WalkerPad

Well I guess today was a step forward in talking to Wells Fargo. Nobody could tell me anything about what is going on with the home owner stabilization program other then we probable qualify. However I also was not transferred to some unrelated company in Canada like last week. The cherry on top was that they took my information (again) and promised that somebody from Wells Fargo would call me back within 24-48 hours who would be able to tell me all about the program (I’m not sure what that means but looking forward to finding out). So maybe, just maybe this means the ball will nudge forward this week.

EDIT: LOL, I just got a automated prerecorded call from Wells Fargo saying they are announcing the program and to go to their website (which of course it still totally useless and has no way to get a engagement going). I sure hope that was not the call I was promised, but rather a positive sign prelude.

I have to say this constant redirecting people to web site that is never updated and contains no useful information accept for a self assessment and no way to take action or get updates or start a engagement is pretty lame and and very we are big company 1.0 go away. What a wast and a fundamentally failed way to communicate with customers in trouble chomping at the bit to real information.

So I took another stab at Wells Fargo today, 3rd call it’s now been almost two months since the program was launched… I thought they might have at least some basic time lines for customer contact put together by now. After first line agent made a series of excuses for why it was so slow to roll out he mentioned he had a special number he could transfer me too that would be able to help me a bit more.
So he transfers me, turns out the Wells Fargo phone system is having some um interesting problems. They keep transferring all us stressed out home owners to some company (ATA I think he said) in Canada, that has nothing to do with WF or loans or well anything.
The company has been complaining to Wells Fargo for a while now but they don’t seem to interested in fixing the problem (according to the guy at ATA)
Minor technical problem or Wells Fargo just not wanting to deal with this program despite sticking their hand into the TARP treat bag….? It’s probable of course a goof ,but it sure feels like (giving the long rollout and total lack of solid info) a ongoing blow off from them .

My thoughts on the new time warner bandwidth caps

Gamers with jobs has a pretty good article breaking it down for gamers.

This issue only exists because of a horrible lack of competition. Cable and teleco’s where gifted with huge public trusts and right of ways and have been raping the US ever since in one fashion or another. The cure is constant and real competitive threat and forced asset sharing to smash monopolistic tactics (caps being only the tip of the iceberg). That being said caps, while annoying (and these are VERY annoying) are really aimed at big contented purveyors (google is of course target number one) to force them to subsides and pay for right of way (and then priority). Pipe providers as usual (as the RIAA or MPAA due) are vastly over valuing their end of the proposition and thus feel empowered (by a lack of competition nipping at their heels) to try and hold the world hostage for as much of the pie as they can get, and if a few consumers or producers get smashed in the crossfire oh well.

Add hock statistic, I’m a average silly cone head valley kind of geek and gamer, last month my house hold usage was
* March 2009 (Incoming: 54814 MB / Outgoing: 20035 MB)
So, about 53 Gigs and change, so well bellow comcasts 250GB, and just over the $54 40GB cap. I pay around $49 I think for comcast. So while it’s not clear what small overages would range or continual overage it’s obvious these tiers are being broken up in a silly (anti med-heavy user) way. That said I don’t think it’s going to be that big of a deal for most users. Though studies of certainly shown that caps slow innovation and usage due to the mind share effect (everybody remember when your cel phone minutes where metered tightly?), but again that is about squeezing the big guys.

Just like the telco’s feel they missed out on e-mail and now avenge themselves upon us all with insane costs for SMS (a pretty much free b channel transmission for them) cable now wants to change the video story and be the IP pipe and be the content guys instead of all those annoying them that give their pipes value (never mind they have utterly failed in the past at this, they always end up trying to rebuild AOL).

Only wide spread and significant cross market competition will save us from this crap and enforce a natural order of open services and neutral pipes.

I have added some new (recent) Kaden pictures to the Gallery.

I setup a mobile skin that should work with pretty much anything. I need to get pictures working on it but otherwise seems to work fast with phones (though it is very plain). If you are having any weirdness submit a comment I only have one phone to test with (iphone) so it’s hard to do quality control.

So, three weeks back I bit the bullet and called Wells Fargo to get started with the Obama plan for the Loan stabilization act. We quickly sorted out that on face we quality.
Wells Fargo gave me a bit of run around (kept insisting I just needed to look at the website some more) but after pointing out repeatedly that I wanted to actually file paper work to get started they finaly transferred me to somebody (apparently the only person since it was a 40 minute hold) who took my information and sent it off to the mysterious group that handles this program that can not be contacted directly in anyway (hmmm bad sign). Anyway, assurance where made that I would be contacted by them within two weeks.
Three weeks later still no word, not even snail mail. So I contacted Wells Fargo again. More insistence and I just needed to keep looking at (the useless) website. Eventualy after a bunch of holds the front line person came about and said that they still have not released the program nor do they have any date for a release or when customer contacts might start.

Ah, quality project management. Basically having no useful information and no I/O for interested folks on there 10,000 foot view website is pretty annoying. How many people will fail (we won’t, but a lot of folks are worse off then us) to stay current while they get this program up and running? While they, dare I say, stall like crazy?

It’s also scary that the front line folks are suggesting you go talk to the loan modification department. Anyone who changes anything on their current loan could vary easily invalidate their eligibility for the stabilization program. I wonder how accidental that redirect is…

I know big wheels turn slowly but historically with these programs that is just so they can more thoroughly powder the bones they drive over.

Man busy up here, the kids class was a zoo. They have a nice program here, but nutty exspensive ( thanks Nana). Kaily got off to a good start and if Nana can ever finish getting ready we might ski.

Funny thing, I couldn’t find the star bucks until I got away from the tense people and followed the back trail of the zoned out relaxed looking fixers with their cups in hand.

Kaily got to spend some quality time with clay in her new class.

A post over at http://www.precentral.net/palm-pre-eyes-plus-plenty-pre-questions-answered

Do they mean no waking up to a beep beep or your favorite MP3? Sucky but whatever…

Or do mean no reminder noise?

This is my signal greatest frustration with the iPhone, the nag/reminder functions total suck. Worse then suck they are almost non existent, and what is there is useless (accept oddly the timer alarm the piece of code written for real people). There is zero range of customizations for how aggressively you want to be found/reminded it chirpes/vibes at you once for a notice then goes dark and silent never to heard from again. This sucks and drives me completely crazy. Particularly combined with the screen going dark on the cradle and having no LED, there is no way to tell you have a notice without handling the dam thing, and you know what? Fondling my phone every 5 minutes to see if I missed something is not the top of priority list.
I want a reminder system for if missed this or that and especially a calendar system that completely rocks (the palm had a ok one but there where add on apps that made it incredible).
I want different escalating aggression levels set on a event class.
Missed call, vibe, noise every minute for five minute repeating every 10 minutes decreasing the interval so it goes ape constantly after half an hour.
SMS, single reminder vibe chirp every 10 minutes after new arrival notice/vibec/hirp.
and so on.

Keeping people aware that they have data waiting in HUGE, visual indicators alone suck and rely on this this weird constant fondle idea and that your phone is never off in a office somewhere charging while you live your life (blasphemy, I know). This is a area where the iPhone completely missed the boat and Palm has a chance to swing back hard,
Yet I hear no alarm and I’m seriously starting to panic. I may go back to my treo 650 because of how ‘sick’ I am of missing stuff on my dam iphone.

There also better be voice control over a blue tooth for headset for dialing… but that is another rant for another day (voice control should be embedded and threaded through th entire device, they need to move beyond what Apple did with just touch and master voice instead).

Ok, so there will be some who will mock me and not without cause… see there was a lot of lateness and hustling and well I forgot my SLR camera (this is me making the shamed face). The whole thing went down like this. My Mom did not want to drive all the way SV so she managed to talk me into a wacky sounding, but also cool sounding idea. There is this place up on in Half moon bay called Lemo’s farm, and they do pony rides and have other stuff for kids as well like a train, jumping house, chickens goats (with cute baby goats) and more. So I did get a few pictures with my iphone… but it is just a horrible camera (fixed focus lens, slow software light balancing, ugh).
As far as the place went, we had fun, but if my Mom had not picked up the bill for the kids I would have passed. The kid day passes where not cheap, then they nickle and dime the adults who are making it possible (at least for younger kids) to do half the stuff. Then if you are foolish enough to call ahead they try and charge you for a reservation (the place was deserted when we got there) and that includes exactly nothing, but I guess if it’s high season they will hold a spot for you.
All that said and done, the kids where sweet and had a good adventure thanks to my Mom and all the parents, and especialy Charise who preped food, cake, goodie bags, art fun stuff and more.
Some snaps

Cool beans now if they would just clean up that shelf shadow the copious marking of dive sites against topography could commence full steam

Why dose verizon think that the zip code 95066 belongs in some place in s.cal? Could their not believing or even knowing where scotts valley is have something to do with us being so under (read not at all) served for fiber? Sigh grumble.

Aunt Louann brought Great Gramma up for a very quick visit to see kaden. It was awesome that they could come visit, all the way up from s.cal an then back again the next day, yikes.

So Kaden passed, so to speak, his one month check up today. He is now 20 inches, 7.6 pounds and doing very well in general, no red flags. Since birth he has gained 3 inches and almost two pounds. Next month he gets his second round of shots . Kaily has her required shots for kinder garden coming too, she is not looking forward to that, she did not care for the the flue shot she had right before Kaden was born.

Still waiting for Kaden to be able to come home, we kept being told soon or a few days. Basically it’s up to him at this point to jump through the last couple of hoops and prove that he is ready to not have 24/7 bed side service in the nicu. I can feel we are getting close but Charise keeps getting slightly bummed because she gets amped up and by taking a somewhat liberal interpretation of the time frames being projected by the medical folks, and then it’s allays just a few more days out.

Anyway, here is shot of Scotts valley at night form our deck during the non stop rain storm we have had this week.

Kaily’s last day of school

Since a couple folks have asked, kaden’s registry is at target

This piece of junk is dangerously inaccurate and has no ability to be properly calibrated. Avoid at all costs. Frankly at this point after a half week of it stressing out Charise by telling her she is 40 points higher then she is I’m thinking about sending a lawyer with high blood pressure to return it to them the hard way . Not cool Walgreens, not cool.

A little momy time.