The dust was thick.  The smell was musty.  And there were cobwebs in every corner.  Today I grabbed a rag and some Pledge and made my blog all nice and shiny once again.  I’ve also pulled some static pages from my old site into my blog template, which will allow me to keep them updated a bit easier than before.  You’ll also notice a new masthead picture – that’s Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, taken this past weekend.

I had assumed that once the wedding and honeymoon were behind us, things would settle down a bit.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Since the wedding (June 24, remember? ), we have attended two more weddings, held a yard sale in Maine, traveled to DC/Maryland,  hosted a neighborhood party, and went to the NASCAR race in Richmond, VA… not to mention the countless projects ongoing at home!  Sheesh!  When do things slow down? 

Over the past month, I have had a whole host of issues with my Sprint PCS account. You name it, they screwed it up. The name on my account was suddenly changed with no way for Sprint to change it back (the caller ID name for one of my lines became the primary account holder name). They were forced to close my account and open a new one for me. Great. On top of all that, there were charges on my old account that I shouldn’t have had. They messed up a previous plan change and ended up billing me for extra minutes and services.

So here I was with my new account. It was set up on July 24 and the first invoice was sent out on July 26. There were a handful of issues with this bill. First, my corporate discount was missing. Second, all the services I just got credit for on my old account were now back! Grrrr! I called to have the corporate discount added and was told at that time to ignore this first bill and they would send me a new one. The due date on this first bill was August 21, so not a big deal.
On August 1, Sprint sent me another bill (due August 28). This bill was generated to align my account with the corporate billing cycles. Aparently, at this time, my previous bill (dated July 26) became past due. Yes, you heard right – Sprint considered my July 26 bill to be late and unpaid, even though it wasn’t due until August 21. On August 10, I received a disconnection notice due to my unpaid balance. On top of all that, my August 1 bill still had more erroneous charges and I was even double-billed for the last week in July (charges appear on both bills).

When all was said and done, I made two trips to a Sprint store, two email inquiries to the Sprint web site, and literally about 15 phone calls to Sprint. I had much better luck once the woman in the Sprint store gave me a “special” toll-free number to call. Aparently it takes you right in to the Texas call center, which is considered level 2. After one ring, you get a live person… and a live person who knows what the hell they are talking about. Double bonus.

Now, over a full month since I started down this road, my issues are resolved. I received almost $130 in credits for all of the erroneous charges they applied to me account. The funny part is, the last woman I spoke to in the corporate discount group was such an idiot that she credited my an extra $10! That’s the least they can do for all my time and aggravation.

The lesson for today boys and girls is: avoid Sprint at all costs. Their customer support sucks and their billing system sucks. Don’t waste your time with them.

We finally get to go pick up our proofs from our photographers tonight! So hopefully we’ll have even more pictures to share soon.

But until then, go enjoy some pictures that Craig’s Dad captured!

It appears as if I have been neglecting my poor ol’ blog for the past few months.  Ok, so maybe I have.  But I assure you it has not been without good reason.  There have been 3 weddings in the past 6 weeks (one of which was my own!), a trip to San Diego, a vacation in Australia, countless incompetant businesses I’ve had to write complaints to, a house to clean (still have wedding gifts all over the place), numerous doctor visits, a washing machine to fix, and a whole shitload of work to catch up on… not to mention the normal stuff like mowing the lawn, taking the cats to the vet, going shopping, writing emails, eating, sleeping, etc.  Fun fun.

So, the other day I decided to transfer all of my domains to Crabersen Internet Solutions, clean up some of my DNS information, and do a general healthcheck on my various web sites.  Then, today I decided to post something to my blog, and while I was at it found the need to upgrade my installations of WordPress and Gallery.  Aparently they were grossly out of date.

What’s in store tomorrow?  Well, I need to actually post some decent pictures on my Gallery page and eventually re-do my home page.  It sucks.  I know it sucks and I just don’t have the time to update it since I spend all of my energy battling idiots at work who think they are web experts.  Um, sorry… the fact you know how to surf the web does not make you a web expert by any means.  Furthermore, the fact you use IE means you should be shot.

Here are some pictures from my Aunt Peggy. If anyone has pictures they’d like to share, we’d love to see them.

Our friends Aimee and Ron have posted some pictures from our wedding. Go check them out!

Yesterday we spent the day off the coast of Port Douglas – snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. The ride out there, an hour and a half on a wavepiercer, was a bit rough. With winds around a steady 20-30 knots, the sea was bouncing the boat around like it was a toy. I decided to tough it out and not take any medicine, which meant I spent the better part of the trip trying hard not to be sick. Leanne fared much better than I. It didn’t help that I was facing backwards, sitting next to a window, and at the front of the boat.

Our destination was a pontoon platform in the middle of the reef. A fairly crummy lunch was served and then we proceeded to gather our gear for snorkeling. The views were amazing… fish swimming right up to you, crystal clear waters, and reefs as far as you could see. A strong current kept pushing us off to the side, so it was hard to stay in one place and observe… but clinging to a buoy solved that. It also didn’t help that there were tons of other people drifting around, often right into you.

After a couple hours playing in the water with the fish, we showered, got dressed, and headed back onto the boat. We aparently didn’t inquire early enough to get the helicopter ride back to the mainland, so on the boat we stayed. This time, I took the anti-sea-sickness medicine (ginger pills), provided free by the boat crew! I also sat in the middle of the boat, away from the windows, facing forward. That made the ride home so much better!

Another thing we noticed yesterday – Australians love warm face towels. Everywhere we go, it seems they hand out towels for your hands and face. We get them each night at dinner, got them on the boat ride back from snorkeling, on the airplane… they’re all over! It’s also nice to be driven around to our various destinations. We had a private car take us to the rainforest from the airport, another private car took us to Port Douglas for our snorkeling adventure, and then we got a private shuttle back to the hotel afterwards. We could get used to this!!

Today we’re off to have a picnic lunch somewhere in the rainforest (or our treehouse if it rains this afternoon). It should be a nice relaxing day before we head out tomorrow morning at 5am for Hayman Island (part of the Whitsunday Islands). Time to get our laundry out of the dryer… bye!

(It’s 10:30am on Thursday here… 8:30pm on Wednesday back home.)

Here we are… deep in the rainforest of Northeastern Australia. We managed to get here in only 3 planes, 1 train, 1 bus, and 2 car rides. All in all the trip was uneventful. We left the house around 2:45pm on Sunday and checked into our tree house at 2:15pm on Tuesday. Ok, so there is the whole time difference and international date line to deal with, but it’s still wierd not having a Monday this week. So far on our adventure, every flight has been delayed. Something we hope does not continue.

Our first meal here in Australia was at the Brisbane airport on Tuesday at 8am local time (that’s 6pm on Monday in Boston). It was an odd-tasting cheeseburger at the “Refuel” fast-food joint in the terminal. Ketchup was nowhere to be found and aparently they deep fry their french fries in salt. Hopefully our next meal (coming up shortly) will be better – it’s out on a boardwalk overlooking a river in the middle of the rainforest.

These first 3 nights we’re staying in a treehouse of sorts – a nice place with a hammock, jacuzzi tub, and a bed. It’s in the middle of nowhere and there are wild turkeys running around. The odd thing is these turkeys have tail feathers that are inline with their body rather than being perpendicular… odd. Oh – and we saw a whole field of kangaroos on the drive over here!!

Ok, time to wrap up the blogging while in the rainforest. Catch ya all later – maybe I can get some pictures posted if I can figure out how to connect my camera to this computer.

It’s amazing, we spent countless months planning our wedding, and in the blink of an eye it is all over. A little rain in the early morning hours forced the ceremony indoors, but it went off without a hitch. All of our vendors were spectacular. Our hosts at WPI went out of their way to ensure a smooth event from beginning to end.

Thanks for everyone in the wedding party for helping to get everything done and for keeping us calm throughout the day. And thanks to everyone who was there to share our special day. We hope to have pictures to share in the coming weeks (once we’re back from down under!).

Australia, here we come! &%$# Yeah!!