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Just got done setting up my new Blackberry 8830 World Edition cell phone from Verizon that I have been given at work in order to stay on top of work-related email.
This phone seems to be a really powerful tool and I look forward to fully exploring it in the coming days. I love shiny,new tech toys to play with.
Woo hoo!
Thalia, Reyna's very dear friend, is currently in the hospital dealing with diabetes complications that have progressed to the point where she has been sentenced to the partial loss of her leg.
As expected, she is NOT handling this well and is in a highly distressed emotional state to the point where they have had to physically restrain her in her bed to avoid her harming herself. She is going to need enormous amounts of compassion, support, understanding and love to get through this highly traumatic event.
Damn, I fell really bad for her. My wife is handling this pretty well, thank God.
Routine, quiet day at work, followed by a rare Friday night dinner at Asela's house (The Rojas have dinner plans with a friend of Patty's tomorrow night) and then a drive over to Palos Verdes to play Scrabble.
Bert accuses me of Cheating
The Scrabble session was contentious, with me retreating into my "Bert is being a dick" turtle shell after Bert insinuated that I was CHEATING by looking up the CORRECT SPELLING of "reseized", a word he had mis-spelled in a failed attempt at placing a bingo.
Predictably, I let him get under my skin and it affected my concentration level and thus my Scrabble play and I ended up losing 2 out of 3.
God, his insinuation really pissed me off. I need to work on rising above that. He rankles me way to easily.
Just completed the 1st phone conference with Francisco Zavala, Aldo's Attorney. Initial contacts have been made:
So, it's seems like this guy is on the ball and is taking charge of the case. I hope we have made a good decision in hiring this guy. We'll soon see, I guess.
Spent nearly 2 hours today assisting Bert with getting one of his Windows 98 boxes at the factory to "see" the purple Dell XP box he recently added to his network.
In the end, it was a matter of creating an account on the XP box that had the same user name and password of the account on the 98 box so that the authentication mechanism would allow the 98 box to "see" the shared drives and printers attached to the purple Dell box.
It took a search of the USENET Newsgroups on Google to come up with the answer, but find the ansswer I did and I once again pulled Bert's butt out of the fire.
Cool.
Fabricio just stopped by my desk to setup my Blackberry on my laptop, but since I have not received the actual phone yet, there was not a lot for him to do.
I told him I would call, IM or email him as soon as I receive the phone so he can come by and set it up.
Just got a verbal report from Claudia, Aldo's mom on the results of her initial interview with the parole officer.
She gathered all of the documentation that the lawyer said she needed to take to her and they had a somewhat productive, 1 hour interview. From what Claudia states, the lady parole officer was nice enough and seemed to be interested in building a fair case for Aldo.
I gather also that she was duly impressed with the "reference letter" package that I put together in a 3 ring binder for her. We'll see what kind of a favorable report she writes with all of the input she has been given.
Microsoft HHH Event
Attended the Microsoft Global Launch event entitled "Heroes Happen Here" for Windows Server 2008. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 & Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.
It was hot, crowded and bothersome. The keynote speech was great with Tom Browkaw and Steve Ballmer sharing Keynoter duties and showing us a whole bunch of case study videos on the use of the new software. Lines were 20 minutes long everywhere and I basically went just for the free software that I received for filling out a survey about the conference.
Visit to Rojas Inc for Purple Dell install
After the Microsoft event, I drove over to the factory to deliver the purple Dell to Bert. We installed it and were strategizing about where to put it, when Miguel Insua from Insua Graphics showed up and took Bert away for like the next 30 minutes.
I got tired of waiting for Bert, so eventually I went outside told him I would just be going home.
Picking up the Corvette from Champion Chevrolet & Returning the Kia Rondo to Enterprise
After coming home from Rojas Inc., AJ and I went to pick up my Corvette from Champion Chevrolet ($261.00 in repairs this time around) and then drove over to Enterprise Rent-A-Car near LAX to return the Kia Rondo that I had rented the weekend before ($384 for 4 days). All of that proceeded smoothly and we were home well before 1800.
Letter creation for Aldo: Isa stops by to sign letter
I then fell into crazy letter creation mode, getting letters of support for Aldo ready to sign for Mom and for Isa. Isa stopped by and signed Aldo's letter and I got Mom's letter worked out also.
Visit to Ritz Camera to look at lenses
Before heading over to Mom's I stopped by Ritz camera and looked at some lenses for my Nikon D40. I am considering a 55mm to 200mm Telephoto lens that retails for $249.00 plus tax and I also looked at a very nice Macro lens that retails for like $430. I am pretty sure I will be picking up the 200mm Telephoto as soon as I learn more about what these lenses do.
Getting water for mom from Food 4 Less and a visit to Mom’s
Before stopping at Mom's for a visit, I stopped in at Food 4 Less and bought 3 cases of Spring! bottled water for her. I then went home and AJ gave me a ride to her house where she signed Aldo's letter and we had a pleasant visit of watching TV and general overall chit-chat.
FUCK.
So, after the absolutely *exhausting* grind of dealing with meeting Aldo's attorney for the 1st time, I came home and attempted to crash, only to receive a phone call from Bert, at like 9:30 PM, to pressure me about the progress on his POS purple Dell "pizza box" computer that he wanted me to retrofit for the Factory.
After expressing frustration with Bert at the fact that he was calling me about the computer and not about Aldo, we had a tense back and forth about the ETA on the repair of the computer, with Bert stating that although "i kinda need it by Friday", I will be very upset if you stay up late working on it.
I, of course, got out of bed, got dressed, stomped outside, got his computer, took it to the garage and hooked it up. I then spent almost 2 hrs in my office and the garage, updating the computer, patching it up, installing the new nic card in it and making sure it was good to go so I could take it to him in the morning.
This evening we drove to Sherman Oaks to meet Francisco Zavala for the 1st time. The wife, my son, Aldo's mom and I took about 50 minutes to drive from Lawndale to Sherman Oaks and we ended up arriving 15 minutes late.
The offices were OK and we had to wait a few minutes for Mr. Zavala to come out and greet us. eventually he did and walked us into a large conference room with a large table where we all sat down and talked about what happened with Aldo.
Mr. Zavala didn't record the proceedings and never offered us anything to drink. He asked a lot of questions and the whole session lasted about an hour. During the conversation, Mr. Zavala became exasperated with Claudia, because he felt like she was going off on constant irrelevant tangents (she did, multiple times) and he also expressed concern at the fact that Claudia did not have a firm idea/answer to the question regarding Aldo's academic progress.
When we were getting ready to go, Mr. Zavala expressed admiration for the fact that A.J. was studiously taking notes for his cousin to refer to later.
Predictably, Claudia took exception to how she was treated by Mr. Zavala and was very put off by him. Considering that this is basically her problem and that it is her son who needs her help, I am a little surprised that she is taking this attitude with the Attorney.
At the very end of the meeting, we gave Mr. Zavala the amount of money in CASH that he had requested and we looked over the contract and had Claudia sign it.
We'll see what happens from here. For better or for worse, Aldo has an Attorney.
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