Indianapolis Water and Indianapolis water both suck...

So we got our first water bill in the mail the other day and I went to pay it with a smile on my face, but things have gone horribly wrong now. Let's go through the list:

1) www.indianapoliswater.com - I would include that as a link, but you would get an error page. Turns out, when I typed in Indianapolis Water as a Google search, there is a review written. Apparently Lisa K. wrote in Feb 2007 that the website was inaccessible. Here we are almost two years later, and it is still inaccessible.

2) $2.50 fee - If you pay your bill online (a pipe dream if you read point #1) or pay by phone, they charge you a "minimal fee of $2.50 per transaction" according to my bill. Let's see, a bill of $47.94 with a fee of $2.50? That would be over 5% for a fee for online transactions. Here is a list of fees charged by every other company I do business with online:
Chase - 0%
American Express - 0%
Discover Card - 0%
Brighthouse - 0%
Vectren Gas - 0%
Indiana Power and Light - 0%
Amazon.com - 0%
Purdue Credit Union - 0%
DirecTV - 0%
AT&T - 0%
Infiniti Financial - 0%
Countrywide Lending - 0%

Heck, I can take $100 out of an ATM and the most I've ever gotten charged was at a casino where they charged me a 4% fee.

And listen, I can understand a fee for a phone transaction because the person has to fiddle with a keyboard and all that junk. But for online payments? No body talks to me, there is no paper check to get lost, take to the bank, type into a screen, and no envelope to open. ALL of the companies listed above allow online bills which means, no one stealing my identity by getting their hands on my mail, no cost to the service provider for paper or ink, and I can know when my bill comes because it pops up in my email and I can label it or add it to the calendar.

All of this came to a head when the customer service rep told me the $2.50 fee was charged because I didn't have to use gas to drive to drop off my check or take the time to write a check. So now you are charging me $2.50 for my convenience? How thoughtful of you, douchebag.

3) Water quality - We have been taking gallon jugs with us to my parents house whenever we make a trip down because the water is completely undrinkable. It tastes funny, I don't feel good after I drink it, and currently there is a class action lawsuit pending that says that Veolia (the company that manages Indianapolis Water) has done fraudulent actions including over estimating bills, not reading meters once every two months as required, and doctoring water quality reports. To cap things off, instead of monitoring the water supply themselves, they managed to talk my alma matre (Purdue) into using water quality monitoring as an experiment to further pad their pockets.

To wrap things up, I am planning on calling and ranting at a manager over there to #1 get the website going and #2 get that awful $2.50 charge waived. I'll report back on my progress. In the meantime, if you live in Indy, complain about the water to the company and the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

Big news keeps getting bigger...

So we went for our ultrasound today and as the tech was scanning and taking pictures, the wife asked, "Why does the baby's head look like it is detached from the body?" The tech replied, "Its not, both of their heads are perfect." The wife and I looked at each other for a split second with a look that was a perfect mix of sheer terror and glee. Then we both burst into hysterical laughter.

For the next hour, I was laughing constantly. I was in such shock that my body couldn't even process the situation. Just a week before, I had a passing thought that we may have twins. Turns out my gut feeling was spot on.

Here are some pictures for you:

Two head are better than one...


They are in bunk beds, as the tech said (one is above the other)...

Baby A has its back to us:

You can see some little Baby A toes...

Baby B's spinal cord:

There are some more pictures, but it is kind of more of the same.

Its official: I am currently reproducing twice as fast as most of the rest of the world. Booyah!

Reuter, I present to you...

Your new bowling ball...

The bug...

So the wife and I went to the doctor on Friday to have her checked out. Turns out she has a parasite that has been feeding off of her for the last 3 months or so. The good news is that the parasite will be exiting her body approximately April 27th. However, I've heard that this particular type of parasite, even once it is out of the body, continues to suck resources from you for another 18-30 years, depending on whether it just graduates high school, goes to college, or continues on to med school or law school. Personally, I'm hoping for a professional athlete.

That's right folks, we're having a baby. Friday we got to hear the heart beat, which was quite the experience. Needless to say, the exam room at the doctor's office got a little dusty about that time. This Friday we will be heading back for the ultrasound so I should be able to post some pictures of the little bugger known as Lil' Howie.

Unlike Michy Mich, the wife and I will not be finding out the sex of our baby. In all fairness though, it is definitely going to be a boy. I can't even imagine a scenario where I could make a girl. The wife is convinced it is going to be a girl. Even though I say I want a boy, I know I am going to be a sucker even if we do have a little girl. All 6'4" of me will be wrapped around that 1/2" little pinkie.

Happy Birthday!!!

To Alan Jackson.

If you are in the AJ mood, here are some recommendations which can be downloaded from Amazon's mp3 store: I'll Try, Little Bitty, Chattahoochee, Drive, Little Man, and Remember When.

As a pointer, Amazon's mp3 store is better than iTunes because there are no restrictions on the music you download, you can load them on non-iPod music players and burn them to CDs as much as you want, unlike iTunes purchases. Also, they quality of the mp3 is much greater. The Amazon downloader tool also will automatically add the mp3 to your iTunes in case you do have an iPod. It really is a win-win situation. And some of their songs are $.89 instead of $.99.

If you do have purchases that you've made on iTunes and wish you could load on a non-iPod music player, google a program that is free called DoubleTwist. It will "liberate" your music for you.

Movie roundup...

So if you are a fan of movies like Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Boondocks Saints, I would highly recommend a movie called Dead Fish. The only famous person I knew in the movie was Gary Oldman who was great in it. It is available on Netflix Watch Instantly and probably your local Blockbuster.

Secondly, I watched the Grindhouse double feature: Planet Terror and Death Proof.

If you are a fan of genre movies and like Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez movies, definitely check those two out. They are super gory, but it is to the point of hilarity, like a guy gets shot in the arm with a pistol and his entire arm explodes. This is right up there with Kill Bill and From Dusk Till Dawn.

See L-Dogg, I told you...

Comcast is nothing but bad news. And you think it will stop, but it never will.

Dump them ASAP...

If you do anything on Nov. 4th, vote Libertarian...

I hate the elections. I can't wait till they are over...

http://www.lp.org/blogs/andrew-davis/time-for-change

Fubar would be proud...

I went to my first Bootcamp at my gym yesterday. Let's just say I had very high expectations of how much work it was going to be. Let's also say that it far exceeded my expectations.

First, the good stuff: Playing basketball once a week and running occasionally definitely helped because I certainly didn't throw up.

Now the bad: I nearly passed out from not breathing during arm raises which lead to an almost puke. That was about 20 minutes in, but I recovered.

Here was the tally of the main exercises:
Class: 225 pushups, Andy: 25 pushups. The rest of the time, I just kind of dipped my shoulders or tried to keep my body straight.
Class: 425 crunches, Andy 300 crunches. Fortunately, I've been doing these for the past 3 weeks on my bedroom floor before bed, so I wasn't too embarrassed about that. However, the leg portion of the crunch exercises was tough. I usually had to bend my legs instead of holding them straight out.

Those were the main things. We also did a crapload of squats, mountain climbers, dips, curls, hammer curls, stair jumping, and lunges.

I am pretty excited to go back next week.

Note: I just Freudianly just typed "year" instead of "week" in the preceding sentence. What a wuss my brain is.