Michele´s Sick!!!

You'll probably notice very quickly by the spelling errors and missed words that Michele is NOT!! the one typing. Yep, she´s sick, so it is up to me to keep all our loving fans occupied. You will also quickly notice the lack of depth. :-) My life's concerns right now revolve around my dell laptop that stopped working the first week in January. Yes, the first week in January. January 19th, after visiting several repair shops, I found a little shop in the center that seemed to know what they were doing. They quickly diagnosed the problem as the main board and said they would get back to me with a price. Two weeks later (having not received a call) I decided to call and find out what was happening. The technician mentioned a price, but quickly said that he hadn't been able to substantiate the price. He promised to call the next day with the confirmed price. Two weeks later I decided to call again. This time i spoke with a different technician and he gave me a price double the original. I requested the first price (It was
better :-) and they said I would have to speak with the first technician. We are now at about a month. At this point, please keep in mind that I have given no authorization to do anything. Two days later I called again hoping to at least get the information off the disk. The second technician offered a price of 30 dollars to simply put my hard drive in an external hard drive case. ¨Sounds good to me, can I come right now and pick it up along with my computer?¨ ¨Sure¨ they reply. When I arrived there, they don't seem to recognize me without describing the computer (p.s. this happens every time I call on the phone, too. I like to think I speak perfect Spansih, just like a Cuencano, but who are we kidding. It kind of took me by surprise though when they didn´t recognize the 6'2¨ red faced Gringo that dropped off the dell) In any case, they ran around, one to the other, as if to say ¨Have you seen this guys' dell?¨ ¨Wait,¨ I think to myself, ¨Did I not just speak to YOU on the phone and YOU said it was ready for me to pick up?¨ They finally realize that it is actually at their OTHER office and will be there in 30 minutes (this by ecuadorian terms means 2 hours), and P.S. the main board has arrived and your computer is done!!!!!! Yippee!! Hey, I'll wait two hours for my computer, this is great. Two hours later, like clockwork, the guy shows up.........with just my hard drive. ¨There was a bit of a timing issue. The technicians did not have time to reboot, reinstall, re..... the computer. But, here you go, take the info and bring back the hard drive tommorrow.¨ What...bring it back tommorrow???? Long story less long, they let me have an $80 external hard drive with all my information on it until my computer gets done, which they said (middle of feb.) would be done tuesday. That´s pretty much the story. The latest saga is that the computer is at the office, but the technician lost the power adapter, so they are buying a new one at no cost to me.

I have learned a great deal about the ecuadorian people throughout this ordeal. Although they have absolutely no concept of time or the meaning of customer service, they can truly be nice! It is now March 11, and they say it will be done tommorrow. :-)

Thank you for listening, Sorry for rambling. Don't worry, Michele will be back soon.

On a semi-deep note. I seem to remeber thinking as a child that 30 was old. Having just turned 31 and buying a partial plate (that's dentures for those who haven't reached the golden years yet) I am now quite certain the 30 is old.