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I really enjoy these 2-week Christmas breaks we get every year.  I know the dog likes having me around more.  I spent the first few days working on a few projects but since then I’ve been in full enjoyment mode.

I went to Jackson for Christmas, but stayed for only a day.  Once again I just wanted to be in my own home and the dog was unhappy being cooped up.  I didn’t have a lot of Christmas spirit this year until Christmas Eve.  I’ve enjoyed having a low-key year in terms of holidays and not doing much to celebrate.  Next year I think I want to start some of my own traditions.  Maybe I’ll do that traveling thing I keep telling myself I’m going to do.  One of these years I want to spend Christmas in my home even if I have to buy tickets for everyone.

Once again there weren’t a lot of gifts because people didn’t have money to spend.  I know Christmas isn’t all about getting presents, but I do miss getting presents.  I like being surprised.  Maybe things will be better next year.  What did I get?

• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 on blu-ray
• A new wallet to replace the one I accidentally washed a while back
• Dexter coasters (early present that I got a few months ago)

I did buy myself some CDs, clothes, video games, and blu-rays.  Every time I tried shopping for others, I found good deals on stuff that I wanted for myself.  I’m going to get good use out of everything.

I had a pretty good Thanksgiving break. I really needed that. For the first time in a while I had a weekend that didn’t fly by way too fast, but that’s probably because it was over twice as long as normal.

This was only the 3rd Thanksgiving that I can remember where I didn’t go back to Jackson. I was kind of glad when I saw how many people on Twitter were stressing out over cooking and relatives and what not. Also, I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of boarding the dog somewhere. I wish we had some real kennels around here. It’s good to spend a break doing only what I wanted to do. I even went an entire day without seeing another human being.

What did I do?

• caught up on all the stuff on my DVR
• finished the Babylon 5 re-watch that I started last year
• did some shopping and bought stuff for me and the dog
• played video games

After 3 more weeks of work, I get a 2 week break. I’m ready for another break.

It hit me the other day that we’ll be starting a new decade in a little under 2 months. I would’ve expected a bigger deal to be made about it, but maybe it has and I’ve been out of the loop. We’ll probably be seeing a lot of retrospectives on TV in December.

Time really does fly by. Recently, I thought about a lot of things that happened “a few years ago” and then realize that it happened 7 or 8 or 9 years ago. Anyway, I expect some big things to happen in 2010. You’ll probably hear about them here or on my Twitter page first.

What’s been going on? August flew by. Work has been hectic lately and I haven’t done much outside of work.

I did go to Atlanta this past weekend. My sister was having a birthday party to celebrate her 40th birthday. Lots of friends and family came, you and old. They came from California, Michigan, Mississippi, and Georgia. It was a lot fun to see the family again. I need the go out there to visit more often. Atlanta is a cool place.

Football season starts this coming weekend. We play Jackson State here in Starkville. It’s our first game with our new coach and it’ll be the first game I’ve gone to in 4-5 years. I can’t wait to see JSU’s band play. I hope we have a good season, but I’m not getting my expectations up.

I like that the weather is starting to get cooler. Fall is coming.

It looks like that trip to Austin is probably not going to happen. There’s other stuff that’s going to be going on around then. If Austin City Limits was just a couple of weeks later, everything would be fine. It sucks when family and work get in the way of a good time :). It’s okay though. I will go to Texas sooner or later.

I’m about halfway through my off week. I used to think it was a little weird when I heard about people taking vacation and staying at home, but now I can totally see the appeal in doing that. Going on a trip can wear you out as much as working. I wanted to do this back in September and October, but the timing didn’t work out either month. Then the holidays came along and I’ve been extremely busy this year, so it took me this long to do it. Even some of my co-workers noticed that I hardly ever take time off any more.

I’ve been getting up at 8 every morning because I’ll feel like I’ve wasted too much of the day if I sleep until noon. What have I been doing? Reading, playing video games, clearing off my DVR, watching movies, playing with the dog, and taking care of errands that I haven’t been able to because I’m at work. I’ll sleep late on the weekend like I normally do.

I’ve got about 3 months of personal leave time accumulated, so maybe I’ll do this more often. I I’m going on trips in August and October, so there’s no need to go somewhere every time.

I ended up canceling my gym membership today. There’s no use in paying when I wasn’t going anymore. I already get up around 6 every morning and I don’t want to have to get up any earlier to work out. Also, I was having trouble motivating myself to go back out to work out after I got home from work.

I did, however, buy Wii Fit about a week and a half ago and have used it almost every day. Some activity is better than nothing. I just hope it doesn’t get boring.

Yesterday, I got an email from the Justice Department about the postal employee who stole one or more of my Gamefly and/or Netflix rentals. Last summer I found out that she plead guilty to 1 count of Delaying or destruction of mail or newspapers and 3 counts of Theft of mail matter by officer or employee. She’s finally been sentenced. She got 1 year and 6 months in prison followed by 2 years of supervised release. Her fine is $0.00. Well, that’s the end of that. It’s been interesting getting updates while not really being involved.

I’m still with Sprint for now. I’ll wait until the end of my contract and decide on something then. I had a hard time making a decision on whom to go to. It takes me a long time to make decisions like that and I came up with reasons not to switch to each of the other major carriers available in this area. I’ll deal with it later.

For a few days I was getting a lot of messages and emails from Sprint. The tone made it sound like I didn’t need to call back unless I had other questions. My guess was that they were feeling bad about how much they had screwed up. I finally called back and they basically offered to let me take as long as I wanted to on paying that balance. I’m going to go ahead and pay it all at once when my bill is due. I’m not as angry as I was, but I’m still not happy.

I have been a Sprint customer for over 5 years. I’ve done my share of defending them even when I’ve felt screwed by them because they always seemed to make things right in the end. This time it’s different. Now I can see why they have the worst customer service ratings and are hemorrhaging customers.

I bought a new phone from Sprint near the end of October 2008. The price I believe was $279.99 plus tax but they applied credits to bring the cost of the phone down to $50 plus tax. Before the end of the first 30 days, I decided the phone. It was freezing up all the time and I just didn’t like it. In early December I called to see how much I my balance would be after they credited my account for the phone. The CS Rep told me that I would be credited the $279.99 plus tax and with the credits they had already applied to my account I would have a negative balance. I got him to explain repeatedly that those credits wouldn’t be taken away and I would be credited for the full amount of the phone. I was happy to hear this and even though it seemed odd, I thought that was just the way Sprint did things. How silly and trusting of me.

I called in January about that balance still on my account. It takes them 1-2 billing cycles to credit refunds. They put in a payment arrangement on my account for the $279.99 plus tax to cover the still pending refund and I paid the difference between that and the balance on the account. The same thing happened in February. Later in February I decided to try a different phone model because I was still unhappy with the old model I’d had for a while and tried to replace in October. Somehow the lady got the returned phone credited to my account during that call. When I got my next statement I had a balance of over $300 dollars. It turns out that I was credited about $60 for the returned phone instead of the $279.99 plus tax that I was promised 3 times.

It was explained to me that I could be credited only the amount that I was charged and not the $279.99 plus tax. The Rep I talked to this day said that the earlier reps probably didn’t see those credits made to my account, but I know that at least the first person did. I feel like I was lied to for 3 months. Even if it was a mistake, they should honor the original promise that was made to 3 times. I was going on the assumption for months now that I would be credited $279.99 plus tax and a balance has accumulated. I have been a contract customer for over 5 years and have always paid my bills on time. If I can’t break a promise to pay them, then it seems like they can’t break a promise to me.

I had this case escalated to their “executive office” and I was once again denied a refund. He said that if I was unhappy with the decision he would discuss it among his colleagues and reach a final decision. Not surprisingly, they agreed with him.

I guess it’s time to finally end my relationship with Sprint. When I got the 2nd new phone in February, I had to renew my contract for 2 years. If I break my contract now, I have to pay a an early termination fee, which I think is $185. Of course they said that they wouldn’t let me out of the contract without the fee. I have to decide if I want to pay that fee and get out of my contract or wait 2 years until the contract ends. Either way I’m gone. It’s hard to do business with a company that I cannot trust.