No Nervous Nellies

I just want to reassure you all -- with all of the show shuffling in the morning block on the BizRadio Network recently—adding Vince Rowe, adding Scott Murray, dropping Scott, moving Vince, less of me, more of Vince, more of me, less of Vince—some assurances are in order at this juncture.

And that’s what I wish to do: Reassure you.

I will be off for a couple of days next week…but there are no plans to add Star Jones to the BizRadio line up.

Tuesday's Tales

I spent most of last evening on the phone to Tech Support at Sprint Nextel, trying to resurrect my less-than one year old cell phone from its cranial slumber. Today I will take said cell phone to the closest Sprint Nextel authorized repair facility and barter my first born in exchange for another instrument.

He's been wanting to get his own place anyway...

Could have been worse…have you seen the video clip of the Comcast repairman that showed up at a guy’s house to repair his internet service—and fell asleep on the customer’ couch?!

Turns out the cable guy had called his tech support...and drifted off while he was on hold for repair instructions.


Lots of rain in Washington, D.C. the past few days. Some government buildings have been flooded, including the HQ for the Environmental Protection Agency, ironically, needing protection from the environment.

The fraud and financial bungles involving aid to last summer’s hurricane victims exceeds 2-billion dollars according to an audit by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO estimates that perhaps as much as 21% of the $6.3 billion given directly to victims might have been improperly distributed.
Hmmm, yuh think?
10,000 mobile homes ordered by FEMA and never used now sit at an airfield in Hope, Arkansas, where FEMA is now paying $250,000 a month to store them.

Home sales last month befuddled official number crunchers… The Commerce Department says sales of new single-family homes increased by 4.6% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.234 million units.
Wall Street had been expecting a 4% drop in sales.
I want to know who on Wall Street missed that one by 180-degrees.
Did he or she formerly work for the Department of Energy, estimating fuel inventories?

The median price of new homes dropped to $235,000 in May, down 4.3% from last month's sales price. However, May's price was ahead 3.1% from the median price of $229,200 in May of last year.
Cable is extra.

High-Tech Low-down

‘Scuse me while I vent my spleen about technology, as I ironically post this to the Internet from the comfort of my posh, ex-urban bedroom. You see, I’ve just wasted most of my evening on the phone to Tech Support for Sprint-Nextel, chasing down demons in my cell phone.

Can’t live with them (cell phones, not demons), can’t live without them.



A few weeks ago I noticed my voice messages were really taking their sweet time working from sender through the ether to me. In some cases, my voice-mail was taking nearly two days to reach my phone! I called Tech Support; they diddled some knobs, toggled some switches, and reset my flux capacitor.
Voila!
For about a week things went swimmingly.

People started to act strangely around me, like I’d offended them.
“Didn’t you get my message?” they’d accuse.
“Why didn’t you call me back?” they’d interrogate.
Something was terribly wrong.
I thought perhaps I’d mis-set a setting within the secret confines of my cell phone software, except I never go there.
Kind of like getting lost in thought because it’s unfamiliar territory.

So I called Sprint-Nextel Tech Support. Again.

We re-set the traps.
We re-wound the springs.
We re-combobulated the thingamajigger.
It worked for about a week.

Text messages began to fail to down load.
The phone phailed to ring every time.
It was like the last time I lost my job, and folks were afraid to talk to me.

What was I going to do, spontaneously combust?
Instead, I called Tech Support. Once again.

I’ll spare you the details, but bottom line, they couldn’t fix it, and suggested I go get the phone swapped out at my friendly, close-by, neighborhood Sprint-Nextel authorized dealer.

Yeah, my idea of a quality evening is going to the mall and threading between the clusters of flat-bellied, full-chested teens. At least I am invisible to them now, as is anyone over the age of 26.

The cheerful attendant at the friendly and convenient Sprint-Nextel kiosk in the mall regretfully told me that I would actually have to visit the officially-sanctioned Sprint-Nextel repair location, which unfortunately had closed for the evening, but will be open tomorrow morning, about midway through my Radio show.

I can’t think of a better way to waste my time during the day than by lollygagging in that waiting room. I’ll let you know how the next episode in this epic round-robin plays out. For all the conveniences and amazing advances technology has provided us, only high-tech stuff can truly screw up your life.

In simpler times it was not so.
Your phone didn’t work, you called Ma Bell.
That was the good side of monopolistic telephone empires.
At least when it broke, there was no guess work involved in calling for help.

Same thing when the power went out.
In the dark?
Only one place to call.
Ready Kilowatt and I were good friends.

Technology has even found it’s way into places of worship.
Now you can watch Joel Osteen cavort and genuflect nearly anywhere in the world. At our house of worship, which is not Lakewood Church, we’ve installed a computer projector with which our song services are blazoned across a giant screen suspended over the pulpit. Nothing says Our God, He is Alive like quarter- and eighth-notes three feet tall.

Now going to worship is a lot like going to work.

Frankly, I miss the distinction between the two, and secretly long for the days—I’d probably even settle for water-cooled air conditioning—when you sat in cool, varnished wood pews, and sang praises out of well-worn pages of hand-me-down hymnals.

And no one’s cell phone went off during the prayer.