On hold via email?

I emailed SiriusXM customer support for a problem with my account and received this response:

Thanks for writing to SIRIUS XM Customer Care! At SIRIUS XM, our
customers matter - that's why we love hearing from you. We believe we
offer the best audio entertainment in the world and we want you to think
so too.

We are currently experiencing high email volume. Please note that a
response to your question may take a little longer than it normally
would, but one of our Customer Care Associates will get back to you as
soon as possible.

I thought I was emailing to avoid being put on hold?

Final frontier(s)

I was talking to my friend Susan the other night about the reunion and how it was the "final frontier" in terms of running into people who hadn't seen me since I transitioned. Then she reminded me that I said the same thing about meeting my Mom's side of the family for Thanksgiving last year.

Now I've joined Facebook and I'm finding a whole new layer of people for who this is all brand new. People I knew from the Air Force, friends from high school, old coworkers...is this the final final frontier?

I'm starting to think that maybe it never really ends. I have 30 years worth of pre-Jessica life so I suppose it might take me more than a few to tie up all the loose ends.

Facebook

I finally caved and signed up for a Facebook account tonight. I sent out a few friend requests to people who have been bugging me about getting an account recently. If you read this and think we're friends (current or long-lost) look me up and I'll add you.

I'm going to try to keep from having a ton of just random people on there, so if I don't approve you, please don't be offended.

I think tomorrow night I might sign up for a Twitter account and just go all-in on the social networking scene... :)

Somos familia

Yesterday was the big reunion of airborne Spanish linguists. Waldo had posted on Thursday about how she was feeling ambivalent about going and I think my feelings were pretty much the same. I really wanted to see her and her family and to attend the dedication of a memorial to my friend Shane who was killed in action 7 years ago but I wasn't very optimistic about the prospects for the rest of the day.

I'll spare you the point-by-point details of everything and just say that I'm *very* glad I came out here for the reunion. There's something special about the bond I share with this group of people that transcends all of the varied paths we've taken in life. Most of the people attending were retired or active duty military - there were only a few of us who were one-term airmen - yet all of us were welcomed as much a part of the community as anyone else.

The president of the Association of Spanish Flyers, Espy, summed it up best at the end of his speech at Shane's memorial dedication when he said, simply, "somos familia." I've been blessed to be a part of a number of families throughout my life and I'm very grateful to be able to see that this one has survived all of the changes in my life as well.

Most of the day's activities took place in secured areas, so I couldn't bring a camera or my cell phone in. There were people taking pictures so I'll have to wait to post any until they get those pictures out to everyone. Whenever that happens, I'll either post them here or put up a link to where they're at.

Am I a Mac or a PC?

Sorry again for the extended absence. What was it this time...almost 2 months? Would you believe me if I said it really didn't seem like that long?

It's been a pretty busy couple of months. I'll try to catch everyone up as quick as I can...

I returned to work at the beginning of July, as scheduled. Well, the first week of the month was mandatory vacation time, so I didn't actually start working again until the second week. Did I mention that the company killed our vacation benefit? They are also trying to get everyone to use up what vacation they had stored and that week pretty much did it for me. Anyhow, I'm hanging in there and the company is still limping along for now. It sounds like we'll be able to stay in business for at least another couple of months at this point.

My niece is doing well and getting *big*! My nephew's birthday party was this past weekend and it was a lot of fun. Much more fun that his last one since he can actually open presents and understand what they are now. First birthday parties and first xmas's are ok as milestones, but kids are still too young to really know what's going on at the point and it can be kind of boring.

I had a couple of wisdom teeth pulled about a month ago. Due to the problems I had with my last oral surgeon, I checked this guy out before I scheduled an appointment. I thought he might be pretty cool since my dentist mentioned that he knew I didn't want to go to my old guy (out of the blue - I don't remember mentioning anything to him about not wanting to see him again) and that he thought I'd really like the surgeon he was referring me to.

While the guy didn't come up as a donor to Prop 8 or anything stupid like that, his wife came up as a donor to Mitt Romney and the doctor graduated from BYU. I had reservations about spending my money with a probable mormon but then decided that was dumb and scheduled the appointment. I'm glad I did - he turned out to be a nice guy and did a good job. Bigotry can go both ways - I need to remember to check myself sometimes.

I decided to go to that military reunion I mentioned a little while back. A friend of mine from here, who was also in the same unit, was originally going to go with me, but he has to travel for work so I'll be going solo. This is getting long so I'll talk more about that later.

Finally, about the title of the post. My PC's main hard drive crashed a couple of weeks ago and I spent a few days thinking about what I wanted to do to replace it. I'd been considering getting an iMac for a while since I could dual boot it to Windows or Mac and with some projects I've been thinking about, that would've been a necessity. I found out that my brother had a MacBook Pro that he wasn't using so I ended up buying it off of him for next to nothing. Have I mentioned that my brother kicks ass?

I've never regularly used a Mac before so I wasn't really sure what to expect. The rest of my family uses them and had nothing but good things to say. After using one for a couple of weeks now, I think I'll have to throw my endorsement behind the Mac as well. I have fallen in love with this OS and have so far resisted the urge to load Windows onto the machine. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to resist - I am a Windows developer after all - but for now I'm doing pretty well with being a PC by day and a Mac on nights and weekends. Any parallels with my past are purely coincidental. :)