The PECO Problem: Lessons Learned

My wife is awesome. And you don't want to mess with her — she's a bombshell with a .22 and a sassy attitude (pictured at left). And she's mine, and I love her, and her brothers and I are packing, too (pictured below).
My point is, this girl gets what she wants...especially from customer service. After spending countless hours on the phone relentlessly pleading our case with everyone and their mother's supervisor, the PECO problem is fully resolved. Thank God! What we learned:

• Save your paperwork. Fortunately, I'd saved a handful of the mailings I'd been receiving from PECO since last October "just in case" I needed them. One of them even had my notes on it from when I'd talked to them the first time. Faxing them these documents finally proved we were telling the truth. The case was in the bag after that.
• Don't give up until you talk to the boss. If Heather hadn't insisted on taking names and talking to everyone's supervisor, we'd never have spoken with the person capable of helping us. Pressing the issue and holding people accountable to their word finally paid off.
  
• Trust God to provide. Speaking of talking to the boss...we realized (about the time I first wrote about our problem with PECO) that we were angry. We felt we'd been abused for doing the right thing and, instead of trusting God, we were frantically trying to handle it ourselves. Then we remembered that we've been praying for God to help us fundraise $37,000 to go to Slovakia...and we suddenly felt humbled (and pretty hypocritical) when we realized we weren't even trusting Him to provide $800 to cover our electric bill. God is bigger than our problems. Always.
  

FreeRice: Ending World Hunger & Poor Vocabularies

If you've ever wished there was something you could do to help end world hunger (or if you've ever wanted to learn the definition of words like "neologism"), you absolutely must visit FreeRice.com on a regular basis.

FreeRice is a website with two goals:

1. Providing free English vocabulary to everyone
2. Providing free rice to hungry people

In partnership with the UN World Food Program and Poverty.com, FreeRice donates 20 grains of rice every time you correctly guess the definition of a vocabulary word. Granted, 20 grains of rice isn't much, but thousands of other people are playing, too. Since October 2007, users have helped FreeRice donate more than 39 billion grains of rice to feed more than a million people.

If you check out their FAQs, you'll read that the United Nations estimates that the cost to end world hunger completely is about $195 billion a year. 22 countries have joined together to raise this money by each contributing 0.7% of national GDP. While some countries have already met this goal, others are being a little slow. Sadly, the U.S. is one of the slow ones. FreeRice suggests you support your country's participation by sending your government a letter — can't hurt, right?

So, do the smart thing and bookmark FreeRice and play whenever you've got a spare minute. Everyone knows you fritter away hours on the internet anyway — you may as well feed starving people and make yourself smarter while you're at it. Besides, if you don't brush up on your vocabulary, you're never going to win an honest game of Facebook Scrabble. I'm at vocab level 50 on FreeRice. Let's see what you've got.

Yes, that's a challenge. Bring it.

My Niece is Adorable: A Slideshow

Last Saturday, Heather and I met Angie, Jamin, and Lily in Philadelphia for breakfast...then Jamin, Heather, and I took Lily to the Philadelphia Zoo! It was a sweltering hot day. Lily, who alternated between wanting me to carry her (so cute) and running about like a little maniac, clearly wore herself out — she became nearly catatonic from exhaustion when placed back in her stroller at the end of our visit. Ah, the glorious days of summer! Here's a quick slide show from the day's activities:

Video: The Media is in LOVE with Barack Obama

These mashup videos from the McCain campaign aren't that great, but they do call warranted attention to the media's unabashed bias toward Barack Obama. It's a strange mix of funny and sickening (one fellow compares the media's love for Obama with the love of a 9th grade boy. WHAT?). Obama's drooling fan club is really starting to turn me off to the candidate, which is a shame. That said, I haven't heard enough intelligent substance from either presidential candidate to make an honest, well-informed decision about who I'll cast my vote for in November. You haven't either. We'd all do well to keep an open mind.

PECO is Charging Me for Their Error

Sometimes, it doesn't pay to do the right thing. Allow me to illustrate:

Shortly after I moved in to my apartment in October, 2007, I received a letter from PECO saying that a recent meter reading showed power usage at my address. They instructed me to fill out and return an application for service — otherwise, they'd shut off my power. So I sent in the application.

In November, instead of the expected bill, I receive another copy of the exact same letter. Yet my power was still on. Confused, I filled out the application a second time and mailed it in. So they sent me another application in December. Yet I still had power. Mystified, I gave PECO a call and explained what had been happening. The representative apologized for my trouble and told me my account began as of that day — I wouldn't be charged for the previous two and a half months of service. Cool.

January comes, and with it...another please-apply-for-service-or-we'll-shut-off-your-power letter. Oh for crying out loud. I filled out the application a third time and mailed it in. Like clockwork, they mailed me another letter brimming with empty threats in February. And another in March, April, May, June...

We still had power and we still hadn't seen a bill. Whatever PECO was doing with all my ignored applications was beyond me. It became apparent that we could consume free electricity indefinitely without PECO ever knowing.

But we decided to call PECO again. We figured that if we called one more time and they still refused to charge us for electricity they'd missed their chance — we were getting tired of begging the giant energy company to take our money. Heather talked with a representative who told her our account began as of that day — we wouldn't be charged for the previous eight months of service. Their bad, their loss. Sweet!

Then we get a bill for $800. And every PECO-employed cretin we've spoken to since then has heard us explain the situation, admitted to making countless errors (while making a few more), told us they understood, and concluded with an uncompromising "pay up".

Huh? PECO wouldn't know we were alive if we hadn't pursued them. In fact, the only reason they're charging us for usage since last October is because we told them when we moved in. Add to that the fact that they conceded the company's error and promised not to charge for the previous eight months' service, and charging us becomes downright reprehensible.

We've told them they can expect to hear from our lawyer. They'd do well to listen.

Dream Like a Canadian

Canadians have been the brunt of many an American joke, many of which (I confess) I've found rather funny. Still, Canada is looking better every day.* They've got that universal health care thing going on (which, for the record, I don't support adopting in the U.S.), they've had a balanced national budget for something like 11 straight years (something I do support adopting in the U.S.), their literacy rate is close to 99%, and, believe it or not, their dollar is actually worth slightly more than ours now. Surely, the end of all things is near.

Anyway, I'm writing about Canada because I just discovered DreamBank, an upstart company that aims to help people fund their dreams by posting them online and inviting friends and family to contribute toward their realization. So, instead of buying people you love stuff they don't want or need, you can donate money to help them fulfil a dream. Isn't that a neat alternative to traditional gift-giving? Plus, it's eco-friendly and helps support charities.

Still, it's strictly Canadian. So, until DreamBank comes to the U.S., you can help me fulfil my dreams of paying off all our student loan debt and traveling the world by simply sending cash or personal checks to my home mailing address. I also accept PayPal. Thanks for your support!

*I really don't know much about Canada and can't substantiate any of my claims about that country. Except for the strength of their dollar vs. the U.S. dollar — I looked that up.

EDIT: Check out the comments on this post for some enlightening info from some of DreamBank's own people. Turns out it's NOT strictly Canadian. Go ahead and start dreaming, America! (Please continue sending me money.)

"We Love You for Crashing the Site"

Today,reative genius Joss Whedon unveiled Act I of his new, straight to computer, three-part musical superhero comedy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Staring How I Met Your Mother's Neil Patrick Harris and Firefly's Nathan Fillion, this bit of unconventional entertainment was conceived during the WGA Writer's Strike. Here's the trailer:



Naturally, I'm super stoked to see it. However...

...I can't. The first installment, which began streaming free today, has already garnered so much attention that the Dr. Horrible site crashed — a fairly strong indication that this little enterprise is going to be rather popular. Be patient, my friends. As Joss and friends posted today, "Our site should be up and running again in a few hours. Your support is warming our hearts and kicking our asses. So thank you thank you."

The clips (Act II becomes available on Thursday, July 17 and Act III becomes available on Saturday, July 19) will be streaming online for free through Sunday, July 20, 2008. After that, you'll be able to purchase them on iTunes ... or just wait for the DVD release.

Sixth Months Ago

Sixth months ago I was waking up after a fitful night's sleep in a hotel room in Philadelphia with one thought screaming through my mind: It's my wedding day!

It's hard to believe it's already been six months since Heather and I got married. At the same time, it's hard to believe it's only been six months since Heather and I got married — our life together already feels so established, so natural. I love it — and I love her — more and more with every passing day.

By the way, I posted a bunch of wedding photos online a couple weeks ago — you can find the links to the right under "Photo Albums". (If you're reading this on Facebook, please see my blog.)

Rule #2: You're Not Allowed to Have Any Fun

For those of you who've never seen the satirical Vintage21 Jesus Videos, you're in for a treat. Stop whatever you're doing and watch all four. Laugh merrily.

Then go ye back and repeat once more.

A Short Time From Now, Right Here in Our Galaxy...

There's a good chance I'm the last person in the world to hear about it (which kind of hurts my feelings), but a new Star Wars movie is being released this summer! Star Wars: The Clone Wars hits theaters August 15, 2008. My wife will be so excited — happy birthday, Heather! It's going to be the best birthday ever! (For the record, it's no secret that she "loves" Star Wars only because she loves me, so we'll probably be doing other things on opening day.)

About the film:

1. It's completely CGI animation. And looks like a cartoon.
   
2. It's set during the Clone Wars between Episodes II and III, two very dark points in Star Wars franchise history.
   
3. It was made for TV until, oh, February-ish of this year when George Lucas decided to release it in theaters.

Despite these things (and my better judgment), I want to see it rather badly. So sometime this summer I'll likely lay my fanboy heart out there again for Lucas to trample on. To borrow the oft-quoted words of Yeats, "I have spread my dreams beneath your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." Of course, after the disappointing prequel trilogy, my dreams wear considerable armour and have far more cynical expectations, so they'll probably be alright.

That said, I'm still excited. Click here to view the theatrical trailers.