Sniff. Did you miss me? I broke Hotfessional.com. Well, I didn’t. It broke. Because of a really strange month of posting and hits that used up my bandwidth. It was a new high in views of this site, and I never thought I’d run out of freakin’ bandwidth. I mean, who am I? Bossy? Kristabella? Kelley? PsychicGeek? (she ran out, too) Puh-leeze.

But look! I’m back! You’re not imagining it - no matter how much you’ve been drinking. My hosting service (lick him!) gave me more bandwidth. He’s the greatest. Inexpensive, sure, which is good, because, notice —> no ads. Which means I pay for the damn thing my own damn self. But with all of the posts I’ve written and read lately about crappy customer service, this guy responds! He had PsychicGeek and Hotfessional back up and running - on a Sunday night - within a couple of hours. Got that? Sunday night.

Scorp Web Solutions. Remember that name. Send him good karma. If my tubes weren’t tied, I’d offer to have his children. Instead, I’m telling you all what a great guy he is. (Which helps, because, y’know, I would have to explain to Mr. Hot.)

So, before my whole heart attack thing there, I was going to post pictures from our walk today. So, here they are.

When I talk about dull and dreary Michigan in the winter? Suck ass snow and slush and wind? This is what I’m talking about:









There’s a huge pond out there past the platform.






“Mom. I think I pooped here last spring!”

How much money do you think I could make by being a helpful technical support person?

I mean, yesterday I explained to a coworker that in order to find a date formatted field in an Excel spreadsheet, you had to change the search option from “search formulas” to “search values”. See, Excel doesn’t see the field that has “Apr-2008″ as having “Apr” in it. It sees it has having “4/27/2008″ or “39565″. I learned that back in the beginning days of Lotus 1-2-3 and once a spreadsheet geek, always a spreadsheet geek.

I also had to call our helpdesk today when I finally (finally, after two fucking days) figured out why I couldn’t access our salary administration program this year. See, this program only opens once every year, during January. It closes during February. Other than that? It doesn’t exist. After two days of back-and-forth emails (because Oh mah holy hell, we can’t answer those questions over the phone) with no resolution, during the ’shaving the legs’ phase of my shower this morning, it dawned on me. I’m using IE 7.0. I bet it only works on 6 since that’s the standard. So, this morning, I got a laptop that has 6.0 installed and voila-dee-da-dah! Access. (Yes, I called the helpdesk, cancelled my trouble ticket, and told them to add that answer to their knowledgebase. Because, I’m nice that way.)

Anyway, y’all? Remember this? The video card issue? Yesterday, I got in touch with Dell Technical Support. Here is the transcript of the online chat I had. I tried to just copy part of it, but it’s too priceless not to include the whole thing (pay special attention to the bolded lines):

Now, I never got the link that he mentioned, and the resolution expert that was supposed to call me at 5 pm? Never called. Someone (who couldn’t help me) called my work cell (which was NOT one of the numbers I gave in the transcript) at 6:15 and told me that the resolution expert was not going to call me at 5.

Serious-fuckin-ly?

He’s going to call me today at 6 pm. On the correct phone number. And is going to remote access my computer so he can see what is happening on my screen. (Yea, good luck with that buddy.) And if they determine that it’s the graphics card, they’ll send one right out.

“But do not to worry ma’am. You have warranty coverage.”

—- Shit. Where have I heard that before? —-

* Honestly, y’all. Word for word transcript. The only thing I changed was the phone numbers, the names, and Dork’s i.d. number.

…and there I sat, ready to hit publish when [plop] - all the lights went out.  No lights, no internet.   Also?  No wind.  No snow.  No rain.  WTF?  Whose idea of a joke is this?

Have I mentioned that when our lights go out, we have no water either?  Because the well pump runs on electricity.  And the heat?  also electric.  All appliances?  you got it.

We got out the candles, lit everything up, and gathered blankets.  We called the power company, and were told (by an electronic voice) that they were so busy, they would need to call us back.  The Voice recited the phone number, and asked for an alternate phone number.  I gave her/him my cell.

Then, after staring at each other for about 3 minutes, Mr. Hot, Shortman and I decided to give up and head up to bed.  I slept with both phones on the table next to the bed.  No phone calls.

My toes were freakin’ cold in the morning.  Even with socks on and between flannel sheets and two blankets.  When I got downstairs, Mr. Hot said “Eleven o’clock.”  It was 7:30.   Eleven o’clock came.  And went.  Another phone call to DTE.  “Between now and 2 o’clock.” 

Shortman woke up about 11:30.  Mr. Hot yelled up at him,“Get dressed, we’re going someplace.”  And so we did.  Brunch (ahhhhh, coffee, finally!).  Met a neighbor eating in the same diner (She had been told 4 o’clock.  Sigh.).  Then to see “I Am Legend” with Will Smith.  Once again, I walked how of a theatre with swollen eyes.  Why does the dog have to die?  

We got home about 2:30 and lo - there was light.  And heat.  And it was good.

And yet?  No internet.  No cable television.   More phone calls - this time to Comcant.  (No, that was soooo not a typo.)   Yes, the outage was reported.  No, they didn’t know how long it would take to get it back on.

Five hours later, I called them back.  “About an hour or so.  They’re working in your neighborhood even as we speak.”  My neighborhood?  Have I mentioned we live in nowhere-land?  I didn’t know I had a neighborhood.

Once again, I called it a night and went up to bed, with my book.

Finally, this morning, we’re back up and running.  Everything electric.  Everything cable-y.  And we’re leaving in about an hour to head up to our local dump-turned-ski-hill so that Shortman can snowboard and Mr. Hot and I can curl up in chairs in the lounge and drink coffee and read.

I just wanted to check in and tell y’all that I miss you and will be getting to your sweet emails soon - later this evening when we get back.   I did pull a bunch of old pictures to get scanned in for your amusement (I swear, even Shortman said “Mom, what’s with the glasses that cover your whole face?”).  Oh, and Santa brought me this.  I love it.  It’s much easier to use than I ever dreamed.

—- Okay, now I must go get dressed.  We’re on a tight timeline.  Out of here by 10:30, back by 5.  There must be a football game on.  Later babes! —-

The laptop that is. And I am posting from the mutha. Windows XP installed. Wireless card installed. Security-freakin’-installed.

—- I AM a goddess. —-