Quick Thoughts 4/26

• Hungry for Happy Joe’s pizza, but don’t have a location where you live?  No problem, now you can have one delivered in the mail.  I am going to have to give this a try sometime.
• CNN just did ran a series on the worst songs of all time.  Be sure to read the related articles as well.  I can agree with some of the choices, (i.e. Hollaback Girl) but I can tell I’m in trouble for actually liking some of the songs that made the list.  I think it’s about time for me to come up with another Kahn’s top 10 music list.  Perhaps, my top 10 least favorite songs.  That will be a tough one.
• I like Nickelback, but this is a real eye-opener.  I guess their songs really do sound the same.  The song roadmap is identical on “How you Remind Me” and “Someday.”  Wow.
• Brett Favre is reportedly coming back for one more losing season.  Perhaps he will set some sort of interception record next year, if the Bears don’t knock him out for the season after the first game. 
• We sign our papers to close on the old house today.  The buyer signs Friday.  Yep, Slider is buying my house. 
• That reminds me of my brief stint as the mascot of the Clinton Lumber Kings.  It lasted only two days because I couldn’t stand the heat.  Those mascot costumes are freaking hot.  At least I can say that I was the very first “Louie the Lumber King!”

Quick Thoughts 4/25

• This is gross, but I can’t stop laughing.  I’m always a sucker for reading the “Strange News” headlines that are from Iowa.
• In a follow-up from an earlier rant about Charter, I checked my account today and saw that they did credit me the errant charge that I complained about before.  However, they still were $0.43 short in the amount they credited me.  I know it’s just $0.43, but it’s the principle of it that bothers me, so I called them back up to get it set straight.  The person I talked to today was even more helpful, because at the end of the conversation, she said she would check to see if there were any current specials that she could set me up with.  Sure enough, I will be getting their current special for the next six months, and saving $30 per month.  That was definitely worth the follow-up call.
• Here’s an interesting article on the Nintendo Revolution.  I don’t know if I’ll be in the market for one of the next generation game consoles or not, but if at some point I do decide to get one, the Revolution is definitely looking like my system of choice.  I’m just not into the action and first-person shooter games so much, and I really prefer the retro and sports games.  Plus, if we let Payton play video games at all, it seems like the Nintendo has the best selection of games for kids.  It will be interesting to see what Nintendo comes out with for a pricing point, and how they implement the retro game downloads.   

Quick Thoughts 4/21

• It’s so hard to be a Cubs fan.  We’re not even out of April, and the Cubs’ best player, Derek Lee is out for almost two months with a broken wrist.  The injury bug bites again!  I guess if there’s an up-side, it’s that it happened so early.  So if the Cubs can keep afloat for a couple months, then they will be at full strength for the stretch run.
• The NBA saved some face, and only has one playoff team with a losing record.  I’m happy to see the Bulls make it to the playoffs and at least they managed a .500 record.  They are the hot team among the lower seeds in the East, winning their last 12 of 14 games.  I look for them to continue their hot streak, and wouldn’t be surprised to see them upset Miami. 
• A new Star Trek movie is planned for a 2008 release.  I guess “The Next Generation” cast is done now too, as this movie will follow the early days of Kirk and Spock.  It seems like they are going the back-story route following the success of a movie like Batman Begins.  That’s kind of a good idea I guess.  It works for me.
• I’ve been listening to the new Shinedown album, Us and Them recently.  Good stuff.
• A couple of my favorite Christian rock bands, Kutless and Hawk Nelson have put new albums out in the past month.  Kutless’ Hearts of the Innocent album is decent, but not their best material in my opinion.  I highly recommend the new Hawk Nelson album, Smile, It’s the End of the World, though.  It’s full of high-energy songs with catchy hooks.  Check it out.

Beware of Charter

Charter Communications has some pretty shady practices from my experience.  Yesterday I was able to chalk one more up.  When I checked my bank balance yesterday morning, I noticed that Charter had withdrawn an unexpected $29.89 from my account.  Unable to understand where this charge was coming from, I called them up to find out.  I was told that this was my transfer fee from when I switched service from our old house to the new house.  There’s just one problem with that…I already paid the cable guy $19.95 for this fee.  I told the customer service representative that was the only fee I was told about, and if they are adding another one on top now, that seems pretty sneaky.  She put me on hold for a few minutes while she “investigated” the situation.  When she came back, she apologized for the extra fee and said I should not have been charged twice for the transfer fee.  One thing that still doesn’t make sense to me is if the transfer fee was $19.95, then why did they withdraw $29.89 from my bank account?

This is the not the first time I have had fees on my cable bill that should not be there.  I think Charter intentionally does this, and if the customer doesn’t notice, then they just made some easy money.  A few years ago I switched to a cable modem and was supposed to get free installation.  Well guess what?  When I received my bill, there was a $50 installation charge on it!    Once again, I had to call Charter and get the erroneous charge removed.  I wonder if the BBB would be interested in this information?  If you’re a Charter customer, watch your bills carefully.

Weekend recap

We’re back from an exciting weekend away from home.  Things got off to a wild start on Thursday night as we tried to dodge severe weather in Iowa.  Fortunately, my mom called me and told me how serious the weather was getting, so I tuned into a local radio station and hung out north of the storms for about 45 minutes to let the worst of it pass.  Iowa City was right on our route, and they got hit pretty hard by some tornados Thursday night.  The warning included a stretch of I-80, and I guess when the warning sounded, three semi trucks stopped on the interstate and blocked it off.  That’s probably a good idea since a lot of people listen to MP3 players and CDs in the car, and never would have known how serious the situation was getting.  There were reports of golfball and softball sized hail with these storms.  I’m glad I didn’t see anything bigger than pea-sized hail though.

Friday was a lot less chaotic.  Before we left for the Chicago area, we took some pictures of Payton feeding the baby lambs on the farm.  He had a blast!

We left Payton at the farm and headed to the Chicago area for Jason’s wedding rehearsal.  The dinner was at Giordano’s pizza place, which I have to say is some of the best pizza I’ve ever had.  No, Mike, Matt, and I didn’t call each other ahead of time, but I guess black shirts and khaki pants were the proper attire.

Saturday was the wedding, and everything went perfectly.  The wedding party got to ride from the church to the reception in a huge Lincoln Navigator limo.  That was a blast.  The dinner was one of the best wedding meals I’d ever had.  It started out with a bowl of French onion soup, then a salad, and a scoop of rose sorbet to cleanse the palate.  The main course included a fillet of beef cooked medium rare, exactly how I like it, a vegetable medley, some asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes.  It was wonderful.  The cake was sinfully good as well.  Oh yeah, it was an open bar too. 

It’s always great to see my high school buddies.  Here’s a picture of the five of us that made it out for the wedding.  Congratulations Jason!

It's been a while

So, I’ve been catching some flack from Bigshow.  Yesterday he told me there was something wrong with his computer.  He said, “When I go to your blog page and hit "refresh", it still shows your blog from last Wednesday as your latest one.”  Point taken.

We moved into the new house last Saturday, and since then, I’ve really lacked motivation to do much of anything else.  Once I got the TV and computer hooked back up, I was pretty content until I get time on the weekends to organize the garage and basement.  The fun part about moving was driving the truck I rented.  I got a 24’ moving truck form Budget, and it was bigger than anything I’d driven before.  It was a big diesel, and wasn’t far from a semi truck, but fortunately for me, it had automatic transmission.  At first I cut a couple of corners a little short and ran over the curb, but I figured out the proper way to turn pretty quickly.  I would recommend using Budget to rent trucks.  Actually, I’d recommend anyone but U-Haul, as I’ve had more than one bad experience with them in the past.  With U-Haul, just because you reserve a truck, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will have a truck for you the day you need it.  You’ve been warned.

The new neighborhood has been great so far.  We’ve met more people in less than a week than we ever did in our old neighborhood.  People have been very friendly and welcoming, and there are lots of kids around that Payton will be able to play with through the years.  I just think people are a little antsy, as most of my neighbors have already been out mowing their lawns.  The thing is, the lawns are just starting to green up, and nothing has really started growing yet.  I think they are rushing it a bit. 

Here’s a picture of the new house.

We’re heading to Davenport tonight to drop Payton off with my parents, and then Friday we head back to the Chicago area for my friend Jason’s wedding.  In honor of the occasion, I’ve written a haiku for Jason.  Want to hear it?  Ok, here it goes.

Getting hitched you are

That sounds like a Yoda quote

It’s about time man.

That’s it for today.  Next week I’ll post some pictures from the weekend festivities.  Have a good weekend.

Quick Thoughts 4/5

• Payton turned two yesterday and is a big boy now!  I will get some pictures up soon.  He’s excited to get to sleep in a “big boy” bed after we move on Saturday. 
• The moving process has begun.  I have 90% of my garage moved over which was huge, and we have taken a lot of boxes over to the new house already too.  I have a moving truck lined up for Saturday when we will be moving over the big and heavy items. 
• I still keep an eye on the Chicago Bulls, but here’s the problem with the NBA:  the Bulls have a lousy 34–40 record and yet they are only half a game out of the final Eastern Conference playoff spot.  Teams with losing records don’t deserve to be rewarded with going to the post-season.  The NBA playoffs are a joke, and the Eastern Conference is really atrocious. 
• Jack Johnson…good stuff.  On his new album for the Curious George Soundtrack, there is a song called “The 3 R’s,” you know, reduce, reuse, recycle.  It’s catchy as heck.  I want to play that during our meeting for our annual ISO 14001 training to liven it up a bit.