Butterfly On The Van

Yesterday, this butterfly flew into my face, then landed on Barbs van. I took a quick photo before it took off again.

Looks like this little fella had some battle scars.

Roof Drops

Yesterday strong storms came through and left an aftermath of fallen leaves and tree limbs.

Here is a picture of my sunroof in the morning.

R.I.P. Ampd…. We Had Such Big Hopes

UPDATE ***

Amp'd revises shutoff date: July 31 at the earliest

****


*Live picture of Ampd site, up and running 7.21.07 12:01 am.

I might have mentioned my reservation before…but it appears that Ampd is no longer after 7.24.07. Anyway that is all the buzz over the internets.

Things seem to be confirmed with a quick note that that “Amp'd is potentially suspending US operations on July 24th.” in a hard to find subpage in the Ampd.com sight seem to confirm, Amp’d seems to be no more.

You have to read this *unconfirmed* comment I found on the engadget page:

AsianZensation @ Jul 22nd 2007 6:41AM

I work for Ampd Mobile in the IT at the corporate office.....I'll tell you the past few days here have been weird, quiet and just tense. We had a meeting on friday with the CEO and he basically told us not in these exact words but basically start udating your Resume!!! Since Ampd is over I'm gonna let you guys in on some info. Verizon is pulling the plug on us on the 24th, (which you guys know already) they want to do it on Monday but the court order indicates that Monday is the rediculous deadline Ampd has to meet in order for Verizon not to shut us down. We have to come up with 7 million dollars by Monday before Verizon can pull the plug....which means Tuesday at 12:00am they terminate Ampd Forever! We have collected 3 million which some of it came from our customers who were in collections already! My opinion for the downfall of Ampd, 1) Letting customers get to exagerating overdue balances up to....you ready for this: I saw customers who racked up 6 thousand dollar balances and where still not shut off....NO JOKE! and some of them were on family plans....I sawn a family plan ith 5 lines 60 days overdue ownig us $7,450.00 I dont know about you but I know Verizon Sprint, T-Mobile Etc....once you reach 30 days or atleast close to $1,000.00. they shut you off! 2)Our "brilliant" VP of Marketing who focused our budget more on getting top celebs and music artist for out content then actually focusing on servicing our customers and actually hiring decent customer service reps who are the worst i have ever come across Seriously Ampd customer service was one of the worst CS I have ever ever seen......they get about 3 or 4 days of crappy training, then after having to learn like 7 different systems in that short time, they throw them on the phones and dont even know the difference between CDMA and GSM.....Im surprise we lasted over 2 years!!! and finally here is also my opinion on the CEO: the CEO has that 7 mill we need (of hes own money) to get us out of this hole and give us that extra time so that verizon doesnt pull the plug just yet, but even hes not stupid enough to invest back into hes own company when he doesnt even believe in it anymore. S**T I wouldnt...... no one does. thats why no one wanted to invest on the "titanic".....Well enough of my rant but Im very disapointed to leave Ampd after 2 years with company and how laid back it was....we ocasionaly had beer breaks during work hours...sometime we buy cases of Coronas and just drink and chill...those where the good ol days. Well back to the EDD line on Tuesday for me! lol

Tennis Trap Tempts Tenacious Tanner

Tanner, the luckiest Dog in the world, loves the park. She should as we spend about an hour there every day just for her. Rain, Shine, Freezing cold, there is almost nothing that would keep us from the park.

But of all the seasons, summer is by far the best. I am not talking about the stinking hot temperatures. No.

It is for the tennis.

No we don’t really play per-se. What we do is collect tennis balls. You see the uber-genius who designed this cage match of poor sportsman ship and incompetence was short sighted enough to place it near these rather large overgrown mismanaged planting you see here. Being a huge fan of all things yellow and bouncy (cant even take her to the beach on yellow bikini day) and having a nose that would make the best bloodhound envious, she can ferret one or two Dunlop specials from the reeds and foliage. You could say she is a classically trained retriever. She loves her tennis balls affectionately known to her as her “bird” to the point that we have a couple dozen in the back of my truck at any given time. This is fine with me, more ammo for the Hyperdog slingshot.

Proving once and for all a bird in the hand is better than two in the brush (sic).

Weekend Project-Painting Hell

This weekend was taken up by another painting project…painting the exterior of the City house.

You would have thought we would have learned from painting Barbs house last year, but no, no we did not.

Being too frugal to hire someone creates a laundry list of issues and mountains of work. Oh-well, someone has to do it. This is only the front this weekend and that was after it was pretty much all prepped last weekend. Wait till the shutters get back up, it will look great.

The Earl

The other day, I had to stop by Vogels locksmith, and ran into The Earl.

It reminded me that I had not been there a long time… something I will soon have to remedy.

Today- I Sold A Part Of Me

Today I Sold Something.

Really I sold a part of something, something that means a lot to me.

It was really not a choice, it was the smart decision, it was the right thing to do and yet I can not fell like I lost a little of myself today.

I know that you are not really what you have, but sometimes something becomes more than a possession it becomes a part of you. It arises such a passion in you that to loose the same, it hurts the same as a loss of someone close to you.

Really I will be just sharing with someone new, someone I know … and yet I feel the loss as tangible as if someone cut a pound of flesh from my person.

*sigh*

Monday Funday- Jury Duty

Monday, I fulfilled my civic duty and reported to the county courthouse for jury duty.

I was on time, respectful, and courteous.

In the end was faced with only one boring Voir Dire, and was rewarded with precious, precious freedom. Freedom from jury duty that is, as I really was in no danger of losing my freedom unlike the defendant, who by the looks of him was in serious danger of loosing that very thing.

You know the old saying, “if you ever get into trouble with the law, your fate is likely to be determined by twelve people who are not even smart enough to get out of jury duty”. In my experience this in not really the case at all.

For most people it is really a numbers and waiting game. If you get called to served, you may get chosen for a possible jury. If you are in the prospective jury, you still have about a 50/50 chance of sitting in the jury box. From there it really has little to do with brainpower, but more of circumstance. The Voir Dire, the question and answer process is there to weed out the biased, and for both sides so jockey for a better prospective position.

The thing is you do swear to tell the truth, so unless you LIE(not recommended) or are lucky (as I was this time) you are stuck. Stuck that is unless you are one of the following, then you pretty much have a free pass:

The Knower: This is the person who knows the defendant, the prosecutor, or knows just too much about the crime. They will ask you, you will tell them, and you will be walking out the door faster than you can say “dismissed for cause”.

The Cop: Work in law enforcement, you’re an forensic expert, work as expert witness? Say goodbye to the jury clerk for me as you get your days compensation.

The Victim: Been a victim of a crime? A crime like the one going to trial? A close family member you say? Hate the system who railroaded you/your loved ones? The court would like to thank you for your service, you are excused.

The Inconvenienced: Got a big sob story? You’re the only one who can give shots to your grandmothers diabetic cats since she has passed? Have a medical condition that keeps you from serving in a reasonably comfortable matter? Why you got past the jury clerk is a mystery to us all, please be excused the with courts appreciation.

In short if you are on the jury you are not automatically stupid but don’t rule it our either. To be on the jury you’re just not lucky. Lucky with the numbers, or happen to be one of the four above.

Happy 4th of July 2007