JD says...

YB is at work today so I've been keeping busy around the house...you know, the normal stuff a guy does on a Saturday when his wife is at work. Did some budget stuff, doing some laundry, some dishes, all after having hit three buckets of golf balls at the driving range. I also managed to find a program that would let me view the video a friend took of our wedding last year. It was sad to find the video so dark. So now that you know the dishes are going, the washer is going and a DVD of Ratatouille is playing I'll get to the point.

A year and a half or two years ago I moved YB and I onto a family cell plan with Alltel. We had both been with Verizon. YB was paying way too much and I couldn't get reception when I was at work. Alltel gave us a better plan for less money and I could get reception at work. Not only that, but I looked into which towers would be kept on and which would be shut off after the Verizon/Alltel merger completed and found that Verizon would keep the tower responsible for the good reception and the world would be a happy place. Well, lo' and behold, that tower got shut off and now our contract with Verizon is up again and, in a way, we're back where we started two years ago. I no longer get good reception where I work and so am basically paying for a service I can't use for a chunk of the day.

To me, this is unexceptable. $100 for two lines, one of which can't be used during the day, is a lot of money to throw away. So in response to this conundrum I decided to shop around for other plans and networks, perhaps prepaid or an iPhone which can use the WiFi network in my building to place VOIP calls needed during the day. The problem is there are no plans close to what YB and I currently have that are anywhere near as cheap as what we are paying and prepaid is a joke. We text more than we talk and never come close to using our monthly minutes. Prepaid access fees and per minute rates make it more like calling long distance from your home phone in the 1980's. After taxes and fees the closest comparable plan on Verizon (which is still the cheapest as far as I can tell) would be close to $130. I wish it was possible to port your cell number to an iPod or iPad with 3G capability because then you could make and receive calls with the Skype-like options out there without having to let everyone know your number is different. Plus you could save a bundle of money because the 3G data access would only occur when you're not in WiFi network which, for most of us, isn't that often anymore.

I hate getting scammed with texting plans, taxes and fees. It's like the cell phone companies don't realize just how much they're gouging their customers.

YB says

Today's article was extremely Christian and politically incorrect. Well, after all those liberal readers leaving me for attacking prostitution advocates, I just decide to be myself instead of worrying about all these liberals.

I feel much relieved from the pressure of being politically correct. I am not trying to offend them. I am just being myself, and they get offended. And, that's not my problem.

Oh, I also quit writing for that liberal human trafficking organization. Despite that they offer NO INCENTIVES for me in return of my service at free of charge, they do not appreciate my work. They rather get annoyed by what I say on the writings, so they have been irritating me in so many different ways in terms of contents. I don't have time for them. Nor do they offer me anything in return to deserve my attention. Further, if i am doing this for God, people are gonna read them through my own site. Besides, they really don't want to hear what I have to say. So, I dropped them.

I've never thought that I was gonna be provoking other people's "FEELINGS" in anyways. I always wanted to be a peace loving, diplomatic, well rounded individual. But, no matter how hard I try, they get offended by what I say. So, I decide to stop caring.

JD says...

It's interesting being newly married at the age of 30 and 31. YB and I decided to keep the apartment I've lived in for the past couple years. It's small, she deserves better, but she says it's cozy and doesn't mind the closeness; a fact which is still hard for me to believe because, as a guy, I should be giving her way more than I have.

Anyway, since I moved in to my second floor apartment between two other units and above the one below (it's only a two story building) I've had, and now YB is sharing in, some very interesting neighbors. The older lady on side of me and the grandma kiddy corner below are very quiet. They've both lived here longer than I, the grandma longer than older lady I think. The most I hear from the the older lady is her trip down the stairs in the morning on her way to work and turning on her shower or flushing her toilet. I never hear from the grandma, at least when she's in her apartment. But sometimes we chat a bit when our paths cross on our way in or out. She's also famous for smoking outside her door (my complex has private entrances to each unit) and talking on her cell phone with the spearkerphone going. My other neighbors are a different story.

The other kiddy corner lower neighbor (since moved out) had a son who liked to have gamer parties with fairly loud volume. It didn't bother me too often because of the two apartments the sound had to go through to get to mine. There have been two sets of residents in the unit next to me that I can remember. The first set consisted of just a guy who later got married. That couple decided to put their bed right next to the wall where I slept so I was privy to whenever they decided to take part in extracurricular activity. They weren't very loud, but that was about the time I started sleeping with a fan on to drown out any noise I didn't want to hear. They've since moved to Texas I believe and were replaced a time later by a guy who likes to smoke cigars, his wife, and, from YB says, their kids. I think I may have seen the kids a few times but not enough to actually believe they are their kids. They are the gamers now, probably have a Wii...and fans of American Idol. Their volume isn't terrible, but loud enough that I can tell what they're listening too.

I've had three neighbors in the unit below me (four if you count the one who moved out days before I moved in). The first was a middle eastern looking guy with his wife and two kids. He drove a taxi and didn't talk much. I said hi to him once or twice. I hardly ever saw his wife or kids (one of them just stared at me when I said hi the night they were moving in), but they moved out after a little while leaving him behind. I don't know how long it was before he moved, but I can remember it was sudden. After that the unit was empty for a long time until a couple from Pittsburgh moved in (they were Steelers fans and I think had PA license plates when they first moved in). They were fairly quiet, and newly weds, and moved out after a short stay.

Now there's a new resident downstairs. I don't know if it's a man or woman, though I suspect woman from the contents left in the car. Whoever it is has an affinity for nailing stuff to the wall around 11pm and has one or two large, very loud dogs that bark at everything and everyone. I'm hoping the dogs get used to the people walking to and from their cars, and the strumming of my guitar that they can hear through the floor. They are by far the loudest of the resident neighbors to date, or at least consistently the loudest.

Once on a visit before I was married my dad made the remark that my apartment complex is a blue collar worker's place. It's very true. It's a ghost town here during the day. But to YB and I it's home for now, small and cozy, filled with character that'll hopefully make for good memories down the road when we reminisce with each other, "Remember our first apartment?"...

...barking dogs and all.

JD says

Summer has arrived in Virginia. It's getting hot outside and YB is off at work tonight. I just got home from my day, a very strange day mind you, at work. A handful of psychos decided to attend the show this morning and disrupt it on air. It's the kind of thing you wonder about, when it will happen, how it will happen...something going screwy with the show. And there are certain rules you remember when faced with those situations that'll help get you out of many of the possible jams you could find yourself in. It doesn't matter what exactly happened today, or what we did in response. At least, that's not the focus here. The question in my head is wrapped around one word, a word requiring action independent of what is happening on screen; execution.

You see, being involved in a team effort requires that everyone executes. Everyone does what they're supposed to do. Most of the time things are mundane, everyday type occurrences requiring little adjustments that are negligible. Even at my place of employment these kinds of adjustments are made. The challenge that I run into in my job is there are too many team players spending way too much time wondering, "What will **** say?". These people are the ones who, in the everyday occurrences, ask if a graphic we use fairly often is still available, explain why we may or may not use a set, spend more time freaking out about small stuff rather than letting the other members of their team handle the scenario like the should, are trained to do, and have been doing for years. It's frustrating to shoot/aspire for excellence, try to be professional and yet have people constantly treating you like it's your second day on a job you've never done before.

Then there are days like this where the irregular occurs, the 500 year flood comes and your training, your "What To Do When" lessons from college and maybe the one or two other real life similar experiences are supposed to kick in. It doesn't seem to be the case where I work. Where I work curiosity about the disturbance (and possibly "What will **** say?") supersedes training; the few times where the knee-jerk reaction was needed and should have been taken was not executed. Would it have looked awkward? Yeah, probably. But it would have been way better than letting what the group of psychos said go out over the air live. Much better.

We're supposed to be professional, we're supposed to be one team, united in purpose to achieve a goal. A team's true traits are only revealed under pressure. Anybody can do the easy stuff, but the hard is a different matter. My quandary is this. Fear has no place when setting the bar, when shooting for excellence, when trying to be professional and the best at what we do. There are times when hesitation cannot happen. If we're trying to set the bar, aspiring for excellence, working towards being professional and yet are hampered by fear and hesitation, why on earth are we even trying?

YB says

Today,

I am having a really good day. The weather is perfect. The work went well. JD and I went to this Indian restaurant and bought some stuff to make Chicken Tikka Masala. We are so excited. And I am actually surprised that my hubby is actually up for Indian food.

My hubby came a long way from Burger King and the Dews alone diet to brown rice, salad, brussels sprouts, etc. diet. So, I wanted to buy some traits for my hubby and got PB M&M and some cookies yesterday. Of course, I naively assumed that it would last about at least 3 weeks. But, I was deadly wrong. By the time I came home from work at 10:00 pm. My hubby confessed that he ate all of the M&Ms, cookies, and the white chocolate. *sigh.* He also said that he did it all in one sitting.

*another sigh*

Still, I am proud of my hubby coming a long way to want to try Indian food, have yogurt or oatmeal for breakfast, etc. last week instead of chicken sandwich from Chick Fil-a for breakfast.

So, I am just gonna let yesterday's cookie monster incident go.

;)