Your call is very important to us....

The one thing that should be clear when you hear the above sentence, is that the people you are calling couldn't care less about your call. If your call was truly important to them, you'd be talking to a real live person. What the message should say is "We're doing something more important than helping you right now. We fully expect this to frustrate you and we understand that some of you will hang up before being helped. We've already laid a couple of people off because of that."

Welcome messages....

It seems like lately, my blog has consisted of just welcoming family to blogging. I'm gonna try to do better so I don't get left behind in the race for blog supremacy...

Welcome Susan to the Blogosphere

Please check out my sister-in-law's blog,"My HOME'S in Alabama". The URL is http://susansalabamahome.blogspot.com/.

Angel

Taken at Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, TX.

Welcome Sara to the Blogosphere

Please check out my mother-in-law's blog,"Open for Renovation". The URL is http://openforrenovation.blogspot.com/. For those of you who don't know, Sara is YFML (a frequent commenter on this blog).

..with a little help from my friends..

That earlier post about my move from Round Rock to Atlanta to Austin might confuse you. So, if you're out of the loop on our ongoing plans, here it is in a nutshell.
1. Our house should sell this week.
2. Last week, we moved to Atlanta
3. This week, I moved back to Austin to stay with friends (thanks BigMac & HeidiMac!), until I can get a job in Atlanta.

Welcome Amy to the Blogosphere.

Please check out my wife's blog,"More Social than Work". The URL is http://moresocial.blogspot.com.

The Blog is back...

After a hectic week of moving from Round Rock to Atlanta to Austin, I am finally back and ready to BLOG. I guess I could have just started blogging, but then you would have missed this brilliant post.

Our new place in Atlanta

Be sure and check out the photoset (54 pictures)!

MARTA - Atlanta Tourist Loop

Next week, we'll have to try the MARTA - Atlanta Tourist Loop.

PodShow+ is getting here

I've been listening to Adam Curry's podcast (The Daily Source Code) for nearly two years. About a year ago, he started a company called Podshow. Here's their About Us page:

Podshow was created out of total frustration with current audio programming. The same songs, the same messaging, the same programming, everywhere, all the time, with no exceptions…

Welcome to PodShow, where you get to choose what you listen to and when and where you listen to it. We have thousands of programs ready to be heard on every topic imaginable, waiting to be downloaded, played, and enjoyed by anyone, anywhere, anytime. It’s your choice 100% of time.

34 oz Beer from Pluckers

34 oz Beer from Pluckers
Originally uploaded by eschulz.

If you go to Pluckers in Round Rock and order a Michelob Ultra, they bring you the bottle on the left. If, however, you order a Shiner Bock, they ask if you want a large one. The large is 34 ounces and is on the right. It is a bargain at $5.50.


Corrected: I thought it was 36oz, it's only 34oz.

The Blues Brothers ? Gay ?

The Blues Brothers
Originally uploaded by eschulz.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this article on the relationship between having older brothers and being gay. I mean Jake ? Elwood ? The Blues Brothers ?

This changes everything.

Luis Abreux

We made a new friend last week, who's dating a friend. He's an artist from Cuba. Check out some of his work at his website and at The Gallery on Greene in Key West.

It's really amazing art.

FunStart.org

Starting today, you can access this blog via http://eschulz.blogspot.com or http://funstart.org or even http://www.funstart.org/. It should be clear to you now that the fun will eventually start.

Items for sale...

• Refrigerator-Freezer (18 Cubic Feet) - $100
• Full Size Sleeper Sofa - $125
• 2 shelf bookcase - $15 (Sold for $10 to a lovely woman from Kyle)
• Big Blue Sofa! - $150 (Sold for $125 to a lovely couple from South Austin)
• 8 Drawer dresser - $35 (Sold for $30 to a lovely woman from Kyle)
• Workbench - $50 (Sold for $45 to a man from Round Rock)
• Workbench - $35

These are all listed on Craig's List - Austin

Ice Cream Shoes....

A friend at work always wears the latest hip tennis shoes and I've never seen him wearing something I could pull off. The other day, he was wearing these Ice Cream (brand of Reebok) shoes which are black with lime green dice on them. These I could wear...

Sorry for the lack of updates

We're moving in less than two weeks, and I'm trying to finish sorting/packing/discarding boxes of stuff that have somehow multiplied over the last 8 years. Our DSL was also down for a couple of days; I have it working now, and if it will just hold together for a little longer...

Odd Search

Someone found my blog by searching Google for the following keywords:

housewifes in atlanta looking for fun

I was the 22nd most popular match.

Thanks for everything, TXU

Thanks to TXU's blazing speed in responding to our power outage, we were without power for only 15 hours. Here's my timeline.

• 5:45am I wake up and see that there is no power in the house. I assume it's a temporary issue and go back to bed
  
• 6:55am I wake up again and see that there is still no power. I call TXU's automated emergency outage number and report problem and get confirmation number.
• 9:00am I walked down to the convenience store to get a paper and they were closed due to the power outage. This was my first indication that it was a larger problem.
  
• 9:15am I call to check on outage. I explain that I reported an issue 2 hours earlier. He asked if I had heard an explosion at the same time as I lost power and asked if I had checked my breakers. I explained again that I had a confirmation number from when I callled it in earlier. He said that I didn't and he will put in a trouble ticket and report the issue. He said he has no way to look up that number and that the ETA to resolution was 2:00pm.
  
• 9:45am I called back to see if the problem had actually been reported this time. It had.
• 2:05pm I called back to get an updated ETA. He said that the ETA was still 2pm. I asked for a better ETA. I explained that that the problem was with my whole block. He asked if I had checked my breakers. I explained that there aren't breakers for my entire block, but that I had tested my home's breakers.
  
• 4:00pm I called back to get an updated ETA and was told that they couldn't give me an ETA for resolution, but that she 'guaranteed' it would be resolved today.
• 4:30pm The temperature in the house has been rising steadily all day and it was 85 degrees in the house. We went to a friends house to wait.
  
• We saw on the news that the problem had been resolved at 5:00pm.

Nobody I talked to at TXU Energy was interested in sharing any information. There job was simple (to tell me something I wanted to hear and get me off the phone). They should have put an announcement on their emergency outage number that explained that the following areas were impacted by a power outage caused by a failed transformer.

Storms knocked out Round Rock power

6/18/2006 6:33 PM

By: News 8 Austin Staff

Nearly a thousand people in south and southeast Round Rock spent most of the day without power.A transformer was hit by lightning around 2 a.m., TXU said.The outages also affected the Dove Creek, Green Slopes and Cushing areas.Power was restored just before 5 p.m. Sunday.

News 8 Austin | 24 Hour Local News | TOP STORIES | Storms knocked out Round Rock power

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