O’DonnellWeb

There were real family values on display at the Super Bowl last night, and it had nothing to do with a bigoted right wing organization writing a $2.5 million dollar check to CBS. The lasting impression from the Super Bowl will not be the ad, it will not be anything that happened during the game, it will be Drew Brees in tears, holding his son on the field after the game.

I measured 16 inches at 3:30 PM. It’s starting to taper off a bit. We’ve shoveled 5 times; 6 PM and 8:30 PM last night, and 9 AM, 12 PM, and 3 PM today. I’m hopeful that the 6 PM shoveling pass will be the final one, at least until the plows deposit 8 metric tons of snow at the end of the driveway on Monday or Tuesday.

I took advantage of being snowed in to finish up a site for my neighborhood home owners association. As usual, if you see the lurking typos that I’m missing please let me know in the comments.

One of my prescriptions, usually $10 for a 30 day supply (generic) was $30 today with my new insurance. In looking at the prescription closely I realized the pharmacy gave me the name brand, not the generic. When I went back and questioned, they told me that my insurance company rejected the generic prescription and forced me into the higher cost brand name. WTF?

So I checked their website, and this is what I see.

Generic – my cost $50, plan pays $39.
Name brand – my cost $30 – plan pays $107.

Huh? The only way this makes sense is if they are getting some sort of huge kickback from the brand name manufacturer. Why else would the insurance company voluntary pay 3X as much as it needs to? This is a fairly common drug that has been around a while, not some exotic cancer treatment anything weird like that.

We interrupt this post free month to acknowledge the unfortunately reality that my daughter is 14 years old today. Only 10 more years until she is allowed to date!

I’m have a blast at the new job, but really, that is about the only thing that has my interest these days. Blogging will resume when I get inspired. It could be tomorrow, it could be never.

Me: I’d like a Guinness please.
Waitress: Can I see your ID.
Me as I hand over ID: Those two are mine, (pointing at kids) it’s not biologically possible for me to be under 21.
Waitress: OMG! You’re the same age as my mom.
Me: That is not going to help your tip.

This was at The Green Turtle. BTW, the food there is very good, a step above what you would expect at a sports bar. The flat screen in every booth is a nice touch too. We’ll be back.

Yes, we got 2 feet of snow around these parts over the weekend. It didn’t stop the USPS and Fed Ex from delivering every day this week though. It’s a feat UPS has not managed not once.

Monday: 3 packages out for delivery for Michelle. I also have one I’m expecting, but I don’t have the tracking number..

Monday night: Packages still show out for delivery. UPS usually hits our neighborhood late, after 6 PM. The roads were cleared around 3 PM. Michelle calls UPS but can’t get any useful info from them.

Tuesday AM: Packages now show another destination scan back into Fredericksburg, so they are no longer on a truck. Michelle calls UPS and is told (allegedly after somebody called the local hub) that the packages are actually out for delivery. I tell Michelle no way. If the packages have left they hub they have to be scanned on the way out. At 6 PM Michelle calls again and is told that they are delivering until 9 PM and that we should still expect delivery, even though the online tracking indicates that the packages are in the hub. At 9 PM Michelle calls again and is told they are working all night to catch up and the packages will likely be on our porch when we get up in the morning.

I’m surprised they didn’t offer to sell us a bridge too. WTF? Do they have untrained holiday help manning the phones and just making crap up to get the customer off the phone?

Wednesday AM: 1 package shows out for delivery, the other two apparently still sitting in the hub. Michelle calls again. This time the phone rep tells her whoever she talked to yesterday was pretty much full of shit. Our neighborhood was declared undeliverable on Monday and just taken off the list last night. So UPS never even planned on trying to deliver on Tuesday. So I guess we’ll get 1 package today, and maybe the other 2 tomorrow? Or maybe not. Who the hell knows? At least 3 boxes have been in Fredericksburg since Sunday and they still haven’t managed to get them to our house. USPS and Fed Ex have delivered every day.

7:20 PM 12/13 update: Surprise surprise, still not a damn thing delivered. Michelle called the toll free number and the lady she talked to there said that she thought maybe the packages were still in Richmond. It’s like the customer service people at UPS have never actually looked at the online tracking application at UPS.com. We know the damn boxes are in Fredericksburg, they’ve supposedly been out on a truck for delivery both Mon and Tues this week. So I tried to circumvent the clowns at the toll free number by calling the local number. The guy there told me they have thousands of packages locked in trailers that they couldn’t deliver due to the weather and they are hoping to get them processed and onto trucks tonight. Of course, he can’t explain how my boxes magically got out of the trailers and onto delivery trucks the last two days. One of the boxes has been out for delivery since 6 AM yesterday. I’m guessing that one is just lost at this point. Michelle also has a 2nd day air shipment of temperature sensitive medical supplies that has been out for delivery since 6 AM this morning. The packages never showed out for delivery yesterday, but today they show that they were out for delivery yesterday? This morning we were told our neighborhood had been declared undeliverable, yet now tracking shows they were out for delivery?

It really seems like the UPS hub in Fredericksburg has just completely fallen apart this week. It’s not just us, we have not seen a UPS truck in the neighborhood all week. It’s like we’ve fallen off their delivery map. We’ve talked to 4 or 5 different people now and have gotten 4 or 5 different stories, and no real sense that anybody at UPS gives a damn about anything more than getting off the phone.

Look, weather happens, trucks break down, etc. Just tell me what the hell is going on. Instead, every time we call it’s an exercise in creative story telling.

10 PM Update 12/23: No sign of the medical supplies. They didn’t even get into Fredericksburg until last night, so there is no way they can blame the weather. Maybe somebody at UPS just hates us. The supplies are sensitive to temps below 38 degrees, so I think Michelle is going to have to make Minimed ship out a new supply since we have no idea where the box has been since 6 AM this morning.

10:50 PM 12/23: Just called about Michelle’s medical supplies. I got the “drivers must deliver everything on their truck” line again. So they want me to believe a driver is out at 11 PM at night still doing deliveries. They’ve wanted me to believe that every night this week. So far they are 0-3. I don’t believe for a second that UPS is sending all this stuff out and it’s coming back in every night. Either they are loading the trucks and they are never leaving the parking lot, or they are faking the data and not even bothering to send stuff out for delivery. Something is very rotten at UPS Fredericksburg. And if the driver really is out at 11 PM…just how safe is it to have this guy on the road 15 hours after he started his shift?

12/24 9 AM: One definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results. So I will no longer be calling UPS. It’s obvious nobody knows what’s going on, or cares. The current score is thee ground packages in Fredericksburg since Sunday night, 1 ground package that is allegedly out for delivery today, and one missing 2nd day air package containing $500 of temperature sensitive diabetes supplies. We haven’t seen an UPS truck in the neighborhood all week. The boxes just keep scanning at the Fredericksburg hub, they aren’t even trying to deliver then. The 2nd day air package has been out for delivery since 6 AM yesterday. Where the hell is it?

Michelle made me call again. I can’t get anybody at the local number to talk to me, so I called the toll free number. They claim that all 4 missing boxes were physically scanned onto a truck last night and are out for delivery today – on the same truck. Interestingly, that is not supported by the UPS web site. The only one it shows out for delivery is the 2nd day air that has been out for delivery since 6 AM yesterday. Maybe their web systems are hosed and are not up to date, maybe she was filing her nails while talking to me and never actually tracked the packages. At this point either is probably equally likely. Anyway, I’m done worrying about it.

12/24 11:30 AM update: Last night Michelle was promised a call by 10 AM today with an update on the missing 2nd day air package. Since that call never came, she called them back. Now they claim they don’t know where the 2nd day air package is and have put a priority research request on it, which is supposed to result in a call to us within 90 minutes with new. Any bets?

2:30 PM: About that call we were going to get within 90 minutes…

4:30 PM: Michelle called UPS, since they didn’t keep their commitment to call us back. Customer service rep comments that he had never heard of Fredericksburg VA when he came into work this morning, but he has now after fielding multiple calls from the area. He brings a supervisor in that confirms the Fredericksburg hub is FUBARed, and that they brought people in from Richmond this morning to try to fix the mess. He confirms that everything is on a truck, and that we will see it sometime today or tonight.

8:30 PM: It’s a Christmas miracle! We got 7 packages. And thus ends the 1300 word blog post on UPS. Crikey!

Merry Christmas, and remember, ship Fed Ex!

On first glance, that is what this article seems to say. No doubt, that is what they want you to believe. But if you think about it for just a minute…what are the odds that somebody hooking up illicitly on Facebook is doing it for the first time? Not bloody likely IMHO.

So Facebook is not causing 20% of divorces, Facebook is making it easier for 20% of married people to discover that their spouse is a lying scumbag.

That, I think, is a good thing for America.

*Note – I doubt the accuracy of the “research” and would bet that Facebook hasn’t been mentioned in 2% of divorce petitions, let alone 20%. Maybe it comes up as evidence frequently though.

1. Cut the tree yourself. You are better off with a fake tree than one of the long dead pre-cut trees at Walmart or at a Christmas tree lot. Those trees were cut 1-2 weeks earlier and probably trucked half-way across the country before you even see it. At that point it is good for tinder, and little else.

2. When you get home, make a fresh cut on the trunk and immediately put the tree in water. This is the key step. The sap starts to dry out and harden in the truck the instant you cut it. If you aren’t ready to put the tree in the stand then put it in a bucket of water. When you move it to the stand get it set up and get some water into the stand ASAP.

3. Keep it watered. Our tree, which I cut 7 days ago, is still sucking down over a gallon a day. It’s starting to slow down, but it will still be green and holding onto it’s needles at Christmas, which is all that really matters.

That’s it. Cut it yourself, make a fresh cut when you get home, and keep it in water. It’s not rocket science.

Update: Commenter #3 was the lucky winner.

I have in my hands (virtually speaking) 2 copies of Cowboy and Wills. One of them is signed by the author. The other one I will be reading.

A Golden Retriever puppy, a dedicated mom and dad, and a young boy with Autism. How can that combination not make for a touching book?

But don’t just take my word for it.

“An intimate, loving, funny look at the heartbreaking relationship between one mom, one dad, their very special little boy, and the puppy that was heaven-sent to love them all.”
— Leslie Morgan Steiner, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Love and Mommy Wars

“Monica Holloway has written one of the most extraordinary memoirs I’ve ever read. Tender, loving, and heartbreakingly intimate, it chronicles her struggle to coax her son Wills out of the shell of autism. I highly recommend this gorgeous and frank book about family, connections, and the ephemeral state of belonging.”
— Barrie Gillies, Parents magazine

If you would like the signed copy just leave a comment on this post. I will use Random.org to select the winning comment at 9 PM (ish) on Saturday 12/12.

Good luck!

The rules:
One comment per person per day. If you leave multiple comments on the same day, I will delete them all. You must leave a valid email address so that I can contact you if you win. Those of you that are regulars here know my feelings about spam and web privacy in general. Your email address is safe with me. It will not be published on the blog and with the exception of the email I send to the winner, will never be used for anything.

(In case it is not obvious, this is a sponsored post.)

I’ve lived in Fredericksburg for 7 years and prior to 8 PM this evening, I had no idea there was a $2.75 toll road in Richmond. But I’m getting ahead of the story here…

We left Florida at 6 AM this morning, exactly on schedule. The first half of the trip home started out fine. I cruised through Florida, GA, and SC at 75 mph, with nary a slowdown. Life was good. So good in fact, I finally stopped at South of the Border.

From FL

We weren’t one mile into NC when traffic ground to a halt. And it pretty much stayed that way until well North of Fayetteville. I probably should have called Daryl and called it a day over a few beers. But I didn’t. And 4 hours after entering NC I finally exited the state, having traversed about 180 miles or so. Ugh! We did take a short detour in Wilton for BBQ, and being NC this was classic NC style with coleslaw on the Que. It was quite tasty, although it was a revelation for Michelle that BBQ comes in more styles than classic KC style. BTW, KC style is still my fav by a country mile, but the NC style was good for a change of pace. After dinner traffic smoothed out and we were able to make good time into Richmond.

As we approached downtown Richmond the traffic info signed warned of congestion at exit 79. A check with 511 delivered the scary news that 95 was stop and go from exit 79 in Richmond all the way to the DC Beltway, about 100 miles. And this is the point where the toll road comes into our story, because this is when I saw the sign for 895, toll road to the airport and 295. It might not be the most direct route, but I knew it would only be a 15 minute side trip to cut back to 295 via the airport to catch 301 North and eventually RT 1. As we approached the toll booth Michelle asked how much cash I needed and I responded, “probably 35 cents or something like that.”

A $2.75, eight mile toll road to nowhere in Richmond? I wonder which state legislator made millions selling his land for that pork barrel project? Needless to say, I didn’t see another car for my 6 minutes on the road. I got the impression that 895 may be the least utilized expressway in America. After battling traffic all day it was almost a zen like experience. I considered doing a u-turn and making a couple of laps, but decided to just go home instead. As I crossed over I-95 when cutting across from 301 to RT 1 I saw nothing but a sea of brake lights on I-95 North.

It was the best $2.75 I spent all trip. My average speed calculates out to 55 mph, which given all the stop and go in NC is a real surprise. I must have really made good time this morning.

We haven’t set foot on Disney property, although rumor has it we might be visiting downtown Disney today. If you want my take on Disney, check out my trip notes from a few years ago.

We arrived last Sunday after a 14.5 hour drive, so we took it easy on Monday by lounging around the pool and taking a short trip to Gatorland. Gatorland is exactly what it sounds like, a park full of gators, snakes, lizards, and other assorted natives of the FL swamps. There is also a water park for the kids to play in. It’s a fun diversion for a couple of hours.

From FL

Tuesday was split between horseback riding at a friend of my father-in-law’s, and a visit to the Serpentarium near Kissimmee. This place was pretty amazing. He has about 60 or so venomous snakes on display, plus an assortment of constrictors. The primary purpose of the facility is the collection of venom which is used for research and anti-venom production. And when I say collection, I mean the guy that runs the place grabs the deadly snakes with his bare hands and coaxes them into striking a porous membrane over a beaker or flask to gather the venom. I would have thought there was a safer way to do that, but I guess not. At about $7 per adult, it’s a cheap outing and worth every penny.

From FL

On Wednesday we headed east and spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center. This was the outing that I insisted on. You can’t cover KSC in one day. The tickets are good for a 2nd entrance at no additional charge, but we didn’t make it back over there. NASA is clear that KSC is not run with tax dollars, it’s 100% commercial. I’m not sure that is a good thing. It’s set up a little too much like the amusement parks in FL, with attractions funneling you through a gift shop before you can exit. On one hand, pretty much everything is included in the $40 entrance fee, the IMAX movies, the space shuttle launch simulator, the lectures by visiting astronauts, the tour of the facilities, and the Astronaut Hall of Fame are all included. We didn’t make to the Hall of Fame, and we didn’t get to one of the IMAX movies. You really need a day and a half to do it all at KSC.

On the other hand, I paid $43 for burgers, fries, and sodas X 4, and it was school lunch room quality at best. The concessions at Sea World were less expensive (seriously, I’m not kidding). I was also surprised that there is not a comprehensive book store offering hard to find stuff written during the space race, or more depth on the attractions. It just seems like the monument to maybe the greatest scientific and engineering achievement of mankind (so far) should be a little more reverent, a little more educational, and a little less like a theme park.

One other note on KSC, which may or may not be indicative of anything important. It’s the first tourist thing I’ve ever been to in FL where the Japanese were not the dominant foreign visitors. People from India seem to be really into NASA. It might not be surprising if one generation from now they are outsourcing their menial customer service jobs to us!

From FL

We spent Thanksgiving Day at Sea World. Everybody is familiar with Sea World. The Shamu show was spectacular, the dolphin show was cool, the sea lion show was cute, and the trained dogs and cats were surprisingly entertaining. The exhibits are educational as well as entertaining, and it’s hard to walk 10 feet without finding yourself in a gift shop. Like KSC, you can come back for a 2nd day within a week for free, so we did and the kids and I spent Black Friday at the park catching the shows and exhibits we didn’t get to on Thursday.

From FL

Thanksgiving dinner was at Cracker Barrel, where I over consumed all the usual fixings of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

Friday night we fed the kids cheaply and left them with Grandpa while we skipped out for a seafood dinner at The Catfish Place, one of those places only the locals know about. If you are every in the area find time to eat here. I recommend the fried lobster and fried red snapper.

Today we are taking it easy since we have to drive home tomorrow. I’m not sure we’ll make it as the Sunday after Thanksgiving tends to be hell for traffic. If we can’t make good time it’s likely we’ll spend the night somewhere along the way.

I had long since lost hope of ever seeing another new Drivin’ N Cryin’ record. The fact that new record is maybe their best since 1990’s Fly Me Courageous is just a huge fracking bonus. It’s always hard to categorize them as on any one record they will go from acoustic rock to heavy metal to REM’ish Indie Southern Rock. This record is no exception, and there isn’t a weak song on it. Go buy it at Aime Street for about $4.

I want to call these guys country, but that is not quite right. If Mellencamp had grown up in South Alabama he probably would have ended up sounding like this. The record definately has strong country influences, but there is just enough rock there to probably make sure nobody in Nashville pays attention to them. Which is a shame, as the album is quite catchy. You can download it from Aime Street for about $2.