10 Things I will miss about Birmingham...

10. Crestwood.  Our funky little neighborhood is a fantastic mix of urban and suburban.  Close enough to downtown to make for an easy commute (even in the Great Ice Storm of 2014, I got home in less than 2.5 hours!!), with fun shops and restaurants, really neat and non-cookie-cutter homes, and a community which works hard to make it a better place.  Now, who wants to buy a 3/1 in Crestwood South?  :D

9. The Jewish community.  It’s what originally brought us to Birmingham in 1998, when Raya became the LJCC’s first Jewish Educator.  We’ve both enjoyed our involvement with the community here -- Raya on professional and volunteer levels, me as a volunteer and as a freelancer.  The community is warm and welcoming, and I hope it continues to thrive.

Sophie has loved her time at the N.E. Miles Jewish Day School, and I wish all the best for the NEMJDS in the future.

Raya and I hosted a podcast for a few years called “There Are Jews in Alabama?” as that’s what people in Philadelphia asked us when we were moving here.  I can say for certain that the answer to that is a resounding “yes” -- there are Jews in Alabama, and they’re a welcoming bunch.

8. The outdoor spaces.  Birmingham has incredible parks and outdoor spaces, as does the state of Alabama.  We’ve been to the top of Mt. Cheaha, we’ve camped at Oak Mountain, I’ve watched deer prance through the snow in Guntersville, and we’ve floated in the crystal clear Gulf waters at Orange Beach.  Sophie’s had a blast at the local parks in town -- Crestwood, Avondale, Triangle, Overton, Homewood.

7. The love for college football.  Although I'm never, ever, ever going to be an Alabama or Auburn fan, I will never live anywhere that comes close to rivaling this state’s passion for its football teams.  College football isn’t just a religion here -- it’s so much more.  We’re moving to an ACC town, and (for football at least) it won’t even be close to what we’re used to.

6. Birmingham’s central location - over the years, Raya and I, and eventually Sophie too, have taken many day or weekend trips to the amazing places within an easy drive from here -- Nashville, Atlanta, New Orleans, the Gulf beaches, Huntsville, Memphis.

5. The “midtown” district.  Railroad Park and Regions Field have been amazing additions to the Birmingham cultural landscape.  I’m sad that I won’t get to see another game at Regions, and I’m not even a huge baseball fan!  But that ballpark is amazing, as is Railroad Park.

4. The restaurants.  Such interesting and cool places to eat in this town, everything from barbeque to pizza to burgers to international cuisine.  I’ll miss our favorite places: La Paz, Surin, Fish Market, Purple Onion, El Barrio, Silvertron, Mafiaoza’s, 26, and even little ol’ Irondale Cafe!!

3. The bars.  Birmingham has such a great collection of places to drink.  All of them have their own unique identity, and I love that.  I’ll miss places like Dave’s, the J. Clyde, the Blue Monkey, Avo/Dram, Rojo, and of course our beloved Crestwood Tavern.  (Raya and I hope to have a “goodbye Birmingham” celebration at CWT sometime in May.)

2.  I will miss UAB.  Not only is it my alma mater, it’s been my employer for nearly 16 years.  UAB is basically where I began my career, and it has been very good to me.  And of course, UAB Hospital was there for us when we needed it most, during Sophie’s premature and dramatic birth.  The doctors, nurses, and other staff in L&D and the NICU were absolutely amazing.

There are amazing people doing amazing things at this University, and I’ll always be interested to see what UAB does next.

1.  The number one thing I will miss about Birmingham is, for four months, my wife and daughter of course!!  And we’ll miss Raya’s folks, who will be here a bit longer.  But beyond that, Raya, Sophie and I will dearly miss our close friends we’ve made in the past 15.5 years that we’ve been in the Magic City (ok, just under 8 years for Soph!).

Please, please, please come visit us in Charlottesville!

AT&T can go to hell

I'm reviving this long-dormant blog for some kvetching that's longer than 140 characters, so Twitter won't quite work.....

Like a lot of other Apple fanboys & geeks, I'm psyched for the new iPhone 5.  Last week, I made preparations to order it.  This year, unlike past iPhone upgrades, AT&T was being stingy with the upgrade eligibility and enforcing the 20-month upgrade window.  Meaning, if a customer (like me) bought an iPhone 4S last fall, he wasn't eligible for the subsidized iPhone 5 price -- they wanted me to pay a $250 upgrade fee on top of the price.

Fine, I did agree to a two-year contract, so they are within their rights to do that.  I think it's a crummy business decision -- after all, to cancel my AT&T service altogether would only cost me a $215 "early termination fee" -- so in essence, if I want an iPhone 5, it would be cheaper to cancel my AT&T service and go to Verizon.  Bizarre.

But after seeing other AT&T customers reporting on MacRumors and other forums that they were getting some relief from AT&T, the upgrade fee waived or a bill credit, I started calling.  If other customers are getting perks, I want some too!!

It took multiple phone calls, and tweets to their customer care account, and a phone call from one of their "social media reps," but I eventually got a decent bill credit.  Not the entire early upgrade fee, but a majority of it.  I was satisfied.

So, Friday morning, around 6AM, I ordered the iPhone 5 from AT&T.

Saturday, I noticed my order status said "Attention -- your credit card needs verification."  I figured it was just a glitch with the shipping address not matching the billing zip code.  I called FOUR TIMES on Saturday, with no help.  When I finally got through to someone, they said "their system was down" and they couldn't assist.  (Note that because I get a discount through UAB, I have to call their business customer line, called "Premier" -- a misleading name, as the service is anything but.)

Sunday morning, I called and waited on hold for 90 minutes.  Despite having Sunday hours (supposedly), no one ever answered.

Sunday afternoon, I tried again.  This time, an instant recording that their system was down.  So at least I didn't have to wait on hold.  More angry tweets.

Monday morning, just before Rosh Hashanah services started, I get another call from the social media rep.  She's very nice, and wants to help -- but after I explain the problem, turns out she has to call Premier as well.  I tell her good luck with that.

Monday afternoon, I talk to her a couple more times, she can't get anyone from Premier to give her a decent answer or even reply to her.  If a fellow ATT employee can't get any responses, what chance does a customer have???

Tuesday morning, I call Premier.  After a hold time of "only" 25 minutes, I get a helpful rep.  He sees that there's a mismatch between my billing and shipping accounts (don't want the iPhone shipped home, when no one's there to sign for it!) and he "fixes" it.  Tells me I'll get a new email, and a shipping confirmation, in 2-4 hours.  Tells me also that I haven't lost my place in the order queue, and that I'm still on schedule to get the phone on Friday.  Fabulous.

All day Tuesday passes, no change in my order status, no email.  I'd like to say I was surprised.

This morning, I call Premier again.  After a 20 minute hold time, I get another rep.  This one tells me that my credit card was "declined for insufficient funds," which is why the order didn't go through.  I know this is a complete and utter lie, as I'd checked my Amex statement before calling.

Nevertheless, I give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment, and call Amex.  The rep there tells me that there's been no attempt by AT&T to charge my card, and if they had, the charge would have been approved without any difficulty.

So now, AT&T is simply lying to me, saying whatever they have to say to get me off the phone.

I work in IT, I deal with a lot of technical support and sales representatives.  I have never, in my professional career, dealt with a company as incompetent, as clueless to the needs of its customers, as frustrating, as AT&T.  They simply suck.

So that's it.  I could deal with the incompetence.  But now that they've moved on to lying to me, I'm done.

Verizon may not be any better, but they certainly can't be worse.

Fun with chicken scratch

Stole this idea from Nathan Pralle's blog, which he ganked from another blog that had borrowed it from some other blog, etc., etc....

Neat little handwriting exercise, and I don't have much opportunity to expose the world to my lousy penmanship these days.  My example is below -- if you want to play along, you'll need a pen, a piece of paper, and access to a scanner.  Create yours by writing down the following items, and then post:

1. Name/Blog Name
2. Right handed, left handed or both
3. Favorite letters to write
4. Least favorite letters to write
5. Write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
6. Write in caps:
   CRAB
   HUMOR
   KALEIDOSCOPE
   PAJAMAS
   GAZILLION
7. Favorite song lyrics
8. Tag 7 people
9. Any special note or drawing

I'm cross-posting to Facebook and tagging the following people: Raya, Karen, Marc, Juan, Shira, Bruce, and Jen.

Here's mine:

Fight for Preemies

Today, November 17, is the March of Dimes "Fight for Preemies" day. Support the March of Dimes and help us find ways to prevent premature birth. Premature births have increased 31% since 1981 -- why???!?!?!?!

Our Sophie Arielle was born at 32 weeks, 5 days. We're so very lucky and blessed that she spent a mere 22 days in the hospital, and nearly four years later, she's a happy and healthy little girl.



So many other families aren't that lucky. Many preemies spend a lot longer in the NICU, and have lifelong health concerns as a result of premature birth. And sadly, many preemies never come home.

Support the March of Dimes, for Sophie and for all babies born before their time.

A politician without principles??

I know, it shouldn't be shocking. Elected officials routinely sell out their principles, and their constituents, on a regular basis. They do it for money, for votes, for power, for any reason at all, basically.

Still, it can be disappointing. And this week, I'm disappointed in Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL), who announced today that he will not vote for the healthcare reform bill pending in the US House of Representatives.

Rep. Artur Davis announces he'll vote against health care bill

Davis has been a member of the Alabama delegation in the House since 2002. We don't actually live in his district; by less than a mile, we're represented by the moronic Spencer Bachus. Still, we've always been supporters of Davis. He's been particularly good to the Jewish community, speaking at our synagogue and to other Jewish organizations. Since his predecessor, Earl Hilliard, was a borderline anti-Semite, this was a welcome change.

In June, Rep. Davis announced he would run for Alabama's governorship in 2010. We attended his "kickoff" event in downtown Birmingham, and were invited to stand on stage behind Davis as he gave his speech.

But after today's announcement, I'm done.

I know what he's doing. He's giving up his principles (he has talked of supporting a public option in healthcare reform in the past) so that the inbred, Fox News-watching hicks who make up the majority of this state will vote for him. I know it, but I don't like it.

Alabama is one of the states that would benefit the most from a true healthcare reform, and a public option. We have a ridiculous amount of people -- mostly children -- in this state without health insurance.

But apparently, Mr. Davis doesn't care. In fact, he apparently cares more about his own political future than he does about what's best for his district, his state, and his nation.

And that's a shame. And what makes it even more a shame is that I doubt it will work. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Alabama will elect an African-American as governor. Not yet, anyway.

In any case, if he wins the governorship, he'll have to do it without my vote. Because I'm done with Artur Davis.

Before I "unfollowed" Rep. Davis on Facebook (and Twitter!), I posted this to his Facebook page:

Rep. Davis, I've been a supporter of you for a long time. My family and I were on stage behind you when you announced your run for governor in Linn Park.

But with today's announcement that you won't vote for health care reform, I am done with you. Will no longer support you, will no longer donate to your campaign, will no longer follow you on Facebook, and I certainly won't vote for you.

You are well aware that the healthcare bill pending in the House is the ONLY version of healthcare reform that will come up for a vote this year, or probably next year. So by refusing to vote for it, you have explicitly endorsed the status quo, and you'll be on the wrong side of the most important vote of your Congressional career.

Is this healthcare bill perfect? No. In my mind, the public option should be even STRONGER. But it is a thousand times better than our current healthcare system, which wastes hundreds of millions of dollars every year, dooms children and adults alike to early deaths, and benefits no one except for insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms.

You have sold out your principles in an attempt to be "moderate" and a "conservative Democrat," so that the people of Alabama will elect you governor.

In doing so, Mr. Davis, I guarantee you that you've lost at least one vote, that, until now, was about as reliable and rock-solid that you could have asked for.