Domestic Geek

I'm back online at DomesticGeek.com. Please change your bookmarks...yada, yada, yada. See you soon!

OK, just as a heads up, I'll no longer be putting new posts here and I've turned off commenting. I'm in the process of moving this all to my new domain and once I have the template done and fix all the little quirky things that are going on associated with the move, I'll update this post and direct you all to my new home. With any luck and little interference, this should happen by March 1st.

Sorry that I've been MIA lately. I've done got myself addicted to The Sims™ 2 again. Later this month, the expansion pack "FreeTime" is coming out. Man, I wish I could get that one — I'm all about the hobbies! I'm actually a couple of EPs behind still. I was hoping to pick up a couple cheap during CompUsa's closing, but software was the first to go and it didn't even go cheap. People are such suckers. Even at "Liquidation Prices," I could still get those games cheaper on Amazon or eBay. Just wasn't meant to be yet.

I got a "Save the Date" email from my high school's reunion committee yesterday. Our 25th reunion has been scheduled for mid-July 2009. How in the heck did I get old enough to be coming up on a 25 year high school reunion? I was looking through some pictures from past reunions on the Gateway High School Class of '84 page that they have set up (I've yet to attend one) and it's weird seeing people that kind of resemble people I kind of knew back then. I know I've written about it on here somewhere before, but I feel really detached from my past. I know I went through those experiences, but for some reason, I don't have any "feelings" associated with them. It's really hard to explain, but even now I feel oddly disconnected from my life.

Anyway, I decided I will probably go to this one if the funds are available. The people I would really like to see probably won't be there (most of them haven't been to any reunions either), but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. It's pretty cliche, but I definitely need to get myself in better shape before I attend. I don't want to be the one that every points at and says, "Gee, look at how fat she got!" If they even remember me, that is.

In other news, I'm still sick. Argh! Positive health vibes coming my way from anybody that reads this would be greatly appreciated. I've got crud in my upper chest that just won't let loose. I'm so tired of coughing. It was really bad today because the pollution levels are pretty high. Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good.

I have a profile on Ravelry (you'll only be able to see it if you're a member). If you haven't heard, it's an online community for knitters and crocheters. I've been chatting with a woman that runs the Parker Stitch N' Bitch group and I'm thinking I'll head down one of these days and join in.

OK, that's about it for now. Being sick, Sims and work is about all that's going on right now. Oh, the days are getting longer and that makes me happy.

I'm really trying hard to be grateful for the good things that happen to me. I've spent so much of my life focusing on what I don't have or the bad things that happen that I don't take time to really enjoy the good.

I am happy that my sickness lessened to a point where I could go to work today and not use any of my vacation time.

Today I am grateful that the girl I sit next to went home sick so I could spend the day focusing and working in total peace. I'm also grateful that I work in the same place as Marcus so that he could come look over my Applescript I was editing and see where I had a syntax error.

I'm thankful I made it home safely in the snowstorm.

I am proud of myself for resisting the urge to buy craft supplies when I stopped into Hobby Lobby to take a break from the drive. I'm also proud of myself for putting back the cake mix and frosting before I checked out when I was grocery shopping.

I just can't seem to get well. Maybe by spring I'll finally lick this crap that just lingers and keeps getting passed around at work. I really have stuff and I want/need/have to do and right now I'm absolutely freezing and get a little dizzy when I stand up. So not cool.

I'm using the time today to catch up on a little Internet reading and found a cute little quiz thingy at my friend Julie's blog -->:

Pft, I'm only an 8. Stupid 1 point letters.

In other news, I'm almost done with the design for my template here, so I expect to have Domesticgeek.com live by the end of the month. I'm also doing some work on my other sites (since I had to move them all from Dreamhost), so eventually I'll link them up, too.

That reminds me that I never wrote about why I had to get all of my stuff off of Dreamhost's servers. Oh, back on Jan. 15th, I got this neat little email from Dreamhost saying they had autobilled my debit card $119.40. Um, my hosting wasn't set to renew until March and I didn't have that much money in my checking account. I immediately sent a response off to support that they were in error. See, I had no intention of renewing for another year. They've sucked. Many times I've gone to work on templates or to make posts only to have their servers lagging or down. I fretted all day long about that charge and finally got an email from someone later that day:

Hi LaDonna!

Ack. Through a COMPLETE bumbling on our part, we've accidentally attempted to charge you for the ENTIRE year of 2008 (and probably 2009!) ALREADY (it was all due to a fat finger)!

I'm really really realllly embarassed about this, but you have nothing to worry about. Please ignore any confusing billing messages you may have received recently; I've already removed all those bum future charges on your account (#292017) and already refunded the $119.4 charge on your credit card.

You should get the money back on almost immediately, within a day or two max, and there's no need to contact your credit card company or bank for the refund.

Again, I feel terrible about this whole thing.. there will be a blog post soon at blog.dreamhost.com fully explaining how this bug was even allowed to happen..

Thank you very very much for your patience with this.. we PROMISE this won't happen again. There's no need to reply to this message unless of course you have any other questions at all!

Sorry again,
Josh!

So, everything is cool, I think. I go home and read the promised post on the blog: Um, Whoops. I was a little miffed at the tone of the post, but I was willing to let it slip because mistakes happen and the guy was probably dealing with his stupidity the only way he knew how.

I kept checking both their blog and my bank (to see if a charge ever posted) and since I saw nothing, I figured all was good. Well, after I get home from dinner Friday night, I see a friend of mine from a message board complaining on Twitter that she actually got charged by Dreamhost. I go and check, and damned if I didn't get charged also. The resulting charge also got me two overdraft charges. I was soooooo pissed.

Turns out they only "thought" they had refunded the money. They really hadn't and the original charges went through. Well, this was MLK weekend and the banks were going to be closed on Monday. Maybe you'll see a refund by Tuesday, they said. Well, it was late in the day Tuesday before they finally posted a refund. In the mean time, the comments on their blog got downright ugly and the Dreamhost team all but disappeared. I never did get any emails back from support in response to my inquiry as to what they were going to do about my overdrafts. To make matters worse for them in my eyes, a bunch of their servers went down on the 23rd. Time to leave now.

Another thing about this whole thing that ticked me off was my bank. I called them on Monday (it was a holiday, but they promise 24-hour telephone banking) and the woman I spoke to said it would be no problem for them to reverse the overdrafts when Dreamhost sent the refund through. When I called back Wednesday, that woman tried telling me it wasn't the bank's problem and they shouldn't have to reverse them. I was ticked and she eventually did reverse them. This is not the first time I have gotten the runaround from them. I'm seriously going to try to find a better bank.

Anywho, once I got my cash back, I transfered the one domain I had registered through them to my normal registrar, moved all my data to my home server and closed my account. Marcus found me a free DNS at a place called EveryDNS.net. It seems to be working pretty well. I'm going to have to send those guys a donation.

I've got one more story about the frustrating experience I had with the IRS, but this post is getting a bit long, so perhaps that one will wait for another day.

I'm off to knit for a bit.

If you read here at all, you know of the poor demise of my stand mixer. I really miss having one but have decided to hold out for a really good one.

Well, here's a chance to get an really cool one! You or I can win a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer, but hurry because the contest ends today!

A Cowboy’s Wife is having a contest on her food blog! You can win a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer and she’ll ship anywhere so everyone is eligible!

The Prize: The winner will receive a brand new Hamilton Beach 4.5-qt. Eclectrics Stand Mixer, Pineapple Yellow!!



It's yellow — can you believe it? PINEAPPLE YELLOW! I LOVE IT! You can head over to her site to read more about the mixer and the contest.

I've got several tabs open with links I wanted to pass along, so I'd better get to it so I can close some of those puppies up!

• First, check out the Internet party that happens when Google's parents leave town for the weekend. Dang, wish I could embed the video because it's really quite humorous.
• Second, for all my design or prepress friends out there: Wish you could give your client's a clue about poor typeface choices (i.e. NEVER use Comic Sans if you want any degree of respectability)? How about that Microsoft Word is not a page layout program? Download the Visual Enforcement Kit from The Design Police. I literally laughed out loud!
• I wish the Denver Broncos would get their butts to a Superbowl again so that I could make some of these cute helmet Jell-o Jigglers.
• I really want a pair of these Fingerless Gloves that I saw on Knitty.com. I guess I really need to learn to knit cables first, though, huh?
• Here's a really good online Favicon maker. I used it to make the Christmas one for this site.

OK, guess that'll close up a few tabs.

I know what part of my problem is with trying to get by day to day...I am on the totally wrong schedule. I had something I had to take care of last week (more about that tomorrow perhaps), so I slept in and got into work around 11:30 am. The whole day I was alert, less grumpy, didn't need as much caffeine to get through the day. I also didn't have to deal with rush hour traffic on the drive either to or from work. I wish I could get on a later schedule permanently. I mentioned it to my boss, but he's so focused on other stuff right now, I don't think it registered.

See, I've always been a night owl. My mother used to say that I'd come alive and wanted to play at 10 pm. Given the chance (summer breaks, period of unemployment), my body always retreats to its natural rhythm. I like to sleep during the day and stay awake most of the night. I'm starting to wake up right now, as a matter of fact. That's why I think I stayed in pizza delivery so long. It fit my normal schedule. I also get the most creative at this time. Just a bit ago, I was actually working on my new blog design. What sucks is I have to stop because I really should've been in bed over an hour ago.

Once things "normalize" at work in March or so, I'm definitely going to bring it up again. I would definitely like to be on 2nd shift.

As I was cruising around the web this evening, I came across the coolest cake creation: A Knitting Basket Cake. One day I'm going to have to take a cake decorating class and give something like that a try.

This blog advertising stuff is getting out of hand. I understand the need to make money. Really, I do. I was weak and put paid blog posts on here while I was unemployed and underemployed to get by. I'm really starting to wish I hadn't. When I move my blog, I won't be taking a lot of those posts. I'm tempted still to sign up for these new ad companies as they pop up to see if I can make any money and the rational side of me prevails and resists.

The fact is that now there is so much of it, that it's making my blog surfing less than enjoyable. There are some blogs with so many sidebar ads, paid blog posts/text links, google ads, etc. that their actual site never loads for me. As I'm roaming around, I'm finding I quickly move on if I see any sort of paid posts or badges for paid blogging sites. Fair? No, but it's what I find myself doing. It used to be safe to get around a lot of that by reading feeds, but even those are being infiltrated.

I think I'm just weary of the whole thing. It's like trying to watch a movie on network television...it is constant commercial interruptions interfering with the enjoyment of the content. I miss being able to read random blogs without links to drug rehab or payday loan sites. Part of me wishes the whole thing will fail, but I realize that probably won't happen. What I can do is pledge that when all my obligations are complete that I will no longer participate in it and just post whenever and whatever I feel like. If people come and visit me, great. If not, that's fine, too.

To my online friends that are doing paid blogging and the like, please don't take my disdain for this personally. I don't like any of you less just because you still have or want to do this for whatever reason. I just can't do it anymore.

Unless you live under a rock in the blogosphere, you know my friend Colleen and you know how she is quite the globe trotter (and not of the basketball variety, either). I'm so jealous of all of the wonderful places she gets to visit and her next destination is no exception. Since I know where she's going and am thus not eligible for her contest, I will offer you one of her clues. If you can guess where she's going on her vacation, you can win something cool!

The prizes:
1st Prize - a $50 Travelocity Gift Card, and a souvenir from her trip!
2nd Prize - a $25 Travelocity Gift Card, and a souvenir from her trip!
3rd, 4th, and 5th Prize - a souvenir from her trip!

So, let's get on with it —

Clue #14:
The name of this district in the town Colleen is visiting may cause you to want to STOP walking though it, but Sting & Roxanne know that "You don't have to sell your body to the night"!

(Thanks, Colleen, now I'm going to that song stuck in my head all day!)

In addition my my clue, you can find links to the previous thirteen clues over at Colleen's site. Think you know? Head over to her site and follow the directions to enter (meaning DO NOT LEAVE GUESSES IN THE COMMENTS OF THIS OR ANY OTHER SITE!).

Good luck, dear readers and safe journey, Colleen!

It is so not fair to have a dream that you're going on a vacation trip to Hawaii. You dream you're packing, you dream of your last day at work before you leave, you dream you're driving to the airport and WHAM! Alarm goes off, it's MONDAY morning and you have to get up to go to work. *grumble*