Yes, that’s right, the temperature almost hit the mid-70s today. Walking outside and catching a whiff of the warm spring-like air, I was reminded that we had unseasonably warm weather almost exactly a year ago for the New Year party at the dojo. That was one of the first times the babies were out of the house for anything other than an appointment with their doctor.

This also got me thinking about how much they have changed in the last 365 days. Getting thrown up on was one of our main concerns back then because both Gabriel and Chloe were doing that at least once a day. I’m hesitant to type it for fear of ruining out streak of luck, but we haven’t had anyone vomit for some time now. In fact, I can’t really remember the last time…this is a good thing! I guess all those people who were trying to be helpful and reassuring (but were really annoying and upsetting) by telling us that “it’s a phase” and “they’ll get over it” were right after all.

I am simply amazed at how they have grown and all they have learned. As Gabriel played with his toy car and parking garage set and Chloe sat on her little chair with plastic rings on each arm (“Pretty! Pretty!”, she repeated) I sat and watched them tonight wondering how these two little people could be so smart and adorble and still share my genes.

Since I work from home most of the time, I sometimes miss my commute. That used to be my time to catch up on the news via NPR on [url=http://www.wnyc.org]WNYC[/url]. There was a good mix of local, national and international stories with real journalists who did real reporting on stories of consequence. When I’m at home, I tend to go to CNN.com for most of my news. Why? It’s easy. The headlines are there and the stories are easy to read. Sometimes, like today where the [url=http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/01/04/spears/index.html]news about Britney’s latest breakdwon[/url] is the most popular story, I feel like I’m missing out on the REAL news.

If you sometimes feel the same, check out [url=http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19845/]”You Don’t Understand Our Audience” – What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC by John Hockenberry[/url]. Great stuff. While you’re there, check out the rest of MIT’s Technology Review, too.

Our washing machine is fixed! I had called Sears’ Customer Service a day or two after our last cancellation and got an appointment for last Friday, the 28th. The tech came, determined that the problem was simply a clogged drain pump and took care of the issue in about 30 minutes. We’re almost caught up on our laundry now! Today, someone from Sears called us to talk about our Better Business Bureau complaint. However, I was on the phone with my company’s benefits department because our new insurance cards didn’t list Chloe as a covered dependant, so I wasn’t able to talk to the Sears person. I got her name and number and we tried to call her back after I was done with my other call. Of course, we didn’t get any answer at the number she gave us, so I’m not sure what that’s about. I plan on flooding that number with calls on Wednesday, though!

This speaks for itself….

I love that the kid’s parents include the toilet in the whole experience like he’s part of the family. I’m not sure if my kids will enjoy this when it’s time to start working on potty training, but I found the vocabulary to be helpful:
[list]
[*]おしっこ – wee wee; pee pee;
[*]うんち – poo; poop;
[/list]

I love [url=http://www.youtube.com]YouTube[/url]!!

I didn’t write anything about this earlier because I just didn’t have the time, but Gabriel had his follow-up surgery on December 21st. Things went well. In fact, I’m just going to use the text from Robyn’s email to give the details for posterity:

Gabriel is home and doing well. I fed him a bottle at 3:00a.m. to get him through and he was actually taken in to surgery about 30 minutes early (around 9:40a.m.), so that was kind of nice, so we weren’t hanging around all day. Don got to be with him when they put the mask on his face to put him to sleep. Then they took Don out and did the IV and started surgery. It took a little over an hour and went very smoothly. He didn’t bleed as badly this time and she said she would be VERY surprised if he ever needed another surgery for this again. They tested it by forcing water at a high pressure through the catheter and there were no leaks, so it looks promising. After the surgery, they let me go in first to be with him and he was totally inconsolable. He still had the IV, electrodes on his chest and the oxygen thingie on his toe. He was crying so hard. He took his bottle for me like a champ and they gave him some good drugs, but he still cried hard. They then brought Don in and he went to Don and calmed down a little. They went to flush his IV and it was blocked, so they took it out, at which point he calmed down a bit more. They gave him some bladder spasm meds and that probably helped a bit too. Now he’s on an antibiotic, bladder spasm med and tylenol with codeine. He also has a catheter for at least 12 days. Ugh. He’s behaving pretty normally and was playing earlier, so that is a good sign. He just fell asleep in Don’s arms after screaming like a crazy person. I think he had a bladder spasm and he can’t have the meds again until 8p.m. 🙁 I hope the pains pass soon.

He’s still doing well. He doesn’t seem to be experiencing any pain for the last couple of days, but he [b]has[/b] been really, really needy – always wanting to be held and in touching distance. It’s very sad as we can’t hold him all the time, obvisouly.

More of the Sears debacle: After the problems we had last week with [url=http://don.oninohana.com/blog/?postid=245]our repair visit being “cancelled”[/url], I managed to get an appointment set up for earlier than the December 28th date that the morons at customer service said was the first available. The new appointment was for today, December 24th.

Well, this morning around 9AM, we got a call from Sears. I was hopeful that they were going to tell me that the service technician was on the way over but to my great dismay and amazement, they actually told us that today’s appointment was being cancelled because the tech had called in sick. I couldn’t believe this and I told the guy on the phone as much, but he was as robotic as ever; his only response was to offer me the next available date – January 3rd! I was about to scream, but I managed to hold it in and shoot off just a quick rant. I knew there was nothing I could do or say to get them to make anything happen before then, so I was resigned to my fate…. This sounds so melodramatic, but my blood is just boiling again as I write this and relive the conversation in my mind.

Sears sucks! I’m really, really going to reconsider before purchasing anything from Sears in the future due to this experience. This HAS to be the worst customer service experience of my life. This system of Sears’ is completely [b]customer-UNfriendly[/b]. Robyn has, of course, reported this issue to the Better Business Bureau and I opened a formal complaint through Sears customer service. I doubt that a huge company like Sears will respond to either of these, but it’s worth a try.

I have no idea what the title of this post means, but it does contain the word “bread” which is what this is all about.

I’ve decided that we’re no longer going to buy bread from the store. Instead, I will make all of our loaves at home, from scratch. That’s right, just flour, water, yeast, sugar, salt, butter and eggs. Mix, knead, rise, knead, rise again and bake.

Here is my first attempt.

As you remember from a [url=http://don.oninohana.com/blog/?postid=242]previous post[/url], our washing machine crapped out on us and we had scheduled an appointment for the Sears repair tech to come today “between 1pm and 5pm”. 4 o’clock rolled by with no call or appearance from the tech. After finishing work, I headed upstairs and played with the kids for a bit to give Robyn a break and then decided that I should call to check on the status of the service call. The guy I spoke with said that we were 6th on the list for the day and that the tech had arrived at stop #5, but there was no further information. So, we waited. As 5pm approached and Robyn was getting ready for work, I decided that if we did not hear from anyone by 5, I would call later assuming that we would get the first appointment tomorrow. It’s an annoyance, but no big deal.

As I was getting ready to feed the kids, we got a call from the “routing center”. This was at 5:10, by the way. The gentleman said that the tech was “in the area” and wanted to know if they could send him over now. I said that this was not acceptable because it was past the timeframe in which Sears said that someone would be at our home. In addition, my wife was getting ready for work and I needed to watch the kids, so I couldn’t deal with having the tech there at that time. In response, I was told that he could schedule us for the next available appointment. Thinking I was going to hear tomorrow’s date, my jaw hit the floor when he instead gave December 28th as the next available time. I immediately let loose on the guy. I told him that I had been waiting for more than two weeks for [i]THIS[/i] appointment, that I had take half a day off from work in order to be around (not true, but they don’t need to know that I work from home!), that we could not be another ten days without a washing machine and that this was unaccetable and he was going to get someone over here tomorrow.

[i][b]Sidenote[/b]: You know the most annoying thing about good customer service people? They maintain their calm, zen-like state in the face of any verbal assault from the customer. One would think that this would, in turn, mellow the customer. But it had the polar opposite effect on me; I got angrier and angrier as he seemed completely unphased by any question I asked or demand that I made.[/i]

We went back and forth for several minutes. I mainly wanted to know why we would not just get pushed to tomorrow instead of having to wait so long. Of course, this guy did not make the rules and didn’t have an answer. Robyn even got on the phone to no avail. After much ado, we agreed to have the tech come back tonight. Unfortunately, the router (Scott) told us that he already disconnected from the technician and he was no longer en route to our home (even though we had not yet agreed on a solution). We ended being transferred to customer service where I spoke with Mary.

Mary seemed nice and she was certainly expressing her sympathy for our situation, but in the end, she did nothing that could really help us to get someone here tonight or tomorrow. We parted ways after she told me she had sent a message to the routing center and we should receive a call within an hour. After 45 minutes, I called customer service back, got disconnected and called back again. This time, I got Manny who was not only not helpful, but a bit arrogant. He repeated the party line that there were no available appointments until December 28th. At this point, I had had it with Sears. I was actually thinking about renting a truck and dropping the washing machine off at Sears’ front door. But they had us against the wall. What else could I do at this point? I was emotionally drained. It’s a very frustrating situation to realize that you have no further recourse. I relented and told Manny that we’d take his December 28th appointment. Of course, before hanging up, I had to ask if there were any guarantees that someone would show up on that day and also ask about who we call to cancel our service contract and if there was any chance that Sears would reimburse us for our trips to the laundromat. Heheheheh…that’s pretty funny now that I think about it.

What a pain in the ass! Of course, I’m pretty positive the technician is going to come on the 28th, diagnose the problem and then have to order some parts that will take a few weeks to be delivered. In addition, we’ll have to make several trips to do laundry between now and then.