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April 11, 2005

Long Time No Blog

So...it's been awhile since I last wrote. Plenty have happened since then...fasten your seat belts...

On April 2nd, we had our wedding shower at Jo's parents' house. It was the first time I had seen it since they remodeled everything. Looks really really nice! :o) Lots of our friends showed up, and we had a great time hanging out with everyone. Presents were opened, food was had...fun times. We got home at around 5:30ish. Paul was already over and was watching basketball games. We unpacked and organized all of our new loot. Hee hee. Yey!

We went to Chris & Beta's crawfish boil on Sunday, April 3rd. :o) It was great fun too! Their doggie Spunky looks bigger than the last time I saw her...Katrina & Trevor brought over their dog Hobie, and Mark brought over his dog Skyla. It was a doggie playground! My parents came and joined us for the boil, which was cool, since they never really come to hang out with us and our friends. I think they enjoyed themselves! I got home kinda late...prob about 8:30 or so.

Last Monday, I went to Jo's after work to pick up a cake that was made by one of her co-workers, Marina. It was delicious!! :o) Greg and I (and my sister and Matt) were all very satisfied with that. So Marina is going to make our wedding cake for our Dallas reception! It's gonna look something like this, but instead of the sugar calla lillies, we're gonna have fresh red roses and petals put on it. :o) It's gonna be so gorgeous. I can't wait. And the best thing is that she's doing all this for $150!!! She's gonna show up at around 4:30 or so on the day of the reception to put the cake together, and to put the border around the bottom layer. Yey I can't wait!!!

The rest of the week was kinda blurred...it went by really fast...and our new person was in town for training, so I had to make sure that he's okay and stuff. We all went out for dinner at Dickey's Thursday night, and that was fun. They had free beer at the Coppell location 'cuz they don't have their liquor license. Hee hee.

We went to the driving range after we got home from Dickey's...worked on my driver quite a bit since I just had the grips changed on my driver, 5-wood, and 7-wood (they were too big). I'm hitting 'em much better now. :o) When we got home, the garage door wouldn't open...turns out that the spring had snapped. :o( We decided that it was too late to worry much about it that night, so I took the info of the repair company that I had used the last time with me to work the next morning to set up an appointment.

Unfortunately, I found out that the garage door repair company that I had used went out of business. :o( It really was too bad, 'cuz they were really nice and helpful in showing me to fix the minor things. Anyway, I had to look for another company to fix the door. I ended up calling Action Garage Door 'cuz they had a good record with the BBB. They sent a guy out Saturday morning to take a look at the door...and then he gave me a quote of $259 to change out the spring!!! WTF!!! I flat out told him that I got it fixed 4 years ago for $127, and that I had a receipt to prove it. It just didn't make sense that the price could have doubled in 4 years. The repair guy disgruntally called the guy in the office to "see if there was anything he could do." The guy splattered off some sales pitch (they must do this often since it sounded rehearsed), and I told him to just give me the price. He called me on the phone and told me that they'd do it for $165.50, which is a whole lot more reasonable that $259!!! What a ripoff. I can't even imagine how much money they're making off of the unsuspecting public. Anyway, the repair guy got to work...banged around in my garage, showed me the rollers that needed to be replaced (he said it was gonna be $12/piece to change them out), and went on his way. I was so glad to get him out of my house. Later on, I looked up this company that sells garage door parts to do-it-yourselfers, and I'm buying some rollers for $1.99/piece + shipping. Good thing I didn't tell the repair guy to change them.

With garage door fixed, I quickly had lunch and then went off to meet with Luci & Jodie to go shopping. We stopped by the Stila counter, and the make-up artist there fixed me up with some make-up. I think it looks really nice...not too overly done, since I don't usually wear make-up. Anyhoot, $120 later, I think I'm pretty much all set with that for the wedding. There's 1 thing though that she had forgotten to ring up...the Sheer Color Tinted Moisturizer...I'll pick that up next time when we go for this workshop class thing on the day of my bachelorette party. :o) The workshop itself costs $35/person, but we get it back in make-up, so it's a good deal. Hee hee. It's my gift to the bridesmaids for helping out with everything. I think it'll be a blast. :o)

After the make-up adventure, we went to look for a shirt for me for the bachelorette party. We ended up finding this blue button-down one at Express. :o) It's pretty nice.

I got home at about 5:30 or so, then Greg and I went bike-riding. We went down to the (small) lake that's near my house. We rode probably about 4 miles or so. It felt nice. :o) I had to get back in shape for hockey on Sunday! Hee hee. Afterwards, Greg grilled this perfect ribeye steak for dinner. Yum!!!

Sunday we slept in, I took a shower and then started cleaning the house. We got a lot of stuff done in the kitchen...consolidated some of our duplicate spices and things...cleaned out the pantry, etc. etc. The kitchen looks much roomier now. :o) Yey! Then we watched the Masters pretty much all afternoon. It was pretty exciting! Left at 8pm to go to my hockey game. We played against the Mantis...lost 0-1. They got this new girl who's pretty good...she played in the Charity Challenge. I think we played pretty well. :o) I ended up getting the "Game MVP" award for my team. Ha ha. I didn't think that I played *that* well. Anyways, the prize was awesome...it was this pillow with "Red Hot" stitched into it. :o) Hee hee.

Posted by alpha at 10:51 AM | Biking , Friends , Golf , Hockey , Wedding , Work | Comments (2)

February 23, 2005

Saga Galore

My beef with Sprint, is that the staff in their call center in India are completely clueless. I had them repeat everything I said back to me so I could know that they understood me, and yet I can still receive blatantly wrong information. Without going into much details (the story takes 10 minutes to tell in person), make sure you talk to someone from the UNITED STATES. Those people at least know what they're talking about. Better yet, just email and let the eCare people handle it for you...they apparently have the most power to actually fix a customer's problem.

Long story short, if you get a rep at Sprint that sounds Indian. Hang up and try again...

Let's see...what else...Friday night Luci came over and had BBQ and watched TV with us. Hee hee. It was a fun hang out time. :o) Saturday Greg went to rehearsal in the morning...we had a quick lunch and went over to Jo's to drop off her bridesmaid dress. Then we headed over to BB&B to work on our registry. We've filled it up quite a bit with a bigger (price range) variety of stuff. Hee hee. Fun times. Afterwards, since we were already in the area, we went to Toyko One for dinner to celebrate "3 months until wedding." Had a great time. Rented "Napolean Dynamite" (not my choice, but Greg HAD to watch it)...it had some funny moments, but definitely not the funniest movie I've ever seen. :o)

On Sunday, the weather was gorgeous. We went to the driving range, then bike riding around the Sherrill Park area, and then I had my hockey game that night. It was a fun game in spite of our loss. We actually scored more than 1 goal in the game! Ha ha. :o)

Monday's weather was gorgeous too. :o) We went out to Kohl's so I could get some shoes for the wedding, and I found some (the white ones) for $6.50 with the use of a coupon! :o) Wheeee! I'll look for other ones to match my Chinese dress for the reception. Hee hee.

Posted by alpha at 08:22 AM | Biking , Golf , Hockey , Wedding | Comments (2)

February 15, 2005

Warning: Do NOT go to Richardson Bike Mart!

Recall our experience at the Richardson Bike Mart a couple of weekends ago...we were harassed by 5 or 6 different salespeople within the first 10 minutes we were there. Well, last night, we wanted to look at some helmets and a new saddle for Greg, so we gave them the benefit of the doubt and tried it again.

We walked in to the store...were greeted by a bunch of employees just standing around. One of them asked if we needed any help...we said no and kept walking. We found the section where they had the saddles...this REALLY annoying guy came over and asked if what type of saddles we're looking for. We told him that we were just looking (which, to most people, means...go away and leave us alone). He pretended to move some of the saddles around, then proceeded to stand behind me. I gave him a "why are you still here" look. He took that as his cue to ask AGAIN what type of saddles we're looking for. WTF! Is this guy just completely clueless or what?? We began to leave, and told him that THAT was the reason why they had lost about $1000 of our business in the last week. Then the jackass salesperson responded with "well we make quite a bit of business here doing that sir." Well, you know what, Richardson Bike Mart will NOT be having ANY of my business...or my friends' business, for that matter.

What a horrible, horrible place to shop!

Posted by alpha at 11:20 AM | Biking | Comments (2)

February 14, 2005

Weekend of Exercise

Left work an hour early on Friday to go to the Charity Challenge on Ice tryouts at the Farmers Branch Starcenter. It was fun, and got to see some people I hadn't seen in ages...but I skated like crap. Prob one of the worst performances I've had in awhile. Obviously it showed 'cuz I didn't make it to the final round. Oh well...not really up for another butt-kicking anyhow...

Anyways, Greg, Katie, and I went to have pizza in Lewisville after the tryouts. That was pretty fun. Tasty pizza as always. :o)

Saturday we went to lunch with my parents, my sister, Matt, and a couple of my parents' friends from out of town (they're from Alberta). We had dim sum, and it was rather tasty. Afterwards, Greg and I went to Sun & Ski Sports to buy some bike accessories. They were having a huge winter clearance sale, and we each had a $10 off a $50 purchase coupon...so we got some pretty good deals on some stuff. We also stopped by the Bicycles Plus store in Coppell to look at helmets and things. Came home, had dinner, and watched "Office Space" on TV. Hee hee.

Sunday we went to church, then met up with my sister and Matt to look at the golf course (our reception site). My sister hadn't been there, so she wanted to go check it out to see what decorations she wants to get for the reception. It was cool. Greg and I had lunch there at the golf course...it was a pretty day out...temps in the 70's and sunny. :o) We stopped by the Sprint store on the way home to check out some phones. Went home, picked up our bikes, and went over to Katie's to go bike riding. I think we rode about 5 miles around the UTD area. It was pretty fun, and was nice to be out when it was so pretty outside. Went home at about 5:30...I ordered our new phones online, and then left for my hockey game...which was another butt-kicking for some strange reason. The team just wasn't playing well together last night. It was quite a bit frustrating.

Anyway, about the cell phones...I called Sprint Saturday night, and found out that they'd give us the same deal on the phones as all the new subscribers ($150 upgrade rebate, $30 web special if ordered online). Plus the plan that we're on, actually costs $5 less a month now...so we'd get that updated. And they'd also give us a 5% discount per month for renewing our contracts. So I figured that was probably the best and simplest things to do (since Greg's Dad and nephew are both on Sprint...so we can do PCS to PCS for free). Hence we shall be receiving our new phones some time this week. Yey! :o)

Posted by alpha at 08:12 AM | Biking , Family , Hockey | Comments (0)

February 09, 2005

Happy Chinese New Year!

Yesterday Greg and I both took a half-day in the afternoon. :o) Greg scheduled a club fitting at the driving range to try out some of the rescue woods that he's been looking at. I left work after going out to lunch with my mentor at Chili's. Fun times.

After Greg got home from the driving range, we left to go to Bicycles Plus down near SMU to check out some bikes. Side note: There are lots of stupid people that drive in that area. Anyways, we test rode the 2005 Trek 3900, and the Specialized Hardrock Sport bikes. We both liked the Specialized better...it was a bit sturdier, and the shocks and tires were better. :o) They had both bikes at $299 (which is about $30 less than MSRP for the Trek, and $50 less than MSRP for the Specialized). We each bought one...Greg bought the yellow one, and I bought the silver one. Hopefully we'll be kicking butts (at least our own) on the trails pretty soon. :o) Yey!

We also had a more pleasant shopping experience at Bicycles Plus...the guy Matt who helped us out, was knowledgeable in all the bikes they have, and could point out the differences between each. It was great. He was very cool. Highly recommended bike shop. Plus they offer free lifetime labor for servicing the bikes when you buy from them.

After our shopping adventure, we went to my parents' house for Chinese New Year dinner. It was mighty tasty. :o) We had a great time. My parents talked a little bit about the wedding/reception and stuff. So that was cool. Mmmmmmmm...may the year of the Rooster begin!

Posted by alpha at 10:36 AM | Biking , Family | Comments (4)