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These past few weeks and months have been absolutely crazy at work.  We are in the process of upgrading our telephone system from a standard PBX to a brand new Cisco VOIP system.  I love the features and ease of administration of the Cisco system, but anytime that you have to deal with Telecom vendors (not naming any names, but- AT&T) it is a major pain in the rear.  For example, we are moving our phone lines from AT&T to another vendor.  Well, the Friday before Memorial Day, AT&T decided that it was time for us to move, even though we had not scheduled the move yet.  Needless to say, I spent most of the weekend on the phone with my boss and AT&T.  Have you ever tried talking to a brick wall?  Well, that is EXACTLY what talking to most of AT&T’s tech support people is like.  I finally got a supervisor on the phone that was able (or willing) to dig deep enough to realize that they had made the mistake.  When that happened, their story changed from “you will have to talk to the business office on Tuesday” to “we will get those lines back up and running within a couple of hours”.  This is great, but there are still issues.  AT&T is so compartmentalized that nobody communicates between departments.  What we did not realize is that the main number and the ancillary lines are POTS (plain old telephone service) lines, but everything else, and the actual phone that the main number rings is on a PRI (primary rate interface- a single high speed line with 23 voice or data channels and one command channel).  So, I had to call back to the Special Circuits Branch, and start the entire process over again.  I wanted to scream…..and bang my head against my desk.

I eventually got everything working again (mostly).  It took another week to get everything to ring like it is supposed to.  That took a call to our sales drone to activate a feature that nobody at AT&T knew even existed.

Well, this Friday is the data line transition, and installation of the new phones in Carlsbad.  What is amazing is that no matter how much we have tried to prepare and be ready, it seems that nothing ever goes as you expect, and there are always issues that nobady catches.  I think (hope) that we have everything ready…but I KNOW something will wash out.

I picked up a couple of bottles of Prosecco wine at Central Market a few weeks ago. The intention was for us to make Mimosa’s with it (Hi Mom!). One of the bottles was a Blush Version. I had never heard of a Pink Prosecco before, but it was very attractive in the bottle, and was about $10, so I went for it. I popped the bottle last night, and let me tell you, that was the best Prosecco I have ever tasted. It was sweet, but not too sweet, very fruit forward, with no tart or dry aftertaste. H tried it by itself, and declared “It’s pretty good.” That is high praise for a wine coming from her.

Wow. This is absolutely incredible.

Awesome Lifelike Robotic Dog

I have been frequenting a fountain pen forum (Fountainpennetwork.com), and I ran across an idea about posting a handwritten blog.  I have since purchased a nice Paperchase notebook, and will be posting scans of the pages.  I think this will make me more aware of the legibility of my chicken scratch, since I know people will be seeing it.  It will also enable me to track how things improve over time (I hope to find a Flexi-nib or wet noodle pen to try my hand at calligraphy).

H and I visited a new restaurant off of 360 just south of DFW Airport last night.  We had originally gone over there to try Simply Burgers, but they are not open yet.  So, as a second choice we went into a place called Big Bowl Asian Cuisine and Sports Bar.  Yeah, I know, that was MY first reaction too.  The space was very nice, and they are still going through their grand opening.  The decor was more reminiscent of a southwestern or Mexican place, but the staff seemed friendly.

The menu was rather long (around 10 pages), but looked like it had been printed and had been comb-bound at Kinkos.  The paper was colored copy paper, and there were several mistakes that had been scratched out (on mine) or simply left (on H’s).  H knows that I am a fan of Pho, so was pleased to point out that they had a decent selection of both chicken and beef.  They also had such selections as Deep Fried Chicken with Sweet and Sour Sauce.

If you are not familiar with Pho, it is a traditional Vietnamese street food,  Pho actually refers to the rice noodles that are served in a broth with beef, meatballs, chicken, or a variety of other things that we USAian rarely eat (like tripe, tendons, organ meat, etc).

We decided to start off with Fried Dumplings and Crab Rangoon.  The dumplings were crispy on the bottom, soft on the top, and very tasty.  The texture was as expected, and the filling was firm.  The  Crab Rangoon looked tasty.  They were plump pillows of crispy wonton skin.  On the inside, however, was an unexpected (and not entirely pleasant) surprise. The taste was very fishy.  This was the fist time I have ever had a fishy crab puff, and I am wondering if perhaps the crab was not off.  The sauce was a fluorescent yellow concoction that had very little flavor.

We held out hope for our entrees.  We both ordered Pho.  I requested Eye of Round and Brisket, and H wanted Flank and Brisket. The plate of “fixin’s” they brought out was rather sparse.  For two bowls they gave just a few (about 1/2 Cup), two stalks of basil, and two 1/2 wedges of lime and 2 1/2 wedges of lemon.  The flavor of the broth was pretty good.  There was a good amount of vermicelli in the bowl, and they did not skimp on the meat.  However, H’s flank looked more like tendon or  “crispy beef” than  I think it should have.  The  soup itself was not as good as Pho95, but it was not horrible, either.

When we got the check, we were surprised that the total bill was less than $23.  I paid with cash, and planned on giving the waitress the change plus a little more.  However, she never bothered (and did not ask) about bringing back my change, so we debated about complaining and not leaving her anything.  In the end, we decided that the amount of change she did not return would be her tip.

All in all, the food was ok, but was nothing to write home about.  That, coupled with the fact that the waitress never returned out change means that we will probably never visit there again.