ive done my best over the last year and a half to adopt a new policy with regards to the way i live my life. a new set of rules, a new perspective. and its allowed me so much more freedom. the freedom to be happy no matter what the circumstance. the freedom to see the good instead of the bad. and although its not always easy, and because bad habits die hard, i occasionally revert back to my old self. and i really cant believe i ever lived that way. what a horribly stressful world i created for myself. a place in which if but one thing fell out of place, i lost sight of all the great things i have. tolerance, acceptance, gratefulness, freedom, spirituality. all things ive come to embrace in such a short period of time considering i knew nothing of these qualities until i met helen.

having said all that. and not to pat myself on the back, but a lot was said and my actions have backed that all up. i sit here a little wiser but still flawed as i recall todays events. a time in which i briefly threw away all ive learned and reverted back to someone i once was.

the situation is this. i have a new web host. they transferred my sites (their sales pitch was “we’ll transfer everything over and make it all work”) over without me having to lift a finger. score! except of course, they forgot to mention that “everything” was actually excluding ftp and mail accounts. i threw a minor fit, then quickly corrected myself, apologized for my behavior and moved on. a small bump in the road. especially when taking into account the tales of my last host. a server in which it was not uncommon for us to experience outages on a daily basis. a server that went down for three days while i was in europe with no explanation. they refused to reboot the server because i had forgotten my admin password and therefore couldnt verify that i wasnt some hacker for europe, hellbent on making sure my server received no downtime. in comparison, my new host was a breeze. an absolute pleasure. fast forward and i notice that certain parts of my sites are not updating as normal. they tell me that a programmer will fix it asap. two weeks later virtually nothing has been touched and i was told the programmer went on vacation.

again, this is something i can forgive. people make mistakes. human error. im not perfect so why would i expect others to be. all things i try and tell myself. knowing full well that i would never make these errors. its either stupidity on their part or apathy.

anyhow, strike … what number are we on? strike three happens as im at a gas station and my card is declined. ive got several bank accounts, so it wasnt a major thing, but upon my arrival home i found that one of my accounts was overdrawn. a little more investigating revealed that my hosting company charged me twice for the same month. this account is basically my “outgoing” one. i keep enough money in there to cover fixed expenses and petty cash purchases. i had, for the last two weeks, racked up 15 overdraft fees totaling ….. $495. i emailed the company and they reversed the charges. mind you, its not as though they alerted me of the error, i had to find it for myself. i walked into the bank today and for some reason i was under the impression that if i could prove i was not responsible, they would reverse these overdraft fees. ohhhh no. being the it was an error on someone else’s part other than their’s or my own, they wanted to keep their found money. lets face it, charging $33 dollars each time i made a $2.99 purchase of doritos at 7-11 is called theft. not a fee. but in any case, i called up the hosting company and requested they reimburse me for $495. i faxed them, from my bank mind you, a statement showing all the fees. that was not good enough. they needed to see all of my transactions for the month so they could prove that i wasnt making all this up. because out of the two of us, i being the one whos paid my bills faithfully, and them being the one that took money out of my account with no authorization .. i should not be trusted. not only that … they want a letter from my bank stating that it was indeed their mess, and that they would have to clean it up. the trouble is that my bank doesnt just stop everything for someone elses mistake. theyre only authorized to send such letters from the corporate offices. and i should receive them in 2 business days. so on wednesday or so, i might see my fucking money back. my fucking money. i love how these companies think that because they open at 9 and close at 5, make the people who serve me wear ties, and give out free coffee it means i dont see them for what they really are. crooks. and not even good ones at that. the good ones either take your money without you realizing it, or they take it and when you begin to complain they shut your face up with their fists. honor among thieves. so its war and when its time for war, i bring out all the weapons. my voice jumps in volume, my wit sharpens, and the threats spew. i somehow got them to accept my transaction history without any letter accompanying it. i was told they would credit my card with $495. late at night i login to my online banking site to see that indeed $495 was recorded in the ledger. however, IN THE WRONG FUCKING COLUMN. instead of giving, they took even more. that puts the grand total sum of money my host took from my account or caused to be charged, without my authorization to roughly $1200.

i sent an email to the owner asking “am i seeing things? i cant imagine this is happening, yet the evidence is all too clear. she replied “OMG”. of course there were a few admissions of wrong doing and apologies in there. but yeah “OMG”. and that really just sums it all up. i now have every intention of heading down to orange county to meet the person that did this to my account. i have to put a face to the mistakes. i imagine some sort of monkey wearing brightly colored overalls, banging his fists into an old apple IIe.

if youve decided your life is too peaceful. that chaos would be a nice change of pace. that money in your bank account is really more like the change you see in the “take a penny leave a penny” jar at your local convenient store. youve found yourself visiting dynamic sites like myspace and felt that it’d be nicer if they never updated. if you enjoy sales pitches like “unlimited miles* ………. *limited to 5 miles. if youre doing a study on human error and need test subjects. or you simply like spending more time at your bank than you do at your real job …

its time to switch to nakedhosting.com

end rant. begin cleanse.

ps. im in bed and helen is laying here next to me eating sliced ham from a salsa bowl. *swoon*