Dear Customer.......

Here's my response that I got from my previous post:




Subject:RE: Amazon.com Store Card Other Inquiries
Sent:July 01, 2012 01:50 AM EDT

Customer Service Wrote:

Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding your amazon.com account, and the opportunity to be of service to you.
We appreciate the time you took to provide your input. We strive to learn from our past experiences and your feedback is very important to us.

Great customer service and satisfaction are an integral part of our business. We understand your disappointment and would like to keep you as a valued customer.

Please accept our sincerest apology and allow us the opportunity to provide you the highest level of customer service in the future.

We appreciate you as a valued amazon.com customer and hope you will continue to shop with us. If you have any questions or if we may be of further assistance, please contact us via the Online Message Center.

Sincerely,

C Changalpet.
Customer Service

Account is owned by GE Capital Retail Bank - Member FDIC

Dear Bank.....

Your customer service reps are the rudest I've ever encountered. This is a new account that I setup and I missed the first payment, I realize that it was my fault and I ensured the rep that I would pay my payment online and pay the late fee. He proceeded to tell me that I could pay it with him right now over the phone and would not take no for an answer. He explained that he could waive the late fee. I explained to him that I was holding a crying baby and did not have time to pay it and that I had to go. But he was relentless and I told him he was rude and I eventually hung up. I don't want to talk to a rep that treats me like I've done something terribly wrong by accidentally missing one payment that I offered to pay within the next 24 hours while giving in to paying an extravagant late fee.
Also, hire some Americans to do this job - I know that I was talking to someone in India. But who am I kidding, you guys are a bank and you don't care about the American economy, just your own wallet.

I sent this to Citi Bank - who is financing an item that I purchased for my wife. (I know that I said that I would never get a credit card again - but this was a one time thing and they gave me $50 off for financing it and 0% interest, I'm paying it off and not touching it again.) They have been calling me very 30 min for the last two days because I accidentally didn't make the first payment on time.
Well that's about it, I hope some big shot sees this, but he probably won't. And if he did he probably wouldn't care as he read it on his iPhone on the 6th hole of some prestigious golf course.

Vaccines

Just start a sentence with "What do you think about vaccines" - that is if you have an hour or two to talk.

I have two infants now so it's a topic that I've choosen to research.

Subsequently, I just started a new shift at work and CNN is on all night, Last night Amanda Peet was on promoting the Shot@Life campaign, it's a pro-vaccine group. I don't get this, why do celebrities get on T.V. and promote something that they "believe" in but have no facts on - or at least they can't spit the facts out in a understandable form. Pierce Morgan asked her a question, a generic question about vaccines and her response was "Umm...well...ummm....doctors say that they are good." Seriously! (that wasn't her exact quote, but its close).

Anyways, it is so alarming how anti or pro vaccines people are.

I see this as part of a bigger problem. Why do people only fall on one side or the other on a topic? Pick something, anything. Any topic at all and you will find a group of people that are completely against it and a group that's completely for it. Why?! There are more answers than YES and NO. Not in every case, but sometimes it's just not a cut and dry answer.

I've done some research, I've put some time in on this. And I don't beleive that either party is correct. And I can't stand that they both preach that their way is the right way, but can't bring facts to the table. The anti-vaccine people say that vaccines cause autisim, which is crazy. It's crazy because these stay at home moms think that they've figured it out, they aren't scientists, they aren't doctors....but they know that the vaccines are the cause of a specicfic brain disorder. Get to work on the cure for cancer then soccer moms.

The the pro-vaccine people, they are just as crazy. It's like they like the fact that we are giving are children more shots, it's almost like they want more. It's kind of weird.

Now I'm a little bit of a skeptic when it comes to most things. I want to see the facts, the hard evidence. And neither one of these groups bring that to the table......that's scary.

"Because he said so" isn't a fact. And it's not the end all be all.

"Because we said to" doesn't make me feel all warm and cozy.

We are going to give our kids vaccines. That's what we've landed on. But, we are not doing them all and we are going to spread them out (Sorry Amanda Peet, but they aren't your kids - so not your business). I just don't think that a 12 year old needs to have the HPV vaccine. The HPV vaccine that doesn't protect you from all of the strains of HPV, but only protects against the ones that you can get through sexual intercourse. Good parenting will help with that one, and you don't have to inject anything into my kid.

The chicken pox vaccine is another good one. Chicken pox can cause death in children, but it's very very rare. In 2003 it caused 8 deaths in the U.S. - I feel bad for those kids and their families, don't get me wrong, but that's a really low number. To low to start vaccinating everyone........so they start giving all children the vaccine. Now they think that the vaccine is the culprit for the recent huge spike in the cases of shingles.

The biggest super crazy part of all of this is: People who's kids have been vaccinated are the ones that are up in arms about kids who aren't vaccinated......If their kids are vaccinated, then what are they worried about, their kids shouldn't get sick if they've been vaccinated...............what are they afraid of?

"It's a very very mad world"

Amanda Peet would hate me.

Time is Contagious

I don't have enough time. No matter what I do. No matter which job schedule I take. No matter what amount of sleep I get. No matter what I do.

I haven't wrote on here in a while ( the award winning, most favorite, most used first line of all blogs around the world) - (which kind of plays into my title)

...So, I guess I should bring everyone up to speed, you know this is a Web Log and all.

Captians Log, May 8th. Star Date 2012.5
The crew has doubled in size over the last month, with the birth of Leo and Ella.

On April 6th, 2012. Our offspring entered this world. At the time I was NASCAR'ing it to Dearborn from Findlay OH. I've never had to do anything like that, and I 've never been that nervous before. And even though I drove at top speed the whole way. I missed the birth of my first two children (possibly only children, remember the ships' full). I was angry at first, then I was kind of releived that I wasn't there. But, I've finally landed on ashamed, I should've been there for my wife. She was ok though, she had her mom there with her. I guess it's a pride thing.....whatever, it is what it is. So I made it there, 5 min after Ella was born, and they were beautiful, wonderful, and healthy. They where born 7 weeks early and they where perfectly fine. They had to stay in the NICU for about 2 weeks.

So there you go, you're up to speed on the head count.

There's a line from a Damien Rice song that I love...."Time is contagious, Everybody's getting old" My take on the song is that it means to get off your butt and just get it done. If you sit around your life will just pass you by. He says it in a bunch of different, weird ways in the song, but the meaning is the same. It's a pretty inspiring song to me. When I have the time that I need, I seem to waste it. And it's not that I have an addiction to video games or something like that. I know that's a big one, I haven't hooked up my PS3 since I moved in Feb. I just seem to always be busy and always be out of time.

I have to say that I am super impressed with my wife, Brianne. She's taking care of both kids for basically 36-40 hours in a row while I work. Her mom has been helping her a lot. But she has been doing a great job.

Time managent is not my strongest ability, and I hope that I can improve on it in the future.

Rockin' around the manger scene, have a happy holiday.

So I had this "conversation" with some family members at a Christmas party about why I don't put up Christmas decorations. They found it absurd that I don't join in and "celebrate" the "holiday" by decorating (I am going to be using a lot of quotation marks to imply sarcasm). I just don't get it......this is an American holiday tradition and it has nothing to do with the actual celebration itself. We are celebrating the birth of Jesus, our Savior. Not evergreen trees. Not strings of lights. How do these things get people in "the Christmas spirit".....whatever the heck that is. Is it feeling good about yourself? Is it the sense of accomplishment? Is it being in a different surrounding?.......like I said, I do not get it.

I would say that doing something that Jesus would do should be the thing that "gets you in the Christmas Spirit". If Jesus were around today would he be wasting time and resources on a Christmas tree?.....No!.....no way!....he would probably say that it's foolish. I would rather take the money and time that would go into the decorating and use it wisely......like give it to the poor.....or help a family that's in need......or whatever, just something other than that.

Am I being overly dramatic.....maybe a little.
Am I being a little mean.....maybe.
Am I being sarcastic.....definitely......But my point is this: I shouldn't be labeled as weird or different or a scrooge just because I don't like decorating. That's not fair to me.

An argument for another time: Why do we buy presents for ourselfs and our family's......it's not our birthday celebration. Jesus said in the Bible: Whatever you do for the poor, you do for me.....that sounds like a good birthday present to me.

Carrie's Wedding Day

Let me tell you about my day....my little sisters wedding day.

It all started with a dream that I had the night before. I dreamed that on my way to my sisters wedding I get into a terrible car accident and die, and I have to watch her ruined wedding day from a ghostly presence in the distance....weird dream.

So, in the morning I get up, I get ready, pack up and leave. I get half way to the wedding and my truck shifts to 2nd gear while I'm on the freeway all by itself and I cant do over 40 mph. The transmission is on the fritz. I get off the freeway and somehow made it to the wedding at snail speeds.

The weather has to be mentioned. It was windy and cold, normal for Michigan this time of year.......outside wedding....yep...enough said.

The wedding was great, Adam did a great job, and everything went as smoothly as possible. Then I had to ride all the way to my parents with a tow truck driver. Not to put down tow truck drivers at all. This guy was nice, but like most of the men in his profession - he was the bee's knees and he was a talker......long ride to my parents house.

Then we unpack, what was packed for the second time and go home, change clothes, then it's off to the Aleshire family ritual when all of the family is in town.....Bowling

After bowling I stop by my friends house for a millisecond, and my other friend calls me to help him with a flat tire.......that's a fiasco because the tire was rusted to the rotor.....and that brings us to 4:00am.

Whew......long day.....it was fun and great and terrible and relaxing and stressful and joyful and annoying......and I wouldn't have changed it for the world.

The Dark Knight........Rides A Yellow Schwinn?

So if you read my last post, then you know that I was recently robbed. Well, tonight I got home late and I couldn't sleep so I did what every normal person does when they can't sleep......fight crime?

Yes, armed only with an old yellow Schwinn, flash light and cellphone, I set off ......umm.....peddled into the night. I really just wanted to get out of the house and it was a nice night.....but it turned into something more. I started thinking about how the theif did it. Did he recon certain houses? Is he on foot or in a car? Is it just some kid or any actual seasoned burglar?.......I figured if he pulled this off on a semi major road, it had to be the perfect time.....3 maybe 4 a.m.......I was determined to solve the case.

I started refining my surveillance to darker streets and older vehicles that don't have automatic locks. Yes, I took the time to do this. I went up and down every street from Trenton to Ford Line and from Eureka to Dix.......not a soul in sight.

Yes, in the early morning hours on Sept 1st, 2011, the streets of Southgate were safe.........or I've just gone a bit crazy.......or maybe a bit of both, who knows.

It was a nice night though...........