Friday fraud, Return of the list, Mechanic, Broke the streak, Broken team, Longer tube

So my weekend got off to a very frustrating start on Friday.  In the mail was a letter from Synchrony Bank regarding the Amazon store credit card I applied for.  Uh, I didn’t apply for such a card.  I have not applied for a new credit card in years.  So considering I had someone go on a small spending spree with my Visa card a month or so ago I was on full suspicious mode.

My initial thoughts were maybe the letter itself is a hoax and an elaborate phishing scheme.  The letter instructs you to call a number to complete the card application.  Perhaps this was just to get people to hand over key information over the phone?  I hopped on the internet and checked the phone number and verified it was indeed owned by Synchrony so I decided to give it a call.

I explained to the guy on the phone I got this letter for a credit card I did not apply for.  He said he was sorry to let me know that whomever did apply for the card had some key information like my date of birth and social security number.  He said that the application did trip some red flags which is why a letter was sent to my address as a secondary form of verification.  Of course I found it extremely disconcerting that my SS number is out in the wild.  The bank rep was very helpful, letting me know what to do next, call Trans Union and report the incident.  What happens is when you report such an incident to a credit bureau they will report the fraud to the other agencies.  A 90 day flag is then placed on your account that indicates no credit should be extended in your name without additional verification. Well that’s cool but what happens after 90 days?  All the criminal has to be is patient and try again.  The guy said if you file a police report you can get that flag placed on your account for 7 years.  Yea it’s a pain in the ass to jump through that hoop but better than getting your id hijacked.

I thanked the bank rep and called Trans Union who apparently has outsourced their call center to India, awesome.  I struggled through the conversation with the phone rep but at the end of it was assured the flag was now active on my account.  For the foreseeable future I need to have my ears up and eyes wide open for ANYTHING suspicious in my financial world.

On Saturday I decided to resurrect my infamous to do list, a small hand written piece of paper that resides on the kitchen counter, laying out things I want to accomplish for the day.  I rarely use this method anymore although it used to be a weekly ritual.  It’s an effective way to get things done.  Saturday’s list had six or seven items on it.  Crossing them all off consumed the majority of the daylight hours, I finished up mid-afternoon.

Late afternoon I rewarded myself for my labor with an electric unicycle ride to the school.  I decided to ride my Ninebot One which I have hardly touched since I got the bigger and faster Gotway Msuper.  I just felt like mixing it up.  The Ninebot which I probably put over 250 miles on felt a bit foreign at first, feeling small and nimble.  Cindy drove over to the school with Sadie and Elsa to walk around for a bit while I was there.  I hitched a ride back to the house with her when I was done.  During the ride the total mileage on the 9B1 crossed the 300 mile mark.  The last 30-40 or so miles have actually been ridden by Daniel, not me.

Saturday night we stayed home and watched Mechanic, Resurrection, a Jason Statham movie.  Jason seems to play an almost identical role in every film he does which isn’t a bad thing.  His movies usually have good action and excitement despite being very predictable.  Unfortunately I fell asleep and missed the entire ending although Cindy filled in the blanks for me.  I feel safe giving it a standard B rating.

So my months long streak of getting out for a run on the weekends ended on Sunday.  My cold has continued to slowly ramp up with more runny nose and coughing fits.  Although it hasn’t decimated my energy level based on the work I did on Saturday I definitely was not feeling great.  I took Nyquil cold medicine Saturday night which knocked me out, I didn’t roll out of bed until 7:45, awaking in the Nyquil haze that feels odd.  Oh well, I will start it back up next weekend and I actually hope to run at the gym during the week.

Katie and her boyfriend came over mid-morning for yet another EUC ride.  We rode around the Heritage Bay development mostly.  Both Katie and Daniel have become real EUC enthusiasts.  Katie logged at least 5 miles on the slow training wheel without any major incidents which is very impressive.

I was home alone during the afternoon as Cindy went to her nephews birthday party.  I didn’t go because of feeling lousy and my desire to catch the Eagles game.  In retrospect the game was certainly not worth any sacrifice.  The Eagles played like shit, again.  It was the exact opposite of the first three games of the season where it appeared the team was hitting on all cylinders with solid play on both sides of the ball with very few mistakes.  The team has now transformed into basically a bunch of bumbling idiots, unable to get out of their own way.

Carson Wentz had his worst game of the season, throwing three interceptions and could have literally had double that if the Bengal defenders held onto the ball.  Surely the fault is not entirely his as his surrounding cast has gone into the shitter.  But Carson has not performed well, making bad decisions and bad throws on a pretty routine basis.  I still think he is the QB of the future but the future is considerably less bright than 6 weeks ago.

Doug Pederson who like the rest of team, surprised me early in the season, has now been performing more on par with my pre-season expectations.  He just seems to have no answers to halt the steady downturn in performance by his players.  Yesterday was a must win game if the team wanted to stay in the playoff hunt.  Their response to that challenge was to come out and absolutely suck in every aspect of the game.  The rest of the season will be interesting to see if the plummet continues or if the team decides to actually give a damn.

The game was so bad that I spent some of the second half performing a modification to my Tacoma.  A YouTube viewer of my channel informed me of a mod many owners have been doing to their AC drain outlet to prevent possible future problems.  In what seems a dumb design choice by Toyota, the drain tube for AC condensation is right above the frame.  Some owners have reported this constant flow of water has started to cause some surface rust on their frame welds.  The mod involves attaching a longer hose to the outlet so the water drips out below the frame instead of above it.

I purchased some heater hose, hose clamps and zip ties to complete the work.  I wound up spending more time doing the work than I expected, trying to get the additional hose routed and oriented in such a way to not impede drainage of the line.  Of course I documented the process on video, take a look below if you feel like.

Sadie and Elsa have had so much fun playing over the weekend.  It’s great that they get along.  Elsa in general has seemed less skittish and fearful while Sadie is there.  I am not sure why that is but hopefully it carries over after Sadie goes home tomorrow.