How does Bellsouth suck? Let me count the ways…

I get home tonight and find that I have no dial tone. I try to call from a cell phone and (of course) all the repair service lines are busy. I don’t even get a recording, just an immediate, constant busy signal. So I go online to report the outage. I find the service request form. I fill in all the information. It won’t transmit; it repeatedly gives me a Javascript error telling me to enter alphanumeric characters only, but naturally it doesn’t tell me which field is the problem. After several minutes of trial and error, I get the wild idea that maybe I have to enter something in the extension field (because most residential subscribers are on Centrex systems with extension numbers, right?), so I list “0000” as my extension number, and the form actually transmits…

Not only can they not deliver phone service nor DSL. The fuckers can’t even create a simple HTML form that validates properly…

After a little over a month, I think I’m pretty successfully reacquainted with Charlotte. I’ve learned which Food Lion stores I like and which ones are to be avoided. I’ve settled on the best local news channel. I’ve pretty much figured out which locations are best reached by using the trendy new beltway and which are better served by the ever-mysterious old standby Charlotte 4. I’ve found all the local Chick-fil-A locations and cafeterias, and even passable pizza…

What I’ve yet to find is a really good, fairly large used book store. Ideas? The one at Central and The Plaza is definitely NOT that bookstore, in case you were planning to suggest it…

I get to have my husband back tomorrow night, after nearly three weeks. I was thinking about it last night as I drove home from visiting my parents in Greensboro (and taking the really wrong scenic route, which gave me lots of extra time for thinking), and I’m pretty sure they’ve probably never been away from each other for more than a week or so at a time…

Of course, there was never family on the other end of the country in their case — other than me, and I was shared. In fact, all my aunts and uncles but one have lived within thirty miles of the towns where they were born for their entire lives. Men of their generation got their wanderlust out of the way in the military, but sometimes I think some of the women — my mom and my aunts — feel just a little regret at never having lived away for a while…

That said, I’m really glad my mom is at least comfortable traveling even if my dad prefers to stay at home. She gets around pretty well, and I keep encouraging her to blow my inheritance getting around even more…

The latest from the City of Doom: the Board of Supervisors is considering yet another bit of reactionary legislation, this one aimed at the owners of the Fairmont Hotel, who want to convert a 1960s-era tower annex (not the historic, original hotel) into condominiums. It would apparently become illegal now to convert transient hotel rooms into residential units. Of course, there are already prohibitions against turning residential SRO hotel rooms into transient units as well…

Perhaps there should just be one city ordinance which forbids any change of usage whatsoever within any building in San Francisco. Unless, of course, that building is to be turned into a homeless shelter or a medical marijuana dispensary…

This is where we lived from June 2005 to June 2006. It’s a bland and soulless suburban apartment complex in Charlotte NC, and I loved it for a while. The old apartment had “character”. The new one had appliances, and plumbing that worked, and nearly twice as much space. In addition, it cost much less than the old one. What was not to love?

 

This ass the living room. It looked cozier and more comfortable once we got a couch. There was also a dining room. I’d never had a dining room before…

This was the kitchen and the dining room. The kitchen had a dishwasher and a disposal, and the doors led to a laundry room. We were very excited to have a laundry room. And in the dining room, you could see our lovely table and chairs from Wal-Mart…

This was the office. We finally had all out books in one place, and my collection of old radios was adequately displayed…

 

David’s desk and Mark’s desk…

 

This was the bedroom. It was more than twice as large as our old bedroom, which was about the size of the walk-in closet…

Finally, there was the bathroom. Actually the bathrooms. There were two. It was good…

And that was our home. Thanks for visiting…