Cellphone Charge

We did eventually figure out what to do with our dead cellphone. We couldn’t decide on sticking with one phone, or getting a second one. Further to that we were trying to decide if we should stick with Telus or not.

In then end we stuck with Telus and got a second phone. I looked at 18 months worth of previous bills and decided that changing plans would work out fine for us and we could safely give up per second billing (all Telus’ plans now are per minute billing).

The process itself at a Telus store was pretty simple. We ended up with and awesome service tech and he totally hoked us up. After a few stressful moments due to tired and unhappy kids we were out of the store new phones in hand.

I don’t even know what phone Sox chose, but I chose a Samsung Slyde m540. I’d read a few reviews of it, and I liked the feature list. The extra $30 cost was negligible to me. The address book is excellent, the call quality superb, the phone has a nice feel to it.

When I got the phone the tech set me up with a sweet phone number. When I got my first bill, I noticed a $25 customer number bill. The tech never mentioned this charge to me. I did know about all the other stupid, inane, grab as much money as they can fees, but this one was never mentioned to me. I called up Telus and thankfully the person I talked to reversed that charge.

So far I am very happy with the change. Sox and I can more easily coordinate picking each other up, and have less coordinating with our cellphone use. Plus, with the family plans, there is unlimited calling between our two phones anywhere. Finally, it’s nice to have a geek toy with me all the time again 🙂

Horrible Doozy

Last Thursday morning I woke up with the most horrible cold I have had in a long time. Turned out to be some form of flu. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I was flat out leveled by this.

I had no energy to do anything, I had a constant headache, I had a sore throat, no appetite, my ears were sore and my hearing extra sensitive, I had chills, but I didn’t have much of a fever.

As much as I wanted to help out around the house I physically was not able to. This meant my awesome wife did everything for the family. I cannot begin to tell her how much I appreciated everything she did.

When Monday morning rolled around and I still wasn’t feeling much better I made an appointment to see my doctor. After I described a couple of my symptoms he started to tell me that they don’t do testing for H1N1 anymore, which was something I was already aware of. He explained a couple things about H1N1 that I didn’t know, and suggested that I have a normal flu.

He checked me out and since my lungs were clear gave me the green light to go home and rest again. I mainly wanted to see him to make sure that what I had wasn’t something else. I also wanted to see if there were any precautions I didn’t know about to prevent spreading it within our family. The recommendations for home quarantine are pretty severe. I would have had to lock myself in the basement and not anyone in. If they had to come in I should have stayed more than 6 feet away.

Anyway, so far it seems like the precautions I have used have worked as noone else is sick yet. *knock on wood*

Today I feel like I am almost over with this sickness. I still feel sick, but there is a dramatic improvement from yesterday. Maybe tomorrow I can work a full day (from home).

Be careful out there, this one is a doozy.

Barber Chances

I found a decent barber that I go to that is near work. He does a good job, has a decent price, and is close to work. He has a helper that doesn’t do a very good job though. In fact, I’ve been to the helper three times now, and all three times I’ve felt like he butchered my hair.

This place doesn’t take appointments, and is first come first served by whichever barber is free. I try to go on days when the helper isn’t there, but that isn’t always successful.

Yesterday, there was a bigger problem I faced when I showed up in desperate need of a haircut. The barber shop moved recently, and the barber I like wasn’t there when I walked in. The helper I didn’t like, and some other helper I’ve never seen before were working.

I couldn’t just turn around and walk out. I didn’t want to take a chance on the new person, and I hoped the regular helper wouldn’t butcher my hair. I sat and waited my turn, and ended up with the helper I don’t like.

While I was getting trimmed I learned that the shop owner was on vacation, and I also learned the shop is way busier in their new location. This means there will be a greater chance of a helper working there whenever I go to get a haircut.

The question is what do I do? Take my chances each time I get a haircut? Should I ask the shop owner when the best time to go and get him would be? Should I try to find a new place to get a haircut? A place that takes appointments?

I know, maybe I should be like Sox and only get my hair cut twice a year!

Truck Character

A friend is staying with us for a few days while she is in town for a wedding. I haven’t needed the truck, so our friend has been using instead of renting something.

Well, the other day she was in Oak Bay, and someone opened their door and scratched and dented the truck. When I first heard I thought it was a joke, but then I checked it out. My initial reaction was that of anger and disappointment, but then I started thinking about it.

My truck is a 98. It already has a few small dents, lots of scratches, and certainly isn’t a new truck. I convinced myself to let it go. Sox called the people who left the note and told them not to worry about it. I love my truck, but it is time to accept that it isn’t new, and that I can’t baby it (not that I do that anyway). Anyway, I am not interested in making someone else pay for a paint job. Getting one quarter panel painted would make the rest of the truck look funny. I don’t want to screw up their insurance either.

Any way. The truck has a new dent and a new scratch. More character I guess.

Cleaner Rocks

Last weekend I was out at PetSmart getting a few supplies for around the house, and I decided to get another fish. I only had one Cory left, and I wanted another cleaner fish so I looked through their stock a bit before I found what I was looking for.

I chose an Otocinclus. This fish attaches itself to the side of the tank and eats the algae. Occasionally it swims around to another location, but most of its time is attached to the tank.

I also cleaned the tank this week. After moving one of the decorations, I caught a glimpse of a teeny, tiny crayfish. It is still alive. Cool. Hopefully it makes it. Right now the crayfish is about a centimetre long and dark like the rocks in the tank. When it doesn’t move, you can’t tell it is a living creature.

Brizzly Inline

A long time ago I discovered TweetLens on Boris Mann’s site. I was looking for a web based Twitter client that allowed me to synchronize my reading between computers. Tweetlens offered this and was pretty slick.

Tweetlens has a long list of features that I love, but recently something happened on the site, and I started having problems logging in and getting content. It was unavailable for a while, and when I could login, it seemed a lot slower for some reason. The creator of TweetLens has also moved on to other projects and put the source code up on GitHub. I took a peak at the code, but it didn’t think it was in a state where I could figure out how to install it on my own domain.

I started to look for something new.

I quickly discovered Brizzly on TechCrunch. I’ve been using Brizzly for Twitter reading for about a week now, and although I miss a couple features from Tweetlens, I don’t think I will be going back.

First off, @Brizzly just looks a lot nicer and more polished. I may not be able to mark items as read, but the site tells me when there are more tweets to download, then after I retrieve them they are highlighted in yellow.

Brizzly allows me to quickly and easily switch between multiple accounts.

I can create groups of tweeps. Handy for getting common topics together. What I also discovered is that you can add people you don’t follow to a group. There are some people I like checking in on once in a while, but they tweet too much to follow them. I have a group for people just like this.

When scrolling down through the tweet list, they have a never ending scroll feature that is just awesome. When you reach the end, the page requests the next set of tweets and displays them inline. I don’t have to click a link to refresh the list.

Their DM’s are more like IM’s which is cool too. Url’s are auto expanded for you, twit pics and youtube video’s are displayed inline, you can save draft tweets, you can mute people, and more. Read their help page for a better list of features. Also, Brizzly uses OAuth for authentication, so you never have to give them your password.

Downside is that they are still in Beta, and you need an invitation code. Mine arrived a couple days after requesting it. They also seem receptive to suggestions and bug reports which is nice.

Overall my switch to Brizzly has been a good one.