The saga continues… I can’t get a straight answer from either T-Mobile or Comcast regarding the “porting” of my home number.  Comcast first told me it would be done by the 29th and then told me it would be done today.  T-Mobile told me that it was already completed.

I called Customer Care and they have filled out a “trouble ticket” on this situation.  I am waiting to hear from them.

I will keep this updated, but as of right now, I still have no home phone dial tone or service.

Well, as you may know T-Mobile has recently introduced the T-Mobile @ Home where you can keep your landline # and use their router equipped with a SIM card and you can make calls for $10 a month.  Basically it is the same VOIP service that is provided by Comcast, Vonage and others, but for a cheaper price.  I have been a T-Mobile customer for 6 years now and have been very satisfied with their service.  I had heard about this when I was in a T-Mobile store in June and was excited about the technology.

I signed up for the service on Saturday 7/12 at a T-Mobile store in our neighborhood.  I saw a brief demonstration and saw how easy it was and figured I could save $20 a month by switching from Comcast.  Little did I know that this would turn into a nightmare of epic proportions with no real answers from T-Mobile, Comcast, or Linksys.

First, I found out that it would take 10 days to “port” my number over from Comcast.  I was not too worried about this, but this has been a problem.  I also realized that my current phone (a 2.4 Ghz) would not work with the T-Mobile @ Home router.  So I upgraded to the V-Tech model sold by T-Mobile.  The V-Tech phone is a nice phone with unbelievable sound quality, especially using the speaker phone.  When I purchased the V-Tech phone on the 19th, I was told that if my number had not been “ported” over by Tuesday, to come back in and they would get to the bottom of it.

Tuesday came and we found out that we cannot receive any incoming calls on our landline, but we could make outgoing calls.  I went back to T-Mobile and they said that this was a sign that the “port” was in process.  They checked and said that the port had taken place… They decided that it was probably a SIM card issue and after they tried to call @ Home customer service and we sat on hold forever, they gave me a new SIM card and figured that would solve the problem.

I got home and had a few things to take care of and then I tried again to no avail.  I called T-Mobile Customer Care and they had me do the usual power cycle of the cable modem and router, etc.  When they were stumped as to why the Phone light would not illuminate and I had no dial tone, and that the SIM card was showing that it was installed but not registered, they passed me off to Linksys.  Did I mention the fact that I sat on hold for 30 mins again before a live voice answered!

I called Linksys and talked with a nice guy who sounded like he was overseas somewhere.  He had me do the same stuff with the router and the cable modem and then he had me take out the SIM card and put it in the other slot (the router has two SIM card slots).  Same result, SIM shows being installed but not registered.  He advised me to take the SIM card and the router back to the T-Mobile store.

I went back again today (Wednesday) to the T-Mobile store and explained my situation to someone else again for the third time.  This gentleman was a bit more helpful.  He took the SIM cards and tested both of them.  He also called Customer Care and did not have to wait 30 mins and explained everything to them and he decided that it was a router issue.  He replaced the router and sent me home with a new router and a supposedly working SIM card.   Well, you guessed it, same result, nothing.  Router works great with the Internet, but still no dial tone, no ability now to make or receive outgoing calls (I disconnected the Comcast phone equipment to make sure that it was not interfering with the T-Mobile stuff).  No blue light illuminating for the phone, no dial tone.  I checked, double checked and triple checked everything!

It is almost 11:30 pm and I am extremely frustrated because I cannot get this fixed.  I am going to try again tomorrow morning and see what they say this time.  Needless to say, I am extremely disappointed with T-Mobile and hope that they will fix this soon.  I am wondering if they rolled this out too soon without working out all the bugs.

Stay tuned to see what happens with this nightmare….

Last Friday, my family and I ventured over to St. Paul to try to the new Sonic Drive-In.  We had to wait in line for a short period of time, then we found a car stall where we could order and eventually eat our food.  Most people know, I am not big on eating food in the car either while it is moving or stationary.  I like to eat where I can enjoy it.   We placed our order and patiently waited for our food.  Our order was delivered to us by one of their car-hops who was very courteous and accurate (he made sure that our order was correct).  We began to eat our food and I noticed that they did not leave the tray on the side of the car to help out with food placement and the biggest problem, they did not give us any napkins!

We headed back home and encountered a huge thunderstorm in route.  Once home, I reflected that the food was okay (nothing special).   I had previously lived in an area that had Sonic, so this was not a big deal to me.  I was glad that my wife and son were able to enjoy it.  If I want to go again, I will wait until they build one closer to where we live!

I realize that by the time this is posted, it will be early Thursday, but nonetheless, here goes.

I want to start a new feature entitled Wednesday Wisdom.  It is simple, I will be sharing with you what I heard earlier in the evening at our church’s midweek service.

Currently, our pastor is in a series on the Names of God.  Tonight we studied about Jehovah-Yahweh from Exodus chapter 3.

Jehovah-Yahweh - Isaiah 42:8

This is found in our Bibles as LORD

It is the primary name for God that is found over 5000 times in the entire Bible.

In Exodus 3 we see an interesting exchange:

Moses raises two objections:  Who am I?  (referring to himself) and Who are you? (referring to God)

We see from this passage the following

1) Jehovah-Yahweh is personal - vs. 1-4

2) Jehovah-Yahweh is particular - vs. 5-6

3) Jehovah-Yahweh is present - vs. 7-9

4) Jehovah-Yahweh is purposeful - vs. 10-11

5) Jehovah-Yahweh is patient - vs. 11-13

6) Jehovah-Yahweh is powerful

II Chronicles 14:11

I am enjoying this series on the names of God.  I hope that you will enjoy reading as well!

Many of you may or may not know that I am originally from Southern CA and grew up listening to KNX AM 1070. Now with the advent of technology, I can listen to KNX via the Internet and download various podcasts.

I enjoy listening to the KNX Business Hour with Frank Mottek. Today I was listening to Monday’s podcast and overheard the following statement made by Jim Murphy, UK Minister for Europe,

“We are spending too much money on energy.  Too many of our citizens are spending too much on energy.”

Was he making a statement that energy prices are too high?  Or was he trying to say that we were spending too much and causing global warming or climate change?

I tend to think the latter, since most everyone in Europe and the UK has drank the Kool-Aid regarding the junk “science” of global warming.

Why doesn’t Mr. Murphy tell Al Gore that he is consuming too much energy?  Because liberals want YOU to change YOUR lifestyle and sacrifice, but they will keep their gas guzzling, energy wasting lifestyle.

Another question is, “If people are willing to pay for whatever energy they consume, then Mr. Murphy, How much is too much?” I don’t think the question can be answered, because it is not up to us or anyone else to pass judgment on someone elses energy usage if they are the one having to pay for it.

I have always enjoyed different foods and trying different things.  Not too exotic, though.  Recently I have not been able to figure out why all of the fuss and hype about certain foods that have been around forever.

Nowadays, you can’t go anywhere without seeing something that has pomegranate in it.  There is pomegranate applesauce, pomegranate lemonade, pomegranate and green tea mixed.  You get the point. My question is why all of the fuss.  I can remember eating pomegranates as a snack when I was in kindergarten, no big deal.  They tasted great.

The next food is black beans.  Something that has been around for a while but now they seem to be in everything, especially burritos and other such delicacies.  Now you can go to the store and find several different types of black beans:  vegetarian, Cuban, etc.

I would like to hear from readers as to why all of the fuss about these foods.  If I thought about it long enough, I could come up with more foods that fit it this category.  I welcome your opinions and comments!

Pomegranate Picture courtesy of pomegranates.org

Black Beans Picture courtesy of wikipedia

I am out of town enjoying the 4th of July holiday with family.  As you seek to enjoy time with family and friends over this holiday weekend, remember and do these things:

1.   Thank the Lord for the opportunity to live in a free country

2.   Pray for those who serve in our military whose service allows us to remain free

3.   Pray for the upcoming elections 

Enjoy the holiday!

 

Future post:  I am in the process of writing a post about Alumni Associations.  Stay tuned for that post!

I have heard these two terms a lot recently because I have been listening to some podcasts from the recent Founders Conference.  For the record, I am not a Southern Baptist, but I do have friends that are part of the SBC.  I appreciate the work of what Founders is attempting to do, but as an outsider (I am a Baptist) I have to ask the questions:

1) Why all of this talk about a conservative resurgence and great commission resurgence?  Did the SBC lose the Bible somewhere along the way?  I figured that the SBC would have been just as devoted to the Great Commission as anyone else, maybe even more so because of the sheer size of the denomination itself.

2) I also heard a lot of emphasis on church renewal?   I am still trying to figure out what was actually meant by this terminology.

My intention is not to offend in asking these questions, but trying to understand the use and possible overuse of such terminology and how that it can be somewhat confusing to those of us who are outside of the SBC, but still interested.

This is my description of Fuddruckers.  We went to one that is located near where we live.  Last Saturday, we decided to try to new Sonic Drive-In that opened up recently in our area.  When we got there, we saw that the wait was going to be longer than we had expected.  At that point, we decided to go elsewhere and we ended up at Fuddruckers.

I can remember many years ago, when living in Southern California when Flakey Jakes and Fuddruckers went head to head.  The concept that each of them presented was new for the time and the competition was fierce.  Each place had its pros and cons.

Walking into this Fuddruckers brought back memories of the late 80’s and then reality kicked in!  It was lunchtime and there was hardly anyone in there on a Saturday!  The food was okay, nothing spectacular, but also very expensive.  While waiting, I looked around and was wondering how a chain that was so popular in the late 80’s (at least in Southern California) seems to be largely irrelevant now?

Maybe you have a comment regarding this.  I would like to hear your opinion.  Maybe I am right or maybe I am wrong?

I have added a few more papers to the papers page.  Read, enjoy and please provide feedback!