RETIRED WARRANT

Laila and her family are fine

Laila and her family are safe from the typhoon, but many Filipinos lost their lives due to flooding and mudslides, and my heart goes out to them. The original track that I saw had the center of the storm passing 8 miles south of Manila and it would have lost some strength, but instead the storm headed to the south and held it’s strength as it stayed over water a little more and avoided most of the mountains.

Again uncontrolled logging probably had a lot to do with the mudslides, but I don’t know that much about it, just what I hear from Laila. I know our church will have an additional collection on Sunday and my family will give generously as we always do after one of these killer storms go through.

I am also saddened by the news that my closest work buddy may ship out to Iraq on Tuesday. Lately when they need people to fill critical billets in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Afganistan, or Iraq, they have been drawing the people from the school commands.

What happens is they will contact all the commands that have people of the rate they are looking for and then they will have each command volunteer people for the billet. They were looking for an Electronics Technician First Class and my buddy was volunteered. He will not know for sure if he was chosen until Monday and then will ship out Tuesday for weapons training and processing. Another one of my close buddies is also waiting word to see if he will be going to Guantanamo Bay.

Today we got off early and so for the first time in years I went to the commissary on base. I could not believe how low the prices were even though I had to wait in line forever to get out. David was working there today and he even bagged the groceries for me. I was able to buy alot of things I don’t normally get and could not believe how low the final total was.

I was going to give David a tip, but he had spotted several items that I bought that he will be gobbling up and said that I should keep the money.

Anyway, when I got home Judy was at work so Carlos and I unloaded the car and put everything away. Now I have a decision to make as I don’t really know what I should make for dinner as I have alot of options.

Well I guess that is it for now. I have really written some long raves this week and so I will keep it a little shorter today.

Please keep the people of the Philippines in your prayers and lets all pray that the death toll does not continue to rise. Thanks for your prayers.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today when I got up I went ahead and showered, shaved, and got ready for church before coming downstairs to chat and pray with Laila.

Judy had to go to work by noon today so I figured I would get ready early for the 9:30 AM mass. Judy and Carlos stayed up too late watching a movie last night and didn’t get up in time to attend with me so I went on my own.

The Father started out the mass by saying it was a great day for all the Filipino’s throughout the world as Manny Pacquiao won his fight yesterday. I know Laila would have loved that and she and her family watched the fight yesterday. He is like their national hero, so well done to him. Also the church erupted in applause when the Father made his announcement.

Today was the Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time and the first reading was Daniel 12:1-3. Today they did something slightly different by reading the Responsorial Psalm Psalms 16:5, 8-11. The second reading was Hebrews 10:11-14, 18 and the Gospel was Mark 13:24-32.

Laila said her Father covered the after life, while our Father talked about how Advent will be coming up in two weeks and how this is the end of the three year cycle of gospels and readings. He said that is why there has been so much about the return of Jesus in the last few weeks.

After church I came home and ate some toaster waffles after taking some pictures for a separate post I will be making today.

So I am glad I went and even though the kids didn’t go it was still a good experience for me.

Unhappy PLDT customers

Yesterday Laila and I started doing some research about the fine folks at the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company and how satisfied their customers are. It didn’t take long to come up with some links to some very dissatisfied customers. I will list several links at the end of this post.

Some of these links are would be extremely comical until you look at the fact that these are real people working hard for meager wages, and when they spend their hard owned pesos for a service or should I say no service, their complaints go unanswered.

Customer service does not mean giving them some BS answer like server maintenance or upgrades are in progress. Not when it is up and down for months, as Laila and I experienced prior to her switching to Bayantel.

Bayantel is not perfect but they act on the trouble calls quickly and in a professional manner. PLDT will, when they answer their phone place you on hold for a half hour or more, until you get tired of waiting and then hang up. You can not talk to a technician nor get one to visit our residence. They will tell you it must be your PC or they will direct you to take a connectivity test. Funny how when you use the one they recommend it is two to three times faster than any of the many others there are available to use.

Currently Laila has a bill for 34,000 Pesos or so, or the equivalent of 650 dollars. This bill is for services supplied after she had already turned in her equipment. This is highway robbery in the most blatant terms in a country where the average worker makes only about $20 a day.

Her government needs to take a serious look at this company and what they are doing to their customers. With an 8000 peso penalty fee, roughly $160, that must be paid for early termination or in Laila’s case is still required for termination after the commitment completed, the average Filipino is locked into having to pay for a service that is spotty at best.

Anyway here are some links to some of the PLDT customers for you to read, and I am sure that when you read them you will be as shocked as I was. This company must be held accountable.

Read the comments.
Another happy customer.
And another.
And another.
More.
Some more good comments.
And some real horror stories in the comments.

These are just examples and there are thousands and thousands more. It is time someone did something about this, because this is unsatisfactory.

PLDT scum

Today I will blog about something totally different.

Those of you who are regular readers of my blog and Laila’s know all too well the problems we have had with the Philippines Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Company. The problems have resulted in Laila switching her Internet to Bayantel but for convenience and all she kept her phone service with PLDT.

When she switched her Internet service she turned in her DSL modem and received a receipt. She also ensured that she had met all her contractual agreements such as being a customer for over two years and all that.

The reason she quit using PLDT for her internet was because she was paying for a 2MB connection but was actually forced to use dial up at times since the incompetent people working at PLDT could never seem to fix the problem, when she could get anyone to answer the phone there.

It has been several months since she turned in her modem and in the meantime they have still been billing her for the Internet. They are also trying to charge her for an early termination fee though she met her contract agreement. Now due to non-payment of these fake bills, her phone has been disconnected. I told her to go ahead and just call Bayantel and get the phone service through them.

While that will not help notify the people that call her all the time, at least she will get service restored. She will just have to notify everyone of her new number. I know she did not want to have to do this, and that is why she kept PLDT, but now that it has happened she has to move on.

In the meantime we are going to start posting about PLDT on our blogs and on the various complaint websites. I will also start looking into sponsoring a class action lawsuit against them. They think that since they are a big company, they can just bill at will, and then crush the regular person, and to stay out of trouble the regular people will not say anything.

The time has come to put these folks in their place, as Laila has copies of everything and I have a running commentary of everything recorded on my blog. PLDT has messed with the wrong people, as I currently have Laila writing a letter that will be sent to PLDT, her government utilities department, and the local press. The time has come to expose PLDT for what they are, and we will not stand by and take the abuse from them any longer.

I can not wait to get back to PI and personally confront their customer service folks and let them know they are not just dealing with a Filipina housewife.

I will show them copies of what we have, let them know we will not take this laying down, and that I will get international exposure if that is what it takes. What this company is doing is unfair and outrageous. I will not let my woman continue to be stressed out and loose sleep because these folks think they can extort money out of the common Filipino resident.

It is bad enough that the Philippine government encourages all their residents to become Pinoy’s (Slave labor for other countries). To have one of the biggest companies in the islands ripping off the remaining citizens is wrong and we will not let that stand. PLDT has messed with the wrong people and we will not relent until we receive a rebate for what she has spent for service not received, and until they stop the harassment.

So my blog is going to take a turn for a few days as I highlight the inadequacies of PLDT.

You can mess with my fiancée PLDT, but you can’t mess with me.

Alexandra, Pearl, and the Typhoon

Last night was one of the more anxious nights I have had in a long time. The night started out quiet enough, but then when all the stuff happened it all happened so fast.

When I got home yesterday I took my 1000 mg of Vitamin C which upset my stomach even though I had a full meal before hand.

Laila came online and then the phone calls started coming fast from her family. I guess the hospital where Alexandra died would not release the body until the bill was paid in full. Her brother didn’t have it and I guess the family took up a collection to get it paid.

Between all of the family and Laila they managed to scrape the money together, and Laila, her sister and Pearl set out to the hospital to claim the body.

There was a problem though, a typhoon was passing through Metro, Manila at the time and so here they are, out riding around town in a taxi in a typhoon, trying to get everything taken care of.

She texted me as she progressed but with the power going out all over the place, and cell phone problems things were intermittent. I have to say that I was really scared for their safety, and couldn’t go to bed until I knew they were safe.

They made it close enough to home about 1 AM my time and I went to bed. This morning I got up a little late, but with plenty of time to get to work. I could not get a hold of Laila, because her power was off. When I came home for lunch and a dental appointment I saw that she had text messaged me that everyone was fine and they were just leaving the funeral.

She did say that Pearl spilled hot water on herself at the funeral’s stairways and burned her left arm and hand. I hope she is all right. So now they are all home and safe but no power yet.

I hope when I get back from the dentist this afternoon that she will be able to come on line. The Typhoon went right through her area and there was damage. I hope they get her power back on.

Anyway, time to get ready for the dentist and also I hope my daughter will get here before I have to leave. I also hope I never have a repeat of last night.

Connection restored? It was but now it’s not.

I am happy to say that Laila’s Internet has finally been restored and it was great to talk to her on Skype this morning. Now she has a lot of catching up to do in all the games and stuff. Tonight we can also go back to the normal things we do like chat and watch TV. Also when we say the rosary, which we both do on Skype together each day, it will not be all distorted and slow.

I was really happy with my son yesterday. Lately I have been asking him to help me get some yard work done. I have had a few problems with my yard tools as I think I have blogged about over the past few weeks. If not, I have two string trimmers, one gas and one electric. The electric had the wrong size line installed and kept getting tangled, and over the weekend the gas powered seized up on me, I think it overheated.

On my way home from work yesterday I stopped by Home Depot and got the right size line for the electric one. When I got home I said nothing, I just put line on the trimmer, got the extension cord and went to work out back. After about 15 minutes my son appeared with the grass trimmer, which was working after it cooled down and we got a bunch of the back yard done in about 45 minutes. Today I will run the lawn mower over it after I rake up and throw away what we cut up yesterday.

I told him, “see what we can do in less than n hour if we work together”, and he was impressed. So he has agreed to help me get stuff done now, so each day we will pick one little project to get done. Today it will be gather up everything we can throw out as tomorrow is trash pickup day, and I will mow. I may put the mowing off until tomorrow depending on how long it takes us to rake and all. I also have to be careful to watch the heat as I have suffered from heat exhaustion three times in the past and am very susceptible to overheating again.

As far as other stuff today I was listening to Rick Roberts on the way to work and he was talking about some bill Congress is trying to run through which will include animals as part of any disaster programs. We have a war against terrorism, illegal immigration problems, child predator problems, and all kinds of important stuff going on yet Congress will waste their time on something as stupid as this.

I love my dogs and I have loved any animals I have had, but if it comes to the point where I have a choice to save a human or an animal then the human wins. Police and Fire personnel always rescue animals already when it does not endanger them or others in the process. We do not need a law like this.

Then the San Diego City Council voted yesterday to appeal the Federal Court Judges ruling on the cross on Mt. Soledad. Toni Atkins, Donna Frye, and Scott Peters voted against it, so I hope people will remember this vote when Election Day rolls around.

Lastly I really got spun up about a commercial that I heard on the radio. It was about some reading program they have established through the Public Libraries. It said if you are one of the 450,000 adults in San Diego that have difficulty reading. That is like 1 out of 4 people in this City. I am speechless about this one and am wondering if one of the radio talk shows will pick up on it.

Update: The wonderful folks from PLDT have done it again. It was up and now it is down. We had to do the rosary on dial up again and when she called to complain it was the same old story.

I am getting so fed up over this. I wish she had SBC over there.

Internet Connection problems

I have just about had it with the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT). Laila’s connection has been messed up for 5 days now. We have been able to communicate via dialup but it does not give us the bandwidth to use Skype or our web cams.

She has contacted them several times and has had little success. They did manage to get her connected for a couple of hours yesterday. We thought everything was great and got all set up to watch Deal or No Deal, and then just before it came on, her connection dropped back down to 4K again. She couldn’t even talk to me via chat.

I hope they are going to give her a discount on her bill or a refund. It seems very unethical to me that they would charge her full price for service she is not getting. She checked with another Internet provider and was about ready to get an account with them, but after talking to a neighbor she found out that his service has been messed up for three weeks now.

So I guess we will just have to wait until PLDT gets their act together. She will continue to call them and e-mail them until they get it fixed. It is just so depressing to have all of these connection problems and see the way her provider is handling it, or should I say not handling it.

I am also a little upset with the Veterans Administration after hearing that some knucklehead decided to take home a bunch of disks for a project he or she was working on and had them stolen in a home robbery. The problem is that now whoever stole the persons computer and disks now has the name, Social Security Number, and birth date of all the people who have been discharged from military since I think it was 1987. That includes mine, so I guess I will have to watch my credit cards and everything very carefully. The person that took it probably has no idea what they have since people that break into houses usually are trying to steal items to make a fast buck to score drugs, but I do have to be a bit worried as if this thief is able to look at the data and knows what he has, he could very well sell that data to some high tech criminals who would take advantage of that information.

Over the years all I have been hearing is keep your personal information to yourself to prevent identity theft and here I see that my protected identity is allowed to be taken to someone’s private residence, where it is unprotected and then stolen. Ouch, I wonder what other agencies or companies I have to worry about.

Just makes you wonder what other stuff people take home to work on in the privacy of their own home. What has happened to being security conscious?

We have discontinued Laila’s mission on blogshares. I left a post in her defense on another mission that someone started, and then managed to have myself insulted for standing up for her. I decided for my curiosity, to check out the web pages of some of these brats as I call them and it turned out to be sort of the way I thought.

They blog about cannabis and other drugs which gives me a great idea of how they are as people, so they are not even worth my time. I am so fed up with the insults, bad play of others, and the fact that when you say anything you are insulted by a bunch of dope smoking kids that care about nothing in life, and know nothing about life. I may just quit the game, as a game is a place where you have fun and release tension, not wind up angry and upset. I see now why some people have given up on the game.

I will of course see what Laila’s feelings are before I do anything. I think she is also fed up with the punks that have hijacked the game. Also her dialup connection has pretty much made it impossible to play anything on the site.

Well I guess that is it for the day. I am thinking of adding a new feature to my blog. I am thinking of it currently and will have to see if it is easily done and generates interest. I hope it does anyway. Well time to get to work. Have a great day.

First Day in Manila

Well I am in Manila now and after a long flight yesterday I wasn’t really ready to blog anything. I was a little behind on sleep but I have now caught up.

Yesterday was really different than my trip through the airport last time. For one thing I knew where I had to go and to get there fast. I got through immigration really fast as I was 4th in line. After waiting a while to get my bag, I had no problem getting through customs either.

Unlike last time where it took me hours to get through all the airport stuff I was in and out in no time. Then came the hard part, I left the terminal, and in Manila they have everyone wait for passengers in one area. I looked over the crowd and did not see her so I went to the taxi and van area. I had just arrived there and found a place to wait and as I turned toward the taxis and vans, there was Laila and Pearl.

I was surprised that I found them so fast. We then had to wait for our van as Butch, our driver, had parked it waiting for me to get through customs and all. After that we went home and everyone took a nap.

We got up in time to go to Palm Sunday Services and then we went to an all you can eat place called Dad’s Ultimate Buffet for dinner. After dinner we came home and I had brought some CD’s from home to watch. Well the kids picked out the “Ring” so Laila, who can’t stand horror,and I came into here and got online. I posted my travel blog entry and then we showed each other some tricks we had learned playing the Neopets games as well I make a few blogshares moves.

We got up and had breakfast and then went to the beauty shop and all of us got haircuts and a few extras. We are now getting ready to go grocery shopping. I want to get Laila out and exercise her bad knee without causing any permanent damage and walking is good for that.

Anyway, we are still hitting it off, and I am going to close this down for now and get ready to go to the grocery store.

Philippines State of Emergency

This morning as I got ready to go to work I found out that the Republic of the Philippines was under a state of emergency due to rioting. I didn’t really have time to check out the story much before departing for work but did do a little research into it.

20 years ago the Filipino’s rose up and forced Ferdinand Marcos from power and Placed Corizon Aquino into office. Today was supposed to be the start of a four day celebration of the People Power revolt that ousted Marcos.

The President of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who has herself been accused of getting into office through a rigged election used the opportunity to declare a state of emergency allowing her to stop the celebrations through the use of the Military and the power to control the press.

She has said it was enacted because of a coup plot, but I wonder if there is any truth to that. She has come under fire for a dishonest election held in 2004 and some of the other things that have been going on there. No that she has enacted a state of emergency she can have the military arrest anyone she feels is a threat and many people have already been arrested as a result. Technically a state of emergency is not martial law, but when I look at it I see no difference other than there is not a curfew.

I am wondering if this was done out of fear that the celebration would turn into a revolt. I guess time will tell. In the meantime I will pray for stability and that the Filipino people get back to their lives.

Here is a link to the story: Philippines President: Coup Try Quashed

Another cell phone adventure

Well since my class had to go donate to the Navy’s urinalysis program I am stuck here with nothing to do, so I broke out the trusty laptop and figured I would write today’s bog entry. The only problem I have is that I have no Internet access for links and news stuff so I am pretty much winging it.

Any one that has been a regular reader of my blog knows how I fell about cell phones and driving. So imagine my shock at something I saw on the way back to work yesterday from lunch. I had just exited the Interstate to head to the base after talking to my son at lunchtime. He had started a new job and since he works nights now at a restaurant I wanted to find out the particulars, like where he worked, what he does and that kind of stuff. As I was coming off the freeway I saw a California Highway Patrol car getting on the freeway and when I looked at the officer he was talking on a cell phone. Anyway I guess that since they do have to attend extra driving schools and all they are better drivers, but I thought it was a poor example.

I am a little worried at what happened in Iraq yesterday. When I heard of all the fighting between the Sunni’s and Shite’s and the fact that they are blowing up and destroying each other’s mosques and all, I get a little worried. I thought everything was starting to go a little better over there, despite the crap I hear from the Main Stream Media, but this is a setback. I just can’t understand why, if all this stuff that happens between them is religious in nature, why they would desecrate houses of worship. I wonder where all the Muslim leaders are, and why they are not calling for an end to this mess.

I am really encouraged by the fact that they found a live chicken in the slide area of Southern Leyte yesterday. There could be some people still alive and I am also very impressed by the attitudes of the search teams there. I am also proud of the hard work and dedication being displayed by the Marines and Sailors involved in the rescue efforts. Many people throughout the world think the American Military is just around to destroy things, but they have been active in rescue efforts in every disaster that has happened in the world these days. I wish them luck in finding survivors and will continue to pray for the victims.

While I don’t remember all the particulars I guess the Government of the Philippines has decided to revoke all contracts with private sales outlets for the new 3-G technology cell phones. Something about some procedure not being followed or something like that. I know my woman is ticked off about it, as she wants to eventually get one, as soon as other people she knows get theirs. I guess the want to make sure they can get the most bucks for the government coffers as they can.

I am upset at the pure crap I see on the news concerning Dubai Port World taking over operations on the east coast. The posturing I see from both parties has really demonstrated to me how out of touch some politicians on both sides of the isle are. I have been hearing the most unbelievable crap on talk radio and even on FOX News. I can just imagine what the must be saying on CNN or MSNBC which I do not watch. If this does not go through we will be sending the wrong message to our allies in the area. Granted they are not perfect allies, but they are the best we have in the region. Denying them this deal would be discriminatory. After all the Chinese are running the port of Long Beach and the British ran this company before.

Lastly as this is getting long winded, I need to blog about prime time TV. I don’t understand why FOX would take off the critically acclaimed show House, for American Idol. Maybe I am just getting old, but I cannot see why that show has to be on for two hours every night. I don’t understand how it gets the number of viewers it gets. I don’t watch it myself, and really miss the dramas.

Also with NBC showing the Olympics weeknight primetime has been really boring. I have been watching the Olympics but I am embarrassed by the attitudes and poor showing of our athletes, and what is with some of these so called sports. I just have a problem getting into some of it. I like the summer games but the Winter Games are boring to me. Our top skier Bode Miller has not done squat, the hockey team lost, and the fighting between the speed skaters in an embarrassment. I guess a lot of these folks are going to be missing all that endorsement money since they couldn’t win anything.