"Oh what a beautiful morning..."

Today has been beautiful. Mother Nature must be feeling bad about the little stunt she pulled earlier in the week. 12 inches of snow. It was nice to see the sun out when I left the house this morning. It felt like Spring. This happened once before, but it didn't last. Let's hope this time is different.

I had traffic school this morning at 10. It was strangely enjoyable. The officer conducting it made sure to include lots of video clips and comic relief to keep us (me, plus 70 other traffic criminals) engaged. He even gave us a break halfway through, which confused me considering the class was only 90 minutes long in the first place. Whatever. It's nice to have it over and done with. Now I can continue on with my bad driving habits.

After traffic school I went to Verizon to upgrade my cell phone. I was due for an upgrade today and thank goodness. Mine started to go belly up 2 weeks ago. It rejected the charger one day and was progressively getting worse. We decided to upgrade Alex's phone as well. In the end, we paid a grand total of $50 to upgrade both phones. Not too bad. I'm glad I only have to do it once every 2 years. Dealing with salesmen annoys the crap out of me. The thing is when I'm making a purchase, like a new cell phone, I spend days researching before I go to the store to make the purchase. I do this to avoid being sold something I don't want. The guy today didn't seem to get that. Here's some of today's dialogue:

Verizon guy: "So you want to upgrade your phone. Do you want to take a look around to see what you like?"

Me: "No, thanks. I already have a phone picked out. I'm going for cheap this time around, no need for all of the bells and whistles. I don't use them anyway."

Verizon guy: "Well, that's because you've never had a phone with all the bells and whistles. Did you want to take a look at some of the other phones."

Me: "No, thanks. I'll go with the cheap one." (This is where he started to get annoyed)

Later in the conversation....

Verizon guy: "I see here that you had $7 in texting charges last month. We can sign you up for a texting package that will include 500 texts per month, it's only $5 per month."

Me: "No, thanks. I'm old school and don't usually text much."

Verizon guy: "The charges were primarily on your line."

Me: "Yes, I realize that. I have a friend getting married and I've been texting more lately, but it's not something I plan to do regularly."

So he continued on trying to sell me other things - travel chargers, bluetooth headsets, cases, etc.. I know it's his job, but it annoyed me just the same. He finally came to the conclusion that I just wanted the phone (like I said in the first place) and then he switched into warp speed get-her-out-of-here-so-I-can-make-money-on-someone-else mode. He didn't go over the terms of my contract, transfer the numbers from my old phone, or offer any of the other niceties he could have to make it a little less painful. So I asked. This seemed to annoy him even more. As it turns out, the port on my phone was jacked (hence the not charging) so he couldn't transfer the numbers.. but it was worth a try. If nothing else, seeing the look on his face when I asked if he could transfer the numbers was priceless.

The end result.

His:


Hers:


The rest of this afternoon has been semi-wasteful and unproductive. It's consisted of me playing with the new phone, taking naps and fulfilling cravings. Or, at least one craving. I went to Costco yesterday and scrapped part of the list and replaced it with egg rolls and ravioli. Disgusting, I know. I've eaten 6 egg rolls in the last day and a half and I fully intend on eating a few more before the night is done.

Enough about me... what has Alex been up to today??
Well, Mr. Alex has been at school all day. The poor guy had 3 finals today. The first one was at 7 am and he won't be done with the last one until 8 pm. During the couple hour break he had this afternoon he had to meet with a group to prepare a presentation for Monday, sell back some of his books (a huge accomplishment considering he has NEVER sold back any of his books) and eat lunch. I'm sure he's going to be exhausted when he finally makes it back to the house. We may have to do something fun. Or maybe we'll just finish Ben Hur. We rented it this last Monday and only made it halfway through... and it was the wrong half. I thought something didn't look right, but didn't even consider that I had started the DVD on the wrong side. What a moron.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend...

P.S. Just got a call from Alex. He was upbeat and relieved to be done with finals. He thinks he did pretty well, which is great news for both of us.