AT&T Fail

I have had nothing but problems ever since installing U-Verse for my internet.  On Saturday, November 12, I had a female tech show up and was told that this was for the INTERNET ONLY.  When the second tech showed up, he was told the same thing.  He told the female tech not to touch the landline as I was only getting the internet part.  She said no problem.  Once everything was done, he asked my wife to call in and out from the landline to make sure it was working.  She did and everything was good.  Then, Monday morning NO LANDLINE.  I immediately called AT&T U-Verse and spent over 3 hours on the phone with them (from my cell phone).  I was told that by close of business that night, I would have my phone line back.  Tuesday morning, checked the phone line, and still NOTHING.  No dial tone, NOTHING.  I again called AT&T U-verse from my cell phone and spent over 2 hours explaining to them what happened.  They patched me through to a Wayne Johnson who told me he was the evening supervisor and that in the morning he would be turning this over to the morning shift manager and he would be getting back to me.  Next morning NO CALL, NO DIALTONE, NOTHING!  Went to work and spent several hours on the phone with a Veronica (ID# VC0977 out of the Ft. Lauderdale office).  She told me that nothing had been submitted so she was going to be on top of it and it would take 24-48 hours to get remedied and that she would call me back to give me an update.  Shocker! No CALL, no dialtone, NOTHING.  Then on Monday, Nov 21, my wife called AT&T U-Verse and she was told that a technician would show up on the 29th (WHAT?!?!?!?! 17 days without landline for something THEY screwed up?)  Today I resorted to going onto their Facebook page and left a comment on their page.  Low and behold, my post was answered within a few minutes (wish I had resorted to this beforehand).  I was then put in contact with ATTMartyC@att.com who called me and told me that he was sending this to the AT&T escalation team and that they should be in contact with me sometime within the next 24 hours.  Let’s see what happens.

 

Car Warz 2010

Wicked Chicz @ Seminole Hard Rock Car Warz 2010

Seminole Hard Rock & Casino – Car Warz 2010

Wicked Chicz Talia and Mely were definately attracting a crowd while walking around modeling on several cars. By the time we finished, they had modeled on Wicked Dreamz Integra GS-R owned by Brian and Diana, Hellboy Caddy owned by Wicked Dreamz VP, Anthony. Then walked over to Undisputed Car Club and modeled on 6 or 7 of their cars and even took some shots with Undisputed’s sponsor Digital Sounds owner, Joell. Then they took some shots over on Enchanted Dreamz president, Dreamboys, Monte Carlo lowrider. Then we took some random shots on a yellow Chevy Cobalt SS, a yellow Chevy HHR and a black H2 with ghost flames. Ken, owner of some SICK golf carts asked if the ladies could take some shots on his golf carts. After a few shots on the custom RollsRoyce golf cart and the Swamp Monster cart, it was getting too hot so the ladies changed and relaxed up in our room upstairs.

Wicked Chicz with Dreamboys Monte Carlo Lowrider

Digital Sounds owner Joell with Wicked Chicz

Kruisin Krome 2010 @ Miccosukee Indian Resort

Kruisin Krome Car Show @ Miccosukee Indian Resort on Sunday, April 11, 2010.

The show was pretty full of all kinds of cars from Classics to Muscle Cars to Trucks to Sport Compacts.  The show ended early due to bad weather rolling in.  All in all, it was a success.

Car show @ Digital Wheels, Miami, FL

Diana winning both 1st Place Radical Acura and 3rd Place 19-24 trunk in SPL.

We attended this show just to put the Honda on the SPL meter and see what the Soundstream system could hit. Unfortunately, dummy me, I had the bass on -8 and placed third in my class. I will know for next time to check ALL settings. We also entered the Acura under the Radical class and came in first place.We had a great time at the show and took PLENTY pictures. The pictures could be found on my Facebook page at: http://tinyurl.com/DigitalWheelsCarShow2010

Spring Break Nationals – Daytona Beach FL – Day Two 03/13/10

Day two began at 5am with Diana waking up to take a shower so she can go down and get her coffee @ 6:30am and wait till 7am when they are supposed to open the convention doors for the contestants. However, they didn’t open the doors till about 8:30am.  I stayed in the hotel room sleeping since our roommates friend was up till after 1am texting.  At about 9:30am Diana woke me up and said they are starting to judge the cars and that I needed to be down there since I know more about the car mods than she does.  So I got up, showered, got dressed,  and headed downstairs. When I got there, the judge was two cars away from judging mine so I got what I was going to tell the judge situated in my mind.  When he got to our car, he had told us that we needed to fill out the top portion of the judging sheet (they failed to tell us that when we got our packet the day prior) so he moved onto the next car and allowed us to fill out our judging sheet.  Once we got it filled out, I waited for the judge to finish with the car he was judging and told him we were ready.  Once he got to our car, I had told him all of our modifications from molded JDM headlights to shaved handles to remote start to custom stereo.  After I went through the whole ordeal, I left him to judging the car staying close by in case of any questions.  He finished and moved on to the next car(s).

Diana and I then proceeded to walk around seeing our friends and chatting a bit. We missed the whole concert with DJ Khaled and Trina and the bikini contest cause we were busy taking pictures.  But we did ride down in the elevator with Will Castro (UNIQUE Autosports). Even got him to sign a poster for us.

Will Castro from UNIQUE Autosports signing my poster

Spring Break Nationals – Daytona Beach, FL – Day One 03/12/10

We left Miami @ 10:30am.  We made it to about Ft. Lauderdale before it started POURING down rain.  I hate driving in the rain.  It rained the *WHOLE* way up to Daytona Beach.  We only stopped once for gas. We saw at least 4 accidents on the way up (with cars down in ditches and spun around facing the wrong way). We arrived in Daytona Beach @ about 4pm. We had pre-registered to while Diana went and got our room in our hotel (Hilton right across from Convention Center thankfully), we waited to roll-in.  We were about 6th in line.  We were told that we would be entering one side and ended up having to move to another roll-up door.  Once we rolled in, we were parked so close to each other, we wouldnt be able to open our doors.  Then I was told that I couldn’t lay my rug down (part of my display).  Diana talked with the head judge and we were allowed to roll our car forward to lay down our rug.  We lugged in our display items from outside (we weren’t allowed to bring our support vehicle in the convention center).  After bringing our stuff in, Diana started wiping the car down using Meguiars Quik-Detail to get rid of the rain spots and dirt that had accumulated on our drive up.  Once we finished packing our display items in the car, we locked it up and headed to our hotel to drop off our stuff and find something to eat.  We ate at Hyde Park Steak House located in the lobby of the Hilton.  This place had some of the BEST steak I have had in a LONG time. They warn you that the appetizers are big enough for two people, and believe me, they are right.  I couldn’t finish my caesar salad.  I ordered the 14oz NY strip steak with au gratin potatoes.  I couldn’t finish either of these neither. I then order the apple pie as I wanted something on the sweet side.  They must have given me half a damn pie.  It was a tad on the expensive side, but was well worth it. The service was impeccable as well. I will definitely be eating there next year when we go to SBN 2011 (which by the way will be their 25th anniversary).  After dinner, we went to the room and tried to sleep on the full stomachs we had.

December 6 Cruise on Carnival

Our family cruise that was my birthday present started off on Sunday, December 6, 2009.  Our taxi showed up on time to take us to the port of miami. We waited at the port for Carnival to allow the boarding.  Luckily, we were close to the front of the line to board.

Jon, Ashton and Chris waiting to board ship.

Once we boarded the ship, we headed to the bar to purchase the Coke Card (unlimited Coke products during the cruise). This was the best idea they came up with. I drank enough Coke and Sprite to pay for the card the first day of the cruise. Our staterooms weren’t ready, so we headed to the pool area to relax so we didn’t have to lug our luggage around the ship.

Lounging by the pool, day 1

Once we finally were allowed into our stateroom, we had several issues.  The room was hot and the toilet seat was horribly stained.  We talked to the guy that was in charge of our stateroom so maintenance responded quickly and replaced our toilet seat and fixed the a/c.  Finally, we were off. The storms seemed to follow us the first couple of days.

The storms day 1

The dinner the first night on the ship was good (and informal). We met up with some friends on the ship and they sat with us. Took forever for them find us cause of ALL the people on the ship.

Dinner the first night on the cruise

We spent the day at sea so we just walked around the ship and checked out the shops, the casino, the pools, the kids areas (since they would be @ Camp Carnival), and the jacuzzis and BIG screen tv.

On our way

As we wet docked at our first port, here is the view of other Carnival ships (Destiny)

Carnival Destiny

In the above pic, you can see the storm followed us.

Thanksgiving

Well I certainly hope that everyone had a wonderful and delicious Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I had to work but when I got home, I got to eat a delicious dinner with the family.We sat down at the table as a family and had a very peaceful and delicious Turkey dinner with stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas, gravy, and brown and serve bread (love those things).

Wings over Homestead 2009

On Sunday, November 8, 2009, I went with the wife to Homestead Air Reserve base for Wings over Homestead.  Homestead Air Reserve Base hasn’t had an air show in 17 years.  We got there @ 9:30am and stood in line till almost 11am.  The line was crazy.  I think because of the massacre at Ft. Hood, they were searching everyone vigilantly.  Once we got inside, it was probably a mile to a mile and a half walk until we arrived at the tarmac. Once we got to the tarmac, our senses went into overload.  There were so many things to see, so many people were there, we just started shooting pictures of everything.  We took over 1000 pictures between my wife and I.  The winds were crazy. There were wind gusts over 25 mph and overcast so we weren’t baking on the tarmac.  When we started to get hungry we got into a hot dog vendors line, waited about 30 minutes.  We were 3 people back when he announced that he ran out of hot dogs and had to cook more and it would be 10 or 15 minutes.  So we left that line and got into a short line at the Philly Cheese Steak (which were pretty damn good).  After eating and taking some more pictures, we found a vacant spot under the nose of a plane, sat down, and took even more pictures.  Thats when the sun started coming out and heating everything up so we decided to go ahead and head home.  For next year, we will definately go again, but will be there earlier, and get better parking.  I should have some of the pictures up by this weekend coming.

South Dade Photography Group

The wife and I went to our first meetup with the South Dade Photography Meetup group.  We woke up early Sunday morning and headed to Miami Metro Zoo.  It started out as extremely overcast day and on the cooler side (mid 70′s).  We met up by the Flamingos just inside the entrance at about 9:40am.  We introduced ourselves to JWKeith (event organizer) and the other members.  Right before 10am, we headed to the tigers exhibit to snap off a few shots. Then we headed to the Gibbons exhibit and I got a great shot of a gibbon (thanks JWKeith for the idea for the crop).

Gibbon @ Metro Zoo

From there we headed to the Lemur exhibit but they were mostly lounging in the trees which made it hard for a good shot. We wondered along (waiting for the tiger feeding) taking various shots.  I had never witness them feeding the tigers.  I was able to get a couple decent shots.  I had just wished I would have noticed which tiger the zoo keeper was throwing to to get some open mouthed shots.  Maybe next time.  Then we walked around and headed to the Oasis grill to grab a bite to eat and see if we meet up with the late stragglers (and it was getting HOT and humid by this time).  So after eating, everyone left except JWKeith and my wife and myself.  We headed over to the chimpanzees and the gorillas for their feeding.  They were funny and I got several great shots.  Make sure to check the flickr feed over on the right of the page for the pictures.