The old switcheroo

I think bad luck follows my wife around sometimes. It's not horrible luck... like consistently losing digits in meat grinding accidents or anything... but things like having fast food joints run out of fries or burgers, ordering an item that becomes back ordered, or getting the complete wrong item when shopping.

With that in mind I should've expected the message on my machine today when I got home. "Mr. Simpson, this is Alecia from La-Z-Boy. Apparently when you picked up your new mattress on Saturday, gave you the wrong mattress. So, I was calling to see if you could bring the mattress back in and pick up the correct mattress." No, seriously. They called to see if WE could bring the mattresses TO THEM.

Apart from the ridiculousness of asking us to fix their problem of giving us a more expensive mattress than we ordered, they now have to make a decision on what to do with the mattress we will have slept on for the last three nights. I can't imagine that they're going to eat the cost and mark it down as "used"... after all, who would buy a used mattress from a retail store.

Our question to them while we were in the store, about what happens to returned mattresses, which are returned within 48 hours, doesn't seem so strange. They said that they have a charity to which they donate returned mattresses. However, in our case, I wonder why they wouldn't just let the mistake stand and donate the other mattress. It's bound to be less trouble than having the delivery guys come out and pull the old switcheroo if the mattress is just going to charity.

Update: Sure enough, the guys came out to get the mattress, and gave us our mattress, wihch feels about the same. They wrapped up the old mattress in the plastic that our mattress came in and asked if I had clear tape to package it back up. I said no. I can't say for certain that they'll resell the mattress, but I bet someone else's delivery was "re-scheduled" to Wednesday due to some unspecified stock problem and that they went from our house to theirs without telling them of the mistake. Anywho... just speculation.

Pizza hut online ordering

Pizza hut has been accepting online orders for a while now, provided that you're within fattening distance of a modernized pizza hut. My poor stretchy pants will testify to the fact that we're within that very distance of three or so pizza huts.

Since we played host to Katie's little brother (half-brother who we normally don't see) Michael came over to spend the night, we ordered pizza from them. When placing the order, I noticed a box where people can enter special directions for the delivery man(pictured below). "Come to back door", for instance...

I had to fight hard against the urge to put "truffle shuffle" in the box...

I'm adding another priceless goonies youtube video because I love it.

Leon Redbone

I like Leon Redbone... just found him a few days ago on Pandora, just by chance. I've been trying to find youtube videos and mp3's, and ran across this video. Smooth voice, easy listening... his music has a folksy, delta quality that I enjoy.

In 2007 (he's gotta be 60 now):

I told Katie that I want to see him in concert. I'll find a show some place nearby and we'll drive there. She said I'd be travelling alone:(.

Respective underachievment

The other day I was feeling nostalgic, so I took a look around on the internet for people I knew in high school, then for people in college, and ended up looking for some of the people I worked with in college on a project we called quicksilver.

At the core of the group were three American students, two undergrads (myself included) and another graduate student. The rest of the main contributors were from China, and India (and possibly pakistan, though if not they will be very angry if they find out I mixed up India and Pakistan). Anywho, I looked up one of the indian students and found that he now works at google.

I contacted him a few days ago to say hello and got a response back. He talked a bit about things going on up there and let me know that the another programmer/grad student in our group was now a technical product manager at google as well. He worked for Double Click for a few months before they were acquired, at which point he was part of the google organization.

Up until that point, I thought that I was doing pretty well for myself. I graduated with a GPA that was a gnat's eyebrow width above a 2.0, and transformed that into my first job... basically as a programmer in a sweatshop run by a former programmer. That lasted a year before I bailed as fast as possible to a better company in town, for the employer where I'm employed currently. I like my job (most of the time). The company is a good one, with good benefits and good pay, better than I thought I'd be making anytime within my first years out of college... that's for sure.

By comparison now, I have to say that I could've done better. I could've gone after a Master's degree. I could've been a contender!!! I could've worked for the company that is a programmer's dream... I'm no genius programmer, but I could've applied myself... actually studied that stuff in Computer Science and made a go at being a top tier computer scientist. I might actually know what Big O is, apart from something some lady keeps yakking about in Overstock.com commercials.

Anywho, I don't feel bad about where I am now, but the discovery that people I used to work with (and considered to be normal programmer/computer guys, not super genuii) were now at google. They even made it to google without selling their soul robert johnson style. It makes me think I could do it. Even Katie, ever the motivational speaker, pointed out that "that could've been you" in an "I could stay at home and have babies if you worked at google" way.

Tech Ed 2008

The boss is sending me, along with two other developers, back to Tech Ed again this year. I'm not sure what motivated him to change his mind, since he'd previously said that he wouldn't be sending us to Tech Ed this year due to scheduling problems with deployments and new client installs, but I'm glad he did.

I had a good time at Tech Ed last year and think I will again. It's good for developers to get out and find out what's being used at other companies, and what's going on in the development community. Last year, those developers who went also got to talk about how to improve a few development tasks and got to know each other a little better. Bill Gates is supposed to deliver the keynote this year, so that should also be interesting.

Katie and I are also tacking on a mini-vacation to the end of the trip. Since I'm already going to be out there, and it's one of the places that Allegiant Air flies for $80 twice a week, we figured we could get it done fairly cheaply. Our attendee party is supposed to be at Universal Studios (not the ride side this year, the other side, I think) so we'll probably try to hit Disney for a few days.

Toofus

This morning, I had my third root canal. I hated to do it, and tried to avoid it (and by tried I don't mean that I flossed more regularly or began fighting my sweet tooth), but it caught up with me anyway. The pain in the tooth started occurring with hot and cold foods, then without any stimulus at all... so finally I broke down and made an appointment.

People give root canals a bad rap. I'm not saying I went to the dentist with a smile on my face, or that I don't cringe when I get the first shot of anesthetic, but they're not terrible... just bad. This morning a co-worker was shocked that I would have a root canal and still go to work after, as if it were a car wreck. Another co-worker, standing nearby, said that I must handle pain well... and I said yes with my chest puffed out. I lied. Actually, I said that I couldn't feel my face at all and didn't know where I was.

The root canals seem to get more complicated each time I have one. I think my first was in 2001 or so with Dr. Stuckey in Ruston, then a second with a Dentist in Shreveport I didn't really care for (and whose crown or filling in the next tooth didn't make a good fit, leading to the need to chew gum after every meal to remove food from between my teeth), and now a lady dentist in Bossier. Everything seemed to go smooth, except for the anesthetic... just like last time. Instead of 6 shots, I think I got 7, the last of which was through the center of the tooth.

The only complaint I really have is that they are really tight lipped about what's going on during the root canal. I did get the "Ok, we're almost through now... just have to get the temporary crown on" type stuff, but the dentist was getting frustrated with something that went on in there. I think she had trouble drilling all the way to the bottom of the root, and kept switching to different sizes of drill bits, or whatever those things are. Finally, she took a break for a minute and I asked the dentist helper lady what the problem was and she said "uhh... we're almost through", in a kind of "we make a habit of not telling patients what's going on, but everything's ok" way.

Other than that though, I'm glad I switched dentists and am in much less pain than I experienced after the other two.