WOW! An actual post.

OK, so I haven't written here in a long time, but here I am.

Yesterday my wife and I and our friend took a journey to the Obed Wild and Scenic River. Part of the National Park Service system, Obed isn't really like your typical National Parks. In reality it is just the river and a small swath of land on either side. There are no touring roads and the park is mostly used by rock climbers and those who travel the river.

We went to the Lilly Bluff Overlook section of the park. There we took a small trail to the boardwalk overlook. After that we decided to tackle the "Point Trail". Listed as "moderately strenuous" the trail was challenging. It really wasn't well maintained with several trees down that we had to crawl over or under. My guess is that the trail doesn't see many visitors (though we encountered 7 other people on it - must have been a busy day). Toward the end of the trail it became encroached upon by plants. Tall grasses, goldenrod and other plants nearly obscured the trail. But we forged ahead. Unfortunately, in addition to hiding the trail, the flora also hid chiggers. We were ruthlessly attacked, but due to my wife's good eyesight and persistence we aren't suffering. Though Obed is an obscure park seemingly in the middle of nowhere, it was worth checking out.

Cleveland Utilities

Is no customer service really customer service at all?



Yesterday at around 10 AM the power at our apartment went out. Being the good citizen that I am (and always looking for a new reason to kvetch) I called Cleveland Utilities to let them know. Unfortunately, they must have gotten wind of my kvetchiness (I think I just made up a new word) and took preventative action. Why do I think this? Well, the first time I called the phone just rang and rang and rang (you get the idea). So I hung up and tried again. 22 rings (yes that is right 22 - I know cause I counted 'em) later the system finally picks up. "1" is the option to report a power outage so I press it. Well, that was about effective as George Bush's foreign policy (as in it got me nowhere). In fact pressing "1" worked so well the message came on again instructing me to press "1" to report a power outage. I distinctly got the feeling that I could have stood there all year pressing "1" and still wouldn't have been able to report our outage.



I don't know about you but I would think that a utility company could afford a phone system that actually worked so that it's customers could report problems.



UPDATE: When I went on their website to tell them of my experience yesterday (yes thats right to COMPLAIN) even though I filled out all the little boxes on their form, the thing wouldn't go through. I kept getting a "connection error" ... man is this company in denial!

Kudos to SkyRidge

It all began Friday when I got home from work. My darlin' and I were planning on a quick trip to Knoxville. She was going to take a national certification for counseling exam and I was going along for the ride. I had been reading Divided Loyalties about Knoxville and East Tennessee in the Civil War and thoguht we might visit a few sites after her exam. On the ride up she had told me that she had a stitch in her side (like the kind you get from running). Well, she took her exam and then asked if we could just take a nice drive home instead of bouncing around Knoxville. Long story short, by 7 pm we were in the Emergency Room of SkyRidge Medical Center.

The wait was indeed onerous (we finally left at 12:30 in the AM) but there was no solid conclusion. The blood tests didn't show appendicitis for shure only the slight possibility of it. They told us to come back on Sunday sometime before noon for another blood test. We did just that but again the results were inconclusive.

Let me pause here to thank the good people at SkyRidge. Everyone was extremely nice and had good bedside manners. I know you hear stories about doctors and nurses that have the personality of a STOP sign, but these folks were nice. It made the whole ordeal easier to go through.

So around noon on Sunday a very cool Dr. by the name of Knabb came in to talk to us. He made us very comfortable and was thorough in his explanations. The result: my darlin' decided to have her appendix out. She was whisked off to surgery and about an hour later the deed was done. She came home on Monday and her Mom came down to help out with the recovery. All is now well on the homefront.

Embrace the Stereotype : City of Cleveland

Kudos to the City of Cleveland (Tennessee that it) and it's utilities department for having the guts to embrace the stereotype of the non-working government worker. This morning on my way to work the two lane road that I travel was down to one lane for some sewer work I guess. Now while several of the workers were indeed going about their job, two were merely standing on the side of the road watching with mild fascination. Now, I know they were "workers" because they were working their little orange vests, but honestly they needed some lawn chairs and a BBQ because they looked more like they were at a tailgate party than on the job. So I take my hat off to government workers everywhere that just stand around and watch their coworkers work while they just stand their taking up space. Thnaks for being the butt of many a comedian's jokes...at least then you were being usefull.

Mind blank...and hating it!

Well, today was a struggle. Normally I find writing to be fairly easy and don't have such a problem cranking out papers and such. Not today. I am taking an online class and while I was able to crank out the first two papers as easy as can be, I am struggling through this one. At the rate I am going I should have this paper done shortly before the next lunar eclipse (the next total lunar eclipse is in December, 2010 though there is a penumbral one in July of this year).

In other news, I was reading through the Book of Acts (as in it's in the Bible) yesterday morning. I was struck by the way the Apostles decided to replace Judas. In reading the last parts of the 1st chapter we discover that there are two candidates (Justus and Matthias). So being the good Apostles that they are they pray seeking God's will. When they are done, lo and behold they choose Judas replacement by (drumroll please) DRAWING LOTS (or Casting Lots depending upon your translation)!! So in essence they pray and then flip a coin. Personally I like to make life's big descisions by consulting the Magic Eight Ball, but then again I am not an Apostle.

Random picture time!

From time to time I will post random pictures. No rhyme or reason. Here is the first installment...

How hard can this be???

OK, so how hard is it to provide decent cable service? With my move to Cleveland this summer and the switch to Charter I was hoping for a better experience than I had with Comcast. HA! One of the things that we have noticed is that the volume fluctuates on just about every channel we watch. Now I am not talking about the fluctuation that occurs when there is a switch from the show to the commercial. You know it seems that somehow they think that you have suddenly lost your hearing so the commercials are suddenly twice as loud as the show you were watching.

No, I am talking about us sitting here minding our own business watching Two and a Half Men, when suddenly the volume randomly drops…during the show! One minute I can hear Charlie and Allen loud and clear and the next they are whispering. And NO it isn’t the station unless CBS, FOX and the History Channel are all involved in some sort of global volume conspiracy.

On the other hand at least Charter can provide me with decent internet service (though I fight with their on-line bill pay monthly). You would think that in the year 2009 when I can watch TV on my cell phone and HEAR IT, I could enjoy the same service at home.