Archives November 2007

I’m glad Friday is here.  With work being as hectic it has recently, weekends are even more appreciated than normal.  This weekend we are going to be taking my mom out for dinner for her birthday.  Her birthday is actually today, happy birthday mom!  I know my mom is much like me when it comes to a severe dislike for the unavoidable process of getting older.  It’s funny how the 20 year and one month age difference between her and I seemed like centuries as I was growing up.  Now it seems much, much  smaller.  The age difference between her and I is shorter than the amount of time I have been out of high school. 

Speaking of time flying, in a month we will be leaving for Vegas! Sheesh, that means that Christmas is a heartbeat after that.  My sister and brother-in-law were nice enough to hook us up with tickets to see the Blue Man group while we are out there.  I’ve done absolutely zero Christmas prep so far. 

The other night I tipped the scales at 179.  I now weigh the same or slightly less than I did my freshman year (3 months really) of college.  I think dropping the 15-20 pounds I had when I was pumped on creatine is a good thing for my body overall.  I know my knees have felt much better in recent months.  I may be fighting an unwinnable game against the clock but at least I can go down swinging.

The past couple weeks have been very busy due to the extensive problems we have had with the new cashiering system.  For some reason today things have mysteriously quieted down.  I made a few changes yesterday with the system but nothing that I would have expected to make a dramatic difference.

Oh remember the pool cage guy that said he should be by to fix the screen around the pool cage by Tuesday?  He hasn’t shown up, hasn’t called to say why.  Just another typical Florida service experience.  I’ll wait till Tuesday to call him so I can use the line “You said you were going to be out to fix it a week ago…”

My running comeback has been ongoing for a few weeks now.  I am taking a different approach this time.  Instead of increasing my distance I am still only running a mile at a shot, but faster.  Each time I do it I bump my speed up one tenth of a mph on the treadmill.  Today I clocked in at a 7mph pace which translates to a 8:34 mile.  So far, knock on wood, I have had absolutely zero knee ramifications.  To me running a mile fast is a better fitness test than slothing along for a longer distance.  If I could run a sub 7 minute mile on the treadmill that would be flying for me.

So I went over to the Sheriff’s office yesterday to file a report regarding my CC fraud.  I was sitting in the lobby for quite awhile waiting to talk to someone.  While I was there some balding, chubby, unhappy looking guy came into the waiting area as well.  He walked over and grabbed a magazine, walked back to a set of chairs on another wall and sat down.  He sat the magazine on the chair next to him and never looked at it.  About 15 minutes later I was surprised when I saw a deputy come in, stand him up, frisk him and then cuff him.  Evidently he was turning himself in for something.

I waited a good 40 minutes and was just about to leave.  I told the deputy at the window that I had to get back to work.  He called back and found out that they were actually ready for me now so I turned around and headed back in.  I was introduced to Deputy Matthews.  I could tell right away that the deputy had some sort of physical problems.  His movements were very slow and deliberate and his speech was had a lot of gurgling in it.  So before I got into my story he asked for my driver’s license first.  As he looked it over he also seemed to be evaluating me, perhaps to see if I seemed legit or not.  So finally he asked me what happened.  I get into the story a bit and he stops me in the middle of it and says , “ok so someone is trying to commit identity theft”  I told him how I had talked to someone at the office on Friday and they said I needed a CC statement with the fraudulent charges on it.  I told the deputy I didn’t have such a statement because they were immediately removed from my account.   He said that I should have requested a listing of the charges, I told him I didn’t know I could/should do that.  So we called up my CC company and after I answered the security questions and we got through to a CSR, I gave the phone to the deputy.  He explained the situation and what he was looking for.   The CSR said he could fax an official list to the deputy but he verbally gave him a list of the charges.

Deputy Matthews hung up.  He told me how internet based crime like this is extremely rampant nowadays.  He said in fact it is a bigger deal than drugs at this point. So I then continued on with my story trying to accurately recant the sequence of events (something I am normally piss poor at)  I told the deputy that I am a network admin so I had a solid knowledge of how to track down information on people trying to hide out on the net.  I showed him the emails from the bogus gmail account, including the one that had the ip address of the person that signed up.  I also brought my profile information for the two supplement companies that had my home address, work phone and work email.  (earlier I went through all my old statements and these were the ONLY two that had this info)  I told him how the IP address traced back to a location in Madison Wisconsin and how coincidentally one of the supplement companies was also based in Wisconsin.  He said that it seems pretty sure that there is a tie in between the two facts which is what I immediately suspected as well.  I was pleased that all of the legwork I did actually was useful and he in fact kept all the documentation I brought.  He said I had to fill out a sworn statement that outlined everything I told him.  I received some blank ones to take with me and then I could get them notarized at my office.  At the end of our meeting the deputy decided to try out some very dry jokes on me.  I did my best to act like they were funny.  I thanked him for his time and I was back to work.

Writing out the sworn statement was a pain in the ass.  I haven’t done this much writing by hand since High School.  I filled nearly four pages with my story.  During the afternoon there were actually a few more chapters added.  I have been periodically checking the bogus gmail account the guy made to make sure nothing else pops in there.  I couldn’t believe what I saw.  In the bogus email account was ANOTHER message congratulating me on creating ANOTHER bogus Gmail account, this time [email protected].  This f’in idiot used the first bogus gmail account as the secondary email address for the second bogus gmail account.

I immediately tried the same trick I did on the first one, resetting the password so I can get access to it.  Unfortunately this time the culprit added a security question I did not know the answer to so I couldn’t initiate the reset chain.  I was flabbergasted that this moron was still trying, the card is dead, there should not be anything else he can do with it.  I was quite pissed with the Gmail system.  How can they allow you to use a Gmail email address as a secondary email address for ANOTHER gmail account, that just seems stupid as hell.  I muddled through screen after screen of bullshit trying to find a way to contact Gmail about the bullshit going on.  After about 15 minutes I finally got to a form that I could fill out and submit. It immediately generated a canned reply that didn’t apply in the least to my situation.  I am sure nothing will come of my request.

The other interesting thing happened when I decided to once again call the company in Wisconsin.  I had called them Friday and they told me they had no security problems at all.  So I call back and ask to talk to a manager.  I get a woman named Nellie.  I explain how someone committed CC fraud against me and how there are several things that are pointing towards it being associated with the transactions with their business.  I again asked if they had any CC problems recently.  This time I got another story.  Back in the late April, early May time frame they did have a few customers that had fraudulent activity occur on their cards. It just so happens that the two orders I placed with them occurred in April and May, imagine that. Since that time she said they totally redid their security system.  Well that is all well and good, except for the people that are getting f’d.  I asked her if the company sent out a notice to their customers informing them of the security issue?  She said no since it was isolated to only a handful of people.  Of course the real reason they didn’t tell people is because in one fell swoop they would instantly lose all of their existing customer base.  Who wants to deal with a company that has security problems when there are dozens of others just like them to buy from.  The lady was nice and willing to provide any information she had if it is needed during the investigation.  She related multiple stories about the CC abuse they see running their internet store.

So anyway I added this additional information to my sworn statement, got it notarized and dropped it back off at the Sheriff’s department after work.  Who knows what will happen but I can only hope there is a big boulder of hurt rolling towards the little worm hiding in the dark corners of the internet.  How sweet it would be to be there as police knock on his door. 

The weather the past week or so has been FANTASTIC.  I don’t think we intentionally had the AC running at all during that time. 

Friday night I relayed to Ali all I found out regarding the attempted CC fraud.  Of course this has made both of us rather paranoid.  I have printed out all the fake gmail account emails as well as the CC statement.  The problem is since those charges were fraudulent they were instantly removed from my statement.  I am going to call the sheriff’s office again today to get a clarification.  They said they needed a copy of the statement with the fraudulent charges on it.  Since those charges are not on the statement because my CC company immediately cancelled them, I’m not sure where I stand.  I think I will go to the sheriff’s office regardless today to talk to them about it.

My 3 day weekend started with a super busy Saturday.  Ali was behind at work so she decided to go in on Saturday.  I was on the first day of a three day weekend so that means one thing normally, bust ass like mad to get all the work done so I can do whatever afterwards.  I went outside and trimmed up the remaining trees that were in the back half of the property.  Some of these hadn’t been touched in years and years.  It wasn’t so bad since it was only a total of 5 trees.  Then I went inside and cleaned the bathrooms, the bird cage and did some other minor indoor clean up.  I remember thinking it was ironic that I was the one cleaning when Ali  was home three days during the week. However I rationalized it because Ali was at work on Saturday and during the week she had been having some serious issues  with her back hurting. Plus it doesn’t kill me to do the cleaning once in awhile. I was surprised that it was 1pm and I had most of what I wanted done, done.  I came up with something else to do.

I pulled the party van out of the spot it has been more or less sitting in since we got back from out west to examine the large wet spot under it.  I wanted to verify what substance it was.  A quick swipe of the finger confirmed it was oil.  So I popped the hood, checked the dipstick and saw it was a quart low.  I told Nicki we were going on a trip. She was very excited.  I stopped at the convenience store to grab a quart of oil and throw gas in the van.  What I was doing was making the trip out to Lehigh Acres to pull the For Sale signs of our lots.  The market is so depressed right now the only way we could sell the lots would be at a number barely over what we paid for them which we aren’t interested in doing, hence there was no reason to have signs up.

So I get to the first lot on Genoa.  As I drive up I don’t see the sign.  Well I figure maybe it got knocked over or something.  I get out and walk back and forth looking for the sign.  It is nowhere to be found, someone snatched it.  Bastards!  I angrily hop back in the van and head to the Bell Blvd lot.  This lot had the sign stolen once before.  The last time we went there I installed a sign hanging off a mailbox mounting post to make it less likely to be easily plucked from the ground.  Well the sign and post were there but they were knocked over. From the looks of it they had been knocked over for quite awhile. The signs themselves were busted up.  I was even more annoyed.  Of course since we don’t live exactly close it is quite difficult to police our signs.  My theory is the signs are stolen, knocked over by other people trying to sell lots in the area to minimize their competition. Who knows, maybe even the realtors themselves do it.  I don’t know for sure, all I know is it annoys the hell out of me. Oh well it doesn’t matter anyway, we aren’t going to unload the lots at firesale prices.

Late in the afternoon I decided to plop down to watch 28 Days Later.  28 Days is a modern day Dawn of the Dead.  When I was younger I would routinely watch scary, horrifying stuff like this.  It gets the adrenaline going.  Since Ali hates stuff like this, over the years I simply have not sought it out.  Well now since there are a lot of times when I am home alone it is a perfect opportunity for me to watch movies that Ali would not deem watchable.  I saw Dawn of the Dead.  That was some scary, scary stuff.  There is something classically horrifying about watching your friends get attacked and killed by zombies and then have them become a zombie themselves and be faced with killing them or being killed or zombified yourself.  This situation presents itself quite often in 28 days. 

The movie is pretty damn nasty.  You get attached to characters only to have the become infected with the “rage virus” and see them killed.  There is tons of gore, tons of horror. It is all very well done.  If you like that sort of stuff you would like this, A.

On Sunday morning Ali was planning to go to the gym.  She said her back was feeling better.  So much so that she was thinking about doing a spinning class AND a group power class.  I told her she shouldn’t overdo it but I wasn’t strong enough in my warning.  She did the group power class and came home looking for an icepack.  She aggravated her back again.  I told her it’s funny, she did something I normally do, push things when they shouldn’t be pushed. last night she said she hardly slept cause her back was bothering her so much.  Backs are a touchy thing.

The Eagles played the Redskins Sunday.  I pretty much expected the Eagles to lose.  Into the fourth quarter they were well on their way.  The defense allowed the Redskins to march up and down at will for most of the second half.  However the Eagles managed to mount a comeback and actually make some plays on defense.  At the end of the game there was almost a monumental f up by the Eagles.  The Redskins had no time outs and just turned the ball over to the Eagles.  The Redskins were down by one.  The Eagles had the ball with something like 2:13 to go.  They had the ability to basically run the clock all the way out and end the game.  Instead they hand off to Westbrook, the Redskins part like the Red Sea and allow him to go in basically uncontested.  This was brilliant on their part because after the Eagles kicked the extra point, the Skins were only down by 8, a touchdown and two point conversion away from tying it.  Of course Fat Andy didn’t even think about this possibility.  Luckily for the Eagles and Andy, their coaches oversight didn’t get a huge glaring spotlight cast on it because the defense was able to squash the Redskins final comeback attempt.  The point is a good coach would have eliminated the possibility of that chance from ever coming to be. Oh well, they won.

My day off yesterday that was pretty chore free wound up just not being all that great.  In the morning I did a couple chores to make me feel useful like washing the truck followed up with cleaning the water equipment.  After that all I did chore wise was unleash my robotic cleaning arsenal on the house.  I had the 3 roombas sweeping, the Dirt Dog running in the garage and finished up with he Scooba scrubbing the kitchen, utility room and bathroom floors. After that the day was mine.

Of course one of the ways I spent the time was playing WoW.  I had yet another incredibly frustrating incident that follows the same script as most of my other frustrating incidents.  I got grouped up with a bunch of annoying as hell, ADD-riddled kids.  The group unraveled within the first 10 minutes but only after a series of insults back and forth.  Afterwards I was just disgusted and logged off, seriously wondering why I spend time playing a game that can make me so angry over virtual, meaningless shit?

To clear my head I decided to watch the second 28 flick, 28 WEEKS later.  The movie starts with an absolutely terrifying scene as a cottage of people hiding out gets overun with the zombies, killing all but one person.  The story line of the second one was actually a little better than the first movie.  It was scarier, more gory, more disturbing than the first, a hard trick to pull off.  It makes one take a look at mankind and just how fragile our existence could be if a deadly, untreatable virus was introduced into the human race.  I’d give this one an A as well but be warned, nightmares are a pretty safe bet as a result.  I woke up this morning at 5am with scenes from the movies running through my head.

Eh this is long enough.

Remember that Gmail account that was created mysteriously this morning?  Well for the hell of it I decided to reset the password on it since whomever created it was dumb enough to put my work email address in there as the secondary email.  Once I got in there I was shocked at what I saw.  There was a pile of emails confirming enrollment in various things including napster, cybertv and some other weird stuff like e-gold.com.  Son of a bitch!  Well these confirmation emails gave me lots of helpful information.

Through the confirmation email for the 65 dollar cybertv purchase, I was able to get in contact with customer service for the company.  I explained to the woman on the phone that I was the victim of credit card fraud and that one of the things it was used for was to buy stuff from them.  I gave her the gmail account the guy used.  I asked her exactly what information was given during the transaction.  The guy (or girl) had my name, home address, work email and work phone number along with the CC number.  They even had the 3 digit verification number on the back.

This narrowed things down for me quite a bit.  There are only a few situations that come to mind where I  have performed transactions involving my work email address and my credit card, namely the online stores where I get my protein powder which I have delivered to work instead of home.  Perhaps one of these site got hacked and exposed customer information.  The e-gold confirmation email had a gleaming nugget at the end of it, a little line that showed the time, date and IP address that was used to create the account, GOTCHA!

I did a reverse look up on the ip and it pointed to a Charter Communications ip located in Madison Wisconsin.  It just so happens that one of those online supplement stores is located in Wisconsin. Hmmmm…   So I called up this business and asked if they had any known security breaches.  I explained my situation and how there were very few situations where those pieces of information would be tied together and their site was one of them.  They said as far as they knew everything was fine and they have had no incidents.   Well I asked that they check into it and they agreed they would.  I called the other supplement site I had used and gave them the same information.

Then I focused on Charter Communications.  After a couple of calls I got in touch with their law enforcement division.  I explained what happened and how I suspected the person that stole my cc info was operating on their network.  The woman explained to me that the only way action can be taken is through law enforcement.  When a formal subpoena is entered, they will release the customer that was on that ip address at that time and date. 

So, I called the local sheriff department to find out how it all works.  I need to bring in a copy of my cc statement with the fraudulent charges and they go from there.   I have already done a lot of the leg work for them.  Because the dollar amount is small I am not sure how far they will pursue it, although I am almost positive if I didn’t jump on this immediately my credit card would have been maxed out in no time.  So I am going to pursue it regardless.  This idiot got unlucky and decided to f with someone who can track his slimy ass down.  Man, I hope he gets nailed. Piece of shit.

There is the possibility if the guy was smart he bounced off proxies to hide his ip address but I don’t think he is very bright.  Using my work email address as the secondary contact for the bogus gmail email account makes little sense and is not something a “smart” hacker would do.

Ali got a call from the automated fraud prevention department of my credit card this morning asking about a charge for 65.65 to a “computer store”.  I hadn’t bought anything recently so the red flag immediately rocketed up.  I call customer service.  He rattles off charges posted today to cybertv, itunes and napster, none of which I made.  He shut down the card so no further damage could be done.  I will be issued a new card shortly.

Now of course the question is how did this happen.  I asked the guy on the phone, he said it can be tons of ways.  He said sometimes people just use random card number generator programs and try numbers until one works.  My suspicion immediately focused on Lowe’s.  For my water heater transaction I had to call in and give my CC info on the phone.  All it takes is one shady person to get ahold of that info.  I called Lowes and informed them of the fraud on my account.  I said I wasn’t accusing anyone but I wanted to make them aware of it, just in case they have a criminal in their crew, you just never really know.

The charges totalled to less than 70 bucks but I’m sure they were fishing to see if anyone would notice.  If I wouldn’t have acted I think big time charges would have been rolling in shortly. All of the charges were internet related, of course.  Just one more thing to endear me to the human race, bunch of dishonest pricks…

To add to the weirdness, I got an email from GMAIL to my work email address confirming a gmail account that I didn’t create.  The weird thing is the name of the account was [email protected].  So whomever made it knew my name, where I lived and my work email address.  I am hoping this was just a joke from one of my buddies but after the CC scam, I’m not much in the joking mood.

My unexpected 3 day weekend has no big plans.  I am hoping the nice cool weather continues so I can do some outside stuff without sweating to death.  Other than that who knows.  After the week we have had at work, a 3 day weekend is welcomed.

I got an unexpected call last night after work from the pool cage guy.  He asked where the problem screening was on the cage and then said he should be out by next Tuesday to fix it, no bubbles, no troubles.  That was a pleasant surprise.  I totally expected this to be another drawn out, aggravating situation.

Walking into the door of your office on a Thursday and realizing only then that you have Veteran’s Day off the following Monday, resulting in a surprise 3 day weekend.  It’s hard to beat a government job…..

Well we have a new water heater in place.  It didn’t come without it’s fair share of drama.  Early Wednesday morning there was a barrage of phone calls between me, the installer and Lowe’s.  For awhile it seemed like a three stooges routine.  The guy that did the survey relayed the wrong water heater information back to Lowe’s.  He managed to do this even though we had a print out from the Lowe’s web site that laid out exactly which model we wanted.  So after a confusing and frustrating series of phone calls that included me telling a woman at Lowe’s, “if the installer comes out and has the wrong water heater, I am going to go ballistic..” the guy showed up mid-afternoon, with the correct heater, and installed it. 

Ali said that when he was draining the old heater before removing it, the water was a disgusting brown color.  No wonder every time Ali took a bath the water was discolored.  Ali said the bottom of the old water heater was indeed rusting out, piece of shit.  The new Whirlpool unit is nice.  It has stainless steel heating elements as opposed to copper elements to resist corrosion, it adjusts itself to maximize energy savings based on your water use pattern, it’s self cleaning and it has easy to reach controls that let you set the temperature as well as place the heater into various modes.  One of the modes is vacation mode so you aren’t wasting energy heating water when you aren’t home, pretty cool.  When I got home last night I wrapped it in the insulation blanket I bought over the weekend to further our energy savings.

I called and left a message for the company that built our $17,000 pool cage yesterday regarding the section of screening that is not attached.  Of course I received no call back.  I fully expect this to be a major pain in the ass.  My plan is to start out leaving a message every two days.  If I get no response after a week, it will be every day.  The messages will get increasingly angry as we go along.

Work has been uncharacteristically stressful recently.  We implemented a new cashiering system in the past 6 months and now that tax season has started, it is crumbling under the volume.  The system is constantly hanging up, requiring us to give it a figurative kick in the ass several times a day.  When it goes down, there is a near instantaneous avalanche of phone calls from clerks hung up with impatient customers in front of them.  I have been doing nothing but trying to diagnose the problems for a few weeks to no avail.  I try something, it appears to sort of work for awhile and then inexplicably the instability returns.  It’s very frustrating.

The vendor has been pointing the finger at the programming language our back end software uses, saying there is some sort of bug there that is causing the hangs.  We have been buying that explanation, trying to address the issue with the vendor for our programming language.  However yesterday out of the blue I decided to call an IT manager of a county on the east coast that also uses the same cashiering software to pick his brain.  I told him about our woes and he didn’t act surprised at all.  In fact he said that they have had a very similar experience, calling their last tax season with the product a “disaster”.  They use a totally different back end than we do, yet they have the same issues with the cashiering application hanging constantly.  This was a real eye opener.  It made me realize that our cashiering vendor has been largely feeding us a big line of shit.  I relayed this conversation I had with the other IT manager to my boss.  I’m not quite sure what the end result will be.  We have dropped a fortune with this company yet it seems that once they have your money and even though we pay additional money for support, we have become second class citizens since the big money is to be harvested from the lambs that have not yet converted over to this system.   

Someone sent me an email of pictures from a 1977 JC Penney catalog.  The fashion is just hilarious.  Take a look.

The epitome of cool…

Is this guy ready to sling garbage cans or hit the disco?

I have no explanation for what the article of clothing on the right is.  Man Dress comes to mind.

This suit should come with a warning that it could cause seizures if you look at it too long.

Wow, this guy had to get his ass kicked a lot….

These shirts double as game boards you can play on while traveling.

They look way too happy for being dressed up like rodeo clowns.

The hair, the outfit, this must be Miss USA 1977 and the runner up.  Category – polyester wear

Nothing like a very busy one piece to flatten your figure, straighten your curves….. she’s looking right at his groin.

I swear there is a picture of me as a kid wearing this exact outfit.  Thanks mom….   🙂

What is wrong with people?  I mean seriously, look at this….

We have a crunch going on at work.  Little time to blog, little to say.  I’m not too pleased so far with our hot water heater installation experience.  The installer said he would be out between 9 and 10 am.  Someone didn’t show up until after 4.  The only call we got from them was one at 10 saying they would be another hour and a half or so.  When I called in the afternoon to ask what the hell was going on they said some emergencies came up and they forgot to update us.

Ali also discovered yesterday while cleaning the rails of the pool cage that there is one big long screen joint that is not attached.  If you push on it you discover there is a nice 5 foot long section that is just open to the outside world.  We hadn’t noticed because we never pushed on it.  So now I have to try to find the phone number of the installer and try to get him to fix it, if he is still in business.  Fine workmanship for 16 grand.

These are just two examples of the all too typical piss poor service industry in SW Florida.