Blah blah blah

Well it was a very nice weekend and it has been great weather in Boise. The Spring is great except for the assorted allergies that seem to come and go for me but it is beautiful and we had a great bike ride tonight out on the river down to the park.
So I finished my 21 days in a row of work and now have only 8 days on and 1 day off in the middle. The life of a prn SLP. Feast or famine. I am trying to make up for the famine and getput back some of the savings that was sacrificed during the lean season. No home fixing going on until the finances are a little more secure and until we figure out what in the world we are going to do or at least where to start.
The sister, niece, nephew and grandparents were here for a week too bad I work most of the time. I tied to post some pictures but so some reason it is not working i will try later I guess.

What a Croc!

I have finally bought some new shoes for work. The others almost had holes in the bottom and I really needed some new ones but being cheap I didn't want to spend too much money. I just happened to get a dividend check from REI so I decided to buy my shoes there as I had 15$ in store credit to spend. So for 20$ I got a pair of these Crocs. They look a little funky and some would say downright ugly but I like them well eough and they are quite comfortable. They are very light and have little knobbies on the sole that kind of give you a little foot massage as you walk around. You can also throw them in the diskwasher to clean them up. So with 2 days of wearng them I reccomend them.

Work, work, CEU'S and more work

Well, I have gone from being nearly unemployeed to working everyday for what looks like it will be a 14 day strech. When it rains it pours. The sad part is that my sister will be here to visit in the middle of my 14 days. I will get evenings and 1 weekend with her but the weekend I am home my wife will be in TX so it is a bummer. This is all good for the bank acct or I should say the Visa people.
I am quite enjoying work actually as I have fun colleagues and people are generally happy to have you try to help them to get better. I was in a 2 day training course in Seattle this weekend and am now a certified E-Stim provider for dysphagia therapy. It was rather a long trip to Seattle on Fri about 8 hours and an even longer trip home on Sunday (arriving home at 1AM) with work starting at 8AM the next day. They kept us busy on Sat from 7:30 AM to 6:00PM for the course but it was interesting and the time went by quickly. For those interested in Estim I will place a link so you can read more about it. VitalStim

Unfortunately, Bryan of Moments of Adequacy fame was out of town and I did not get to see him. There is not so much to report except to say the weather has been stinky and no roof down driving has been occuring except with heater and heated seats on which is a little silly.

Warning: Ranting and Raving Ahead

Today you are the beneficiaries of a rant. I have cell phone service through Sprint. I can't complain too much but I may or may not stick with them after my 2 yr contract is up. I like them much better then my former carrier AT&T but that is another rant.
Here is the situation. About 2 months ago I started receiving text messages all of the sudden that were your basic spam messages. Not ever using texting I just thought they were annoying because they drained my battery due to the ringer and phone light come on when they are received. I didn't really think that I was paying for the privilege of receiving junk spam text messages. But lucky me I spent between 15-20 dollars last month for this scam.

So I call Sprint and I say, "Turn off the texting which I didn't sign up for." Randy told me I have to call, email, or use website to opt out of the service I hadn't opted into. So I took the 800 number. I call the 800 number. Hmmmmm what a surprise. No such number. So I call back wading through the computer lady asking me to "Para Espanol presione por favor el número dos" and tell me my little problems before I can get to the real person, then I have to give the name number and SS# for the acct holder and explain the situation again. The second time around I get, Ebony, she says yeah, 'Those companies change their numbers alot". Hmmm doesn't sound like a scam to me. This time I get the text number to text and ask them to cease and desist. I get off the phone and try to text them only to realize I have blocked the texting so back through the hoops to talk to Mark. I go through the scenario again (Take 3). Mark agrees it seems like a scam (as if they are not dealing with this daily from disgruntled customers) and he agrees to refund me 5$. Whatever. I am not going to refuse. I get off the phone send my text message (which I don't think I had ever done before) and then hope that Mark remembers to block my text messages in 30 min as we agreed. I plan to call in an hour just to make sure.

In the end I think that Sprint and probably all of the other phone people out there are in cahoots with these companies to make extra money off me. The original scamsters get advertising money for sending spam text messages, sprint cashes in on the charges and tries to look good refunding some minimal charges and bad mouthing these companies but I don't think they try to hard too keep the spam from happening.

I guess I will wait for the next class action suit in which I will receive my 32 cents and feel only slightly vindicated. The moral of the sorry respond to any junk email with the reply "STOP/CANCEL/UNSUBSCRIBE". You will be out 30 cents for the 1 incoming and one outgoing message unless it is a premium message which is 9.99. Then you can wait 2-3 years for your class action suit check of 32 cents and make about 2 cents on the deal. This is just my 2 cents.

IKEATOWN - Bloklok

I came across this at another blog. IKEA sells prefab homes (apts). I guess it is not really new in Scandinavia(1997 first one built)but they are expanding to the UK. No talk of coming to the US. You can put them up in about a day. Ships in flat boxes with one allen wrench. Just kidding. (I guess the IKEA prefab house division is pretty sick of that joke). The concept is interesting with the idea behind it being inexpensive and compact. My wife and I have been interested in the concept of living big in a small place. I am not saying that is what IKEA does but if you look at books by Susan Susanka. Her ideas are interesting although we have no plans to build any "Not so big houses". For now we are sticking with our 80's home with the goal of doing some upgrading some day as finances allow.

Talk about insulting!

I am approaching one of those monumental birthdays. It is in the distant future not until December. So at this point it is not too much of a sore point but you really don't want to think about it and you certainly don't want people pointing out your advancing age.
So today I got this letter that I find highly offensive:

I am not sending any of my money away but I think I will carry this card around and see if it will afford me any senior benefits.