Thursday, February 7, 2008

I CAN Get Some Satisfaction

Hey! Guess what!! I had a phone call from ExpressJet today and they offered to void the voucher they had issued me and credit the full amount of the plane ticket back to my credit card.

So I am feeling much more kindly about ExpressJet at the moment. Thank you, Kamel Damerdji, Customer Relations Specialist. (I did have to laugh, though, when the confirmation letter ends with "We at ExpressJet do appreciate your business and look forward to seeing you on an ExpressJet flight soon!" A bit unclear on the concept!)

But time and time again, my Uncle Fred's advice has proven to work.


OK -- I'm calling all gurus out there.

Tom gave me a webcam for Christmas so I can watch the baby when I can't be in Santa Barbara, and I have just now gotten it installed, with the help of my wonderful guru. Today's video of the day was a test video that I made directly on Windows Movie Maker.

I tried installing it myself after Christmas, but couldn't get it to install, over two frustrating days of trying, so I called in the big guns. Steve was supposed to contact me in late December, but I finally managed to pin him down and he made an appointment to come today.

Anyway, suffice to say that after doing magical incantations, waving incense over the machines, and offering up a small child to the gods of Microsoft, I finally have a working web cam! WooHoo!

I was able to make a video directly into Utterz. Yippee!

Now I'm trying to figure out how best to use my new web cam for conferencing. I think that a bazillion years ago when we had hamster-operated computers, I did some video conferencing, but I don't remember where, what program I used, or what.

So I'm just looking for suggestions of what works best and, if you have a web cam and enjoy chatting, let me know.

(I also have already remembered why I hate Yahoo Messenger. There doesn't seem to be a way to allow yourself to be visible ONLY to your contacts. It seems to be either allow yourself to be available to everyone, or be invisible to everyone. Is there an inbetween? And if so, how do I find it?)


Tonight I went up the the University for a photo shoot for my next spotlight feature.

The guy in the black is the director, a fascinating guy named Rinde (pronounced Rin-dee) Eckert, who is kind of a Lord High Everything. He writes, he dances, he acts, he choreographs, he sings, he does everything. He is doing a one-man show on Feb. 16 called Orpheus-X, which he wrote and for which he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. I'll be interviewing him on Friday.

My boss recently told me that I wouldn't have to pay parking fees on campus if I put a business card on the dashboard. I didn't have a card, but left a newspaper envelope and a note saying I was out of cards. I came back to a $30 parking ticket, which I have sent to the Department of Theatre and Drama, asking them to fix. I'm hoping for the best. Just what I don't need is to have to pay $30 on top of the salary that has already just been cut in half!

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