KirstenL4W

First of all, I have to give a big huge shout out to Zac. He just opened himself a brand-spanking new website dedicated to furthering the mission of the Agents of S.O.R.P. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but if you like a bitter commentary on the state of the world with a very creative use of cuss words, then EvilKicksAss is the place for you. It’s also a one-stop shop featuring Zac’s excellent videos, forums, and pictures of hot goth chicks. Go check it out!

Now, where was I? Oh yes. Mister and I are planning our trip to my old stomping grounds, New England. I bought my history buff husband a travel guide so that he can get excited about all the cool historical stuff Boston and beyond has to offer, so we are both really looking forward to going. I haven’t been to Boston proper in years, and the last time I did anything remotely educational there was when I was still in school.  We’re also planning a meet-n-greet dinner so that the rest of my family and friends can meet Mister.  As with my wedding, it’s been fun trying to keep my mom from making this bigger than it has to be.  It’s a meet my family event, not a recreation of the wedding.

We haven’t been watching much tv at all, but we have watched a few movies.  I opened my email the other day to see that a couple of movies I had ordered months ago finally shipped.  Truth is, I forgot about them because I ordered them in the days before the wedding, and one movie in particular wasn’t to be released until August.  Well, it’s August, and our 2-disc special edition of The Nightmare Before Christmas was delivered.  It’s one of those Disney flicks that they like to hide on you for a few years, so as to create demand.  It just got re-released on DVD and Blu-Ray, and since Mister has previously owned a copy on a number of occasions and was eager to get his hands on it again, I bought it.  I had only seen the movie once, when it was originally in the theaters, but I was never interested in seeing it again because I was on a bad date at the time.  Now I know Mister and we watched it and wanna know something?  It was good!

This weekend we are going to Phoenix.  Mister has some work, and I don’t, so I get to go with him.  We’re gonna spend Friday doing his work stuff, then Saturday we’ll be taking the scenic route back and taking pictures that we didn’t get to take when we went to Prescott awhile back.  Then we’ll be back late Saturday to spend the rest of the holiday weekend at home.  It’s nice to get a long weekend once in awhile.

That’s the news for now - it’s getting late and I need to get to bed.

Back to another edition of the Encyclopedia of me. It took me a while to come up with an E word, so I cracked open a dictionary. After writing down some possibilities, I saw a travel theme. I scrounged around a thesaurus for an E word related to travel, and as I was doing that Mister suggested Excursion. Perfect! Here are some excursions I’ve been on.

East Coast

I grew up on the east coast of the US. It’s a world of difference between there and the west coast, where I am now. (I’m not actually on the coast, but I am a half day’s drive from it.) There’s more a sense of tradition back east, for one. West coasters are more laid back, and here in Vegas especially there’s not too much concern about tradition. Back east, old historical buildings are held in the highest esteem, especially since there are quite a few that date back to before the Declaration of Independence. Here in Vegas, they just implode them. Mister and I are going for a visit in October so that he can meet the rest of my family, and it will be the first time he’s been to the New England area. We can’t wait.

Edinburgh

I’ve been to Europe a few times, mostly to the UK. The third time I went, my college roommate and I decided to trek around the UK and see a number of cities. The first one we went to was Edinburgh. Oh, how I loved that city. I wish we had more time there, but our Pig in the Poke itinerary didn’t allow it. We went to the Edinburgh Castle, walked the Royal Mile, and did an open top bus tour of the city. The Princes Street gardens were bright green, even in November, and my favorite thing was listening to the dreamy Scottish accent.

Eiffel Tower

I took French classes throughout high school, so on my first trip to Europe I was eager to visit Paris. I remember the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower up close. I had gotten off the Metro one stop too early, and was wandering the neighborhood streets trying to find my way. For being the tallest structure in Paris, it was hard to keep an eye on while in the narrow streets. I was staring to get a bit worried because I couldn’t see the tower and I couldn’t find my way back to the main road. Finally, I rounded a corner and there it was, up close in all its glory. It took my breath away! I’ve seen many, many pictures of it but they do not prepare you for the first time you see it up close. The detail is amazing (and the one in Vegas, which is a 1/2 scale model, does not compare). I climbed the stairs to the first level then took the lift to the second level. The third level was closed due to winds, but the view from the second level was pretty amazing. It was worth nearly getting run over by the horrible Parisian drivers to see this gorgeous piece of architecture.

Ellis Island

On one of my many trips to New York City with my Uncle N Period, we took a trip to Ellis Island. This holds some historical significance for us, because my great grandparents - Uncle N Period’s grandparents - came into this country through there. It spent many years in disrepair, but was eventually restored and now serves as an amazing museum of immigrant history. Also on the island, in back of the building, is the Wall of Honor. My mom’s cousin had my great grandparents’ names inscribed on the wall, so it was really cool seeing them there and being in the same place that was a huge part of their life history.

English Channel

My first time in Europe, I wanted to see as much as I could, so I planned my route carefully. After spending time in Paris, I took a train through the French countryside to Calais, where I was to take the ferry to Dover and a train to London. I thought a channel crossing would be cool. What I didn’t know was that a channel crossing could be very rough. After walking through the boat like I was really drunk, I finally fell asleep with my arms wrapped around my backpack, which is probably what saved me from getting seriously seasick. I made it to England with enough rest and coherency to breeze through customs and get on the train to London.

So there’s a few of my excursions - at least, the ones starting with E. Enjoy!

I think I’m getting this in under the wire. So, the topic is Marriage in Real life. Boy, is this ever going to be a short post.

Mister and I were married just about 2 months ago. We are still in that honeymoon phase. Me probably more than him. He says that one of our friends observed that I am totally smitten with him. It is so true, and I am more in love with him now than I was even a couple months ago. That’s my real life marriage. And I plan on doing everything in my power to make sure it stays that way.

Here I am, paying bills and thinking about what to blog about, when I log into my credit card statement to make a payment.  I see some recent activity, and figure I’ll click on it to remind myself how much my last payment was.  I never use the darn thing, especially now that I’m in a position to not have to live off it, so it sits there and collects dust.  I did receive the new card in the mail when I told them about my name change, so I’m not missing anything.  The old card is still sitting on my desk ready to be cut up.

So when I checked my recent activity, I see 2 charges for the same merchant - AIC*HYDRODERM SKINCARE.  This sort of crap has happened before - remember how that turned out?  I ran downstairs to get my phone so I could call the credit card company.  They were very nice, again, and I filed a complaint with the fraud department, again.  Account closed, new card coming, fraud paperwork coming, yada yada yada.   I made my payment, since it’s due this week, and they even waived the usual $15 telephone payment charge for me.  Once I was all done using up my minutes with the credit card company, I turned to the search engine.

Apparently what happens is this - thieves see enticing offers for free stuff online that they really really want, like game consoles.  They just need to buy a bunch of worthless crap to earn points towards their free stuff.  Well, they sign up for all these “free” offers from their sponsors with “their own” credit cards and earn points that way.  That’s where they use auto-dialer techniques to find credit card numbers, and that’s how I ended up with fraudulent charges.

Everyone should reconcile their statements every month.  If you use your credit cards, then save your receipts to compare them against your statement.  That’s how I stopped one place from charging me more than I authorized.  Make sure everything matches, and that you have a receipt for everything.  It’s not fun being one of those people who are total dorks about their receipts, but it’s the only proof you have if you want to dispute a charge.  And if you see a charge you don’t recognize at all, call your credit card company.  They’ll tell you what it looks like the charge is for, and you can either remember that you made the purchase after all, in which case you thank them for helping you with your memory, or you kindly ask to be transferred to their fraud department to dispute the charges.  But take action!  Be vigilant about your accounts!

I thought long and hard about monetizing my blog.  I didn’t want to clutter up my fine work with ads, and I wasn’t keen on the whole pay-per-post idea.  In the past, you’ve probably seen some posts with links to products on Amazon.com using an affiliate program.  That’s about the extent of my efforts to make money from the blog.  Then Amazon came out with a whole storefront thing that you can insert in your site.  I fiddled around with it and realized I could probably do that.  So I made a shop - months ago.  I made the new page and let it sit in draft for the longest time, thinking I’ll release it when I have the time to work on it more.  But then I figured, why not?  Why not release it now?  So I did.  I’m featuring some stuff I’ve mentioned on the blog, along with other stuff I love.  And I decided to stay exclusively with Amazon because it’s a site that everyone knows, and they carry nearly everything.  So go check it out.  I’ll be adding more stuff as time and inspiration permits, so check back once in awhile.

I haven’t participated in the Monday writing prompt in a couple of weeks. Two weeks ago, Mister and I were visiting his parents in one of the most perfect places I’ve ever seen, and last week the topic didn’t apply to me. But I’m back, with stories about cooking. Other people’s cooking. I admit that I’m not the best cook in the world, but I don’t think I’ve ever really messed something up bad enough to make a blogworthy story. I have blogged about other people’s cooking before, specifically my stepmother and mom. My mom is funny. She can be a bit forgetful when she cooks - like the time she made tuna casserole and forgot to put the tuna in. Other times she makes a big mistake. Once, she accidentally reached for the wrong thing in the spice cabinet and ended up putting cinnamon in the meatloaf instead of allspice. She blamed that one on “someone” who was moving things around in her meticulously organized spice cabinet. Oh, and there’s the time she made a roaster chicken and put 4, count ‘em, four bullion cubes in when she was making the gravy. She wanted it to have some flavor, she said. Oh, it had flavor all right. The unmistakable flavor of way too much sodium.

My mom is not the only one with her disasters. My sister, when she was younger and much, much less experienced in the kitchen, decided to make herself a grilled cheese sandwich. What she got was two pieces of blackened bread with cold cheese in the middle. She fried both sides of the bread until they were nice and crispy, then stuck a piece of cold cheese between them. Brilliant. She’s much better at it now, and is even better at making roasting chickens than mom is.

One disaster that I was not witness to, but really enjoy hearing, is Mister’s experience with salmon. He likes to cook with wine, and is quite good at it. Actually, he’s quite good at cooking period. Anyway, he was cooking this salmon and decided to add some white wine. As he reached for the wine bottle, he realized he was out of white wine. He figured since the fish was already in the middle of the cooking process, he’d add what he did have - red wine. How bad can it be? Well, he soon saw the results of red wine with salmon. He ended up serving purple fish. A crayola-like passionflower purple. Very, um, colorful. The recipients of this meal were a bit unsure at first, but as they put on a brave face and started eating it, they realized it was yummy. Very yummy. So yummy, in fact, that they specifically asked for purple fish a number of times after that. It ended up being a popular dish in his circle.

So there you have it - some cooking catastrophes. Some I have been subjected to, others not. What are some of your cooking catastrophes?

Mister announced tonight that WoW is having a referral special. If he refers someone and gets them to sign up for 2 months, then he gets some special limited offer pixel crack. He eyed me suggestively as he told me this. At first I was figuring it would be worth the subscription if it keeps him happy, which then leaves me free to get my blogging fix. But then, later in the evening as he was talking to one of our silly little game friends, he said that he can get all sorts of experience if he refers someone and they play together for 90 days. Hold on a minute here. I have to actually play the game now?

Let me tell you something: I am not a gamer. I never understood the fascination with Super Mario Bros. when it came out, and my friends would play for hours on end. And as for playing the game itself, I didn’t get it. I mean, I understood the objective and all, but I didn’t get why it was fun. Never mind the fact that I have no controller-thumb coordination. We did have an Atari 2600 when I was a kid. I never really got into playing it much - Pac Man and Chopper Command bored me. I did like playing the ET - The Extra Terrestrial game. Just so you all can get a little perspective, Listverse dubbed ET the #1 lousiest video game that should never have been made. Yes, I was the only person in the country that liked playing this game - over and over and over again.

For those of you who still like me, let me tell you what this means: it means that I know, from past experience with games, that I am not going to have fun playing WoW. In fact, I am not going to have so much fun that I will be constantly distracted, leaving my character in areas where it will be killed mercilessly ad infinitum. Can you get a negative level in WoW? I might be the first person to do that.

Mister tries to counter my protests by reminding me that I liked the Wii when we played it over at the MonkeyHouse. Yes, I liked the Wii. It might even be going on my Christmas list. But there’s something different about Wii. On Wii, I’m not playing silly little games and questing and getting killed. We played Wii sports, which was fun. I got to go bowling, kick ass at it, and I didn’t end up with a shoulder injury. I got to play baseball without getting a sunburn or getting stuck in right field. And there are only two buttons to press, so it was really easy (though I still had a bit of trouble from time to time). I also checked out some other sports on the website like skiing and hula hoop, which are available on the Wii Fit. I might even be interested in the Mario Cart. See, the Wii lets you move around a bit, so you get to exercise more than your thumbs. The games’ movements stimulate real life activities, and the relatively primitive graphics are, IMO, ridiculously cute. So yes, I like the Wii. But I am so not interested in playing WoW. Mister has been playing it forever, so I’ve been exposed to it ever since I’ve known him, and other than walking by and randomly hitting the space bar to make the characters jump, I don’t have any interest in it.

So if you’re ever online and come across a downtrodden character at Level -2,948,520, that would be me.

I got this and now I can’t get this song out of my head.  (Mister got this one so we can ride together.)

Yesterday I went to open a new checking account. I already have one, but I wanted to have an account at the bank that Mister has his accounts at so it makes things a little easier. Now that my name change is complete and I have the ID to show it, I was ready to go to the bank.

We went to the branch closest to our house and waited a bit. The waiting didn’t bother us so much, because that’s what usually happens when you go to the bank. When it was our turn, we sat down and I told the customer service guy what I wanted. He asked me for my ID, which is standard procedure, and then asked me for further proof of ID because, as he put it, my driver’s license was too new. (In Nevada they put the issue date on your ID, and mine was issued about 3 weeks before.) I told him that I didn’t have anything else with me because the website didn’t indicate that I’d need anything beyond that. He told me he could not open my account without further ID, and I told him that I didn’t need to open an account with his bank.

Mister asked if I wanted to try the other branch, close to the old apartment, and I said sure, I think we have time before they close. We went in and waited, then when it was our turn asked if we had time to open a checking account. It was 6 minutes before closing, so we would have understood if we got turned away at that point. But the customer service lady was happy to help us. We opened my account, and I wasn’t even a new customer since Mister added me to one of his checking accounts a couple months before that. She changed my name on that account, opened my new checking account, and even ordered Mister a new debit card on a different rewards program, all very happily. When we were done, about 20 minutes past closing, we apologized for keeping her there so late and she said it was nothing, she was happy to help us. That’s what we call customer service.

Here’s what I know about retail banking from the friends and relatives who have worked in banking: they have quotas. It’s a sales job - they need to open so many accounts every month. Think about it - how many times have you gone in to make a deposit or withdrawal and had the teller ask you if you wanted to put the money in a CD or open a different kind of account? That’s the sales part of it coming out. So we were very perplexed, and a bit upset, that we would be turned away by this guy for an ID that hasn’t aged enough. I don’t get it - my ID is considered by the state to be valid the second they hand it to me, but 3 weeks later it’s not valid enough as determined by some dude at the bank. I don’t get it - can someone please explain this to me?

Last night I went on the bank’s website to put in a comment, and this morning I had an email saying that they had passed my comment on to management for further review. Looks like the banking dude didn’t have the last word on this one!