Wow. My ongoing saga with AT&T/Bellsouth appears to be reaching its conclusion. What’s more, it is concluding in my favor! I had a message left for me yesterday from Ms. Fuller, a representative at AT&T Southeast (which I assume is AT&T’s new name for Bellsouth). She referenced the N.C. Attorney General Consumer Protection filing and apparently was empowered to make things right, because she put in an order to AT&T’s collection department to drop the matter and to remove it from my credit report (if it has been sent there, which I don’t believe it has). She said because it was a business line that AT&T Small Business Services needed to actually act on it, but said she would send her request straight to them.
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Stellarium
I was poking around my Mac tonight when I remembered I once downloaded Stellarium, the GPL star chart. “Awesome” is the only way to describe Stellarium. It draws the night sky as seen from anywhere in the world. You can instantly find any object in the sky. It can even point a motorized telescope. I hope to take it in the back yard at night and get better acquainted with the night sky.
Also check out Celestia, another GPL space viewer, only Celestia lets you fly through space to visit an object up close and personal.
Hard to believe software like this is freely available. It is, though, thanks to the GPL.
Back To Annapolis
I’m heading back Monday to Annapolis, that beautiful sailing capital of the U.S. I’ll be there to conduct a few days of training. Seems like only last week I was there. Oh yeah, it was only last week.
Overall, its a fun place to work and the travel isn’t bad. The drive up is usually a pretty smooth trip. I’ll go up, do what I need to do, and then return late Wednesday.
Weekend recap
I’m closing in on the last minutes of the weekend. It was a good one with lots of Daddy time with the kids. Kelly took Hallie to see The Nutcracker Saturday morning, leaving Travis and me to work on some projects. We went to Lowes to pick up mulch and a few other items and returned home to finish our flowerbed project around the mailbox. After naps for the kids, we had dinner with our friends yesterday evening and had a great time.
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Spectacular meteor!
The family went to Cafe Capistrano for an excellent dinner tonight. As we were getting into our car, Hallie shouted “Daddy, look up!” As I did, I saw a spectacular meteor go streaking horizontally across the eastern sky before it dissolved. It was a round ball so bright the crescent moon didn’t even wash it out. I can’t recall any meteor that ever lasted long enough for someone to point it out to someone else, but there it was.
I was unsure what I had just seen until I remembered reading mention of the annual Geminid meteor shower in the paper yesterday. Supposedly the shower peaked at noon today, but the mega meteor we saw came at 7:06 PM.
If this is what we can expect from this year’s shower it should be worth watching indeed!
Home again
I’m back from my jaunt up north to Annapolisburg. It was drizzly and cool the whole visit. Quite a shock to pull up to my driveway to 75 degree weather after starting off so chilly.
The company party was fun. I enjoyed talking to my coworkers and their S.O.’s. Everyone always has something interesting to say. I always learn something from any one I talk to.
One of the meetings I attended was a mandatory sexual harassment session. I had to ask if it was proper for my female officemate to always be jumping into my lap while I worked. Of course that particular officemate is no longer with me, alas.
A little lonlier
Things just aren’t the same without Smitty here.
Water conservation by the numbers
We got out first water bill in two months yesterday. I’m proud to say our water use has plummeted dramatically. Our last bill, covering August through September, was $103 and our October-November bill is $65. That’s a drop of almost 40 percent!
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Annapolis again
I hit the road this morning for Annapolis. Company meetings are today and the company’s holiday party is tonight. Tomorrow I have more meetings before returning home in time for the kids’ bedtimes.
Goodbye, Smitty: 1 Jan 1993 – 12 Dec 2007
[Warning: Long, sappy, cat-focused blog post ahead.]
We all bid goodbye to our family cat, Smitty, today. It was a sad occasion, one that I won’t get over for a while. She was a part of my life for fifteen wonderful years: a significant portion of my life. I took it for granted that she was always there, that she would always be there. Its so hard to say goodbye.
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