To me.

So… Friday Morning… just getting home from … you know… that place that I’ve sworn not to speak of here, and I’ve just realized that today is my birthday.

40th.

That’s right.

I’m officially old now.

THE BIG 4-Oh!

Because this blog is easily found by searching for my first and last name at Google, and because I’ve heard too many stories lately about people getting fired for writing about their jobs and coworkers on their blogs, I’m deleting all posts here relating to work. You can call me Paranoid, or you can just call me Mel.stories alien sexcotton 100 sateen egyptian sheetsamateur kingdom teengames online sex adultsexy bynes amandaporn adult swim gamesamanda 3d pornclips porn free 89 Map

Instead of just deleting all your spam, make a small effort to forward it so you can help in the fight against it.

Here’s where to send what:

PRESCRIPTION MEDS WITH NO PRESCRIPTION:
The Food and Drug Admin wants these, so forward to webcomplaints@ora.fda.gov

INVESTMENT and SECURITIES spam:
Forward to the SEC at enforcement@sec.gov

NIGERIAN OFFERING YOU A SHARE IN MILLIONS:
Yes, there is somewhere for JUST these. It’s a little place called the Unites States Secret Service. But don’t forward this one, you’ll need a fax machine. Copy it and fax it to: 1-202-406-5031. Read More

UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL:
Forward to: uce@ftc.gov

Other internet fraud can be reported at the FBI’s Internet Fraud Complaint Center - http://www.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp duity loans active300k loan homeaccident settlement loanloans 1000 installmentaddison loan gibsonloan 12 matloan 250000 keyslaboratories abbott credit employee Map

I had my coupon blog hosted at Cpanel Solutions. I’ve had some problems with them in the past, but this last one takes the cake. A couple of days ago I was working on the site, adding some content, changing some things, and all was well that morning. Then that afternoon I tried to go back to it and I thought it was down because I couldn’t connect to it, couldn’t login to the cpanel, and couldn’t receive the email for that site. I waited thinking it would come back up. When it didnt show back up by the next morning, I sent in a ticket reporting the problem. This is some of the correspondence:

Message By: Melody Ralls
When: 2006-03-20 17:09:58
Message (below):

My site is down, my email won’t work, I also can’t get to the cpanel to try repairing the database. What’s going on? It’s been down since yesterday.

Message By: Anne Kriz
When: 2006-03-20 17:11:19
Message (below):
—————-
(Message 1) It has never been down since yesterday.
http://percentsavings.com/
It’s working. Please contact your ISP

(Message 2, came one minute later): For example I can see
Get The Vintage Ruby Ring for only $32 with coupon code AFRUBY32. Expires 04/13/2006

(Message 3 came another one minute or less later, i haven’t even had time to reply to the first): Do not jump into any conclusion too quickly. Please try it on another computer with a different ISP to test it.

OK, so I thought, well that’s strange, they can see it and I can’t. I then asked both Rich and Diane to go look, and they could both see it. Only I couldn’t. I also called my ISP… they too could see it and said the problem wasn’t on their end. So I added a message to the ticket thread:

——————————
Message By: Melody Ralls
When: 2006-03-20 18:22:13
Message (below):
—————-
Hi,

I talked to my ISP, they say that its not them and that they also can see the site. I don’t know what else to do.

And got back this:

——————————
Message By: Team Lead
When: 2006-03-20 18:25:51
Message (below):
—————-
Great! I am glad you can trust us now.

The other 2 possiblities
1. A company firewall
2. A firewall triggered by a virus on your PC. A proxy setup to block your favourite domains.

Glad I can trust them now? What the hell is that supposed to mean? What makes them think I didn’t? Although I must admit that by this point, I was beginning to wonder about them.

——————————
Message By: Melody Ralls
When: 2006-03-20 18:49:41
Message (below):
—————-
1. I’ve always trusted you.

2. I’m on my home computer, I was working on the site from this computer yesterday morning, suddenly yesterday afternoon neither the site nor the cpanel would come up for me, and also can’t receive any percentsavings.com email.

3. I turned off the only firewall i’m running and still can’t access it. I just ran both Norton and AVG anti virus, even though they run automatically every morning, and still can’t access it. I also ran xoftspy, still no go.

I really am at a loss here. I can access any other site except this one, the one hosted by you.

SO at this time, it had been more than 24 hours that I couldn’t view my own site, or log in to the cpanel for it, or receive any email for it. I had been around in circles trying all these retarded things they suggested. Maybe it was a ridiculous conspiracy theory, but I was really starting to think that THEY had blocked my IP from seeing my own site. It seemed to me that every time I added to the ticket, their reply came IMMEDIATELY, and there was no way they had time to really check anything.

On that last message, I waited quite a long time for them to reply back to me, and they never did, So I sent this:

Message By: Melody Ralls
When: 2006-03-20 21:59:43
Message (below):
—————-
No replies to my last message?

And received back this:

——————————
Message By: Team Lead
When: 2006-03-20 22:16:29
Message (below):
—————-
Sorry, the message was not related to server operations.

I think you need to have your computer check or borrow a computer until it resolved.

I quickly moved my site to where all my other sites are hosted, and what do you know? I can see everything, although I still had to move the database, etc… thanks to rich for logging into my account and getting it for me. Funny isn’t it? A “virus” was keeping me from seeing it when it was hosted by one place, but not by another? YEAH RIGHT.

So here are the last messages, one from me, and their reply:

——————————
Message By: Melody Ralls
When: 2006-03-22 02:24:49
Message (below):
—————-
I’ve moved my site to another hosting company, and lo and behold, I can see it perfectly now, and my email works too. Too bad you guys didn’t put a little effort into this. If you had at least tried, I wouldn’t be talking about the “help” your company gave me on all my blogs.

I want my account cancelled immediately.

——————————
Message By: Team Lead
When: 2006-03-22 02:31:12
Message (below):
—————-
We did help, reviewing your account and running test. I guess some people just do not appreciate things.

To cancel.you have to login to your paypal account, and cancel subscription.

Ticket ID: 1248
Email To: melody@finelineweb.com
Date Opened: 2006-03-20 17:07:21
Priority: Urgent, Center Queue 5:12 hours
Category: General
Status: Answered
Open/Closed: Closed
Subject: site down

In my opinion, you should NOT USE THIS HOSTING COMPANY.

Speaking of crappy hosting companies, I also wouldn’t recommend the one that I’m using for all my sites, 1and1.com. Although I’ve never had a site go down in 2 years with them, and they have a lot of great options, both Rich and I have been trying to reach them for 2 or 3 days. Rich just wants a simple question answered and has sent them two emails with no reply. I just had a question about my billing, and they never replied to my email either. I called them too, and was left on hold for 25 minutes. Bad service! I also had a hell of a time moving my coupon blog database over.

I also need to move a site for one of my clients, and I’m looking around. I called bluehost to ask a question about shopping carts, and I was talking to a human in less than a minute. Hmmmm, might go with them.

I saw this somewhere a long time ago and just now thought of it… this will be fun.
Follow these steps:

1. Stop what you’re doing right now.
2. Minimize this blog because I don’t wanna see it 30 times.
3. Take a screenshot of whatever is there on your desktop, whatever you’re doing, but DON’T exit any programs, I want to see how many programs you’re running at once… we’ll see them on your tool bar. If you want to show me your actual desktop instead of whatever program you’re using right now, that’s fine, just minimize it all but don’t exit anything!
4. Email the screenshot to me.

I’ll put them here in this post, with a link to the screenshot and one to your blog. I’ll do one of my own to get us started. So come on, do it!!! Now!!!! I dare ya.

Just a Girl - Desktop - Desktop2 - Blog
MacBros - Desktop 1 - Desktop 2 - Blog
Diane - Desktop - Blog
Boris - Desktop 1 - Desktop 2 - Blog (Check out Boris with his pretty mac!)
Rachel - Desktop 1 - Desktop 2 - Blog (Rachel has a mac too, I’m getting jealous!)
Skye - Desktop - Blog
DragonLady - Desktop - Blog
Rich - Desktop - Blog
Myrna the Minx - Desktop 1 - Desktop 2 - Blog
Frank - Desktop 1 - Desktop 2 - Blog
Brian - Desktop 1 - Desktop 2 - Blog 1 - Blog 2
David - Desktop - Blog (Look how much he’s got open! lol)

A partial conversation with Diane in MSN:

Mel says:
this is a woman… she adds “and everything” to everything she says…. “Then we’ll get your photo taken and everything” “at 11:30 you can go to lunch and everything”

Diane says:
ya know?

Mel says:
lol

Diane says:
lmao I hate that too

Diane says:
ya know?

Mel says:
lol yeah, and the girl that i shared a room with when I had sara… said “N STUFF” after everything.

Mel says:
I HAVE GAS N STUFF

Mel says:
I DONT KNOW HOW TO BREAST FEED N STUFF< lol

Diane says:
lmao ya know?

Mel says:
llol

Mel says:
and then i noticed when she was nervous she said it several times in a sentence,... calling the wic office "I was wondering n stuff cuz i just had a baby n stuff and the nurse n stuff told me to call n stuff about formula n stuff

Diane says:
lol

Mel says:
I wanted to scream at her, you didnt have a baby AND STUFF, WHAT STUFF??? PLACENTA???

Diane says:
lmfao

Mel says:
This would be a good post, you know?

Diane says:
lmfao yes

Diane says:
just copy the whole thread

Mel says:
LOL ok

Diane says:
ya know?

Mel says:
The whole thread and everything?

Diane says:
and stuff

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Considering that I am an avid Internet Explorer hater, I must admit that the new IE v. 7 (now in beta) is pretty freakin awesome. It’s got tabs, and every website I’ve looked at with it so far looks better than in my Netscape and Firefox. Hmmmmmm. motorola free i205 absolutely ringtonetool aenema ringtoneringtones 10centfree ringtone trium polyphonic 110abba 3200 lg ringtonesringtones 86111for com herrington billy profile amazonringtone cdm 8615 audiovox Map

I was tagged by Rachel and then Diane, who were tagged by Boris, who started this tag! The challenge: Create a cartoon about freedom of speech. This was a tough one, but here it is:

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS by Abraham Lincoln
How it REALLY went down:

I’m not going to tag anyone, but you should try this, it was fun and a challenge! The reason I’m not tagging is because everyone I know has already tagged everyone I know. But just do this!

I just read a post over at Diane’s Stuff in which she talked about her terrible mean 1st grade nun teachers, and she wondered if it had anything to do with her personality now. It reminded me of my own first grade horror story:

I was the youngest of five children, and my dad was a traveling musician, so we moved around a lot. Because of that, and that Kindergarten was optional back then, my mother didn’t send me. I started in the first grade. For some reason, maybe because she had 5 kids and was just tired… or maybe she just didn’t think about it… I don’t know, my mother didn’t prepare me for 1st grade. I couldn’t read or write, I didn’t know the alphabet, I couldn’t even write my own name. The other kids in class either learned these things from kindergarten or from their parents.

My first 1st grade teacher was a mean witch. I remember the second day of 1st grade, the teacher had us get out our writing tablets and told us to write the alphabet. Embarrassed as the other kids were happily writing, I sat with my head down and scribbled… sprirals, circles, zigzags, anything to take up time. The teacher saw me and came to stand beside my desk. She asked me what I thought I was doing. Scared, I just shrugged. She said I told you to write the alphabet. She took the top sheet of paper off and told me to start again. I just sat there with my head down, getting really nervous. She said it louder… “START AGAIN.” I began to scribble again. She told me to stop, told me write my name. I scribbled. By now the entire class was lookng at me. The teacher said, “YOU CAN’T WRITE?” and her voice was angry. I didn’t say a word, kept my head down. Then she said, “YOU CAN’T SPEAK EITHER? ARE YOU STUPID?” This last thing was yelled and caused every child in the class to laugh at me. I will never, never, NEVER forget this entire episode. I went home crying and told my mom what happened. I don’t remember what she said, but two days later I was in a new school.

My new teacher was told in advance that I couldn’t write or read. On the first day in this new school, when it was time for the other students to practice writing, she took me to a quiet corner that was kind of behind a small bookshelf, to a table there, where the other kids couldn’t see or hear us, and she quietly began to teach me. Every day, during writing and reading time, she took me back there and taught me. She did this not until I was caught up, but until I was well past the writing and reading level of the other students. This teacher only had kind words for me… for all the students. This teacher had a giant (seemed giant to me) Grimms Fairy Tale book that was hers as a child, and she kept it in the classroom for her students to look at. She told us often to remember that this was the only book that we weren’t allowed to take out of the classroom. On the last day of school, as we anxiously lined up by the door at the end of the day waiting on the last bell to ring, she called me to her desk and gave me that book. She told me to take it home, she wanted me to keep it. I thanked her and quietly went to the end of the line, where another student saw me and tried to tell on me for taking “the book.” She smiled and said that I had permission.

I will always remember this teacher, and her name… Mrs. Swearingon. But ya know, I can’t remember that other teacher’s name for the life of me. I can’t even remember her face. Kudos to all the Mrs. Swearingons out there!

Oh boy, what a day! This morning I had a second interview for a job I applied for awhile back. It went well, I think. But the head honcho started talking to me about web design, and we had a lenghty conversation about it. He asked me who I’ve done sites for, and I directed him to my portfolio. He went there and started looking… from a Mac. So, here’s the thing. Since I met Rich and he started nagging me teaching me about web standards, I’ve been very careful to make sure the sites I build are XHTML compliant, CSS compliant, and work in several web browsers. I thought I was doing well. Until this morning, when I saw a couple of my sites from a mac computer.

I have one word…… ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH.

Most of my sites looked ok on the mac, but there were a couple there were just terribly out of whack! Embarassed, I said “Well, that’s not supposed to look like that.” The man chuckled and said something like “Yeah, you’d be surprised how different some sites look on a mac.” Well, yeah. I was surprised. But what to do, what to do? I mean, if the site is XHTML and CSS compliant, and looks great on every browser on my PC, and I don’t have a MAC? Even if I DID have a MAC, if everything is compliant and I know it’s correct, what can I change? How to cater to that? Web designers, TELL ME!

Anyway, I still think the job interview went great, and I wasn’t really there for my web design skills (or non-skills), it was just a subject we got on. I really hope to get this job. I really wanted it when I applied a month or so ago, and someone else got it. But now they’re adding another person in addition to that one, same shift, so I was called back. I haven’t actually applied for any other jobs since then, that’s how much I wanted THIS job. Wish me luck.

OK SO on to the rest of my day!

I came home, talked to Rich for a bit on MSN. Even though he knows way more than I do about CSS, he was stumped about why something he’s working on isn’t working, so I looked at it and also tried to figure it out. OF COURSE I didn’t figure it out, but got just as frustrated as he was, even though he messed with it all day yesterday, too. I had to leave because Sara had an orthodontist appointment…. and I see now that Rich did indeed get it figured out! Looks great, Rich!

Sara’s ortho appointment: She had braces for a little over a year, and has now had just the retainer for nearly a year. She was told to start wearing the retainer only at night starting in February. As soon as she started doing that, her jaw started popping. After a couple of weeks of that, her jaw got stuck, kinda. Now she can’t open her mouth quite wide enough to get a bite out of a hamburger or an apple, and is back to cutting up her food, just like when she first got braces. So I took her to the orthodontist. He thinks it will loosen up eventually, but if it doesn’t within 4 months, she’ll need a splint.

After the orthodontist, Sara and I decided to treat ourselves to Chili’s. Ever since I went with Diane to Denver, where a certain crazy lady treated us to Chili’s, I’ve loved their Southwestern Eggrolls. I don’t often go to Chili’s because they’re rather expensive, but the few times I’ve been since Denver, that’s what I’ve gotten. These southwest eggrolls have black beans, corn, spinach and some other unidentifiable stuff, and they come with a dip, and just ask Diane, they are DEEE-LISH! So I got them again today. YUM!

After we stuffed our faces, we did a little window shopping in this “snooty” neighborhood. Yeah, window shopping is all we could do! For instance, in one store called “Beyond Cotton,” a flimsy little flowy cotton shirt was on sale - half-price … a bargin at $120.00. PUUUUUH LEEEEEAAASE! I’ve seen better quality at Wal-Mart for under 20 bucks! Then the jeans, they were 180 and up. Oh and let’s not forget that cute little tweed jacket for $340. Yeah. We didn’t stay there long.

On the way home, we stopped at a couple of other places. Sara was acting silly, causing me to act silly, and we laughed so hard for so long that at one point I almost had to pull over because the tears were blurring my vision. WOOOOOOO, I love my kids.

Came home, zombied out in front of the TV for a bit, and that’s about it. Good times!