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Tuesday, 03 June 2008
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I'm bringing Xanga back - drop a comment if you're with me!
Sunday, 29 October 2006
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The Big Switch
After almost 12 years with Cingular (I first had it when it was Pac Bell), I've made the switch to Verizon Wireless. I had nothing but good times with Cingular, but the discount that Edison was giving coupled with the lack of phones Cingular was offering, finally made me make the switch. Cingular never gave me a problem. Here's a list of phones that I can recall going through:
1. Mitsubishi (I can't remember the model number) - It was a slimmer looking phone that had a stubby antenna. There was a flip cover that would protect the keys.
2. Nokia 5190 - The pre-6190. It was a little bulky. This was my first phone that actually had games. Can you remember Snake? I remember "hopping" this phone up. It was in a clear blue case with a flashing antenna. Remember those?
3. Nokia 6190 - This was one of my favorite phones. This was a phone you could hop up too, but it wasn't as easy as the 5190. It was a slimmer phone though.
4. I can't remember the make and model of this phone, but I do remember that it was silver in color with a blue colored screen. It was one of the smaller phones that I've had. It was a very business like phone.
5. Nokia 3390 - This was a pretty good phone too. It was pretty much the 6190 minus the antenna. This phone had Snake 2! =)
6. Motorolla V400 - I believe this was my very first flip phone and my first camera phone. More importantly it marked the first time I was under my own cell phone bill and my change to the 951 area code.
7. Sony Ericsson T616 - This was one of the quickest phones that I went through. Right after I picked this phone up, I started liking the Blackberry.
8. Blackberry 7100g - This was the move to the PDA phones. This wasn't one of my favorites. I never got used to the blackberry interface, but supposedly the business world likes it a lot.
9. Cingular 2125 - This was the last phone that I had with Cingular. Again, this was a very good phone, but I had to make the switch. (I was contemplating getting the Cingular 8125 too)
Anyways, here is the new phone with Verizon:
Samsung i730 here's a couple of the features (http://www.vzwshop.com/samsungi730info/):- Slide- out QWERTY keyboard
- High-resolution 65K TFT color screen
- Windows Mobile™ software
- Microsoft® Windows® applications
- 64 MB RAM plus SDIO expansion slot for added memory
- Infrared port, USB and Bluetooth® connectivity*
- Wireless Sync compatible
- Speakerphone
- 9 Ring Tones plus vibrate mode
- Docking/Charging USB cradle
- Stereo headset
- Stylus
- Holster
- Travel charger
- Standard battery
- Extended battery
Monday, 23 October 2006
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Delayed!
So I woke up later than usual. I have my alarm clock set at 5:00 AM, but I usually wake up 10 minutes before it actually goes off. Today the alarm actually went off and woke me up. As I laid in bed, I considered actually driving into work today, but of course I convinced myself in a matter of minutes that it would not be logical for me to drive in because I don’t want to drive in twice in the week (I need to drive in at least one time this week because I need to buy a new monthly pass for the Metrolink). So, I did my morning thing and then headed out the Metrolink station.
The Metrolink got in about a minute early. “Great!” I thought to myself, “We’re going to make it in early”. Usually, if the train comes in early it means that we would get to each station early and if you compound all the station stops, in the end you’d get in early. The train goes through a couple of cities before my stop in El Monte: Rancho Cucamonga (origin) Upland, Montclair, Claremont, Pomona, Covina, Baldwin Park and then El Monte (destination). Upon arrival to the Upland station, the “ditch” lights (the lights on the “front”, which ever direction the train is traveling, which alternate off and on as the train travels) stopped working. So what does this translate to? Well, according to the Department of Transportation, a train that has non-functioning ditch lights, can only travel a maximum of 20 miles per hour when crossing city streets. As you can imagine, there is a bunch of streets that the Metrolink crosses on it’s way to Los Angeles Union Station. So, I got in 30 minutes later than I was supposed to be which translates into the reason why I’m on the train currently and it’s 5:04 pm.
Next Stop…Pomona…=(
I should already be home, but for the unfortunate events of the day.
One good thing about this later train, is that there is a lot more room. The train that I usually get on, the 3:50 (I believe), is only 3 cars long, which means that there is not that much seating. This train, the 4:40 (I believe), is 5 cars at least (I think I might have seen 6). There are a lot of younger passengers on this train. I think they are either high school or college age. Reason I say that is I don’t know why a high school student would be taking the Metrolink. This line does stop at Cal-State LA, hence the college age logic. Oh wells.
We’re just getting into Upland…last stop before Rancho Cucamonga. Time to end this thing.
**For those of you that might be confused on timing, I actually wrote up my “What’s going on At Work?” entry and then entered the paragraph above. Just if you were wondering.**
What’s Going on At Work?
I think that this week is going to be a pretty busy work week. I came in late this morning (if you skipped the first part of this entry then you currently aren’t in the know), but luckily I only had 1 file to look at. The week looked pretty simple: Monday – 1 file, Tuesday – 4 files, Wednesday – 2 Files, Thursday – 0 Files, Friday – 8 Files. Friday is always deceiving because I always put all the easy closures (files that require an approval of a settlement worksheet and then issuance of a check).
Well, my manager came by and knew that I only had 1 file that I had to look at today. He asked me if I had things to do and I told him that I was working head on my taskboard (which he always likes to hear), but then asked if I could handle more files. Of course, you never want to tell your superior “no” when it comes to workload and in this case I follow the normality and said yes. By 11:00 AM, my open files jumped from 15 files to 27 files. Can you do the math? That’s 12 more new files! I did get through all the files that were handled to me today, but then I checked before I left the office today and saw that there were 5 more files to review tomorrow.
Me and my big mouth. Hopefully it all it’s going unnoticed and hopefully and review time comes around it helps me out.
Sunday, 22 October 2006
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So...What's New?!
I guess there is nothing really new going on right now. The new job is going well. It's a lot more relaxing than my previous job. I've been learning a lot about what electricity does and what affects it. I've learned what can cause electronics to go out and that a lot of electronics are sensitive to power outages. If you want a word of advice, here it is: If you've got something plug into an outlet that you can't really afford to replace, make sure it's protected by a good power protector. Don't think that buying a $9.99 power protector is going to keep your things safe. Here's another word of advice, any electric company will rarely provide a high voltage situation. When power comes back on after a power outage, there is no "surge" that comes through the outlet. Most people think that when the power comes back on, there is a "surge" of energy that goes through the line. Unless there is a high voltage situation that is present, there is no such thing as a "surge". The way it is explained is when the power comes back on, it's like turning off your main breakers and then turning it back on. Main point of the story, keep your electronics safe and make my job simple by protecting your electronics.
Anyways, now that my explaination of that is over. What else is new? Oh ya, the Metrolink is probably the best idea yet. It so nice to not worry about traffic and such. My first full month on the Metrolink is almost over. I need to go buy a new monthly pass. I think I'm going to have to drive into work on the 31st, so that I can buy a monthly pass after work. I've saved a lot in gas, but more importantly I'm saving on the wear and tear on my truck. A lot of people don't think about it, but it's not just gas that you're spending money on when you drive. You are also spending money on the maintanence on your vehicle (tires, oil, steering fluid, etc.). It'd be nice if work was a little bit closer to the station, but you can't really complain. Going to work the commute is about an hour. Coming home it's about and hour and and 20 minutes. Only reason why coming home is a little longer is because of the wait time between when the shuttle gets to the train station and when the train actally gets to the train station. Well that's all of rhat. What's next?
Since my last entry, I had my first holiday at Edison. We had Columbus Day, October 9, off. Melissa and I took, Michael out to Disneyland on Sunday (we were planning on going on Monday, but then figured that Sunday would probably be a better day because then I could rest up for work on Tuesday). We were going to go with Jason, but he had other plans. I bought Michael a 1 day Park Hopper pass and then he upgraded it to an annual pass. It was pretty fun. It's nice to go to a place you love with people that you love. It was pretty fun. My next holiday is coming up soon, Friday, November 10. Any ideas?
Okay, I think that's pretty much it. I think I'm done for now. Until next time.
Saturday, 23 September 2006
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First Week at Southern California Edison
So it's the end of the first week at SCE and so far so good. The first two days was a little hectic. There were so many things that were going wrong that my manager joked and said to go home and come back tomorrow when IT gets their act together. The biggest problem on the first day was trying to get access to the computer system. Edison uses a couple of different programs for a person to do their work. The main program CMS wasn't even installed on my computer. CSS, the secondary system, wasn't installed either. So, I pretty much sat with Chris and he explained the basics of the job. That's why it pretty much sums up the first two days. The third day, I was finally able to access the computer system. I had to familiarize myself with a different why of handling claims. It wasn't until Friday, that I finally got a grasp of what I had to do. It's a lot different from handling auto claims, but it's a little hard to explain.
SCE doesn't have formal training, so I pretty much sat in with 3 different, which includes Chris, people that knew what they were doing. The other 2 were Nina and Silvia. All 3 of them had their different styles of working claims and my manager wanted me to see how there can be 3 different styles, yet all arrive at the same conclusion. It was pretty interesting. Now it's just a matter of figuring out what will work best for me. Their whole system is paperless and I was coming from an older system that was still half and half. I was use to being able to physically grab a file, open it and see what was in it and where to look for information that I didn't have. Now everything is paperless, but not all the information you need is on one screen. It's a little difficult, but hopefully I'll be able to figure out my own style soon.
Everything about SCE is awesome. The people are very friendly. Each person is very open and are very willing to help out the newbie. Asking questions seems to be the way to learn there. The environment is very open. My desk area is so much larger than my old desk. The funny thing is that back at Mercury I was running out of space to put my files, Edison has so much space to put files, but are paperless. Ironic huh? Edison is very interested in keeping their employees comfortable and productive. On Wednesday, an ergonomic specialist came to my desk to fit me for a chair, make sure that my desk was at a correct height and that all the things I needed were within reach. It's pretty cool. There's a cafeteria that's on site that is very affordable and they have great food and they cater to a lot of special orders.
Okay, so are there negatives about the new job? Of course there is. I've increased my commute time from 5 minutes to 1 hr and 30 minutes (1 hour on a good day). What's the percentage on that? An increase of 1800%. Is thar right? Anyways, instead of just driving down the street to go work, I now have to compete with thousands of other drivers on the 210, 605 and the 60 freeways. The position that I took was an exempt position, but just recently has become a non-exempt position. It does have it's pluses and minuses though. One of the pluses is that I need to leave at my designated end time. Negative thing is that if I come in early, I can't leave early. My hours are set 8 am to 4:30 pm with two 15 minute breaks and one 30 minute lunch period.
I hope that this week is an indication of what work will be while at Edison. If it is, I think I've found a place to finally settle in.
gtpinoy
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- Name: Glenn
- Country: United States
- State: California
- Metro: Rancho Cucamonga
- Birthday: 1/2/1982
- Gender: Male
- Member Since: 1/16/2003
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