All right, all right. It's been almost a week, and I haven't posted this yet. But, last Friday, I officially joined the club of the initialed. That's right, I completed my MCSE certification. Now I can sign letters as:

Eriq Oliver Neale, MCSE

I can also put that as a tag line in my author bios when I contribute to MCSE exam prep books. It means I can put the nifty logo on my new business cards, when I get them printed. Which also means I can say:

"That's 'Mister Eriq Neale MCSE' to you, buddy!"

Oh yes, I can feel the fame approaching now...

I got a cool new watch. It's an analog/digital watch that syncs with the atomic clock on Colorado. Now I don't have to worry about breaking off the pin that sets the time on an analog watch, like what apparently happened with my last watch.

So, to sum up, in case you had any doubts about my geekness, I'm posting about my atomic sync wristwatch on my blog. And I work at Micro$oft. $o there.

Once again, I have a fabulous experience with UPS. I order a package from a retailer, it ships UPS ground (saving $$$), and it arrives exactly when they say it's going to. This is NOT the same level of service I have received from some other delivery services that many retailers use, even when I specifically tell them not to use that delivery service. Yes, I can always count on UPS to not only know where I live, but how to get there, and they deliver my packages on-time.

That hasn't always been the case, however. In fact, my favorite delivery problem story related to bad deliveries actually comes from those brown parcel people.

Back in 1987, I was living in a garage apartment in Denton, a little one-room garage conversion that sat next to a large house on the corner of two fairly significant streets. I had my own physical address, but my entrance faced one street more than the other, and the street it faced was the cross street, not the one matching my address. However, mail got to me with no problem, and every time I gave directions to someone, they were able to find it with no problem.

So when I ordered a package from Richardson, TX, and they were going to ship it to me via UPS, I didn't give it a second thought. Two weeks after the shipment should have arrived, however, I called the company that sent it and let them know I had yet to receive it. They checked with UPS, but this was in the days before electronic tracking, so UPS couldn't tell him what was up. Another week went by with no delivery. More calls to the company failed to yield any results. They were ready to refund my money and let me drive to Richardson to pick one up at no cost to me (about a 30 mile drive, which I obviously should have done initially). The very next day, however, I got blown away.

You see, that day, I got a card in the mail from UPS. The card told me that UPS could not find my physical address and that they were returning the package to the shipper. After I gawked for a moment at the card (not a letter I had to open, but a postcard) I fell to the floor in fits of laughter. UPS had sent POSTAL MAIL to an address THEY COULDN'T FIND. This was too good to pass up, so I headed down to the local UPS distribution center (less than 4 miles from my apartment) to ask about this. The day I went down there, I found a rather long line of people wanting to pick up packages, etc., so I had a chance to fully plan what I would say to the agent when I got to the front of the queue.

Finally, my turn arrived. When the older lady who was at the counter asked if she could help me, she didn't know what to do with me. I was very polite and professional and never lost my cool. I asked her a very simple question:

If UPS could not find my address to deliver a package, why did they mail me a card to tell me?

For the next 10 minutes, we went back and forth on the issue. I don't think she ever fully understood what my concern was, but the people around me in line were very entertained. I did ascertain that they DID have a phone number for me on file, and I asked why no one called to get directions, since they couldn't find the address, or call to verify the address was correct. She couldn't answer that. When I asked her who sent the card, she couldn't tell me. When I asked her what UPS was thinking when they mailed a card to an address that they knew didn't exist, she couldn't answer.

In the end, I didn't get my package. I finally called the company in Richardson and let them know, through no fault of their own, that I just didn't want the package. And as I was only in that apartment for a year, I never had the opportunity to order another package to be shipped to that address. But I'll never forget the conversation I had with the helpless UPS customer service representative or the looks on the faces of the people behind me in line - all smiles.

Joy of Joys! My less-than-personable postal lady delivered a bundle of goodwill to my home last night - the first season of Millennium on DVD. I was so excited, I bypassed the normal watching of the recorded TV to review the pilot of Millennium again. Ahhhhhhhhh.

I did notice a couple of new items watching the show 8 years after it first ran:

1. The Frenchman was played by the same actor who later played the recurring role of Angelo in The Pretender.
   
2. The pilot certainly doesn't seem as racy and cutting-edge as it did in 1996. Still, it was quite good, especially for a pilot.
   
3. The paranoia surrounding the upcoming millennium seems awfully trivial now. Looking back 4 years after the turn of the millennium at the situation from four years prior to the turn of the century, the notions of the end of the world and the prophecies of doom just don't have the impact they did back then. I'm sure some of that is 9/11 fallout, but you just don't hear as much about doomsayers in the news these days.
   

So, what's the next big thing? Well, I'm still waiting to get my hands on the complete series of Twin Peaks on DVD. Please????

So we went to see I, Robot yesterday, much to the chagrin of my friend Sharon (who slugged me a total of four times yesterday). Like I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I'm going to run the movie experience through my list of questions to determine if I thought it was a good movie. Here we go:

1. Yes, I was entertained.
2. I didn't have a single moment where I got bored or thought "let's get on with it" for the entire two hours of the film. During the 10 minutes of credits, however...
3. Yes, I was able to maintain my suspension of disbelief, and on two levels. The first being reality, and the second being the reality of the robotic world that Isaac Asimov brought into being.
4. Yes, I was able to tune out the surroundings for most of the movie. Unfortunately, this particular screening had a huge obstacle, in that a couple brought in two kids in a stroller built for two. Only twice during the film did they scream out and momentarily distract me, but they distracted everyone in the theater when they did.
5. The story kept me guessing through most of the film as well as stimulated. In fact, it was a much better plot line than I thought there would be.
6. For the most part, yes, I was interested in the characters. They certainly weren't fully developed (this is an action movie, after all), but they weren't the cardboard cutouts I expected (this is an action movie, after all).
7. I thought the photography was superb and the use of special effects (again, ignoring the closing credits, all 10 minutes of them) was in line with the movie direction.

That being said, I thought this was a good movie overall. Certainly not the best film I've ever seen, but I went to be entertained, and I was more entertained than I expected to be. I call that a success in any language.

Gotta check and see what we're catching next weekend. Tonight is yet another trip to the Ballpark to see the Rangers whip up on their poor opponents. To say I'm in baseball heaven this season is the understatement of understatements!

I live in Texas. It's hot in Texas again finally. We hit 104 degrees at the house yesterday. Right now, it's only 94, but it feels hotter. While I was sweltering in the top floor of the office building in which I work, I got to talk to someone from Ohio who had just come in from a clear balmy day of 84 degrees. He further proceeded to let me know that they had slept with the windows open in their house the previous night, because the temperature got down into the 50's. Grr. The Walgreen's sign nearest to me read 90 degrees when I left the house at 8:30 this morning. I know it always reads hotter than it really is, but my mind had already processed the information, and I got really thirsty, really fast.

At least I get to spend this afternoon in an overly-cooled movie theater. I feel better just thinking about it.

Remind me to tell you sometime why Alaska should not be warmer than Hawaii.

I know what you're thinking. Is this post about blogs or internet publishing in general, or is he going to discuss Spiderman 2?

Yep, you got it. I saw the movie this past weekend and was thoroughly entertained. For me, it was a good movie, and would have been worth pull ticket price, even though we had a voucher for a free matinee ticket and paid matinee price for the other. Woo hoo!

Most of the folks I've talked to who saw the movie had nothing but good things to say. The general consensus, unscientifically determined, of course, is that it was better than the first movie. I happen to agree.

So what makes a "good movie" in my opinion? Here's what I look for:

1. Am I entertained?
2. Did I make it through the movie without saying "let's get on with it" to myself more than once?
3. Was I able to maintain my very flexible suspension of disbelief throughout the entire movie?
4. Was I able to completely forget the real world around me and the kid kicking the back of my seat for the entire duration of the film?
5. Was there enough story to keep my intellectually stimulated?
6. Did I care about the characters portrayed in the film?
7. Was I impressed with the cinematography or setup of the film scenes without being drawn out of my moviegoing experience during the film to say "Wow, that was a nice shot"?

The more "yes" answers I have to those questions, the better the movie is in my opinion. Here's my answers to Spiderman 2:

1. Yes. I came away from the film feeling fulfilled.
2. Yes. I can't recall a single time I got "antsy" or felt the pace slowed down inappropriately.
3. Sort of. The whole thing with the malfunctioning webbers drove me a little nuts. Come on - either they work, or they don't. The same thing with the glasses.
4. Overwhelmingly yes! I didn't even feel cold, even though the theater was apparently 60 degrees, based on the shade of blue my wife turned while we were in there.
5. Yes. The plot was much more involved that your typical James Bond film (and I have nothing against James Bond films) but not to the degree of the first "Mission Impossible" movie (which I also thoroughly enjoyed).
6. Yes. I felt this film went deeper into the characters than the first, especially when it would have been so easy to caricature them from the first film.
7. Yes. I distinctly remember thinking at the end of the film, "the CGI was done right - not too long and not too 'in your face.'"

So on the Eriq scale, it was a good movie.

Now, let's take a look at a film that I did not particularly enjoy, although all signs indicated I should have - Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. The answers are:

1. No. It wasn't a waste of my time, but all the build-up for that? Come on...
2. Umm, no. In fact, I lost count. I also lost count of the number of times I wanted a tree to fall on Jar-Jar Binks and get the joke over with. Only at the end of the movie did I realize it wasn't a joke.
3. I tried really, really hard. I probably would have fared better if I hadn't kept thinking "That robe color just really doesn't work for Samuel L. Jackson" instead of "that [insert forgotten character name here] must really like the pastels - that tells me something about his inner conflict." Oh, wait. There was no inner conflict in this film.
4. Mostly. I was sitting so close to the screen and the sound was up so loud, the only way I could have been less aware of my surroundings was if I were unconscious.
5. I'll say "yes" here despite my strong gut feeling not to. If I had been able to focus on the film instead of gagging at the next Jar-Jar scene or thinking "man, that Natalie Portman is really hot" I might have had a better chance to understand what the hell was happening.
6. Yes. I really wanted Jar-Jar to die. I cared that he made life a living hell for everyone around him. Who were those people around him, anyway? Besides Natalie, I mean.
7. Mostly. I was very impressed with the visuals George Lucas delivered, but there were several times when I said "wow, that Tattooine really reminds me of Lubbock, Texas."

Needless to say, I did not think that Phantom Menace was a good film. To the point that I haven't seen Clone Wars to date. This from the guy who saw the original Star Wars in the theaters 40 times in 1977, not to mention the Star Wars movie marathons and the re-release of the original films.

This was fun. Maybe I'll do the same for "I, Robot" when I see it this weekend.

Hope springs eternal.

That certainly sounds better than "Hope summers eternal" which is pretty much the case around here. Our nice cool and wet June is over. Almost as if scheduled, July 1 came, and so did the heat. Yow. We've only logged a quarter of an inch of rain at the house for July, whereas we had over 9 inches of rain in June.

That means I've got to start watering the lawn again. And the new trees and other plants we "installed" over the last couple of months. So I'll be outside in the hot evenings, hand watering several areas at least 3 times a week if not more often. Such is the price we pay for living in Texas and wanting to keep something green through the hot summers.

At least we're not in Lubbock or Las Vegas or Phoenix where it's hotter and drier. Ugh.

Had some good news come across my path this past week. This week could turn into even better news. And no, I'm not talking about divining the winning lottery numbers, although I'd certainly settle for that. No, this is something else, and I'm kind of excited about it. More about that when it comes down.

And the Rangers will enter the All-Star break at least tied for 1st place in the AL West.

Otherwise, happy July to you and yours.

OK, so I survived the weekend. Booooooooooooring at work. But I did go see a movie Sunday night. Sis and I went to see Garfield. It wasn't all that bad, but I'm sooooo glad that we went on a dead night, because the few kids that were in the theater were just obnoxious. I don't know if I could have handled sitting in a crowded theater full of kids, but I survived the show.

On Monday, I had a chance to talk with a friend and share with him some of my personal history - the depression, the anxiety, the panic attacks, and the probable source of those issues. He shared with me about the abuse he endured as a child. In the nearly three years that I've known him, I never would have guesses. My brother and I have often discussed how well we turned out despite our background. In my friend, I saw someone else who has built a successful life around the obstacles he had.

It is possible to overcome great adversity. We're living proof.

I thought I was looking forward to the July 4 holiday weekend. I am now so dreading the next two days.

1. My wife is in Kansas with her family (and her brother's girlfriend). They'll be back late Monday night.
2. I worked today (Saturday). I was hoping that our call volume would be light today. It was. I took one call. It was a short one. I never knew how quickly time passed when you're helping save someone's job. The rest is mind-numbingly dull.
3. I work tomorrow (Sunday). That's right. No July 4th off for me. My schedule changed from Tuesday-Saturday to Sunday-Thursday this weekend. Yep. I'm scheduled to work from Tuesday 6/29 through Thursday 7/8. I also start working a later shift. Well, by an hour. Instead of 6am-3pm, I'm now 7am-4pm. Just later enough to make traffic a living nightmare.
4. I am off Monday July 5. Paid holiday. That's the only thing keeping me SANE right now is knowing that I won't ACTUALLY work 10 straight days. However, I don't have anything going on Monday (see #1 above), and I can't stay out late that night (see #1 above again) so unless I get inspired to do something outlandish (not likely) I'll proabaly mope around the house in my underwear reading a book or somesuch.

I did find a few things that aren't boring:
1. I'm in my 8th month of maintaining this blog. That's something of a record for me. Keeping up with something that requires regular maintenance for an extended period.
2. I've put up a new and completely different blog - Things I Wish I Had Known. It's my geek blog of documentation of doing geeky stuff with computers. Unless you need information about integrating Macs into a Windows network environment, you'll probably find it very, very dull. Boring, perhaps. But not to me.
3. Ummmm, what was #3?

Joy...