give you a different number to reach me at, since you apparently have my home number, and I'm traveling." She replies, "Oh, I don't need your contact info. We'll get this all taken care of for you." I then inquired if I would be getting a refund, and she said that they would cancel the policy effective of when it was picked up in Texas, and the refund check would be in the mail. Now THAT is customer service. I don't even feel like I'm going to need to call them back! What will I do to occupy my time if not nag?!

Mobiley

Much apologies for no blog yesterday. It was one of those days where you're working so hard, you look up and it's 4PM. Plus I got word that I needed to be in Oklahoma City today, then Austin tomorrow through Friday. So had to coordinate all of those plans, pack and go grocery shopping. Then I had to figure out how to get my mom her birthday presents before I left, since her birthday is tomorrow. Off to the airport now.
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Sent using my BlackBerry

My Birthday... The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

While I had nothing but positive things to say about my 2007 birthday, the same could not be said for 2008. I am usually not Nancy Negative, so I'm going to go the full spectrum on the highs and lows of my 2008 birthday.

The Good
- Kicked off with a mom-paid shopping trip, delicious dinner (at Outback, no less!) and Angel Food cake on Friday night with my parents, grandmom and the husband
- Woke up to find myself with a commanding lead in the March Madness pool
- Got some great birthday cards (thanks Jenn Ann and Kelly for the "hard copy" variety!)
- A&M women kicked some a$$ in their first round tournament game (91-52)
- Some fantastic blogs dedicated to my big day (Kim, Jenn, Jane, Jinjer)
- Went out for some 'ritas with Kelly

The Bad
- Duke men's team lost their second round tournament game... this was a bad omen
- Husband had to work all day

The Ugly
- Spent a few hours thinking that Kim was more interested in celebrating water than me. I mean, water is great or whatever, but what about me! LOL, yeah, that sounds bad ;) Luckily by the time JennAnn decided to celebrate water, I was in the know!
- Doogie bit me! It wasn't really her fault, Princess tried to steal her toy, so they got into a big fight right next to me. I made the stupid mistake of trying to put my arm between them to break it up, rather than just grab one dog from behind like I usually do. I got bit hard 2-3 times on my wrist, and it was throbbing all evening.
- The A&M men's team lost to UCLA last night. I had not even picked them to win it because they were a #9 seed, and UCLA was a #1. BUT, we were up by 10 in the second half. We ended up losing by 2 (you might see the final score with us losing by 4, but I don't think they should have counted the last basket), after only scoring about 6 points in the final 10 minutes :(
- Husband came home from work in a bad mood and was not interested in catering to me :(

The Queen Reigns

Ok, we are through with the first round of March Madness, and the Queen is beating up on the boys in my bracket pool. The first round does not make too much of a difference in the grand scheme of the game because it's worth the fewest amount of points, but I'm pretty darn happy to have bragging rights through Round 1!

Geek Squad Emergency

I was shocked enough to see a Geek Squad van driving in front of me, as I drove over to my parents' house. It looked like it had ladders or something on it. I was trying to figure out what kind of geek emergency would require a van and ladders when I saw it pull up to a house that already had a van in front of it! I somehow think an emergency of this magnitude must be Vista related.

DMV

As I sit here at the DMV (2 hours and counting), I have made a decision about the dumbest thing you could possibly say upon entering this place and realizing that there is someone here that you know... "what are you doing here?" And yet this is the phrase that everyone says! Everyone is here for ONE purpose!
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Sent using my BlackBerry

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to me and the husband today! 3 long years of wedded bliss with nary a fight or an angry word spoken. LOL, ok, that's a joke. That's how we communicate best!

Let's see... what interesting stories could I tell about our wedding. Honestly, everything went really well. The only hiccup was that the lady that did my hair was running really late, which caused me to not be able to do family photos before the ceremony. This led to my mom wanting us to hurry through them after the ceremony, so we could get into the reception. This led to us somehow forgetting to get my BROTHER into our family photos. I'm sure he chalks this up to another instance of not being the favored child ;) Thank GOD he tracked me down in the reception to talk about the issue, so we snagged the photographer and got some good ones. But, I'm disappointed because I don't have one with my me, mom, dad AND David, and the husband has photos of all his immediate fam together. But whatever.

The only other thing that was totally strange that happened at the wedding was that the husband bawled during the entire ceremony. Afterwards, all of our moms' friends came up to me and were like, "oh, Chris is so sensitive," and I'm thinking, "NO, he's NOT!" I could probably count on one hand the number of times over 10+ years that I have seen him cry. So it was weird for me. It kept me from crying, at least, because I was squeezing his hand and focusing on making him feel better! So he still gives me crap about how I didn't even cry at our wedding ;) The only bad part about the crying was when we were doing the vows. It went something like this:

Queen: (finishing vows flawlessly) I Do
Pastor: Do you Christopher take Sara to be your lawfully wedded wife?
Chris: (nothing)
Guests: (watching, waiting)
Chris: (still nothing, wiping at eyes)
Pastor: (hands Chris tissue)
Chris: (still nothing, still wiping at eyes)
Sara: (starting to panic that he's going to say, "No, I can't do this")
Chris: (finally!!!!) I Do

Yep, I had a moment of panic there when I thought he was crying because he was mad that I made him finally marry me and that he was going to back out. That was fun times.

So, all that said, Happy Anniversary to us! Dinner tonight at The Mansion per our tradition! yum

22 Questions About My #4

By popular demand, I am posting my myspace bulletin from yesterday for all the non-myspacers. The title of the survey is "22 Questions About My #4." I don't do a lot of myspace bulletin surveys, but when I realized that my #4 was KT I had to answer the 22 questions. Side note, KT was my #2 forever, but then the husband and my sis-n-law joined myspace and I had to displace her. It just feels wrong that she's not my 2, but whatever.

22 ABOUT YOUR # 4
DON'T change your top friends,answer 22 questions about the 4th person in your top friends.
My #4 is KT and it is SO appropriate that there are 22 questions!

1) Who is your #4? Kim "the Champ" Thomas

2) Have you ever met their dad? no, but I have wished him happy birthday! that counts, right?

3) Where did you meet them? dang it, didn't realize this would be a memory test! "Met" her through joint work meetings many years ago, met her in person for the first time last year

4) How long ago was it when u first met this person? probably like 2004

5) Is this person one of your best friends? yes, she is among the few that actually gets me

6) Do you ever fight with this person? No, never, we agree on pretty much everything

7) Is this person older than you are? Yup

8) When was the last time you saw this person?? in Phoenix at her baby shower a month or so ago

9) Name some good memories? facebook startup, late night IM sessions while blogging, shopping carts

10) Have you ever eaten with them? yes, some terrible food at BBC and a good breakfast at Stacks! oh, and ladybug cake. It's bad that I don't remember when exactly I met her but can recount all the food we've eaten together, right?

11) When will you see them again? I hope soon, so I can meet Sydney!

12) Does this person have a cell phone with text messaging? yes, though has told me that she will NEVER send me a text message from it

13) Are you this person’s g/f or b/f? not so much

14) Do you have pics of this person on your myspace? just her profile pic

15) Do you think the person will repost this? Probably not, she's boycotting myspace

16) Could you stand to live with this person? that would be an interesting social experiment; I'm not sure the world would survive

17) Do you love this person? of course, just like a sister that I didn't grow up with, don't see very much and usually just communicate with via messenger and blog comments! yeah, she's practically my sibling!

19) What was the last thing you did together? smelled diapers with candy bars in them... yuck

20) Do they know your birthday? it's all about 3-22, she knows those numbers well!

21) Do u know where this person is right now? probably at home, eagerly waiting to meet Sydney and grounded from travel

22) Do you know this persons favorite food? Deviled Eggs and Gatorade?

And, holy cow, I just realized that there was no question 18, making this a survey of 21! So, I will add my own question 18, which is a very common myspace survey question...

18) Have you ever done something really stupid or illegal with this person? YES! We took photos in Starbucks. That is apparently illegal!

The Bachelor

As I'm watching last night's kickoff to a new season, I am baffled by how stupid and annoying people can be. Oh, and how judgmental I can be!

Day of Dinner at Vincent's

Jinjer just posted a comment on my list of 22 Fave Days of the Year to ask "What is the day of dinner at Vincent's?" I was going to reply via comment, but it's kinda a long story ;)

Vincent's is a seafood restaurant that has been in Plano (my hometown) for like 60 something years now. We go here once pretty much every single year in honor of my and my mom's birthdays (3/22 and 26, respectively). We usually try to pretend it's for my brother's birthday (4/8) as well, even though he doesn't really like the place!

Important Facts About Vincent's...

• In 1983, I sang "I'm a Little Teapot" and gave the full dancing performance to several tables. I was 3, and my mom was not too far off from going into labor with my li'l brother.
• In 1998, just prior to me heading off to college, the (now) husband performed his "practice proposal." It was so romantic. He put the "practice ring" in my glass of champagne when I was away from the table. He had chosen that restaurant because he knew how important it was in my life. If he had not followed that event up by always responding "in 5 years" whenever I asked him when we were going to get married, it would have been a great proposal story. However, after 6 years of hearing "in 5 years" I had to begin negotiations, which I now consider to be the real proposal. Wow, this was quite the story within a story!
• In 1999, I had dinner with the family at Vincent's just after getting my first tattoo. It is on my lower back, so I was super-conscious of how I was sitting in the chair. I remember that this time was actually on my mom's birthday because I remember thinking how mad she would be that I celebrated her birthday by getting a tattoo!
• In 2007 and 2008 my brother had given up meat for Lent and had to order shrimp pasta without the shrimp. Poor guy!
• My husband and my brother neither really like the place, but they go along with it because "it's tradition."
• Every single time I go, I get the fried shrimp with onion rings, a baked potato with butter and a house salad. I always joke, "hmmm, wonder what I'll have...." as I peruse the menu.

It's That Time of Year Again - Yippee!

Yesterday was one of my most favorite days of the year - Selection Sunday. For those of you who are not in the know, that is for the NCAA Basketball Tournament, aka March Madness! In honor of that fabulous day, and in honor of the fact that since my birthday is next weekend I'm all about the "22", here are my 22 most favorite days of the year.

1. My birthday $m
2. My wedding anniversary $m
3. Christmas $#
4. Christmas Eve #
5. Thanksgiving #
6. First Thursday of March Madness *m
7. Selection Sunday *m
8. Draft Day *
9. First Friday of March Madness *m
10. First day of NFL season *
11. First day of NCAA football season *
12. First Thursday of NCAA conference tournaments *m
13. Easter $#m (this year, at least)
14. First date anniversary $m
15. New Year's Eve #
16. New Year's Day *#
17. Super Bowl *
18. Day of Dinner at Vincent's m
19. T + 1 *# (work holiday, at least)
20. Valentine's Day $#
21. Happy David's Birthday $
22. Fourth of July #

Hmmm, interesting list. I'm sure I forgot some stuff and the order may not be totally accurate, depending on my mood. Fascinating statistical breakdown that all items fit into one of these categories:

• 10 days related to Sports (8)
• 9 days in March (m)
• 8 National Holidays (#)
• 7 days where I get Presents ($) (8, if you count A&M making the tournament as a gift!)

A Friday List of 22

I am totally feeling un-inspired today. I think I'm just exhausted. But I'm thinking I can come up with a good list of 22 Things I Have Accomplished in My New Job (3 weeks running now)...

1. Ordered a new laptop (and all its accessories)
2. Figured out how to login to my new laptop (it is NOT as simple as you would think)
3. Changed my email account from old account to corporate extension
4. Had my old email account re-enabled because they cut it off before the corporate one was setup
5. Bought Mrs. Pearl AND got her setup on corporate email!
6. Scheduled (and re-scheduled) a training session with KT on using Mrs. Pearl
7. Traveled to Round Rock
8. Stayed in a handicap hotel room where the bath tub was right next to the bed
9. Drank a bottle of wine with my boss-buddy-type
10. Ordered 2 $350 IP phones that I did not need
11. Figured out who to contact to return 2 $350 IP phones that I did not need
12. Come close to figuring out exactly how my desk phone headset works! (KT, do you offer training on that?)
13. Ordered new business cards (I have a phobia about this...)
14. Ordered a conference bridgeline/live meeting account
15. Decorated my desk
16. Moved 3 boxes and countless notebooks from my house to my office (yay! more space!)
17. Dialed-in late to the 8:30 meeting because there was a good song on the radio
18. Made the husband breakfast three times
19. Attended an account kick-off celebration event where I did not accept free drink tickets from anyone (seriously, they were totally pushing them on me due to rumors of my Cali happy hours!!!)
20. Wrote a procedure
21. Read the entire contract, including all addendums, attachments and schedules (and no, that's not really part of my job)
22. Passed on info about the husband's restaurant to our new admin who is going to pass it on to the Sales team admin for event planning :)

This Burger's Making Me Thirsty!

This is a topic that I have had in draft status for a long time now. Since I'm not feeling particularly blog-inspired today, today is the day to publish it. I have to say that when I went back and re-read the article, it still made me laugh.

Today's Required Reading (seriously, it will perk you up if you're not having a good day) can be found here: Today's Required Reading

The article discusses how a McDonald's employee was forced to go to JAIL for serving an oversalted burger! Key points from the article:

• The charge against her was for serving the burger “without regards to the well-being of anyone who might consume it.” However, she ate an oversalted one herself. I don't think this charge is valid on those grounds. No one (other than those with an eating disorder) would eat something that they knew would make them sick, right? I think they would've had to prove that she had an eating disorder.
• The defendant seems pretty bright... “If it was too salty, why did (Adams) not take one bite and throw it away?” said Bull.
• How did this affect multiple burger patties? It seems like you would have to be pouring salt over a bunch of patties, which is hard to imagine being accidental. It's not like they make their own patties onsite, right? It's not like the salt could've been spilled into a big bowl of hamburger meat.
• I am less concerned by the salt and more concerned by the "thumping" of the burger...

ABBA and I - twins 4 sure

When I was in Cali for my 2 week farewell tour, ABBA and I ended up dressed alike one day. Maybe when we both walked out of our bedrooms in matchy shirts, one of us should have turned around and changed. However, we figured that since we were over 11 years in age and not actual twins, no one would make a big deal out of us having dressed similarly. Yeah, we were wrong. At least 3 times during the day we got comments about how we were matching. We made sure for the remaining 1.5 weeks not to repeat the "mistake."

However, I'm going to let you in on a little secret... ABBA and I have matching t-shirts regarding our Chuck Norris obsessions.

One Day, Pearl Will Have Email... or not

Way back on February 27th, I blogged about how Mrs. Pearl was not going to be allowed to play on the blackberry enterprise server (aka "bes"), which is required for her to be most effective and to deliver me my work email/calendar. I was pretty defeated when I made that post. I basically spent all day whining to people about it, until I whined to the person who might actually be able to fix it.

My hero, who shall remain nameless, put in a call to his friend who runs the messaging team. I'm not sure how exactly it happened, but I was basically told to email so-and-so, and he would approve getting me setup. Sounds simple enough, right?

So, that day, I emailed so-and-so. Three days later, I had not heard back from him. So, I give him a call, of course. He promptly applies his stamp of approval to my request. I tell him that I am removing him from my nag list, but I need to know who to replace his name with. He points me to the messaging lead. I email him, basically, "can I get setup? I'm on week 2 now of no PDA email, and with traveling, it's a pain." So, he waves his magic wand, and Friday, I get a call to get Mrs. Pearl setup on BES. I start the activation process, and my support buddy drops the line because it could take up to 15 minutes. It ends up failing. I try repeatedly throughout the weekend (and emailed the support guy on Saturday telling him of the failure).

Now, people seriously underestimate my persistence. It was actually a quality that was noted in my maid of honor's toast for me and the husband at our wedding. First thing this morning, I call the support guy. I make the mistake of mentioning that I'm having to rework the license request, and he tells me to call back once it's been processed. Please note, having the license is not required to get setup on the server. But, whatever.

So, I'm on the phone with Sprint today, clearing up the fraud issue, and I see that the original messaging person who turned down my request (even with an offer for brownies) was calling. ARGH. Luckily her message was not "Hell No," it was just, "please call the help desk and open a ticket."

I call the help desk and politely tell them that I need to get Mrs. Pearl setup on BES. They then ask me if Mrs. Pearl was purchased through our company or if it is my personal device. When I admit that it is a personal device, they tell me that they cannot open a request! ARGH!!! So, yay.

Of course, being the persistent gal that I am, I call the help desk right back. Rather than leaving the request vague, I say, "I was speaking with the messaging team, and they told me to call and put a ticket in to get my blackberry setup on BES. They told me to make sure to include the PO number, so I have that right here." I was hoping that the mention of a PO# would make them assume it was a corporate purchased device. That way I did not have to lie! YAY! They opened my ticket :) Can't wait to see what the next hurdle is...

Ok, that's a lie. PLEASE, GOD, NO MORE HURDLES!

RoomsToGo - the final chapter?

As you will recall, the last issue I had with RTG was regarding a broken rung on one of my bar stools. It happened first week of January, and I contacted them immediately about this. This was somewhat the timeline...

1. Chair breaks (Jan 9th or so)
2. Queen calls RTG (Jan 11th)
3. Inspector dispatched (Jan 16th). He does nothing other than say, "obviously I can't fix this today."
4. Queen has to put reminder on calendar that if she hasn't heard from RTG by Jan 23rd to call them.
5. Someone calls someone else, and the part gets ordered. Queen has to put reminder down that if she hasn't received the part by like Feb 7th to call them.
6. Queen receives part and then has to find the RTG number again to call them and schedule the repair.
7. Repair is scheduled for Feb 29th. On Feb 27th, Queen gets call that repairman has had death in family and needs to reschedule to March 7th.
8. March 6th: snow/ice hit Dallas and Queen does not hear from RTG regarding a 3 hour window of repairman's visit. Queen assumes there is a 50/50 chance of repair being made tomorrow.
9. March 7th: repairman arrives as Queen is in bathrobe and on conference call. He switches out the part in under 4 minutes. Queen asks him if he has repaired many of these chairs. He tells me, "no, the wood was just bad on this one."
10. Queen begins mulling over RTG's quality control. She thinks ABBA might be the perfect candidate to send to them ;)

Round Rock Recap

This week I had my 2 night trip down to Round Rock, TX (just north of Austin). You will recall that I posed the question on Monday about how to pack for a 2 night trip when I am completely in the habit of packing for 5 nights. The answer to this question was that I still ended up using my "normal" suitcase, rather than downsizing. I attempted to access my tiny suitcase, but it was in the very back of our understairs storage, inside another suitcase. It was just going to require way too much effort ;) So, instead, I decided to pack workout clothes and shoes, since I had lots of extra space. This virtually guaranteed that I would have no desire/determination to workout, which I did not.

The Round Rock trip is apparently by default a driving one, though when I go by myself I will probably make a flying attempt. Drive time ended up being around 4 hours, which is just ridiculous. That did, of course, include stops for lunch and gas, but still. We were supposed to leave at 9am on Tuesday, but did not end up leaving until noon. We then made the "mistake" of going to the office and did not leave until 8pm :( We had a delicious dinner at Carino's where I partook in a "grande" glass of wine and then headed to the hotel. The wine brought out Smiling Sara and I proceeded to send Kim like a million photos of my room. Luckily for others of you who regularly get tipsy texts from me, I don't have access yet to send them to non-bberry messenger contacts, so you were spared. My basic fascination with my room was due to it being a handicap unit. The clothes rack in the closet was at waist level, the entire bathroom was the shower area due to it not being enclosed in any way (I literally put the bath mat at the doorway into the bathroom) and the fact that there was a bath tub right next to the bed. That was really odd.

Wednesday night, we only worked until about 7pm :( The great part about my travel buddy is that she is a total Starbucks addict, so we were there at least twice/day. AND, I visited my first 24 hour Starbucks. It was interesting... no inside area, just a drive thru and walk up. I'm totally in caffeine withdrawl this morning! The weirdest part for me on Wednesday was realizing that I had to pack up for checkout the next morning. It was so bizarre to unpack Tuesday night and repack Wednesday night, but I managed to do it! Dinner Wednesday night was fun... we went to CVS and got microwave buffalo wings, micro pizza and a bottle of Yellowtail Shiraz. Side note on the Yellowtail... it is ok to me for a cheap bottle of wine, but I'm not like overly impressed with it. It was $6.99 at CVS, but then we found the real deal. They have a reserve shiraz that was only $10.99, and it was fantastic! I say this based on my extensive experience in wine-tasting ;) Anyhoo, we just sat in the hotel lobby (where the microwave was located) and polished it all off. Quite fun. Also thanks to my extensive wine experiences, I was feeling fine yesterday morning, unlike my travel buddy ;)

Yesterday, we got to drive back through all the weather elements. I probably don't need to describe how hellish that was. The only positive side on driving was that most Dallas flights were cancelled, so at least we made it home!

Let It Snow

As I mentioned in Tuesday's blog, we got a decent amount of snow on Monday night (decent amount for Texas, I will clarify). Tuesday at around noon, my travel buddy and I had to drive down to Austin. By the time we left town the snow was pretty much gone, as the temperature had gotten up around 60 degrees. 60 degrees in Texas is actually pretty nice. Yesterday, the temperature was in the mid-60s. In Austin, probably at least 70. It was a beautiful day, so beautiful that we debated sitting outside at lunch.

The plan was to attend the leadership meeting in Austin today from 1-3pm and then head back. Well... by 9:30am we were getting calls and emails from friends and family that the weather was going to be bad in Dallas again.

It's pretty freakish because we definitely do not get snow every year, maybe every three or so. And to get snow twice in one week is just crazy, especially with the warm break in between. We ended up leaving Austin at around noon. I didn't make it home until 5:30. It should be about a 3.5 hour drive, but the roads were definitely icy and the snow was a flurrying! I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I coasted my car into the garage. Then, I immediately ran out front to grab a picture. Like a good Texas girl, I wore my flip-flops outside ;) They were predicting that we could get up to 5 inches today, but I think they've revised that down a bit.

Snow is great, but the husband has to close the restaurant tonight and won't be able to head home until around 11:30pm. I'm really hoping that the roads aren't too bad, but I'm definitely expecting the worst :(

Argh, Sprint

Today, I had an exasperating experience. On Monday night at around 10:35pm Central, I was reviewing my Sprint bill. I found something totally weird, and I wanted to chat with an agent about it, but they only chat until 11pm EST. So, I sent myself an email to remind myself to chat with them about it during their business hours.

The issue was a charge for $54.11 for "SAM M300 RED BT CAM CLAM". This threw up a bunch of red flags for me because, well, it was a weird $55 expense. I had suspicions that they were trying to charge me for the husband's new phone, which was supposed to be FREE. "Free" does not equal $54.11 as far as I'm concerned.

The background is that a month-ish ago I got a call from a Sprint representative offering me a free phone. This was not the first time that I was offered a free phone from Sprint, but the last 2 there was a condition that I add a new line to get the "free" phone. I had quite the conversation with their India-based service desk agent about why the heck I would need an additional line. So, this time, I made sure to clarify if there were conditions. There were not any, so I happily accepted the phone. They tried to put a shipping charge on me, and I told them that if/when I wanted a new phone I would happily march my ass down to the Sprint store to get one to avoid the shipping charges. They promptly eliminated the shipping charges.

So, you can imagine my shock when I saw the charge on my Sprint bill. So, I had a FORTY MINUTE chat with a Sprint agent today regarding the charge. She could not find any "notes" on them offering me a free phone, so she would not credit my account. I told her that this was fraudulent and that she should escalate to a manager because I would be contacting the BBB and the attorney general. She again refused me and told me that I needed to contact the telemarketer that called me with the offer to get the credit.

Me: uh, how am I supposed to contact a telemarketer? And how am I to get a credit from them when the charge is on my SPRINT BILL???

No answer on those, and then she ended our chat session.

So, not being discouraged by 40 minute sessions, I initiated one with another agent. This agent was nice enough to point me to their fraud department. So, yea, that is what I get to deal with Friday when I get back home :(

Snow Days

Wow, I was really caught by surprise yesterday. It had been about 75 degrees on Sunday, and then *BAM* snow last night. Everyone said that it would surely not stick because the ground had been so warm. When I was leaving work yesterday, I started getting some sleet at one point. The snow started somewhere around 7pm. I saw the flurry early on when I let poor Princess outside. The husband called me at one point to tell me that it was snowing where he worked. My mom called me later to tell me that when she left the mall, the cars had snow all over them.

However, it did not penetrate my skull that there might actually be an accumulation. Imagine my surprise when I opened the back door to let Princess out before bedtime to see her sink in the snow up to her armpits. I know this is a bad picture (you're fired, Miz Treo), but you can at least see the accumulation that was in our side yard.

Doogie was SO funny this morning. She did not deal with snow last night, but I guess she couldn't hold it anymore this morning. When Princess hopped out to go to the bathroom, Doogie peeked her head out. She got in a real low crouch just to stick her head out the door! Once she finally got up the courage to scoot out to the back step, she stayed in her low crouch and went side to side, trying to decipher if the snow was "safe" or an "enemy!" Luckily the snow was starting to melt, so she was able to put her puppy paws in the grass between the cracks. It was the cutest thing!

Happy Birthday, JennAnn! (comes to you via post #322)

This post is very special for two reasons... the minor reason is that it is post #322! I mention this because my New Year's Resolution was to celebrate milestone posts. So far, this is the only resolution I have managed to keep! 3/22 is my birthday, by the way, which is why this is a milestone :)

The most important reason that this post is special is because it is to celebrate JennAnn's birthday! WooHoo!

One of the best things about blogging has been meeting Jenn. It's rare in life to find someone so similar to you, and even rarer still to start up a friendship with them without ever having met face-to-face (which, of course, we finally did)!

So... Happy Birthday, Jenn! Hope you have a day full of joy, entertainment and love tank filling :)

PS: Jenn is a smart girl and is taking vacation today. I highly recommend to everyone to take off for your birthday. It makes it a million times better!

New Travel Arrangements

Tomorrow is my first travel assignment on my new account. It's quite interesting to me. I am very used to my Cali travels, which was to fly out on Sunday afternoon and get home at about 10pm on Friday night. The huge perk in this messy travel arrangement was that I did not have to book hotel because I had a standing reservation at the luxurious House of Dodds.

For this travel, I am going to Round Rock, TX. It is a 3 hour drive from Dallas, so the current plan is to rent a car and drive it with my buddy. We will be leaving tomorrow morning at around 9am and returning home at around 7pm on Thursday. Yep, a 2 night trip! I'm still thinking a lot about making this a Southwest flight in the future, but I'm going with the flow on the first trip.

So... my big dilemma... what suitcase do I take for 2 nights? I could probably pack for 2 nights in my ex-purse!

Dirt Now

The one positive thing that the writer's strike did (I think) was bring back one of my favorite shows, Dirt. I say I think it came back due to the writer's strike because at the end of the first season, it did not get picked up. I had given it a funeral and put it in my mind to rest in peace. It was traumatic, but I made it through.

Then, maybe 2 months ago, amidst the writer's strike, came word that it was BACK! I have been eagerly anticipating the start of the new season, and I was not disappointed tonight. Those of you who were at Kim1Bump's Phoenix baby shower will not be surprised to know that I am a regular tabloid reader (which fueled my win on celebrity mom and daughter names), and this show combines my favorite things... tabloids, TV and Courtney Cox.

So, for any of you that are fascinated by celebrities, you have to give the show a chance. Even if you're not fascinated by celebs, you should give it a try because I find it to be really well written :) It's on Sunday nights on FX at 9pm Central/10pm Pacific.

And March Begins...

Yippee! Today is the first day of my favorite month. Notable events in March...

3/2 Texas Independence Day
3/3 JennAnn's birthday
3/15 Anniversary of the husband's and my first date
3/19 3rd Wedding Anniversary!
3/22 The Queen's birthday
3/23 Easter (I think this is the closest it's been to my b-day, since I've been alive)
3/26 The Queen's mum's birthday

Anyone have anything to add?