Quick and painful story about trying to pay my Cox cable bill...

In a nutshell: can't login to pay my bill because you need a cox.com email address now. can't create a cox.com email addy because I don't know what my PIN is. Don't know what my PIN is because it's only printed on the bill, but I’m paperless, so I can't access my bill. They can't give me my PIN over the phone because they don't have my phone number on record. They don't have my phone number on record because they overwrote my cell # with my Cox # when I signed up for phone service to save on a bundle last year. My options are to locate a store and get my PIN from there. Also, I can pay the bill by phone. Why not online??

Later, a Spanish billing rep helped me pay my current bill over the phone and *waived the fee*. (Thanks for mentioning that paying by phone incurs a fee!) Another customer support rep helped me reset my PIN by accessing my account using my SSN. She also told me that my cell # WAS on the account.

Got my PIN reset ... tried creating a new account. *Invalid PIN*

fail.

I feel like I aced the SATs.

Back in 2005 when Joy and I were getting ready to move out here, my brother told me about a report he heard on NPR about 'fire season' in Southern California and how for several months of the year, the conditions are ripe for brush/forest fires. We thought it sounded kind of like how we have hurricane season (June 30-Nov 1) along the eastern seaboard.

So now, having experienced (one of) the worst fire seasons in SD, I figured I would draw some comparisons/contrasts. I hardly consider myself an expert in either fires or hurricanes, but I have had real experience with both now...

Similarities:
- Evacuations for multitudes of peoples and everything that comes with it (shelters, fully booked hotels, decisions on whether to stay/leave, which direction to head)
- 24 hour coverage of the situation on all the local stations
- Mass destruction
- Wondering when to go back

Differences:
- Advance warning (you know a hurricane's a'comin')
- Much less predictable nature of fires
- FIRE vs. water

There's more, I'm sure, but I guess I noticed the similarities more. (With a big exception being FIRE, which I'm mortally afraid of, versus people here, who seem to be mortally afraid of ANY precipitation and drive as if they're trying to get away from it! ) Anyway, they opened up Qualcomm Stadium (home of the reigning Super Bowl AFC, er, West Champs!) as an evacuation shelters with people setting up tents outside and around the concourses. There's been a huge outpouring of relief from residents of San Diego, which has been tremendously helpful for the evacuees. It's really been great to hear about how they've had to turn away aid because they simply have too much.

And here's where I must degenerate into another minirant™. Local TV and radio people and residents calling/writing into local shows are starting to compare the situation here to 2003 New Orleans and Katrina. Some have been subtle, some have been outright disgraceful. I've heard things like "It's so great to see how San Diegans  have united..." or "Qualcomm is like the Ritz of evacuee camps". Great that's the case, but do you realize WHY it's so different? True, half the city has evacuated, but the other half is still HERE. People that fled to the Superdome went as a last resort to survive and it wasn't like the other half of the city was around to bring aid nor was there means for people from outside of NO to bring it! Also, NO unfortunately does have deeply rooted racial issues which Katrina unfortunately brought to the forefront and magnified. Please don't say "San Diegans" vs. "New Orlineans" when you mean "white people" vs. "black people". Another person was applauding the city/county/state (not sure which) council for waiving building permits for people that want to rebuild (I agree!) but went so far as to say "This isn't New Orleans - people want to return to San Diego." Um, duh! Why would people (who are for the most part much wealthier than the average New Orlinean) leave their 'perfect' sunny and 70s all year 'round SD? And do you not realize that a lot of people (who didn't want to leave in the first place) want(ed) to return to New Orleans, but are unable, whether it's because they're too poor or they're literally unable to?

Ugh. I could go on, but it's pointless. I love San Diego and I'm saddened (and quite honestly, a bit frightened!) by everything that's happened this past week. But please don't pile on New Orleans. Enough has been said and hopefully plenty of lessons were learned (maybe even some that helped SD), but apparently some people weren't paying attention.

So there's currently an article on ESPN about Jim Jones' adopted son and grandson, the grandson being a standout basketball player currently attending USD. (Search Jim Jones on ESPN.com.) After reading the article, I (for whatever morbid reason) wanted a refresher on the whole Jonestown/People's Temple thing. I actually did a report in 9th grade about Jim Jones and David Koresh, comparing the two. (The title of this post is a little joke between a friend and me - it was just the two of us in this 'independent study' class. We would go to the library every day and just ... talk and kid around and pretend to do research.) Anyway, most people know about the mass suicide/murder that happened via cyanide-laced grape drink. (I think it's pretty common knowledge that it was grape ...) But did you know that it wasn't actually Kool-Aid? I'm not sure I came across this when I did my report. Everybody at some point has said or heard the colloquialism "Don't drink the Kool-Aid" or something to that effect, right? Well, guess what? It wasn't Kool-Aid, it was Flavor Aid! What the heck is Flavor Aid? I can't say I've ever had it, but that's not the point. I just felt the need to write about this because I think Flavor Aid missed out on a HUGE branding opportunity here. They're making artificial drinks in relative obscurity while the Kool-Aid man's been busting through walls and taking credit for Jonestown. (And obviously doing much better in the brand recognition category.) This is a huge injustice to Flavor Aid (parent company Jel Sert) - one that needs to be corrected ASAP.