Entries Tagged 'General' ↓

So the kids and I had so much fun that the wife decided that we would all do it again the next day.  Just because she didn’t get up early on Friday (like I did since I’m such a good parent) she decides to punish me with another 6:00 am morning.  I’m actually glad she did as this was a completely different experience than the day before.  As I mentioned in the previous post the Friday morning launch was just two balloons at a nearby school.  Balloons were launched at schools all over town making it a truly city-wide experience.  On Saturday all of the hot air balloons were in one location meaning that we got to see 40 balloons lanuch from one field over the course of an hour!  It was really something to see!  It’s late and I’m off to bed soon but I’ll share a couple of photos so you can get an idea of what it was like.

This is the sight that greeted us when we arrived!

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This morning I got up at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m.* so I could take my kids to see some hot air balloons launch. This took place about 3-4 blocks from my house! Each year our area has a “Balloon Stampede” but this was the first year that I have gotten up to take the kids. I’ll likely do it tomorrow too as it was quite a lot of fun and I’ll be able to go to a different location as they launch balloons from 10-15 places thoughout our valley. It is quite something to see 15-20 balloons rising over a small town (50,000 people roughly) and this year they are have 40 balloons total I belieive. More informaiton is available at Balloon Stampede.

*I looked it up in several versions of the bible, the book of morman, the Qhoran and a pamphlet I got from a smelly panhandler in Las Vegas two years ago. They all said that God’s plan for us never included being up that early.

That’s one way to warm up on a chilly morning! (It wasn’t chilly, but what do you write as a caption for a seriously over-steroided cigar lighter?)
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Yeah I know you can’t really see people well - but at least it’s evidence I did attend.

Three quick things I learned at my reunion.
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I’m off today for my 20 year high school reunion.  I went to a boarding high school so it’s a little different than the type of reunion that my wife went to a few years ago.  They showed up for dinner together at a restaurant and then hit a couple of the local bars as a group.  My reunion will be a weekend event with people showing up this evening to talk, meet the next day for lunch and dinner later that night!  The school I attended is small, my graduating class was only about 65 people but I suspect we’ll have 40 of the class show up with spouses (and some kids) in tow. 
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The radio was playing as I took my 9 year old son to school this morning.  He is an avid (relentless) slug-bug player which meant I was losing as I’m not fond of the a.m. hours.  Billy Joel came on over the radio and pretty quickly my son stopped looking for vw bugs and listened to the words.  It wasn’t long before he asked,

“Did he just say, the good die young?” 

There was nothing else I could do.  I cringed inwardly and admitted to that those were the words to the song. 

“I don’t want to die young!”

And so saying firmly placed himself on the path to bad (versus good) since you obviously live longer that way.

Okay, the big advertising push that Vonage is making is that you can save up to 50% off your phone bill. While I’m sure that is true for some people it is not going to be true for me. Here is a look at what the first year expense will be and would have been.

Current Phone Company

• $33.00 X 12 for one line, caller id, and call waiting
• $0.00 for long distance (cell phone is used for all of that)

Total for current phone - $396.00
Vonage

• $25.00 X 12 for the same features + unlimited long distance in the U.S.
• -$25.00 for first month free
• $30.00 for set up fee
• $10.00 for shipping and handling
• $1.00 regulatory recovery fee
• $1.00 911 cost recovery

Total for Vonage - $318.00

So I should save about $80.00 over the first year which isn’t bad. However, keep this in mind. If I choose to cancel Vonage after the first month and before a year contract is up then I will have to pay them an additional $40.00 disconnection fee. Also, I would encourage anyone looking at Vonage to keep their current phone plan for at least the first month to see if they are happy with the service. I have a friend who signed up for Vonage but had trouble with their DSL service making it unworkable to keep Vonage. You wouldn’t want to cancel your local phone company, try Vonage out, find it didn’t work for you and have to “re-signup” with the local company. That being the case I have to add another $33.00 into the Vonage plan for the first year. So, realistically I will save $45.00 over the year (under $4.00 a month) if I keep Vonage. If I cancel at the 11 month mark I would save $5.00 as long as my local company didn’t charge me an activation fee.

Am I saying that Vonage is a bad deal? No, not at all. I’m simply suggesting that before you sign up thinking you’ll save 30-50% off your current phone bill you should do the math to find out if it works for you. My guess is I’ll keep Vonage if for no other reason I’ve had no options for a home phone service in the past. Vonage probably wins just because I like to stick it monopolies.

I signed up with Vonage (VOIP) recently and actually got my “internet phone service start up kit” in the mail yesterday. Today I was able to get everything connected and operational so I thought I would give my early impressions of the process so far.

Online Sign up: As I begain the online signup I was asked to input a phone number. It wasn’t clear (to me) if putting in this number meant that Vonage was going to have it switched over to their system. (I’m keeping my standard phone service, at least for now) It became clear I could not sign up without inputing a phone number so I gave up and called their sales toll free number.

Telephone sign up: The telephone sign up went more smoothly. However, while giving my credit card infomation the person helping me misheard one of the numbers and was forced to ask for them to be repeated as the card was rejected when she tried to process it. After getting the number a second time she assured me I was all set.
CC Processing: Getting off the phone with Vonage I received an email thanking me for becoming a customer. I also learned that my credit card had been rejected. I wasn’t worried knowing that the representative had run my card twice. I figured I by waiting I would get another email assuring me that my VOIP startup kit was being shipped. Unfortunately, I still had not received a new email by the next morning. I logged into Vonage and for the third time I gave my credit card information - this time everything went through.

Shipping: I paid an additional few dollars to have my startup kit shipped by DHL in 2-3 days. I orignally paid for the service on Wednesday and then had to re-submit my card information on Thursday morning. I did not receive my startup kit until the following Wednesday which seemed like a long 2-3 days. Yes, I realize they probably shipped it on Friday and then it likely sat somewhere on Saturday and Sunday but I still count that as four days. Maybe I’m just impatient though.

Setup - The setup of the broadband router (which has the special phone plugin) was simple, really. Plug in your broadband connection, connect your computer to the back of the router and connect your phone to the back of the router as well. You’re done.
Website account - Looking at my account information on the vonage website was for lack of a better word goofy. The website was very slow and I was forced to re-enter my username and password when I went to check my voicemail settings within 2 minutes of initially logging in. Luckily I suspect I won’t need to change my account settings that often.

Okay, that’s my initial thoughts. I will post more soon, including why I don’t think Vonage is as good of a deal as I initially thought.

Welcome to Weasely One.
The plan is to record one weasel’s thoughts and experiences, for better or worse. Not a diary per se, just an outlet for whatever comes to mind which is likely to be quite a varied list of subjects.  Drop by anytime and feel free to comment on whatever interests you.