Kat's Place

I have been told alot lately that I need to update my blog...ok you are all right. I have been having major problems with migraines (about 15 plus days per month). I went for an MRI last week and the only thing it showed was a major sinus infection on my right side, which my DR. thinks may be responsible for the increase in head aches. I am on antibiotics for 20 days. You would think that I would have felt something in my face from this, but I didn't , so how am I supposed to know something is gone that I didn't know I had?

Tony is grouchy as all get out...really crabby with me and the kids, so I can't wait til he goes to California and Ohio in Dec. (a vacation at home for me and the girls). I worry about them because he gets so damn crabby over relatively nothing.

I got back my exam thing from the Postal Service. I passed and am now on the list for employment. I am hoping for the best on this I am sick of dealing with drunks at home and at work... it's easier to deal with kids at least they usually will listen to reason.

Miranda's new job seems to be going well, although the commute is a pain. We finally found another parent to car pool with though, so hopefully that will help.

Tony and I are going to Foxwoods on Sunday on a bus trip with the VFW hopefully he will be in a better mood by then. Maybe I will win a million and I can take a long trip somewhere quiet.
Gram is taking Hayley overnight cuz we have to be on the bus by 8 am, and she is going to take Miranda to work for me.

Mom may be moving back to NH in the spring...I hope she does cuz I think she is too isolated up there and she would have more help here. Everyone needs a break once in a while and she never gets one.

She and Larry and Mike will all be here for Thanksgiving, so that ought to be nice anyway. Mike is also coming Veteran's Day weekend and is bringing his girlfriend's little girl over to meet us. It will be nice. I really like Maryann I felt comfortable with her immediately...I think I talked to her more than Mike when they were here last time:)

Well, I hope all is well with everyone and I will try to do better about updating this thing.

Goodnight.
Kathi

My Dr. has been trying to get me an appointment in Lebanon, NH, but they are booking for next March. They have now put me on a blood pressure medicine in hopes that it will regulate the headaches, but I am a little nervous about taking it since I already have low blood pressure. The Dr. also has said that she thinks I have cluster migraines rather than just regular ones, as I get them so much.

My grandfather died two days ago, and my life will never be the same. He was not a man who was overly demonstrative (if you told him you loved him, usually the best you could hope for in return was "me too") , but his actions spoke volumes about him. You could always count on him when it counted the most. I will miss his dry sense of humor, and I don't know if I will ever get used to walking up the driveway and not hearing him make some kind of joke. He always made me laugh...even when I was in a bad mood, he could always make me smile. I will miss seeing him and Hayley together and the bond that they shared. I am so glad we moved home five years ago, because Grampa became Hayley's best friend and that was so special to me. He let her help when he worked on the lawnmowers because she "knew her tools". He taught her poker, cribbage, and craps (I had to tell her not to teach the kids at school these games because I thought she might get in trouble for gambling...in the fifth grade). He took her fishing. And, as Hayley told me the other day, Grampa never broke a promise to her. He always kept his word. The hole that Grampa's death leaves in our lives is immeasurable. He was always there for me, he never judged me, and I don't know what I will do without him.

Today I spoke to Dell again, and was given a new order number and an estimated delivery date of August 3rd (13 days from when I recieved the dead one). He told me they had put next day shipping on my order, but couldn't tell me what stage of production it was in. I asked to speak to a supervisor but he refused to let me. He just kept repeating that I had been given top priority (I would hate to think what low priority looks like), they had given me next day shipping, and that I had no need to speak to a supervisor.

For those of you that haven't heard the start of this I will recap the situation:
16th of July - ordered new Dell Inspiron 6000
21st of July - Inspiron 6000 arrived DOA
spent 2 hours of hell on the phone between being put on hold, my call being dropped after being on hold for 20 minutes while waiting for the customer support person to be able to view my information on her screen (she said she was only getting half of it), falling back into the phone loop for another long stint on hold. Finally, I got a case number and a dispatch number and was told it would take a maximum of 8 days to get my new system and that an email would be sent to me with all the information I needed to monitor the status of the new system. I recieved the email...which contained a different case number than the one they gave me in the first place, and did not contain any way to monitor status on new machine.
23rd of July - Called Dell for status (called at 1am the wait times were better then) and was told that I should recieve my system the next day and it would arrive with DHL. They told me I could track it with the dispatch number I was given previously. I went to the DHL website, and the dispatch number wasn't a tracking number. Called DHL and they had no record of a shipment for me.
24th of July - Called Dell again, and was told that it would take at least 2 weeks for my new system to come. Ok, so what happened to the one that was supposed to arrive yesterday? And furthermore, my original system didn't take 2 weeks, so why the hell should this one! Spoke to a supervisor, and I told him that if I didn't recieve the new system in the maximum 8 days as promised I would be cancelling everything and sending this system back for a refund. All he said was well you have to call Customer service for that. Yah, and in what century will they answer the phone?

This company's idea of "customer service" is a joke. Long hold times, people who don't understand or speak english well, people who could care less about making a customer happy and stick you on hold a million times within one phone call. If they can't read to you from a script they don't know what to say at all.

Dell now has 4 days to get me a new system, or I will never do business with them again. I have never seen a company with the horrible customer service they have. It is pathetic!

Well, I have been meaning to start this blog for ages, but migraines always seem to keep me from it. The Relpax is not working unless I take one wait 2 hours and take another...which means I am only allowed 3 headaches a month (what I wouldn't give for only 3 a month). The Topomax ,which is supposed to be a preventative, gives me horrible dizzy spells, so I stopped that. Guess it is time to go back to the Dr.

Our trip went well, we did everything we wanted to do and more.

I will write more tomorrow about that since it is so late. g'nite all.