August 2014

So I had a Verizon phone. I had served out my two year contract, and wanted a new phone. The company told me that I was not eligible for a new phone. I pointed out to them that if I wanted a new phone, I was free to take my business elsewhere, since my contract had run out. They told me that I could get a new phone, but I would get a new phone number. That’s what I did.

Well, six months later, I am contacted by a collection agency, and I am told that there was a balance on the old account. Apparently, the customer service guy didn’t shut off the old phone when he opened the new one.

Verizon refuses to remove the resulting collection from my credit report, even though it was their mistake. My credit will bear this negative mark for seven years.

I am sick of companies screwing their customers just because it is legal to do so. That is why I have no problem using the law whenever I can, to screw them right back.

One of the places that we went while on our road trip was New York City. This was my first time there, and it was interesting. We spent three days there. For now, I want to touch on the attitudes of the people who live there. From my own observations, I can say that New York City residents are of the opinion that the entire world revolves around them, and that the rest of the country is a vast wasteland filled with hicks and people who wished that they could live there.

 For example, while I was there, the discussion turned to 9/11. The opinion that I expressed was that the US response of creating the TSA and all of the laws that followed the event were far out of proportion to what actually happened: To put things in perspective, a few buildings were damaged, and there were fewer people killed in the attacks than are killed in auto accidents each year. In response to this, I have to take off my shoes everywhere I go so that I can be searched, the TSA is performing checkpoints on the highways, the NSA reads all of my emails, every other government agency gets to know what books I read, movies I rent, and everywhere I go via cell phone tracking. To find those responsible, we sent our military on missions that have killed far more than the number we lost that day. We effectively became a police state, and it was for nothing, because a 9/11 attack could never work again for one simple reason: Passengers will never again sit placidly in their seats as a terrorist flies their plane into a building. They WILL fight back.

The response that I got was twofold:
1 “It doesn’t matter that the terrorists were outnumbered by 10 or 20 to one. Aircraft are too cramped for effective resistance.” Even when it was pointed out that the 44 people aboard flight 77 were able to fight back and foil the terror plot to attack Washington, DC, they would not budge on this one.

2 “You weren’t the one who had to walk across the Brooklyn bridge to get home from work.” This one surprised me. What this statement boils down to, is that the inconvenience of having to walk home once outweighs the entire nation having to be inconvenienced with the Patriot Act, the TSA, the NSA, and all of the other post 9/11 power grabs. This, more than anything else, showed me how egocentric New Yorkers actually are.

Since I was a guest, I let the conversation die at that point.

This year has been one of absolute turmoil, and of change. I went on my sabbatical by taking a 6 week, 7,200 mile road trip that took me to  15 states, one territory, four foreign countries, and returned last weekend. When I arrived home, I had a call from a school that wanted to interview me in connection with my newest career change. I had that interview on Wednesday.

They called me Wednesday night at 7 p.m. and offered me a job. The catch? The job started the following morning at 7:30 a.m.. The job was 85 miles away from my house. Students start class in less than a week. In that time, I have to complete new hire training, attend all of the staff meetings, write all of my lesson plans, the syllabus, make all of my teaching aids for at least the first couple of weeks, and attend the new student orientation to meet my new students and their parents. All while trying to relocate to a house 80 miles from my old one. I barely have time for eating and sleeping.

As I am sure that you can understand, blogging has taken a back burner. Even during the road trip, blogging was problematic because I was in an area of backwoods Maine for several weeks, where there were no cell phone towers and, in many cases, the places where I was staying were completely off the grid. No power, no phone, no television, and certainly no internet. There are some interesting stories to tell, and just as soon as I get the time, they will be told.