It has been dang cold here for the past week. Clear skies at this time of year definitely means frigid weather. This is the kind of weather where what little hair I have freezes while I’m sitting in the hot tub. Tonight I’m in front of the computer, on instant messenger with my brother Perry, and watching the Olympics on TV. Since the computers in here put out some heat, the door is closed so that the temp will warm up a bit. According to the Galileo thermometer, it’s 72 degrees in the room which is 2 degrees warmer than it was an hour ago. I’m still working on getting my Olympics Fix as next week I won’t see very much of the games while I’m in Manila.

The new Idaho State University president has been selected. Dr. Arthur Vailas has taken the helm and will begin putting his mark on the university. My feeling is that the selection process went very well and the selection of Dr. Vailas looks to be a very good choice. Welcome to Pocatello!

We attended another concert in the symphony series in the fabulous Jensen Center on Wednesday night. I continue to be impressed with the Idaho State Civic Symphony. We had a delightful time and the Schubert Symphony #9 will definitely be added to my library. A few weeks ago I was going to be in Manila this week and would have missed the concert. Fortune smiled and the trip was delayed. That means I get to see a week of the Olympics as well go to the concert. I’m getting ready to go! I just need to avoid mud slides….

At the Idaho State Civic Symphony, listening to Schubert. Fabulous! This is so fun! A great way to spend a frigid, snowy evening.

For Christmas, my brother and I set mom and dad in Soda Springs up with a broadband connection to the internet. That meant a new email provider. We arranged with the previous provider to have a few weeks of overlap before the old e-mail address was turned off. Well, that day arrived last Wednesday. And, of course, with that mom’s e-mail program stopped working correctly. Because the program could not make a connection any more with the old provider, it refused to download any e-mail. She called about the problem this morning and I wasn’t sure I could talk her through the process to cancel the old account over the phone. There wasn’t much on the agenda for the day, so I made a quick trip over to Soda Springs and back. I took pictures every five miles on the way back — they’re posted in the pictures! link on the right.

After that we made a short trip uptown to mail a package and a hamburger for me for lunch. After that we went over to the Stake Center for a world-wide training broadcast from Salt Lake. The theme was on strengthening the family. That will certainly be a theme for a while. Then it was home for dinner and the Winter Olympics! The games have begun! I’m enjoying life!

We’re watching the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy. The Olympics are among my most favorite sporting events on TV. Even the quality of the commercials is elevated during the Olympics. Let the games begin!!

I think we’ll also get our fill of Bode Miller, the bad boy of skiing. I hope that Michelle Kwan can do very well in the ice skating. I’m looking forward to the short track speed skating. Even the half-pipe looks to be exciting! It’s the time of year when I’ll spend more time in front of the TV than in front of the computer. Let the games begin!!

Of course the games have already begun. Before NBC showed the opening ceremonies, they showed the first runs on the downhill. That was some fast skiing! The training half-pipe snowboarding rides were pretty spectacular, and these were only practice rides. I think it’s interesting that snow boarders refer to what they do as “riding”. I have no idea how they make their bodies do those contortions, twists, and turns. Let the games begin!!

The opening ceremonies are about finished. I’m sure that I’ve got a much better view of the ceremonies than those in the stands courtesy of the closeups delivered to my living rooms by television, but I still want to be there, in the cold, the snow, the wind along with the noise, the sights, and smells. I’ll probably never get to an opening or closing ceremony, but I’d sure like to do that! It’s time for the Winter Olympics! Let the games BEGIN!

I posted the bit about waiting on Sprint customer service. Within a half-hour I had a comment from a woman who appears to be in the customer service business. I am sometimes surprised at how fast things can get around on the Internet!. Heather posted a short note about Ty receiving an AARP application in the mail. Quite funny and definitely worth a read!

Tonight I have to go back into the office at 10 p.m. for my boss’s all-hands quarterly meeting. It’s held at 10 p.m. Pocatello time to accomodate our employees in Manila. That puts the meeting mid-day in the Philippines, but early morning in Belgium and late night in Pocatello. So, I’m just doing some small stuff until time to drive back into the office for the meeting.

The travel schedules for my trip are pretty well completed. I’ll be staying at The Bellevue for the week that I’m there. The travel schedule is:

The trip door to door takes about 30 hours each way. Those are very long days — filled with yet another kind of waiting.

I’ve got my cell phone on speaker-phone listening to really crappy ancient rock music (currently the BeeGee’s) — because music over the speaker phone is mostly noise. A customer service rep answered a few minutes ago and then told me that she had to transfer me to someone else by company policy. It turns out that she’s in Pocatello and she can’t assist Pocatello callers. So after waiting 35 minutes to talk to her, I’m now back in the queue waiting once again for someone else. The problem is not particularly urgent, just aggravating. When I dial *4 on the phone to see how many minutes I’ve used, the service repeats about seven times “You have used zero minutes on your free and flexible plan.” Then it says that I have unlimited night and weekend minutes and repeats that several times. The same continues for several other pieces of information, most of which is suspect. The first person to answer said that there was a memo about that somewhere, but that she couldn’t help me. Mighty strange. The other problem stems from combining all of our accounts. When Nina calls *4, the automated response is “That information is not currently available. Please try again later.” So, I’m writing in my blog while I’m waiting for Sprint to answer the phone.

There is a Convergys call center here in Pocatello. I wonder if they have the Sprint customer service account and that’s why the person first answering the phone was in Pocatello? Convergys recently announced that they were raising hourly pay rates for all their “associates.” The same announcement said that they were also beginning to allow certain people to work from home rather than having to come into the Convergys office building to work. I think they employ a couple hundred people, mostly college students, here in town.

Sprint finally answered and I’m talking with a fairly clueless person…. She says that I have to wait to the next billing cycle for the computer to “catch up”. It could be — I’ve heard worse explanations. I did make significant changes to my account on January 19th, which was the first day of this billing period. So, I have to wait to February 19th (a Sunday) to see if the computer has, in fact, caught up. Maybe I’ll remember to update this and determine whether I have to repent of calling the customer service lady “clueless”…. But, I am now finished waiting on Sprint customer service for this evening.