Thursday again. Started out 62 or something like that, and very humid. Work a suit jacket and nice trousers and a green striped Gap shirt that Julio got me for an Xmas present a few years ago. By the time I got to the office, it was drenched. I am happy to report the cell phone fiasco has been taken care of and I am off the WiFi, back to regular celliness. The connection at home wasn’t that good and I found myself standing outside of T-Mobile or Starbucks where the cell phone company has hot spots, standing there for 5 minutes trying to get hooked up into their WiFi zones. I don’t think I’ll be listening to David Pogue in the New York Times technology section anytime soon. He’s the one who turned me onto the idea of going WiFi, so enthusiastic he was. Pogue Mahone David Pogue.

Work was busy and once again quiet. Vivek, who has toned down his ranting bought pizza for the office which was nice. Back to salads tomorrow though. Boring yet healthy, which is so like me. There were a few errands around midtown today which I gladly did. Not that I don’t like being in the office, but come on, an opportunity to get out of the cube and just wander around midtown is nice. I do enjoy Turtle Bay, if I had the money I’d take up living there. I can see myself, knocking on Stephen Sondheim’s door, asking to borrow some sugar. I can see myself, being served a restraining order to keep at least 50 feet away from Stephen Sondheim.

Had two realizations today.
One was while walking across Third Avenue and realizing that the sidewalk or the street under my feet could explode at any moment, much like what happened on Lexington Avenue last month. I like to think that I’ll be fast on my feet and run the hell out of there. That’s what I’d like to think, meaning I’d have some sort of control over the situation. Of course, there is no control, only chaos.

The other realization was related to Generation X. I read that book by Douglas Copeland in the nineties and didn’t really like it much. There were some parts that I did enjoy and agreed with. Like how the baby boomers (of which I am at the tail end) had a lot going for them, then when they had kids, Generation Y if you will, had all things focused on the offspring. It’s true and I see it more and more these days. Once again, my age group has been totally passed over. It could be our fault, waiting for things to happen instead of making it happen.

Yeah I know whine whine whine. But it was a realization, and not definite since nothing is really ever definite is it?

Bill is staying with his mom who is flipping out over the fact her husband, Bill’s dad, is in the hospital. Bill’s dad is doing better and will be staying in a Veteran’s Administration hospital in St. Albans, Queens the next two week. I explained to Bill last night it might be a good idea for him to spend more time with his mother while his father is away. It’s a better idea than recording a cd with his voice on it so his mother could just play the cd while Bill is at work so she won’t be too lonely.

This is from a group I get emails from. I haven’t participated yet, just due to laziness and/or forgetfulness. Oh but I plan to.
check it out, cut and paste

The Mp3 Experiment Four

and these were from 15 minutes ago

Today is Wednesday. Today is Annemarie’s birthday! Happy Birthday to Annemarie! She saw Talk to Me over the weekend and I think she loved it. I burned a CD of 70’s Soul hits and put it the package with the David Sedaris recommendations (Dorothy Parker, Flannery O’Connor) and other CD’s as well as The Word magazine from the UK and a few other things, some still to arrive. A pretty good issue that I was more than glad to send over to the west coast. I would have bought a new copy but it was two months old when I bought it already and other copies of the same issue were in really bad shape. But who cares? It’s Annemarie’s birthday!

Work was good, not too much to do once again. Wound up leaving the office around 3:15 to go to Chinatown to order some business cards for someone in the office and for myself. I guess it’s official, I am an office manager. Once again it was a gray day, and though it wasn’t raining it was humid humid humid. Everything damp, water in the air, but not falling down. It was also 58 degrees this morning so I dressed up again, though not with a tie this time. I looked good, maybe a little too Sopranos. Gray suit, black pinstriped shirt, gray thick and thin over the calf socks. All I needed were some gold chains around my neck and maybe a nice gold chain for my wrist. But no, not my style. Not into the bling.

I did enjoy a nice Padron 5000 natural after leaving the printer. I thought I would have enough time to smoke it walking from Centre Street to the World Trade Center Path train. It turns out I didn’t so I sat in a concrete park under a tree by the various courthouses downtown and happily puffed away. After a while I was able to time it and finished it by the time I got to the train. It’s little things like that, that make it worthwhile. Got to Hoboken, all safe and sound.

I was walking up Washington Street when I decided to send a text message to Annemarie, to wish her a Happy Birthday once again. Not so fast. The phone wasn’t on. Did I turn it off somehow? I just got the phone 13 days ago and still trying to figure it out. I turned it on. It turned itself off. I turned it on again and it turned itself off again. That’s odd. Luckily I just passed a T-Mobile store so I turned around and walked in. I spoke with Jennifer Malik who couldn’t help me since I didn’t have the receipt on me, nor did I have the box the phone came in.

Apparently I was supposed to carry them around, both the box and the receipt. Jennifer tried to plug in the AC to see if the battery was dead, but couldn’t figure out how to plug the adapter into the phone. Since I didn’t have those things I couldn’t be helped. I asked for a number to call and Jennifer gave me her card. I then asked to use their phone since mine was kaput. Jennifer reluctantly let me use the store phone.
Feel free to email Jennifer, jennifer.malik@t-mobile.com and let her know that she should have continued the course and gotten that GED.

The first person I spoke to on the phone, Angela 2972 was of little or no assistance and hung up on me when I asked if I could get credit for the time that my phone will be out. They offered to send me a battery and that would take 3 or 4 days. I called another number since Jennifer dialed some number that got me to Angela. It seemed like an odd number and I thought so when the next person I spoke to had no record of my conversation with Angela 2972.

This guy tried to help me, really he did but somehow I was passed off to someone else who couldn’t do that much. I came home and plugged in the new phone and that worked, but the battery was getting to be quite warm. I called up again and they tried to convince me to get a new phone. I told them I wasn’t too happy with the WiFi plan. Bill phoned in and suggested that I try the old phone. I did and the old fan was working just fine. I thanked Bill and got back on with T-Mobile and told them to cancel the WiFi. It wasn’t really working as good as I thought it would, or as good as the New York Times said it was. Stupid gray lady!
So I’m back to the regular cellphone and I’m pretty much happy about that. Actually I’m happy that I’ll be able to call Annemarie later and wish her a Happy Birthday once again.

Happy Birthday to Annemarie, the best sister in the world!