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Sometimes you just want to talk to a human being. And you don't want to fight with an automated system for a long time to do it. Thanks to Paul English's IVR Cheat Sheet, you no longer need to. (An IVR is an "Interactive Voice Response" system, the fancy name for annoying computers that answer most business phones these days.)
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We Gather Together We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing; He chastens and hastens his will to make known; The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing, Sing praises to his name: He forgets not his own. Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining, Ordaining, maintaining his kingdom devine; So from the beginning the fight we were winning; Thou, Lord, wast at our side, All glory be thine! We all do extol thee, thou leader triumphant, And pray that thou still our defender wilt be. Let thy congregation escape tribulation; Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free! Amen.
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In the early 1600s, Dutch settlers brought the Prayer of Thanksgiving to the "New World." Music, based on a Netherlands folk hymn, was added and it became a favorite in the colonies and today is a traditional Thanksgiving hymn. This translation is by Theodore Baker (1851-1934).
I've updated my Moladot and Kiddush L'vana pages.
One of the three boxes of Pampers Cruisers that I ordered from Amazon.com back during the June promotion was weird. This diapers in that box had a different (read: worse) surface where the Velcro-esque tabs attach. I emailed them to let them know I didn't like the new design. Their response:
I'm sorry you had a problem with the tabs not sticking on Pampers Cruisers. We received similar reports from other consumers and found a manufacturing glitch that caused the issue. We've fixed the problem and we're working as fast as we can to get these Pampers Cruisers on store shelves.The follow-up by mail was a coupon for a free "Mega" pack, or 48 diapers in Size 4.We appreciate your loyalty to Pampers and hope you'll give us another try. Since the amount of help I can provide online is limited, I'm following-up with you by postal mail. Look for my letter within the next 7-10 days.
In case you didn't get a chance to use the last Picture People coupon (still valid through 12/4/05), here's a new one.
Free Sitting and Free 8x10 or 10x13. Expires 12/10/05.
Offer valid only for color portraits. Not valid on existing orders or reprints. Offer valid in-store only. Coupon cannot be used in combination with this or any other offer and must be presented at time of sitting/purchase. Limit one redemption per person (individually and/or as part of a group) and limit one offer per group. Limit one coupon (this or similar offer) per person during event period dates (11/1/05 - 12/10/05). Offer expires 12/10/05.
Staples Customer Appreciation
12% Off
Vald: December 11-24
Offer valid for in-store purchases only. Excludes personal computers, laptops,
built-to-order computers, gift cards, phone cards and postage stamps. Price matching on competitor products
will not be permitted. Cannot be used with any other offer.
$5 off $25 expires 12/25/05.
JetBlue is well known as a discount airline. But their current more the merrier promotion is unbelievably cheap! $39 per person to Florida and $59 per person to the West Coast (for 2+ passengers) is simply out of this world. Even including taxes, it comes to under $300, roundtrip, for two people to head out west!
NOTE: All fares are one way, must be purchased by Nov 21, 2005 and require a 7-day advanced purchase. Travel must be completed between Nov 30, 2005 and Feb 15, 2006. Fares not available Dec 15, 2005 to Jan 5, 2005.
This may well be common knowledge, but not common enough for me to have known it before one of my banks let me in on the secret. Apparently dividing 72 by the average annual return on your investment will calculate the number of years it takes to double your money.
72 / 8% = 9 years
72 / 3% = 24 years
I finally got around to installing the new hard drive today. Physical installation was easy, it was recognized by the BIOS and even Windows XP, but it wasn't formatted, and I didn't have any boot disks handy. Microsoft does have information on the official way of configuring hard drives (including formatting a new hard drive) in their support section, How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP. Despite this, it still takes a while to format a drive.
I successfully passed the Council for Certification of IRB Professionals' Certification Examination For IRB Professionals. Good thing I used a .7 mm mechanical pencil.
Thanks to reader Shaya, I present a handy online tool for performing a number of standard photo edits online. Visit PXN8 to try it.
With my $75 concession coupon from Dell on the verge of expiring, I had to buy something. The most useful, relatively close to $75 object was a hard drive. I ordered the Seagate 160GB Barracuda (Internal EIDE Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive with 8MB Cache), which ended up costing about $18 after tax, shipping, etc.
However, my (now 2 year old) Dell 2400 case doesn't have a bracket for a second HD, so I had to order one off of Ebay.
After the second place failed to produce a Popular Science subscription (but did refund my money), I gave up for a while. I finally missed the magazine enough to almost order directly from the publisher, but figured I'd try my luck one more time on Ebay. On 8/8 I ordered a 3 year subscription for $8.88 from almostfreemags.
While I can't yet report that the new subscription has come, I can report that it at least shows on Popular Science's website as paid through 11/1/08. '08'! That's a lot of magazines.
With lots of recommendations for:
It only took about a month, and around 4-5 hours of my time, but the tire saga seems to have come to a close.
I had returned on Monday (the day after the system was down), and the system was still down. I returned once again, at another time, and the system was up. However, the guy who was working that day swore that despite the assurance from the manager that it was approved, he said it wouldn't be, and once it was denied, it couldn't be approved. The manager wasn't there at the time, so I got his number and planned to follow up with him.
Over the next week I tried calling him many times. He had no voice-mail, and never picked up. I was too busy to do much about it until this morning, when I stopped by once again. One of the original guys who I had dealt with was there, and though he denied remembering me he was able to get the approval, albeit for only 75% of the cost, not 100. Considering that only 2 of the 10/32 of depth of the tire had worn, and that their policy is to replace wear <25% at 100% of the cost, I was annoyed. He directed me to the manager on duty, who was not the one I had dealt with earlier.
After I filled her in with the background and explained the conflict with their contract, she sought the assistance of another manager. He went off with the paperwork to look into it. During that time she was trying to figure out a way to make it work with their computer system, and suggested the possibility of giving me the credit I deserved plus the difference in the form of a gift card. I was willing to accept that solution, and she eventually decided to pursue it. She had a clerk ring up the transaction, but something went wrong and the clerk said I owed them about $50! The manager got frustrated (and I had explained that this was approaching 5 hours of my time on this project), so she told the clerk to give me a complete refund on the new tire purchase. This ending up being better than what their contract requires, as normally the contract only covers the original cost of the tire (vs. the inflation affected cost of a new tire) and excludes taxes and installation fees.
Alternate Side regulations will be suspended Nov 3-5 (Thu-Sat) for Idul-Fitr!
Free Sitting and Free 8x10 or 10x13. Expires 12/4/05.
Offer valid only for color portraits. Not valid on existing orders or reprints. Offer valid in-store only. Coupon cannot be used in combination with this or any other offer and must be presented at time of sitting/purchase. Limit one redemption per person (individually and/or as part of a group) and limit one offer per group. Limit one coupon (this or similar offer) per person during event period dates (11/1/05 - 12/31/05). Offer expires 12/4/05.
I finally got my hands on a copy of YC's alma mater. For more information, and to download the song, visit my original post (now updated).
