response 183 of 889:

Oct 7 03:45 UTC 2000

I am happy because we have electricity.  After 25 hours without it.

Something happened around 5:30 yesterday afternoon, cutting our electricity.
We called DetEd, who said they were on it.  At 22:30, still without power,
we called again, and they gave an ETR fo 23:40.  So we went to bed.  Got up
without power, we all left.  Kids got home to no power, so I call again.
"The problem has been resolved," I'm told, so I call home: no power.  So
I walk down the street to the their office and talk to a real, live person,
face to face even, who is appropriately shocked and sympathetic and puts in
another report.  Turns out there were *two* more or less simultaneous events.
One got fixed, all reports were zeroed out, and we (and our neighbors) were
left in the dark.  To complicate matters: two have their own generators, for
emergencies like this one, and so appeared to have power.  Well, they did
have it, just not from DetEd.

Two hours after my visit downtown, power was restored.  By the time we got
back from supper, the house had warmed up from 63 to (the desired) 70.
(Not bad: 24 hours with no heat, outside temperatures in the forties, and
the house only dropped to 62-3.)

response 185 of 889:

Oct 7 06:41 UTC 2000

This doesn't belong in the happy item, but it's a response to 183.  I too
spent time on the phone with Detroit Edison today, including at least half
an hour in a hold queue before getting to talk to somebody.  A week after I
got to California, on June 30, the movers had shown up at my place in Ann
Arbor and taken my stuff away, the keys were returned to the landlord, and
I asked Detroit Edison to close my account there.  This week, when I received
yet another batch of forwarded mail, it included a bill for Detroit Edison
service to my former address in Ann Arbor, from August 18 to September 18,
as well as past due charges for a couple of previous bills that probably got
lost somewhere.

Today I called Detroit Edison, assuming they had lost my disconnect request
somewhere.  As it turns out, they hadn't.  Their notes on my account said that
they had sent somebody out to do the final meter reading, but that the meter
reader had been kept away from the area around the electric meter my a large
dog.  Did they do an estimated reading and send me a bill?  Did they send
somebody out to do the final meter reading later?  Did they call and tell me
they had a problem?  Did they send me a bill based on the next regularly
scheduled reading?  Did they contact me to tell me they were having a problem?
Of course not.  They continued doing their regular schedule meter readings,
continued applying the charges to my not fully closed account, and continued
to send me bills, for the next three months, until I called to point this out
to them.  Even now, even after promising that they will send me a refund for
the July bill, which I had assumed to be a bill for my last few weeks there
and had paid, and after promising that they wouldn't charge me any of the
money requested in the bills that had followed that one, they still want to
send somebody out to do a meter reading before they can finish the closing
of the account.  The guy on the phone explained this all to me in great
detail, and didn't seem to find anything at all strange about the process,
or the lack of error handling, that he was describing.

response 187 of 889:

Oct 7 12:02 UTC 2000

re: #182  not really.  first of all "arabic" is a language, not a race. 

Arab (`r4eb) noun
1.      A member of a Semitic people inhabiting Arabia, whose language and
Islamic religion spread widely throughout the Middle East and northern Africa
from the seventh century.

2.      A member of an Arabic-speaking people.

Excerpted from The American Heritage. Dictionary of the English Language,

response 189 of 889:

Oct 7 18:38 UTC 2000

I wanted to say that (there are NO races), but it seems all those naming
this "race" and that "race" here would simply not understand that THERE
ARE NO RACES. We are all Homo Sapiens, one species, and there are some
trivial variations due to evolutionary processes, which have absolutely
nothing to do with anything, except such things like some people are
better at making vitamin D at high latitudes and others are better
protected from making too much vitamin D at low latitudes, and a few other
minor characteristics have drifted due to isolation of populations - as
perfect a demonstrations of how evolution works short of speciation as we
can readily see.

response 191 of 889:

Oct 8 00:23 UTC 2000

evolution is a theory

response 193 of 889:

Oct 8 06:27 UTC 2000

Lebanese people are not Arabic. 
They are Lebanese.
(This comes from a girl I briefly dated who was from Lebanon, and corrected
my faux pas)

The proper term for people of that region is "middle eastern", and should then
be regionalized (Iraqi, Lebanese, etc.), then by language (Arabic, Chaldean),
then by religion (Christian, Muslim)

response 195 of 889:

Oct 8 08:48 UTC 2000

IHB I'm having fun role-playing in Anney's Vampire game.
IAHB my boss kicks ass.

response 197 of 889:

Oct 8 14:55 UTC 2000

resp:181  (that's funny because, right now, I'm happy that I'm *not* in
        Chicago.  I'll pass through in another five hours or so, but I bet
        I'll survive the experience.  I'm usually happy to visit Chicago
        [and Ann Arbor, for that matter], but this weekend hasn't been one
        of those occasions.)

        (I'm happy I'm going back to Marquette and my new life.)  :)

response 199 of 889:

Oct 8 19:35 UTC 2000

Re #191:  A highly accurate theory, in contrast to the various
religious dogmas which it supplanted (which evidence has proven
to be complete bunk, akin to "angry gods" theories of storms
and earthquakes).

response 201 of 889:

Oct 8 22:30 UTC 2000

Re #199: I always hesitate to apply the term "accurate" to "theories" 
like Copernican astronomy or evolution, but only because I am in part a
statistition, and "accurate" (and "precise") have definitions.  I'd say
that Darwinian evolution and Copernican astronomy are not accurate, but
are good qualitative descriptions. Newtonian astronomy (theory) is
accurate, and some developments in evolutionary theory attain similar
accuracy (genetics, in particular).

response 203 of 889:

Oct 9 02:21 UTC 2000

(To whoever said "There ARE NO races.": What do you call the 
Indianapolis 500? *grin*)

IHB I was in Ann Arbor for the weekend.  Long enough to go to a hockey 
game, get some laundry done for free, and get homemade cookies to bring 
back.  Life is very good.

response 205 of 889:

Oct 9 02:46 UTC 2000

Eric: don't you love free laundry and homemade cookies. I just got back 
from home and have the same thing. Chocolate crinkles and molasses. Mmmm