We had dinner this evening at What Smokin'? BBQ (whatsmokin.com) and it was fantastic!

I had the pulled pork dinner with their 3-bean baked beans and potato salad. The pulled pork was a very generous portion and was just right with their tangy & spicy bbq sauce. The beans had a good kick to them – but not too spicy.

My wife had the pork steak, 3-bean baked beans and bbq spaghetti. I was quite hesitant about the bbq spaghetti but I was pleasantly surprised! The pork steak was very tender and had a great flavor to it.

Prices are very reasonable. For two adults and two children the price was $30. Price is a little more than normal because I purchased a $5.49 bag of beef jerky and a beer.

For those local to Arnold / St. Louis, check your Val-Pak mailer for a coupon!

Is this all? Ever get melancholy and not sure if you have cause to be so? That's how I feel.

MEH.

Maybe I'll go to a show or something. Or go get a drink.

So I've had a few days to calm down from all of the excitement. Some of you (and you know who you are) might recall a post I did last year about my birthday. Don't recall??? Try looking here. And while I did post an update to it stating that I might have been was too harsh. Well the parties involved with last years bash has completely redeemed themselves this year!!!!

I AM GOING TO DEPECHE MODE IN COLORADO!!!

Hot damn! Thank you honey!!! I LOVE YOU!!! =)

And for the rest of you who forgot my birthday, there is 362 more days you can contemplate how you will redeem yourself.

What is up with today's world? I saw two headlines today. One story was about a family of of five kids. They had fallen on hard times and the parents decide to commit a murder/suicide scheme. WTF?! Then I see this. A mother kills her two year old daughter? What got me was the daughter saying "I love you" to the mother. I couldn't even finish reading the article. I have a 3 year old daughter myself and I started to cry thinking about it.

I understand that times are tough. Times are going to get tougher. But that's no way to resolve your problems.

The other day I was thinking how quickly this year has gone. I mean, I have sworn that Halloween was like a week or two ago. Christmas will be here before I know it. Next thing you know, Christmas is here and we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off. And then there are the times when we plan too far ahead and buy a gift MONTHS ahead of Christmas...only to forget about it when Christmas time rolls around. Don't worry though, we "find" it in January. Hahaha! But luckily we did something a bit different this year. Meg & I sat down and worked on the family Christmas list BEFORE we went shopping. The result? It was the best "black Friday" shopping experience ever. Did we get everything we needed? Nope. But it went smoothly. I guess it does pay to plan ahead sometimes. =)

I like the new google chrome. It's different. It's fast. Really fast. But up until now I would not use it. Why? Because Google couldn't quite get the scroll wheel to work. If you look online you will see hundreds of sites talking about how it doesn't work and that some have gotten it to work through some trickery. Well I was finally able to work my own magic on the IBM / Lenovo hardware - and it works. Through various websites that offer tips on how to overcome this very annoying problem in Chrome, the basics is this... You need to upgrade the mouse driver's and add an exception to the application Chrome.

Here's how you do it for an IBM / Lenovo mouse...

1. Go get ScrollPoint (available here). Most websites that the Microsoft IntelliMouse software will work. Well, it won't...unless you have a MS mouse. I tried for an hour to get it to work. It just doesn't.

2. Once you have the ScrollPoint installed, open up the mouse properties. START -> CONTROL PANEL -> SETTINGS -> MOUSE

3. Click on the "wheel" tab (btw, you'll notice you have a fancy mouse setup now).

4. At the top of that dialog, make sure universal scrolling is selected.

5. Click on "Exceptions". Another dialog will appear. Click "Add" & add Google Chrome to the list. You will need to know the full path to where Google Chrome is installed.

Hope this information will be useful to somebody being plagued with this same situation...

I'm not going to get into WHY I am paying Verizon for a service that I was supposed to get free (see previous post). But now I am trying to get the bill cleared off of my name. See I decided to pay the bill. I scheduled it with my bank. My bank transferred the money. Verizon received my money. My account was debited. My bill, although, has not been credited. I've called twice in a week and a half (though the 2nd person seemed genuinely interested in seeing my problem resolved). They have no idea where the money went to when they received it.

All I know is that I'm out of $60 and Verizon still wants their money. The kicker is that Verizon wants proof that I paid it. Wish I could but since Verizon is connected electronically with banks, they took the money as an electronic transfer - no paper. None. Does that phase Verizon? Nope. They still want to be paid. I've had calls from them asking me to call them about an "urgent" matter. Yeah. Right. I'll get riiiiiight back to you. About as urgent as a Verizon employee to find out where my money went to.

UPDATE: I just called today, Thursday, 6-Nov-2008. It seems they finally figured out where my money went to & credited my account. After talking with the rep, she told me it was credited sometime in the afternoon on 29-Oct-2008. What a coincidence - I had just logged my 2nd complaint with them that morning. Still, I received no word from their "crack" team of investigators. Verizon is just terrible, in my opinion. UGH

So I recently purchased a Dell laptop that came with an embedded wireless broadband modem in it (READ: stripped down cell phone). It also came with a 7-day free trial. So a few weeks back, I decided I would give it a spin. Well I tried for several days to get the thing activated and I never could get it. So I broke down and called the number that the software told me to call. I spent a good 20 minutes with Verizon's customer service getting the service established. In the end I was out of 20 minutes on my cell phone and still no service.

Surely this can't be that hard to do, right? Well I tried the next day and I explained to the Verizon rep all the stuff that the previous guys did. I explained to them that I had a 7 day trial with Dell. The rep told me they had a better deal than Dell's. They had a 30 day trial and if I didn't like to call back and cancel. Well this rep was good, because she was able to do what the others couldn't....get my laptop setup. I was pretty excited.

Now forward to the almost present time (last Friday, 5-Sep-2008). After evaluating their service, it was just downright too expensive for what I used it for (mostly on the weekends and only IF I was out with my laptop). So I called and cancelled. The kind (read with sarcasm) rep told me that she would be happy to cancel my service. And since I called within 30 days, she'd be happy to credit my account $175 since I'm terminating my contract early (how nice of her). She would also credit my account for $35 for the activation fee (my will the acts of kindness stop???). The remaining bill, including taxes, would be my responsibility to pay (obviously, I've reached the end).

I went round and round with her about the idea behind a 30 day trial. She offered me to speak with her supervisor so that he could explain any part of our conversation. I even asked her point blank about the possibility of the supervisor making any bit of difference. Her response was "not likely". Nice. She said that since I was covered by the Worry-Free Guarantee, I would not have to pay activation or the early termination fee. And here I was worried that I would have to pay this overinflated price for internet - oh wait - I do. It's $60 for about 4 days worth of use...

I really thought I was going to get a call from my son's school yesterday. Why do you ask? Because I punched him. And he was telling everyone about it.

YOU PUNCHED HIM?!?

Well not exactly. We were playing around in the car on Monday (Labor Day). He was hitting my arm and leg. So I did my usual trick of putting my fist next to face while he is turned away. I then call his name and HIS FACE hits my FIST. See?! That seems innocent enough, right? How was I supposed to know his tooth would be knocked out.

WHAT?! HIS TOOTH WAS KNOCKED OUT?!?

To tell ya the truth, that tooth was ready - and it was asking for it!!! And besides this was a pretty good week for Tim because he had already lost two others earlier in the week - why stop now, right??? So not only does he get to tell everyone at school that I punched him (thanks Tim!) but he gets all this money from the tooth fairy.

Perhaps he can bail me out of jail with some of that "tooth" money.

=)