Monday Meanderings - 6.27.2011

Wandered into the wonderful land of customer service this past week, this time with the bank! A-Plus, the teacher credit union made a big change last Monday to their online services. Big changes almost always mean big problems. This time it was in the file that the bank generates for Quicken import. After a bit of a struggle, I finally got Quicken set up to contact the bank and download the needed file, just as I do with all of the other accounts. That was customer service call #1.

But after importing the bank transactions into Quicken, Barb discovered that 1) they duplicated a great many existing transactions, and 2) the Payee name was in the Memo field, and the Memo information was in the Payee field. Not good. I opened up the bank download file and found:

[NAME]POS W/D: #117515257703

[MEMO]Wal-Mart Super Center AUSTIN 

Yep. The bank has it backwards. That was customer service call #2. The rep took the information and said he would pass it on to the "Quicken Specialist."

Call #3 was when a perky little person called me, all cheerful and upbeat, until I explained the problem and forwarded her a copy of the file. She opened it and after a long pause, Little Miss Sunshine said, "Oh bleep!" She promised to get back with me - "probably on Monday." That would be after some programmer works all weekend to correct the problem. And that would be call #4 and counting.

Women's World Cup began this weekend. Sweeeet! Since the Cup is in Germany and the afternoon game is at 7:30am here, the DVR will get a workout. The German team is the favorite and though it is politically impolite to say so, when they were previewing all the German players before the game I kept thinking of the bad old days when East German athletes appeared very chromosonally suspect. So to speak.

As in the men's Cup, the national anthems are always interesting. Nigeria's anthem is "Arise O compatriots, Nigeria's call obey; unless that is you are gay, and then you cannot play."

And no vouvouzelas in this tournament. Hooray!

Okay, I guess I've contributed my fair share to brotherhood and understanding. I'll quit. For now.

So glad that Summer is officially here and now we can expect it to be hot.

It takes almost a full week each for these blooms to open, one at a time. Thankfully the blooms last a long time.

And this is a handy little guide that should be carried like a driver's license in the wallet of every husband, boyfriend, co-worker or significant other!

DANGEROUS	SAFER	SAFEST	ULTRA  SAFE
What's for dinner?	Can I help you with dinner?	Where would you like to go for dinner?	Here, have some wine.
Are you wearing that?	You sure look good in brown!	WOW! Look at you!	Here, have some wine
What are you so worked up about?	Could we be overreacting?	Here's my pay check.	Here, have some wine.
Should you be eating that?	You know, there are a lot of apples left.	Can I get you a piece of chocolate with that?	Here, have some wine.
What did you DO all day?	I hope you didn't over-do it today.	I've always loved you in that robe!	Here, have some wine.