I HATE UPS. Previously, I liked UPS and I thought they were pretty good. Granted, they once destroyed a monitor I sold on eBay and absolutely ruined an iMac I sold, but other than those fiascos it was OK. The USPS has been worse given that the customer service is generally non-existent, they kick things around, and ever since Priority Mail became pricey, it kind of stinks. At least they are consistent with pick-ups and frankly, I have not had a problem with them lately, at least not from a business perspective. The fact that our mail guy throws packages across the parking lot to Brian is more of a personal matter anyway. But today, UPS has really done it. This is the LAST time they will get my business. They were supposed to pick up a package on Friday but they never came. I called this morning to get them to pick it up today. Here is how the conversation went with UPS:

“We never had you down for pick-up.”
“I paid for pick-up and requested a pick-up for Oct.28.”
“We don’t have you down. But we can schedule a new pick-up.”
“OK, good, then I want to schedule a pick-up for today. I will be home all day.”
“OK, we will pick-up the package by 7 PM.”
“That will be fine.”
“The pick-up fee will be $5.20.”
“I already paid a pick-up fee of $2.20 online.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“It does not show up in the computer. We will just charge the credit card again for the $5.20.”
“Fine, OK.”
“Thank you for using UPS. We are sorry you had a mix-up about the pick-up.”
“No, thank you.”

I looked online and saw that I did indeed have a pick-up confirmation number that they told me I did not have. So, I called back.

“Hi, thank you for calling UPS, do you need to schedule a pick-up?”
“No, I need to talk to someone because of being charged twice for pick-up because no one picked up my package.”
“Oh, well that is why you are being charged then, because you ordered pick-up.”
“No, you do not understand, UPS NEVER picked up the package that I arranged to have picked up on Friday.”
“We have you down for today for pick-up.”
“Yes, I know that, however, I am referring to the fact that I paid for pick-up twice and I am only getting one pick-up out of this.”
“Oh, let me transfer you.” *click*

“Thank you for calling UPS, how may I help you.”
(insert story here)
“Do you want my Pick-up Request Number?”
“Yes.”
*gave pick-up request number
“Your pick-up never went through.”
“Yes, I am aware of that as I mentioned in the earlier part of our conversation.”
“Can I have your new pick-up request number?”
“They did not give me one as I called to schedule the pick-up over the phone. Can you not use my phone number to locate it?”
“Sure, I can use your phone number.”
*gave phone number*
*she then repeats my address to me*
“That is incorrect, you have left off the apartment number, my apartment number is ***.”
“Well, maybe that is why it did not go through.”
“You had two blanks and I put my address in the first street address blank and in the second address blank I put my Apt number.”
“Oh. I am going to have our shipping warehouse people call you within one hour.”
“OK, and what about my refund for the extra $5.20 I paid?”
“That’s why they will call you.”
“OK, that is fine.”
“Will you be home all day?”
“Yes, I will be home all day.”
“Until what time?”
“All day.”
“Oh, I didn’t know if you had friends…”
“What?”
“OK, you are all set and they will call you within an hour.”
“Thanks.”
“Bye-bye.”

Just now, the UPS pick-up people called.

“Hello.”
“Hi, this Kim from UPS calling about your pick-up.”
“Oh OK, great.”
“Sorry about not picking up your package on Friday. I am not sure why it did not go through the system.”
“No problem, I would just like to have it picked up today.”
“OK, we have you down to have it picked up by 7 PM.”
“Great. I will be here all day.”
“OK then, no problem, thank you.”
“Also, I needed to see about a refund for the additional charge I was billed today because of the pick-up since I paid for it online already.”
“OK, well I will see what I can do but you might have to wait for your credit card bill to come in and then call me to let me know. Here is my phone number in case you get charged for it again XXX-XXXX. I am local.”
“OK, thanks.”
“Thank you, Bye!”

Blah! They can’t even reverse incorrect charges? Come on. This is absurd.

Of course, part of the issue is that I am utterly exhausted. As Brian works on his dissertation we both have to stay up because the bed and computer are in the same room. Usually, we are averaging about 3 hours of sleep per night. So, he will work on his dissertation until 4 AM and then instead of finishing what he needs to do, he waits until the morning and sets the clock for 6 or 7 AM then gets up again to work on it. Then we go to the gym and he stretches and puts me through rigorous training workouts so that my body is an utter state of exhaustion. Just last night I made it through only 2 sets of squats before my legs started cramping up. My quads have NEVER cramped or even really gotten tired for that matter. I think I am losing muscle mass because of exhaustion, I feel so tired, and I can’t get any sleep. We usually get one good night of sleep per week but one 11-13 hour night of rest does not make up for a week of 3 hour nights.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Take a look at this article: Mom gives birth to sixteenth child and wants more

How in the world could someone be a good parent to 16 kids, especially with very little children in the house? At least these people have the financial means to support these children and they seem to want them. But really, if you have to build “dormitory style” housing for your kids, do you not have a few too many? How could a child receive quality time in a family situation like that? If you sleep 8 hours per day that leaves you 16 hours that you can do other things with. The Dad has a real job so he obviously cannot spend even 30 minutes to an hour of alone time just talking to each child each day. The mother stays at home but that means that she is cooking, using the four washers and dryers, cleaning the 7000 sq ft home, and also they find time to reproduce (over and over again). These people could not be spending very much individual time with the kids. This does seem like irresponsible breeding to me. Do they NEED 16 children? Do they have a large farm? No. They just WANT 16 children. Could they not have had a couple of kids and adopted the rest? I mean, if you are going to have a ton of kids, why not help children that need homes rather than create more. At this point, they are just contributing to overpopulation, environmental damage (through trash, a giant house, no doubt gas guzzling cars to carry around all those kids, etc.) In addition, can any of these kids ever do anything they want? If one wants to play soccer and another wants to play lacrosse, do they let them or do they make them all play baseball because they can just drop off all the kids at the park because it is convenient? At any rate, these people seem rather creepy to me and the fact that this couple still has a good 10+ years of breeding left (or more) is frightening. Also, they seem to be ignorant of the conception process. The husband said, “I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them…” HELLO. This is not the virgin Mary we are talking about here. They had sex to make babies, it was not an immaculate conception! People who do not understand this should not make babies!!! Also, the bit about “she will accept them…” makes it sound as though she takes them only because the Lord is making a request of her. Is there a psychological disorder for someone who likes to make babies? If so, this couple has it. Alternatively, if they are not really sure about how this is happening, that might also be the problem.

Yesterday, I surfed on to CNN.com and saw that they had a little street documentary about the Big Mac and how McDonalds is putting nutrition labels about calories, fat, sat. fat, sodium, etc right on the wrapper so that all people who eat a Big Mac and fries know they are eating a billion grams of saturated fat, tons of calories, and enough sodium to make any blood pressure medication manufacturer happy. And the Americans they interviewed by in large said they did not want to know what they were putting inside of their bodies! Most of the British people they interviewed DID want to know what they were putting in their bodies. Why do Americans have to be stupid? They also asked people how many calories they thought were in a Big Mac and the french fries. One woman seriously said “10 calories.” When they told her the Big Mac had 560 calories she was in shock. Ten calories? Are you kidding me? How can you NOT know what a calorie is and how much is in your food at least enough to hazard a reasonable estimate? People are dumb!

Popularity: 9% [?]

I am currently drawing the Yurt floor plan, plumbing/cistern plan, and electrical/solar plan, in addition, I am drawing up the grey water management plan. I have been reading a great deal about composting toilets and grey water systems. I think I can make a very unique plan for our Yurt. I am still working on what my ideal composting area will be like for the composting toilet. This is exciting and interesting! Any thoughts or ideas are welcome…

Anyone heard of the company 4Frontiers that is going to Mars? Brian has been talking to the founders and is providing social psychological information for them. Brian wants to retire on Mars. I’ll be happy to just to get our Yurt in Hawaii at this point!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Our air mattress has died. It leaked air rather quickly last night and over the last couple of nights. We repaired the hole but it leaked to the point of being about 1/2 full. Brian is now sucking out all of the air so we can send it to the manufacturer for a refund. We also just went out and bought another air mattress to replace it with. Hopefully, this will at least get us to Hawaii. Then, we can buy an Aero Bed or something like that and a platform that will help keep it from debris and random floor weirdness.

In addition, I hope the single man is awakened by this pleasant noise being made by our air pump…

Popularity: 6% [?]

Fatty McUgly continues to steal cinderblocks and throw them. On the other hand, the single man, Stinky Drunko, seems to have the nasty odor of microwave buttered popcorn and cigarette smoke coming from his apartment. We will be very happy to move. We will be even happier when we move to a piece of land that has a 3 acre buffer from humanity.

I have been eBaying like crazy. I still continue to get stupid questions from people who don’t know how to read the auction page. Blah.

Popularity: 5% [?]

We have been talking lately about using the Yurt to build a permanent structure in Hawaii. We will assemble it ourselves and replace Yurt walls with real walls over time (just a thought) so that we have a wooden Yurt rather than a cloth Yurt. Or maybe we will like cloth, who knows. At any rate, we think we can build our Yurt for a pretty low price, buy energy efficient appliances, install solar panels and grow our own food so that we will be wholly sustainable. We are very much into the concept of voluntary simplicity. We definitely want to build our own house, grow our own food, generate our own power, and live in a rural setting. However, it appears that we will need a car, but only one!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Our neighbor upstairs, Fatty McUgly (this is the nice name I have given her, Brian has called her MUCH worse) has just stolen another cinderblock, this makes 2 in less than 8 hours! This woman is a kleptomaniac for cinderblocks. You would think if someone wanted to steal something, they might want to steal something better than that. We have already written a letter to the management about her and the single man. He and his friends have been yelling in the hallway at 2 AM and yelling in his apartment about how they are drunk and it’s a beautiful thing. Why can’t they be quiet drunks? And why can’t he live in a dorm anyway?

Popularity: 4% [?]

Just the other day I literally sliced away some of my flesh with a razor when I was shaving my legs. It hurt extremely badly and all this blood went down my leg and it was not pretty. So, Brian fixed up my leg for me and all was well. It seems to be healing rather nicely but it still hurts a great deal when I get water on it. Just a few minutes ago, after getting out of the shower, Brian put a bandaid on my leg where I did it. He also insisted on putting udder cream on my ankles because they are dry (due to me sitting on them, which he figured out was drying them out, neither myself nor my dermatologist could figure out why my ankles were dry) and he put it on my semi-hairless leg (the cut up leg) and then he put it on the other leg which I never shaved because the other leg was bleeding (and frankly, shaving just has not been a priority since I removed part of my leg!) and he started laughing at me for being half hairy and half smooth! He is a loving but mean husband!

We also had a great idea for shelter on the Big Island. We could just buy someone’s old shipping container and punch some holes in the side for windows and live there! It’s cheap and weird but I think we like the Yurt idea better. I am sending off for more Yurt information: fabric samples and deck plans…

Popularity: 5% [?]

Our hall stinks because of the single man next door. He is a stinky smoker that has smelly friends and they stink up the hall. Fortunately, we have a door right next to our hallway so we can just prop it open to air out the hall. Otherwise, it gets stale, stinky, and smells like smoke. We started propping the door open with a small rock. Someone took the rock. So, we started propping the door open with bricks (about 8 of them) and someone stole all 8 of the bricks. We decided at that point we would start putting out cinder blocks. So, now over 4 cinder blocks have been kicked onto the sidewalk and then were stolen. As I was sitting at the computer today, I heard a scraping noise (like a cinder block hitting the sidewalk) so I told Brian. He ran out into the mailbox area and finally had a confrontation with the culprit. She is this awful Ohioany woman that lives in our building. She is mean and nasty to everyone for no reason. She has always given us dirty looks (and I am sure anyone else) and she stares at people. She is probably in her late fifties (but she looks like she is 400 years old), always wears brown, and is the most drab looking creature we have ever seen. She has that awful Midwestern nasal voice and is just the quintessential post office employee. Brian thinks she works at the BMV (BUCKEYE Motor Vehicles) ;). After weeks of trying to figure out just who has been closing one of the doors to our building we finally know. Brian asked her if she had been the one kicking the cinderblocks onto the sidewalk and she said yes. So he asked why and told her how the hall stinks because of the single man’s cigarette smoke. She turned her back to him and walked up the stairs and said, “Take it up with the management.” while he was still talking. Rude. I will not repeat what colorful names he called her but he was fuming mad. Before she walked away she said that it made the building cold. We live on the first floor where the door is and she lives on the floor above. I highly doubt that the cold air goes up the stairway and then moves all the way over to her apartment. In addition, she was kicking and stealing bricks, rocks, and cinderblocks long before it got colder here. She was doing it when it was 80+ degrees! She is full of poo so Brian is going to report her to the management. Yay. We really feel sorry for her because she is such a mean-spirited, rude, passive-aggressive, thief.

It is ironically convenient that she is stealing our cinder blocks since we needed to toss them out anyway…

Popularity: 5% [?]

Check out this link:Secret Code ‘traces copies’

I bet some people are going to be sue happy over this issue. Can you say privacy right violations? I will buy my printers from Mexico from now on. Ole!

We have been using the German Volume Training Method now for about two week sessions and my legs are quite sore. But I think that I am gaining more muscle mass, which I have no doubt been doing anyway. In other related news, I have decided to start using creatine. I am still waiting for my vegetarian plant derived creatine (DiMaxx) to arrive. I am interested and anxious to see what it will do for my lifting. I did a great deal of research about creatine and really think this is a positive way to go. We shall see…

We have our race coming up on Thanksgiving and we are excited about that. I am running quite comfortably now and feel good. I also have decided I abhor the elliptical trainer, it is incredibly boring compared to weight lifting and/or running.

My grandmother was in the hospital twice over the last two weeks. First, she thought she was having a heart attack because she had muscle soreness in her arm. Then they gave her a medication for inducing stress on the heart to make sure her heart was OK and it had psychotropic properties so she had another bout of schizophrenia. After she left the hospital she was totally fine. The next weekend, when my father was out of town and my mother was home alone, she woke up and saw drool on her pillow so she called 911 saying she had had a seizure. She has never had a seizure nor did she have one. Even I drool when I sleep sometimes. And now, all of a sudden, with me calling her more often, my parents paying more attention to her, and everyone else paying more attention to her, her shoulder has magically healed itself and she no longer thinks that she needs to go to the orthopedic surgeon to chat about her shoulder and why it hurts. She also wants a computer. Yeah, that is going to happen. I did make fun of Brian by telling him that my grandma had a cell phone before he ever had one (of course, he only has one because I brought one to the marriage with me and insisted on using it). He hates cellphones.
Our 15 lb. medicine ball is proving to be a fun thing to use with our ab workouts, it causes an immense amount of pain!

Our next door neighbor (that we have to share a hallway with) smokes and he stinks. We always prop the door open so the odor can get out. We have used bricks and rocks to hold the door open and someone in the building does not like it. They have tried to throw the bricks out into the lawn, throw them into a bush, and steal them. So, when all the bricks and rocks were gone, we started freeing up cinder blocks within the apartment to use. One cinder block has been stolen and we are just waiting for the next one to be stolen. We know it is not the single man next door who is stealing them…but someone is.

We are gearing up for our move on Dec. 13 to Kamuela. Yay!

Popularity: 6% [?]

I am constantly hungry. I eat about every two hours or so but this is just not enough for my body. Just the other night, we had dinner #2 and I ate a sandwich from Subway that had two veggie patties and ended up being close to 1100 calories and I was still hungry. We eat like pigs around here. Fortunately, Brian also makes my whey protein shakes twice a day so I will not die from hunger after we workout. Brutal, brutal workouts… But we are having fun!

Popularity: 6% [?]

We got our 15 lb. medicine ball in the mail today, yay! We are having great fun with arm plyometrics despite my wearing a wrist splint in order to prevent further CTS related damage.

Because I am wearing a wrist splint during the day and while I sleep, it is difficult to do some tasks. One of those tasks is flossing my teeth, so, I used this weird flosser that Brian had in the medicine cabinet (because it is easier to use…it has a handle), especially since they had his endorsement. He said, “They work great!” After I flossed half of my mouth, I got the flosser stuck in between two teeth. So, I walked into the office where he was and said, “How are these good?” And he informed me that I must be the only person to ever get the flosser stuck in their teeth. Indeed, it was stuck and it was not going anywhere. Brian then had the pleasure of cutting it out of my mouth. Joy. Then I used regular floss, so I would not have to have anymore flossers cut from my mouth.

We went walking outside tonight and went to the Wetlands Observation tower at the OSU Wetlands Research Center and we saw a big garbage bag full of something (which we suspect to be a homeless guy) and the remnants of his fast food dinner. That was the second time we had seen a homeless person up there. At least we think it was a homeless person in the trash bag…

We have finally ordered our moving boxes for our big move in December. Brian is finishing up his dissertation and is doing weird Mars research. I am busy with random business things, web design for our businesses, and selling things on eBay. Also, we are continuing to train everyday. I am training for the Strongwoman competitions and Brian is training for all kinds of running. We are having a lot of fun too!

Popularity: 9% [?]

I just returned home from a trip to CVS (a drugstore). All the many times I have gone to a CVS I have never had a problem with anything. The stores are always clean and the shelves are always stocked. Sometimes, the prices are even decent. This time, I went in looking for a wrist brace for my carpal tunnel. Given all the heavy weights I am lifting, Brian and I both think it is best to heal this for good so that I will not have issues later down the line when I am competing in the Strongwoman competitions. At any rate, back to CVS… I found a satisfactory wrist splint and went to purchase it. The manager, an old fat woman in her late 60s (or she may have been 30 and just looked really really old, who knows), was the one who finally came over to the register where I was patiently waiting. She was too busy eating her White Castle hamburger to come help me. So, I had the joyous occasion of having her greasy hamburger and french fry fingers touch my item and then my debit card, and then my receipt. She asked if I had a CVS customer care card and I said no, because I had no desire to get into the fact that my CVS card was stolen in December (when we were robbed the day before our wedding) as well as the fact that I did not want to increase my exposure to hamburger and french fry goo on her nasty Ohioan hands. The last time I went into CVS, it was to buy perioding pads and the cashier (a college age male) asked if I had a CVS customer care card. I said no, it was stolen and I needed a new one. But frankly, he was turning so red from having to scan pads that he did not even hear me. Surprise, women bleed regularly, get over it. The other thing that irritated me about this CVS is that they have two doors to walk in/out of and then another two doors to get inside the store from the entry way. Why do they unlock only one door on each side, it seems illogical to me to have to zigzag and use the door that was marked for “out” to go “in”. More Ohioan stupidity, I suppose… We will not be sad to leave Ohio, that is for sure.

Popularity: 8% [?]

We did our grocery shopping this evening after dinner. Later, when we were hungry again and desired a smeal (snack/meal), we were looking for the brie that we had just purchased. It did not turn up in our thorough apartment search. So, we agreed that after we finished eating the smeal that we would march angrily up to the Giant Eagle (our crappy grocery store) and demand that they give us a new wheel of brie. I then suggested that maybe the brie fell out of the bag or we dropped a bag on the way home. I knew this was far fetched but Brian went outside to look and found our brie sitting in the grass. It was brie with herbs…I suppose it was just trying to return to the earth. At any rate, we enjoyed our brie then… I still hate Giant Eagle.

Popularity: 6% [?]

We had a great start to “arms day” in the gym. I maxed out on five of my arm exercises and am very happy about the progress I have been making. Also, Brian and I were talking about finding vegetarian sponsors for me. It seems that all female Strongwoman contenders eat meat so I might very well be the only female that is sponsored by vegetarian companies in any of the Strongwoman competitions. This could be very beneficial for us in the long run as vegetarian companies are always looking to find vegetarian athletes that belong to all different sports. We are working hard to get ready for any potential competition that we might find early next year. At this point, we are just focusing on my training and hunting around for any interesting competitions…

Popularity: 6% [?]