Phone companies STINK. Or at least, this one does.

So, I get to my phone bill in the stack o' bills. And lo and behind, my provider for local toll/long distance has been changed. Except, we did not change it. So I have $8.70 in fees for "changing" to a provider I don't want from one I do. I call my phone company immediately.

They register it as a slam, set the carrier back, and they give me contact numbers for the previous and current carriers to sort it out. I call previous first. The number is no good. So I hit their web site, and call the customer support number. IT is no longer in service. My eyes get big. I call their corporate number. It's answered, and she's surprised to find the customer service is not working.

She says they switched carriers, so the change in providers reflected that. I say I wasn't notified and was charged $8.70. She says the notification will be in this month's bill. First - I get my statements online and seldom review them, for those guys, because I have not needed to. Second - she said it hasn't (or may not have, not sure which) gone out yet. She does say they'll reimburse me if I mail in or fax in the bill. Wait, now I have to pay money (the fax number is not an 800 number, and mail is not free) to get this sorted out? Excuse me! I want reimbursement for that money too. I can't fax, because I can't use the work fax on long distance numbers, so I'll have to mail. And you bet I'll be asking for the extra money for the postage. (I take some small pleasure in the fact that, since I pay no monthly fee, pay 5 cents a minute for long distance, and seldom call long distance, it will take them months to get back the money it costs to reimburse me for the change fee.)

The whole system is somewhat wrong, to require me to call two phone companies when one slams me. The current company is wrong to switch things and not provide ADVANCED notice. Jerks.

The jerks in question are, by the way, GTC Telecom, who have very good rates if you don't call long distance much, but apparently a lousy sense of how to handle customers.

So I called Verizon back and of course my account is thoroughly horked up by their attempting to change it, in spite of the fact that GTC telecom said it should be okay - all sorts of details got changed. So I'm cancelling the order and then doing the freeze and hopefully that will work. If it doesn't, every fee and annoyance will be billed to GTC Telecom.

Adventures in packing....

Okay. For those who haven't figured it out by now, I'm fussy, plan-oriented, and detail-focussed. I pack like that, too. Scott and I have found that minimal pain comes from each of us picking what to take, and me packing it, because he really doesn't care as long as nothing is damaged. Therefore, yesterday I started packing my stuff. I began with the medium suitcase, on the theory that I would probably have to repack into the large one when Scott's stuff was added, but I wanted to try. When I was done, I had everything that needed to be in there (except muffin bars) in from my stuff, and was using just over (barely - by a couple shirts) half the suitcase. Looking at it, I figured, yep, I'll likely need to move to the large.

I told Scott to pile his stuff up, which he did. Last night, I folded two shirts from his pile and put them in the medium suitcase. I looked at it and said, yep, it'll need the large. I'll do it in the morning.

So this morning, I started out by packing all his stuff in the large suitcase, intending to then transfer my stuff over. Only, when I was done with his stuff, there was room for maybe 2-3 of my shirts if I packed loosely (which I usually do, since we tend to come back from trips with more than we take on them). Maybe all my shirts if I crammed it in, possibly even some of my socks. No way was I going to get everything in there.

So I went to get the small suitcase. And could not find it. It was not in the garage, the under-eaves storage (where it should be) or the library (where the other two suitcases had fetched up, waiting to be unpacked, since December). I looked in the bedroom, I rechecked places...finally decided it must have broken or something and been pitched, and I'd forgotten it. At this point, Scott goes in and finds it in the bedroom, in plain sight, right next to the book-shelf. It had been standing upright, so we'd started using it as a shelf, and I guess my eyes naturally skipped over the thing with the stuffed animal on it.... Heh. At least we had it, I had been considering whether we needed to buy one.

The small suitcase found, I transferred my stuff to it. It all fit - just. I told Scott that I thought I could get his stuff into the medium suitcase, just, if I crammed it. He then said he was going to add his good cloak, so forget that. He's since taken it out, because it will be too hot. So I'll either move some of my stuff over to "his" suitcase, or move his stuff into the medium suitcase.

Nonetheless, compared to the stereotypical role of the woman hauling along too much, I find this hysterical. Mind you, we have the stereotypes down perfectly - they're just reversed.

Mmm, the pretty....

I read quite a few photo-blogs on my friends page. The current view includes flowers, onions, a meerkat, the inevitable kitten, some lightning, and a number of other gorgeous pictures.

Anyway, I just figured, a lot of people don't watch these regularly but might glance occasionally. If you're curious which ones I follow, they're at http://www.livejournal.com/users/kyrielle/friends/photoblogs - I only include feeds/journals that post photos in all or nearly all posts. Some have little more than captions, others comment more or write things unrelated or partly related to the photo.

Sigh/Whee/Sproing! Miscellany.

Scenes today. Much fun. Looking forward to the con also. Packed except for the stuff I still need to use. Alarm company will call dispatch while we're gone, then call my parents' number to notify (hope my parents don't mind!).

Got a call from the homeowner's association. Scott had called and left a message because they did not talk to us for a while and we wanted to know if the folks we were dealing with were even still on the board (there was an election last week). He also mentioned in his message that we'd be on vacation which is one reason we wanted to know. Good news: the folks we were dealing with are still on the board. Strange: they wanted to get together Thursday. Um. I thought Scott said we were on vacation and out of town. I checked with him, and he said yes, he did. I left a polite message expressing confusion since I thought he had indicated that, but if they'd like to suggest times next week...? Whee. :P (As far as "muted" goes - tonight in the afternoon sun, our neighbor's tan was fully as bright as our blue. We may not be an earth tone but if they and the white house are "muted" then so are we. Sigh.)

However - see - the president of the board is busy parts of next week, and the week after, they are on vacation. So, she came over and got the 2"x2" samples and they'll look at those to decide which ones they want to see at 6"x6" or on the house. Of course, both of those cost money, so we will have to talk before we can do that.... So, I checked with Scott and told her we're available all day Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday; or after 6 pm on Thursday. Hopefully one of those will work, or more....

Bills are paid, the account's balanced so I know what I have, and life is good. I'm trying to figure out for the con, what to do with a conflict - I'm in two games that overlap by an hour. Oops. One is a system I've never played, and one is Earthdawn, which I've played before and like. When I first started doing Gencon, I wanted to Try New Stuff all the time and set it as a goal. Any more, I just want to have fun - what am I going to do with all the new stuff I try, anyway? I don't play or run tabletop in between cons, so what's the point? So I'm trying to decide - try the new or stick with the old? I'll probably go for Earthdawn, especially since the other is some horror system, and while horror done right can be done, full-on horror (which this reads like) is not my favoritest. I am in three 7th Sea games anyway, so it's not like I can claim to be purely trying new stuff, though I am trying some.

Excited. Not even nervous. I get nervous before trips, sometimes, but this time I have everything sorted out and feel good about that. My printer got obnoxious on printing out the ticket info, and I had to copy it by hand, but that was the only wobble and everything else has gone smoothly. Looking forward to this, very very much looking forward to this.

There's a class I want to take at the community college. It's a one-day thing on watercolor sketching, which I think will be fun even if I do nothing with it after. It's offered twice. Both days, I'm on call. Argh. I foresee switching on-call duty with someone when I'm back from vacation (the earlier one is in October, so it's not like there's time pressure).