Best hurricane ever

Those of you in west Texas are now getting rain, if you're going to, from the little hurricane we sent you from the gulf coast. We had a little flooding from it, though the news folks had to look for it to get some good video. Here in Sienna Plantation, all we got out of it was a good, rainy day. I wouldn't even call it a soaker, but it did mean I could postpone watering my yard for another couple of days.

GA got a day off out of it, because the area where she works is subject to flooding, and even though it didn't actually flood this time, when it does flood it causes some major problems, traffic wise.

So we stayed home, and decided to use the day to pack up the two Sprint phones we had to return to that brilliantly staffed organization.

You see, she is provided this Blackberry by her employers, who also provide her data services via the Sprint people. And the opportunity arose to allow the employees to add phone service to their Blackberry devices. Great idea. So we figured it was time to switch from AT&T to Sprint for the sake of efficiency.

So they assign this guy to facilitate all these new Sprint customers in their new phone service, and I asked him to recommend a phone for me. I told him I didn't want data, really, but let's get me a good phone. He recommended the Instinct™ and I had to agree it looked like a really cool phone. It has a touch screen, a virtual qwerty keyboard, and other features for the 21st century.



He said that I was almost certain to decide that I wanted the data plan with it, because it is such a cool phone with the data plan. I sort of thought he might be right, and according to what he said, I could add the data later if I wanted for only $30 a month. Awesome!

So after discussing it with him, we decided to go with the $99 a month plan, which included two phones, and the third phone (for my in-laws, who wouldn't otherwise bother with a cell phone) for an additional $10.

And it is a Cool Phone. I loved that phone. But when we got the first bill, they wanted me to send them $228 and some coins. Wm's heart stops for a few beats. Wm is Scottish. That means cheap.

So I called billing, to discuss the matter calmly. I told the nice lady that this wasn't acceptable, and why. She explained that the Instinct™ has to have the data plan. It can't be phone only. So the only way they could give me what I asked for was to sign me up for three separate plans: a phone for Ga, and a phone for me, and a phone for the in-laws. None of this share talk stuff for an extra $10 a month - three separate plans!

So I made her understand that this was not good at all, and that what I was told I could have was the one plan with two extra lines, plus data for one phone, mine. Oh, no, we can't do that. It has to be phone & text for all, or data for all.

"But that's not what the rep said."
"I can't help what he said. It has to be done this way."

Well, I didn't want to pay for data for my in-laws - shoot, I can barely get them to use the cell phone, and they only want to know how to answer it and make calls - but I really liked the Instinct™ and everything. So I guess I could...

So now GA finds out something that makes things really complicated. She can't have the data plan for her Blackberry, because it will conflict with the data service provided by her employer. So now we have a problem: she can't have data, and I have to have it, on the same plan. Now remember, it's only a policy that prevents them from adding data to one phone - it is NOT a technical issue.

I spent 90 minutes arguing with this bimbo about my problem, trying to make it clear that what she was telling me made it impossible to do business with them. So finally, with the phone getting very hot on my ear, GA and I decided that going with Sprint was a horrible mistake. I asked to be transferred to somebody who could cancel our account.

And this person says, sweetly, "Why didn't they just offer you the data on your Instinct™ only?" I explained that this was exactly what I had been asking for for the last 90 minutes, and could we please cancel our account and get instructions for returning the phones. She complied. A week later, we received the return kit, which is a plastic mailer bag and a UPS label, and a sheet of instructions. Now comes our little hurricane, and the resulting day off. We pack up the Instinct™ and the little phone with big buttons we got for the elderly parents. There on the instruction sheet, it says "DO NOT PACK MORE THAN ONE PHONE IN A BAG." But - but - we have two phones and only one bag. I call customer support.

"Oh, you can't mail them to us," she explains, "you have to return them to the store where you bought them. And you have to have the original credit card receipt."
"But I don't know where that store is. We did this through one of your reps, and he brought them to us."
"You have to return them to the store where you bought them."
"But the other person said to mail them in. She sent us this bag."
"I can't help what the other person said. It has to be done this way."
I handed GA the phone so she could get information about where the store was, and it was in downtown Houston, and the hurricane is upon us. Worse, I can't find the receipt.
I called the rep, the original one, and he says that we can take it to any store. It doesn't have to be the same one it came from. And you don't have to have the original credit card receipt. Just the other paperwork.
Another 90 minutes of cell phone air time has gone by.
Off we go, in the rain.
I'm expecting to have more idiocy to deal with, but the guy in the corporate store where we brought the phones says, quietly, "you just need to return two phones for credit? That's all? No problem."
We didn't even have to wait in a line. He was even able to straighten out the billing mess, which hadn't been done, contrary to what we were promised by the billing department. We were only charged for what we were promised would be the cost of the plan we asked for.
The moral of the story is this: if you are a Sprint customer, and if anything goes wrong, go to a corporate store to resolve the problem. The people at tech support are total morons.
Oh, and this: the Instinct™ is a cool phone. Really.

Houston, we have a - what was that, anyway?

I suppose there are an infinite number of ways to compare cities. One common way is by crime statistics. Houston has an exceptionally high crime rate, higher even than Wichita Falls. Midland has a relatively low rate, and Missouri City (where my mail is processed) has an even lower one.

Another, more useful comparison would be the percentage of TFM's encountered on the streets and highways. Oh, you aren't familiar with that acronym? Let's bring you up to speed. A TFM is a Total Freaking Moron, but you can adjust the acronym as you please. It could also stand for Terribly Foolish Moron, but the point is that these drivers are morons, and not just normal standard-issue morons.

A standard-issue moron is a person who tailgates, speeds, and generally takes risks that don't need to be taken. He drives aggressively, he uses a cell phone without bothering to compensate for the distraction, he believes that he is a good driver when he isn't a good driver by any stretch of the imagination. These people are everywhere, and the percentage from city to city doesn't really vary enough to be statistically relevant. You see them all the time, on virtually every drive home from work. They irritate you, they make you a little more defensive as you continue your drive.

But a TFM is an amazing creature to behold. One sees them in action and one either utters an expletive involuntarily, or one prays for divine protection and truly means it. While the normal moron will change lanes suddenly and without warning, nearly taking your bumper with him, the TFM will do it in an 18-wheeler. While the normal moron will make a left turn from the right lane, forcing you to slam on your brakes, the TFM will make the same turn across four lanes of busy traffic, causing a multi-car pile up. While a normal moron will weave in and out of busy lanes of thick traffic to gain perhaps an extra car length or two, the TFM will do it at 90 mph, and his weaving will involve six lanes of traffic at once, just before darting to make his exit on the opposite side of the freeway. That's a TFM.

He is incapable, I suppose, of assessing risk - the odds of a given action resulting in unwanted consequences as opposed to the goal or reward, the degree of that unwanted consequence, and the size or quality of the reward - all at the same time. He only gets as far as "if I can get from point A to point B faster, I won't have to wait as long." He rarely considers "if I kill myself on the way, I won't even get to point B." He never considers "the minor goal of getting to point B two minutes sooner isn't remotely worth the high risk of severe pain or death involved."

I estimate the TFM percentage in Wichita Falls to be about 4%, based on living in Wichita county most of my life. For Midland, maybe 2% at the most. Sugar Land or Missouri City would be about 6%, with the worst coming out at rush hour and going dormant the rest of the time. But Houston.... I would put the score at no less than 10%. If you aren't used to Houston traffic, you cannot possibly drive more than thirty minutes without your jaw dropping to your lap in amazement at least once. You cannot remain indifferent when you have seen a motorcycle on the service road, his crying, tormented little engine audible from high on the expressway, racing at 100 mph, down there precisely because there are fewer cars in the way, which means that he won't have to weave through them quite so much. Is he wearing a helmet? I'll let you guess.

Even on a short drive, you will typically see about three cars each minute blow by you at 30 mph over the prevailing speed (never mind the speed limit). You get used to it pretty quickly, and you figure out that to deal with it, you simply stay in your lane and ignore them. You assume that if you don't do anything unexpected, they will likely miss you, much as the bats do if you get caught in a cave at sundown when they awaken. And, on the bright side, TFM's don't pee on you as they pass. Well, they haven't so far, at least.

Now, the one good thing about having such a high TFM score is that the other 90% learn to be very good drivers - careful and logical. They learn the importance of driving close to the prevailing speed, regardless of the posted limit. If the limit is 60, but the traffic is moving steadily at 50, we all go 50. If it's going 65, we all go 65, because driving at a speed that's too different, whether slower or faster, is more dangerous than merely speeding is by itself. People try to keep a distance between them and the car ahead if possible (not the distance recommended back in driver's ed - that's not possible in Houston), and though there is a tendency to push the amber lights and thus run the reds, they generally don't floor the accelerator to do this when the car in front has applied his brakes to stop at the light. The TFM's, of course, do this all the time, and then slam on the brakes, coming to rest sideways just inches behind the next car - if all goes well, that is. (Oh, yes, they do. When I see this about to happen, I move to the rightmost edge of my lane to increase the chances of being missed by the tire-screaming missile to my left).

A friend of mine who used to live here said to me the other day, "Do you know what most parents in Houston give their kids for their first car?" The answer: a Piñata.