What's New - March 2005
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March 29, 2005 - Ok, this frequent flyer/hotel points thing is going to be the death of me.  Apparently, the whole merry little world is no longer afraid to travel internationally and they all want to do it on the dates I want to travel.  There are a limited number of seats/rooms that they allow for points usage and unless you are a 1K flyer, you can’t get squat.  Unfortunately, I missed the boat on ALL of them.  I’m glad they’ve made it so difficult for me to travel anywhere – that commercial with David Spade and his, “NO” to all requests was funny until it started to happen to me.  My grand tour of South Africa is being decimated to a quick trip up to Northern California.  What’s up with THAT??   Let me give you an example:

Service Agent (SA):  “Hi, how can I help you?”
Me: “Yes, I’d like to book a flight to Montreal.”
SA: “Great, when?”
Me: “Sometime around the last week of May.”
SA: “MAY?  As in, THIS YEAR??  My, my…all the flights have been booked up MONTHS ago…like sometime at the end of last year.”
Me:  “Surely there must be SOMETHING available??”
SA:  “Well…let’s see…(insert long @$$ pause of about 10 minutes)….yes, yes…here’s something…I can route you from LA to Denver, to Washington DC, to Chicago to Montreal…You leave LA at 6:00am and you arrive into Montreal after midnight.”
Me:  “Ummm…that’s normally a 4 hour flight…it just turned into a 15 hour flight…”
SA:  “Yes, you’re right.  Would you like for me to hold that for you?”
Me: thinking to myself: “yeah.  Please.  Hold it.  For as long as it takes for me to tell her to kiss my $*&.”

Here’s my other observation through my trials of booking frequent flyer mileage tickets.  Outsourcing Call Center – don’t give me this crap that you can’t tell the difference.  I know PRECISELY when my call has been outsourced to India.  EXACT moment.  Don’t try to tell me that the outsourced call centers know as much or can do as good of a job as the people back in the states.  They don’t.  Period.  Here are also some of my pearls of wisdom when dealing with UAL’s call centers – Get the call center in Seattle – those guys know what they’re doing – they are hands down, the BEST, the most courteous, and the most knowledgeable.  The people out in Chicago call center has the worst attitudes of anywhere I’ve seen.  Call late, like around 10:00 – 11:00pm and there’s a good chance of you getting Seattle office.  Call around 5:00 – 6:00pm and you’re pretty darn sure to get the Outsourced Call Center or Chicago.  Ugh. Have a GREAT week, folks!

March 22, 2005 - PHEW…birthday weekend.  I did something dumb.  (Shocker, I know)…I bought a piece of “art”…It’s a Todd Goldman painting of a girl saying, “you suck big time”. Luckily, there was a 7 day cool off period, so I called first thing this morning to return it.  Don’t ask.  It was total impulse.  Erin fuj was with me.  We need to discuss when she needs to say, “Jenny - are you crazy??  That’s a STUPID purchase.”  For instance, if I’m buying a pair of shoes that are $70, that is not the time to say, “but jenny do you really need it?”  It’s shoes – of course I don’t need it.  However, when I’m trying to purchase a painting that costs several thousands, one should not say, “Jenny, I think you’re crazy, but I just don’t want you to regret not purchasing it.  And it’s so cuuuuuuuute!!” 

Anyhow, I had met up with Miles, Aya, Ron, Laura, Sao, Darin, Kyle, Kevin, & my date, erin (haha) at Maggiano’s.  Something scary happened – Miles sent out an e-vite for my birthday lunch with the words, “Jenny’s 47th Birthday”.  Well, I get a voicemail message on Friday from the VP of the Paragould office saying, “Happy 47th Birthday, Jenny…”  What’s the deal??  Do I REALLY look 47???  Should I be concerned???  ACH…I hate them all! J

I had planned to see as many movies as possible on my birthday, but there was really nothing worth seeing, so we went shopping instead (see story in paragraph 1).  Henry was kind enough to take erin & I to a sushi bar for dinner (hama sushi) and Cheesecake factory for dessert.  My friend, Tim called so I naturally thought he was calling to wish me a happy birthday.  He doesn’t remember MY birthday, who he’s known for about 3 years, but is able to remember & celebrate the birthday of some ho who he’s been dating for 2 weeks on MY birthday – ok, well, her birthday too, it turns out.  I was a little perturbed by the fact that she shared the same birthday as me.  Anyhow, needless to say, I gave him a hard time for that one. 

I just booked my trip to Costa Rica (another reason I returned the painting).  I’m leaving at 11:50pm on 4/20 and coming home on the 24th.  Short trip, but I’m excited about going.  My ticket cost was about $260, RT transfers to/from the resort is about $70, Hotel is about $200, 2 activities are about $100, plus F & B.  Christa & Erin, from work, will be going as well.  Check out this hot spring – www.tabacon.com – this place is awesome!!  I can’t wait to go!! Woo hoo!!

March 16, 2005 - So...this week.  This Saturday.  34 years of inhabiting this planet. Wow.  Some may say that it sounds really old.  Those people can bite me.   Good plans on my birthday.  Having lunch with a few friends (and Miles because he is the greatest!)  After,  I'm making (at least Erin, if not EVERYONE) see a double header movie with me.  You see, I haven't seen a movie since...last fall, I think.  It's been a long, long time. 

I'll have dim sum with my family on Sunday to celebrate my sis in law, my brother, Bert & my birthday.  I kinda forgot about it but I'm looking forward to yummy dim sum.

I'm still sick - I hope I'm well by this weekend.  I need to fully and thoroughly enjoy myself.  :)

March 8, 2005 - Sorry – I’ve been a big fat flake.  Here it goes…

I’ve been weak on the updates – sorry.  Let’s see – I just came back from Hawaii.  I got a little burned (ouch) and a little embarrassed.  I was minding my own business taking photos and I get picked on by the man with the painted face.  *SIGH*.  Then they pull people from the audience and I get pulled.  So I ran with it and danced.  I have a photo of myself on stage.  I didn’t realize that my butt was so LARGE…Can we all say “career limiting move”.  Yeah.  That’s it.  I was trying, while up on stage to get Katie, my planner from Conferon, to get me off stage, but I saw her laughing harder than I’ve ever remembered seeing!!  Then I turn to jack, hoping he’d bail me out – no such luck.  General audience was TRYING to get me up on stage.  Ugh.  It’s over and I leave you with the photos…

I’m going away this weekend on another site inspection – to Carneros Valley Inn & Spa.  I hear it’s really nice.  I’m looking forward to it – especially a spa treatment!  That’ll be my last getaway for this month.  I’ll have to start site inspecting locations for next year’s Top Members trip.  I’m leaning towards Costa Rica or the Caribbean.  Ok, that’s mostly because it’s where *I* want to go. 

Good news, times two – Greg & Susie are expecting twins, as are Jenn & Rick!  (is that weird or what??)  Again, congratulations to Katie & Mike (my Conferon folks) on their pregnancy.  Many prayers going out to them that they do not have twins too!!  Well, that’s it for now...more later!