i applied yesterday for that student volunteer position at the cscw conference in china in march. i almost didn’t apply because i was thinking “i don’t know any chinese, and would i really really want to go?”, but then i figured why not? it’s not like i’ll really have any other chances to do this, and it’s only to be a student volunteer, and if i’m chosen then i have the option to withdraw later on if i need to, so i applied. i won’t know if i got it until november 11, so we’ll have to wait and see.

speaking of going places, i might try going to schenectady at the end of september. i got an email from my curling club that the schenectady curling club is hosting an event where two curlers from one of canada’s men’s curling teams and two curlers from team usa’s women’s olympic curling team give hands-on instruction. i’d have to make a whole 3-day weekend of it, but it’s something to consider.

i finished my rework of that payment that was done incorrectly for the past 2 years, and it turns out that we overpaid by about $425,000, and not the $536,000 that we originally thought. the $536k was based off of the previous method for calculating, but the $425k is based off of what the contract says, so that’s that. still, finding $425,000 isn’t shabby at all! my boss said today that she was going to reach out to our point-of-contact to schedule a conference call about it later this week so we can tell them that we want our money back. if it’s not on thursday, i might take that day off to go with mom and dad and anne to help move anne in to her dorm for her freshman year at college.

right when i was finishing an email to my boss and her boss about the rework, i got this crazy call from, well, not really a customer since it doesn’t matter whether or not they use our service. it turns out this lady and her husband have a cell tower on their property, and we lease it from them, and they get a check from us each month. i answered the phone with my usual “thank you for calling verizon wireless, this is glenn speaking”, and she immediately asked “is this mr. fitzpatrick??” and then starts accusing me of knowing what she’s talking about and saying that i should have taken care of her issue before since i had dealt with it before and was going on and on and i had absolutely no idea what she was talking about or even how she got my phone number. all i could decipher was that 1.) she and her husband have a tower on their property that we pay them for each month, and 2.) something about a maintenance fee that we’re supposed to pay them each month.

she asked if i’m in the department that issues payments and i said yes, but she didn’t want to listen when i tried to explain that our payments are to enterprise and government customers. i wasn’t even sure if anybody else in my department would know what in the world she was talking about, but after getting her to give me a contact number i convinced her to let me ask around and find out what the other people in my department might know. they were as puzzled as i was, but one of them knew of someone who works in a department that issues payments for cell tower leases. i ended up finding details about our payments to the customer, then a contact with the same job title that was listed on documentation for our lease payments, and reached out to her for assistance and she said she’d take it from there. we were both really confused why the customer was even calling me, but it turned out the customer had originally called someone who (i guess) gave out my name and number. i don’t know, i’m still really confused about it and still have no idea what that was all about. i’m annoyed how argumentative that lady was when i really had no idea what she was talking about, though.

at dinner tonight mom and dad were talking about how they need a new toilet for their bathroom…

mom: “maybe we should call [plumber] and have them pick out a toilet?”

dad: “it’s just a toilet. why would we want the plumber to get it?”

mom: “just to make sure that we get the right one for our bathroom.”

dad: “but why would the plumber know what kind of toilet we’d want?”

me: “ooh, you should get one of those awesome japanese toilet seats while you’re at it!”

*blank stares*

me: “…you know, awesome japanese toilet seats…?”

*blank stares*

me: *summarizes*

i don’t think they were as excited as i was about the awesome toilet that was in the hotel where cynicalscribe and i stayed when we were in japan.

*conversation turns back toward why would a plumber be better at picking out a toilet than the toilet users*

me: “ooh! i’ve got LOTS of experience with toilets. i sit on them ALL THE TIME! i’ve used lots of different ones! i can give you some good recommendations!”

anne and i kept going on that line of thought, and were pretty much ignored by mom and dad.

one week until my school starts. turns out the book for one of my classes is on backorder from the publisher, and so nobody in that class is going to have their books in time for the class to start. my other textbook shipped today, though; it’s supposed to arrive next tuesday, which is the same day that class begins. seems like that’s cutting things a little close!

eta: sweet! we could get j.d. salinger’s toilet for only $1,000,000!