Trying Tuesday

Well, maybe not but LIFE IS GOOD LIFE IS GOOD. 

I picked up a blackberry on Monday since I had to get a new cell phone.  I didn't really feel comfortable when I bought it because the people in the local Radio Shack didn't seem to be extremely helpful.  JW saw it that evening and said "I told you to buy an iphone".  Well he hadn't really but guess that's not important.   We were both tired so after a dinner of leftover pizza (homemade not delivery) he watched basketball a bit and I headed to bed to crash.

Tuesday morning we got up at our new get up time - 3:40 am.  Yep - that's our schedule for a while so it doesn't really matter around here when the sun comes up or goes down - we live by the clock not the sun.  JW left and Tink who has got lots of rest and is feeling a bit recovered from her move, spent the next 3+ hours scolding me about whatever.  She wanted some attention and I think she wanted me to know that she is not happy about living here and is ready to go home now.  Finally she quieted down, climbed on the bed and slept for a few hours.

As soon as I got off work at 1 (well not really off work but I took a break to take care of business), I drove back down to Radio Shack to return my blackberry - they do not carry iphones so i had to return the phone to the shack and cancel the service agreement.  When I returned the phone he told me that I would have to call ATT to cancel the service agreement.  Okay, I was so happy he didn't charge me a restocking fee that I figured that would be a piece of cake since I had already discussed the issue with att earlier in the morning..

I drove around the corner and could see the att store - just had to figure out how to get into it.  On the main drag of Fairbanks - airport way, they have "frontage roads" on each block.  So between the road and the shopping centers there are those big concrete blocks to keep traffic from just pulling into the shopping center.  Instead, you have to drive to the end of the block and figure out how to work your way back to where you need to be.

I finally got there and was greeted by Heidi.  She was totally wonderful.  Told me everything I needed to do and all the accessories I would need and to top it off, she actually gave me a 10 minute tutorial on how to use my iphone.  Such a total different experience than the previous day that I fell immediately in love with my iphone.  Heidi is actually one of the few people we've met that is "from Fairbanks" - most people are from somewhere else.

I then came home and spent the next 4 hours stopping the service plan on my blackberry.  One person at att told me that the person at the shack had to do that, another att person offered to call the guy at the shack and she actually called me back an hour later to tell me that she had talked to the guy at the shack and had everything set up so she was going to transfer me to the correct person for the disconnect.  The disconnect person said that I was going to have to go back to the shack and have the guy there disconnect me and that she was going to call him, explain everything to him and make sure everything was all set so I could just go back and get it disconnected.  After about 10 minutes of talking to him, she told me that everything was set - all i needed to do was go back to the store and she hung up.

I immediately called the shack and talked to the manager.  He said, "I don't have any way to disconnect your service."  He asked me to stay on the line while he talked to att.  I could hear him discussing with her what he needed to do and then he asked me for some information and i heard him having to give att codes to disconnect.  Then he gave the att lady (another one) my phone number so she could call me.  Yep, she called and the first thing she wanted to know was "don't you have someone who can take over this phone and service plan."  I told her, I don't know anyone here and I don't even have the phone anymore - I returned it 4 hours ago.  Then she started telling me about how as soon as she disconnected, i would be able to make any calls or acceess my voice messages - I said, I don't care I don't have the phone, I just want it disconnected.  Finally she disconnected the service.

On the plus side, the manger from radio shack, called me this morning to follow up, apologize for everything and make sure all was okay.  He said that att goes back and forth on whether he disconnects or the do and basically all he could do last night was give them codes which is exactly what I had heard him giving att last night.

After dinner last night, we headed out to look at houses.  We looked at the too expensive:

Which may have considered going a little bit deeper into debt for but the quality just was not there. 

So then we went to look at the too old house - built in 84.  It's not that I mind the blue tile so much but the bedrooms were dinky and they wanted about 50k more than the realtor said it was worth.

This window was my favorite part of the house.

Then we went to look at a house at North Pole - just a mile down the street from Santa's House.  (yep really).  It was a very nice house but we decided that was an extra 16 miles that JW did not need to be driving every day - it's already far enough from here to work. 

Came home to see our hotel room had been broken into - well, not really but they had come in to deliver a beautiful boquet of flowers - what a wonderful surprise to end the day.  Thank you Sam.