Awesome TicTocDragon! I wish I could have seen that. I love watching cycling.

Hincapie is cool.

Hey H

I think you should just start a thread about your wedding. Post pictures of the location, maybe even post the "save the date" card if you did one of those. Talk about how may people are coming and such.

I appreciate stupid neighbors.

For some reason, my Mac decided to not be able to see my network for a few hours (started last night and was still blind as of this morning). Susan's computer saw the network just fine, as did our TiVo, I just couldn't see it.

So, to be able to cruise the LoT this morning, I hopped on to one of the other networks I can see. I couldn't send email (because I have SMTP authentification on I suspect), but I was able to do everything else.

I just checked and I was able to swich back to my own network just now (nothing changed - not sure why). But it is nice to know I can rely on the ignorance of strangers.

So I'm at work on a Saturday. Had some housekeeping to do and it's the kind of thing I prefer to do in an empty lab with my headphones on. I've been pretty productive in the 2 hours I've been here so far. Trying to decide whether to keep going or if I've accomplished enough for a blood Saturday.

My dad was due a small refund for making a change on an insurance policy. The check he received was wrong so he brought it back to the office and the agent told him it would take about six weeks. By the time he mentioned it to me it had been over six weeks and the agent was never around when he called. Since the insurance company happens to be my employer I told him I'd look into it. I called a woman who used to work with me who now works in the department that issues these refunds. She couldn't find any record of a request for a replacement check so she offered to take care of it. She called me later and asked if I wanted to pick up the check instead of having it mailed. So I have my dad's refund check to bring to him today. That should give me some parental brownie points, don't you think?

My dad isn't the type to make a fuss and neither am I. But through my work I see so many examples of our members throwing hissy fits over the tiniest things and getting whatever they want. So I was happy to know how to pull a few strings.

GD, you work in a lab, too? I formulate skin care products in an R&D Lab. I liken it to cooking more than chemistry, and I love cooking as well so it's a good fit.

I use to know a little about the job before your extended vacation (unemployment ;) ), so what do you do in the lab (If you don't mind me asking)?

Computer lab. Same thing I was doing before. No beakers of technicolor bubbling mystery liquids for me. Just 50,000 sq ft of orange cable, LEDs and a LOT of fan noise.

It isn't just your members. We do a lot of direct mail business (print and mail about 45 million pieces per year). It is not uncommon to have "do not mail" addresses, commonly called suppression lists. There is no national "do not mail" registry as there is with the "do not call" registry (a myriad of reasons of which I will not go into here).

I would think that if one were to receive a piece of advertising mail that they did not want, that it would not be that difficult to throw it away. For one campaign that we are currently working on (several mailings over a couple of months), my customer got one card back. This individual took the time to write an expletive filled message on the mailer (it is a large postcard), stick it in an envelope, waste the $0.39 stamp to mail it back to the customer.

I'm thinking here that it would have just been easier to toss the card in the trash. It is not as if there were something embarrassing about the material (it was for a higher-end furniture store), it was simply a postcard.

The thing about mailing lists is that they are compiled by list companies (there are many) from a multitude of sources. Sending this card back to this company will have no bearing on whether you will receive mail from a host of other companies. He spent a lot of time for virtually no gain (I checked the lists of the future mailings we are doing and he was not on any of them; though I suspect that many Orange County based LoTers are - I found my name and addy).

We got a good chuckle out of it.

No shrunken heads?

I am beyond excited. Nickolas has a class field trip to LB Aquarium on March 16th. For the first time ever I get to go on a field trip with him. He is going to ride the bus down and come back home with me. This way he and I can do some goofing off and window shopping around the harbor. This is one of the many things that I couldn't have done had I still been at SBC. I was worried about getting a Friday off, since that is our busiest day. The GM/owner's reply was wonderful. He talked aobut how much he enjoyed doing stuff like that with his kids and he is more than willing to grant an occasional Friday off for such things. :)