philblog

Secretary Phil

They put the important interns right behind the Secretary.

Misc.

So I've uploaded a bunch of pictures onto my gallery. Most of them are self-explanatory. I don't really feel like telling a story about everything, so I've just added some captions to some describe ones that needed explaining.

Pots and Pans

So I just read my sister's post about a shopping scam and was reminded of a somewhat-related fun adventure that Laura and I had last week. Laura got this call last week Wednesday that she had won a free vacation for the two of us because she had entered to win at a bridal fair sometime ago. All we had to do was attend a seminar on cookingware and we'd get our voucher. The women told Laura that it would be basically like watching a taping of Emeril's TV show, which actually was pretty true (but without the whole 'BAM!' thing). So despite numerous warnings that we were going to be scammed we went to this seminar.

It basically consisted of some schmuck trying to sell us and 4 other engaged couples his expensive cookware. He had his own kitchen set up, complete with an angled mirror on the ceiling so that we could see what he was doing on the countertop. He made some food for us to taste and started quoting us prices. Essentially, each pot or pan costs about $450, or we could get sets of cookware ranging from $3000 to $15000. So Laura and I sat down, talked it over, pulled out our budget for the upcoming year, and decided that it wasn't worth spending our expected-$15000 surplus for next year on cookware. So we took our voucher for the free vacation (which is good for the next 2 years, or we can call and extend its expiration date) and told the nice man that we were honestly very interested in his wares but decided that we'd like to keep our money.

So in conclusion, to all those neysayers who told us we were being scammed: we got a free 2 night vacation to a resort in Mexico and you didn't.

and all they needed was our credit card and our social security numbers...

Stupid

So I've been enticed by SBC's offer of waiving the installation charge if I add a landline in my apartment via the internet. I sign on to SBC's website (from a Calvin computer - I currently have no internet or phone connection in my apartment, hence, or hencewise, as my sister might say, the adding of a new phone line) and am instructed to fill out a form to request a phone line. Take a look at the error message it produced, keeping in mind that the purpose of me adding a new phone line is because I currently don't have one.

One week left

Well faithful readers, only one more week left in the Nation's capital. I'm excited to get back to Grand Rapids, and I'll give you two reasons why that is: this and this. There are other reasons, but those are two of the biggies.

Some highlights from the past weeks: Nationals game, a visit to Ford's Theater, a police bust next door to our apartment, and a trip to Mount Vernon.

My next post will most likely be from Grand Rapids, although maybe you'll see something soon on what I think about President Bush coming to Calvin.