It’s 12:45AM, and I have resorted to drinking an ice-cold glass of water INSTEAD of a New Castle Ale. Why? Simple… my roommate threw away my cheap non-working can opener. But you’re thinking “It didn’t work… so what?” And my response is… it did work. Partially. The bottle opener on the bottom worked perfectly. Unfortunately the cheap WORKING can-opener that my roommate has left in the silverware drawer works flawlessly for opening canned foods, but fails at opening bottles of beer. “Why?” you ask. Because the metal bottom of it is bent. FAIL!

But it’s 12:45AM… why do I need a New Castle?

Easy… I finally finished what I consider to be a significant part of the “timeshare site” that Ben & I have been working on. I finally got all of the sessions, login/logout, shopping cart areas, etc integrated, tested, and working. Most of you have no idea what that means, but considering it has been a headache for the last week, and we’re already behind schedule, it is a big w00t for me. THAT’s why I need that New Castle. And that’s why I’m going to the store first thing in the morning to buy a new fucking can/bottle opener. Dammit!

And while I’m ranting, why the hell does Firefox recognize “donut” as the correct spelling, but suggests “doughnut” is incorrect? WTF! Get your English straight, bitches! I’m submitting a bug report.

Bleh… tomorrow (Erm… today?) is going to be a long day, I can already see it.

IRSuck holds two meanings in this case:

1)I Are Suck because I didn’t pay my quarterly taxes, so I got an $84 fee added to my taxes.

2)The IRS sucks. I just wrote my check for $3063 to the glorious, and, in my opinion, unconstitutional Internal Revenue Service.

Good luck guys! Don’t spend it all in one place… like Iraq. Fuckers.

Dave & Sherissa are getting married soon.

Haley & Chris are getting married + having a baby soon.

Shelly has had two kiddos, and is essentially married.

Lindsay McCabe has a kiddo and is married (confirm/deny?).

Ben & Justyne are essentially married.

Mike & Victoria are essentially married.

They all seem fairly happy, at least content. You’re all lame! I say that because in many ways I’m jealous. Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted 3 things:

1. Lots of money as a result of my entrepreneurial endeavors (Originally I wanted to be a lawyer).
2. A Porsche 911, red with black trim, leather interior.
3. Twin girls (daughters), with a loyal wife of course.

I don’t value them in that particular order, that’s just the order in which I think I developed a longing for them. I feel like a bum, because right now I don’t think I’ll ever get any of those things. I know, I’m just feeling sorry for myself, but damn. At least work has been keeping me busy. Busier than I honestly want to be. This week was killer.

My mom was in town, so I lost tons of day-time with that. Plus I’ve been troubleshooting networking issues at Hale Lane. Throw on top of that the huge Timeshare project. Then add the day-to-day phone calls, billing, and Tele-NET stuff. Ugh. I’m writing this at 12:15AM, and I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything today. I’ve still got to get my taxes done & cut a check.

This winter of my life is long and cold. I guess for changes to happen in my life, some changes have to happen in me, eh?

I got a cold-call a little while ago on the business number from an Indian man named “Rick Anderson” trying to sell me his outsourcing services for web development, SEO, and such… I could tell he was Indian

1) by the thick accent, and lack of proper pronunciation of common English words,

2) by the ‘Unknown” number on the caller ID,

3) by the two-second delay in his responses (hence overseas call), and

4) the name Rick in combination with the previous three things. Come on man! You’re name is NOT Rick Anderson… you’re INDIAN! YOU COULDN’T EVEN PROPERLY PRONOUNCE “RICK ANDERSON” ON THE PHONE - do you think I’m stupid? AAAAGGGH! I understand that they have to make attempts to appear more natural, but geesh. I’m just annoyed.

Christ! Attention Indians attempting to gain outsourced services from America: STOP! Right now, I believe outsourcing is harming our economy. Plus Indians do the shittiest web development work from my experience! I’ve been staring at and fixing code on a few sites now that were outsourced. It’s disgusting. And American web development companies that outsource to them are almost as bad. Just my experience, but I could never outsource. They are completely incompetent in my humble opinion! Maybe not all of them, but the ones that are just doing a job… that’s part of the problem… “they’re just doing a job”… they’re machines… they are incapable of intuition it seems. Ugh.

I’m so peeved right now. I need a beer. Very badly.

Wow… sometimes I just get really bummed out. Right now is one of those moments. I bet you can’t guess why?

In other news I’m pushing Ireland back… way back… like June or July. Justin is coming back April 25th, and unfortunately I don’t think I have the two weeks to take off prior to that in order to fly over there. Plus I’m still awaiting my passport. WTF.

I’ve got way too much work going on right now, and I’m praying it stays busy. I want to sell this business when I’m 30. Or at least retire from it then. Plus I paid my taxes… and it was more than I was expecting… kinda. But the difference was more than my plane ticket.

I should have some good money tucked away come Summer.

In other news… my lease is up on my house as of today. My landlord sent me a renewal a few weeks ago. I haven’t contacted her yet. I’m thinking about asking to go month-to-month. I really want to buy a house, but I know I won’t have the money for another year. Plus, I’m hoping something in the Northwest area will have dropped even more by then. I’ve actually considered looking in Fernley as well.

Today is April Fool’s Day. Just Kidding! But seriously… it’s April Fool’s Day. I forgot, until I read this blog post: simply amazing.

I don’t remember where I read this… but it was some point in the last 10 days. Someone stated something along these lines:

“Crappy web developers will send you a template Word document, asking for basic information about your site. Quality developers will ask to set up a meeting in order to sit down and discuss your site, your business, your needs, and your goals.”

That’ paraphrasing what I remember… but it is SO true. We are the latter in that situation, and often I still think we’re under-charging. We’ve had several people that have basically scoffed at our quotes in the last year or two, some of which have now come back to us. People don’t take into consideration that we have their business in our best interest. We try to account for growth, and we want to help brand and market their business. We’re not necessarily just looking to do a quick website job and be done.

It just irks me. We’re providing top quality service, in my humble opinion. I’m kind of tired of seeing “crap” web developers deface the image of Web Developer. I guess you get what you pay for though, and some people are content with that.

Hmph. I’ve been working way too much lately, and yet somehow, not enough. So much to do… so little time to do it…

It’s been a week since I first tried connecting to Vonage from my Charter connection at home. Unfortunately, I still can’t connect. I know that the Vonage website works. It works when I remote desktop into another computer on a different network (AT&T), and it works if I change my computer’s DNS servers to that of OpenDNS.org. So this has to be something with Charter’s DNS servers. I just sent off the following to their Internet Tech Support:

Hello. I am having problems connecting to vonage.com when using my Charter connection. I’ve noticed this only happens if I am using Charter’s DNS servers to resolve DNS. If I switch to other servers, I can connect no problem. Is Charter blocking vonage.com in DNS?

Thanks,
Nick

I was expecting a generic response. Five minutes after submitting that, Vonage’s homepage started working, and I got this response:

Dear Nick,

Thank you so much for contacting Charter Communications. I would be glad to assist you in the best manner possible.

No, Charter is not blocking any site. For your additional questions regarding any of your services or need further assistance with them, you may contact us by calling the telephone number 1-888-438-2427. You can also use our live chat feature located on our website at http://www.charter.com/ and local contact information can found at http://www.charter.com/service/contact/contact.asp. We also invite you to ” Live Chat” with us; we would love to hear from you!

For general self-help, please visit http://support.charter.com.

Thank you for you email submission. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Sincerely,

Zsara
Internet Support Team
Charter Communications

Problem was, I couldn’t login. I could get to the homepage, but instantly timed out when logging in (secure.vonage.com). I changed my DNS quickly to that of OpenDNS.org… guess what? IT MAGICALLY WORKS!

Dear Charter. Eat a dick. Stop outsourcing your tech support. Stop lying to customers. Stop raping customers. Just stop… altogether. Stop.

So, just to confirm. I switched my DNS BACK to Charters. Cleared my DNS cache. And tried again…

Vonage.com comes up.

secure.Vonage.com does not.

So, I just sent this off:

It appears that the Vonage homepage (Vonage.com) is now coming up. No other subdomains of Vonage.com are though. For example, I can’t login at secure.vonage.com. It instantly times out. But when I switch my DNS to OpenDNS’s IPs, it works fine. This seems quite odd to me. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Nick

We’ll see what happens.

UPDATE:6:38PM

Just got this back:

Dear Nick,

Thank you so much for contacting Charter Communications. My name is Dread. I would be glad to assist you with your queries.

I’m sorry that you had to go through this inconvenience. You can try to renew your PC’s IP address. Here are the steps:

1. Click on start, then click run.
2. On the run window, type cmd then enter.
3. Once the black screen appears, which is the dos base program. You type in ipconfig/renew. After this a result will display.
4. Type in ipconfig/release then enter.

For further assistance with this issue, please contact customer service at 1-888-438-2427 (24 hours/day) or chat with our live agents at http://www.charter.com. We are unable to make account changes via e-mail at this time as we must verify identity. This is for the security of your account.

Again I apologize for the inconvenience you’ve experienced. If there is anything further I can help you with please, let me know.

If you have any additional questions regarding your services or need further assistance please visit our website at http://www.charter.com.

Thank you for your e-mail submission to our website! Have a wonderful day!

Thank you,
Dread
Internet E-mail Support Team
Charter Communications

Ugh! No No NOOOOOOOOOsadoaiwysuer0op987q3y4! Jesus, what does it take to get a competent tech support person. My response:

This does not fix the problem. The problem is that when I am using Charter’s DNS servers to resolve web pages, I cannot connect to secure.vonage.com; and sometimes even www.vonage.com. If I switch my DNS servers to that of OpenDNS ( 208.67.222.222, and 208.67.220.220) I can instantly connect to those pages. When I switch back to Charter, it stops working. This appears to be a problem with Charter’s DNS servers. Is there any way I can escalate this problem to a higher tech department?

Geesh!

UPDATE: 6:42PM

Oh. Hai! Look, it just started working! Weeeee! WTF.

While I smile on the inside for being right (It’s part of that “I told you so” feeling), I’m actually quite sad. Things will never be the same, no matter how hard she tries. It never was for me.What a bag of douche. I don’t need to know the whole story to know that much. Fuck.

Hmm…

So I contacted Charter today as my “promotional” period is ending according to a letter that they sent to me. Right now I’m getting 5Mbps internet, unlimited nationwide calling, and basic cable (70 channels) for $69.97 - about $78 after taxes/fees. The best package they can give me is about $100+, and only if I upgrade my services. Otherwise, I’m stuck paying $39.99 for phone, $19.99 for TV, and $39.99 for internet. Sorry guys, you’re just not cutting it. And your Customer Service sucks too.

TV = free, if I pull the filter! Ha! (I don’t condone Theft Of Services)

Internet = 24.99 if I cancel and re-signup (and that’s for 10Mbps)

Phone = 24.99 with Vonage - includes European calls too.

So anyways… I headed over to Vonage’s site - since they can port my number. Charter is using VoIP - shouldn’t be a problem. Only thing is, I can’t get any of Vonage’s site to come up. Oddly enough it works at the Tele-NET office - I remoted in - and David can bring it up from AT&T DSL/GBIS DSL. So… is Charter blocking Vonage? That’s hilarious if they are. I can’t even ping vonage.com - DNS doesn’t resolve.

So… if you’ve got Charter internet - home or business - can you try bringing up Vonage, and let me know - post a comment. It could just be a localized DNS server thing… but still weird. Hasn’t worked for several hours. I finally had to switch my DNS to OpenDNS in order to get the Vonage site to come up.

Damn Charter.

probably the best night I’ve had in a long long long long time. Wow… more later… the only thing it is lacking is the secks…. haha…