You're Doing It Wrong

(BTW – the issues with the Good Ship Clusterfukatonia seem to be resolved as of today.)

I’ve had these photos sitting in here in a draft post forever. I was in Reno over a month ago.

I’m disappointed with the iPhone camera. I have a about 500 blurry Timbers photos from this season.

I worked through some of my new Photoshop stuff on these. Where is the miracle filter? I guess I’m not on that lesson yet.

My one story from Reno is when I went through security only one of my shoes came out of the scanner.

I said, “Oh no, I lost a shoe.”

The TSA lady said, “Yep. We’re keeping the other one.”

After a split second I said, “Well, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.”

And the TSA lady cracked up. She said sometimes that joke doesn’t go over big. She gave me my shoe back.

Boy, when summer finished, it didn’t mess around. It was cold and gray and drippy today. I decided to swap over to the flannel sheets and turned my closet over so the sweaters are in the front. It might be too early for that but if I jinxed us in favor of some more warm days, I’m okay with that.

Remember my Internet pants? I returned them all. First, I went to the mall store to ask the best way to handle it and my helper was terrific. She told me it was better to send them back and repurchase online because in the store they would treat it as a return, but then I’d have to pay the prices in the store and lose any discounts from my online order. She also told me that they DID change the cut of the pants and many of their customers were having trouble with the fit.

She recommended that I wear them around the house a bit because they would give and I’d probably find them more comfortable. She was half-right. They did give a bit but I think the style is a bit more snug than I am comfortable with so I returned the whole lot and am going into the cooler season with the same ancient old clothes.

Pendleton has a new updated cut of pants that I haven’t tried yet. Cross your fingers.

Speaking good customer service, I had several amazing customer service experiences with Comcast. Isn’t that an anomaly? Didn’t Comcast get voted the worst company ever by some website?

I had to call for a work related thing and they helped me out. Then I decided to trade my DVR in.

Our cable bill recently went up by $30. I looked in my file and realized I’ve had my DVR for 6 years which I believe means I’ve paid for it 2x. I figured they owed me a new one so I ripped mine out of the wall and went to the new store in Vancouver. It was not terrible.

I still had to wait about 45 minutes but they gave me a new shiny one and a remote that isn’t caked with 6 years worth of ook. I installed it and of course it didn’t work. He told me I might have to call to get it activated so I called and they needed a ton of not-handy information like the serial number which at that point was on the back of the DVR and shoved back in entertainment center. Also there were at least 4 potential serial numbers and all with teeny tiny writing. AARP needs to rally Congress to make a law that nothing can be in teeny tiny writing.

The woman I talked to was overseas and completely charming. When I whooped yay, it’s working, she said she was happy that I was happy.

But then later I had more problems and I had to call again and that person was helpful, too. And she was funny. I’d write out the whole story but, snore!

I keep meaning to write shorter posts more often but can’t seem to manage.

I have started an online tutorial for an Adobe product at least a half dozen times. This weekend I thought I’d do the Photoshop one and finish it this time. 15 hours. If I did 3 hours a day (I took the day off THU as well) I could do the whole thing.

I am delusional because I worked at it very hard every day and I finished one hour a day. And my poor brain is full. I had to stop to try the various things and I repeated several sections. I enjoyed the work I did but I am a slow learner.

I’m really going to try to finish the entire course this time, ideally before the next version of the software comes out. Wish me luck.

In other news, I thought I’d try to buy some pants online again and met with total failure. I buy almost everything from the same store. I went through everything in my closet and tried it all on, made sure I still like how it fit, checked the size. They were all the same size.

It didn’t feel overly optimistic that I could buy from the website and be successful.

Nope. Three different styles. None fit. Now I’m not sure if I’m going to take the stuff to the store and see if I can find stuff that fits or just send it all back and wear my same old clothes until they disintegrate.

There was a post card in the box from the CEO thanking me for my loyalty and inviting me to share any thoughts I had with her via email. I was not delusional here. I knew there was no way this lady was responding to customer emails but I sent a note anyway begging for consistency in sizing.

The autoresponder thanked me and let me know she forwarded my email to the customer service team. How much you want to bet I get boilerplate instructions on how to return the clothes that didn’t fit.

This one came out of the iPhone after some sort of special effects sweetener. Took both photos from the ferry.

You know how some kinds of old plastic get this smell like stinky feet? We had a Coleman cooler that still worked great but holymotherofstinkbombs. No amount of white vinegar or Athlete’s foot powder did any good and we finally got rid of it.

I have my basil on the windowsill planted in an old plastic pot and it smells like feet. Every time I stand in front of the kitchen sink I smell feet. The basil never took off and looks wilty. I think the potting soil keeps it too damp. I need to grind it up with some garlic and pine nuts so we can all feel better about its place in the world.

This is the Clink, home of the Seattle Sounders and Seahawks. I’ll let them duke it out who gets top billing.

I’m so far behind on my stories. I keep finding more notes with something that I want to post about.

Last weekend we were in Seattle and if you’d never been there before and that was your only visit you’d be convinced the place is magical. Perfect weather. Clear skies. We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island and it was amazing. Had terrific meals and ate them all outside. Visited with friends we don’t get to spend a lot of time with. Great museums. We went to the Flying Heritage museum and I told the docent, “This is the coolest place I didn’t know I wanted to see.” Yet another thing my sweetheart dragged me to that I never would have discovered on my own.

17 years and still plodding along.

I believe this is from New Years 1996 when we announced our engagement. Location: Olympia, WA. Person in the background: Auntie Janet. My cousin Bari is the one who introduced us. Didn’t my sweetie have fetching eyewear?