Good Monday to ye...
Dec. 20th, 2010 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadows_galleryGood (late) morning, friends :)
Another week has begun. It's so strange how very quickly the time is going by recently. It's almost Christmas! I haven't done any shopping yet for it, either. I'm actually going out today.
So, I ordered an Alienware computer, after I about threw this one out the window in frustration yesterday while working on a project. It's just not possible to work on something when your computer decides to overload and stall out every two minutes. (That's what I get for going with a cheap Wal Mart special. I know, I know. I just needed something in the interim) But, lo and behold, my wonderful bank (not) has decided that I shouldn't be allowed to spend more than five hundred dollars of my own money at once. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't really appreciate a bank telling me what I can and cannot do with my own money. I'm seriously considering closing down the account-- what if I had to pay rent or a car payment or some other bill that was over $500? It's ridiculous. For the time being, though, I'm going to see if I can't call up Dell and work out some sort of payment arrangement. I don't want to finance the computer, but if I can't put everything down at once, maybe I can break it up in a few increments.
That's what I get for banking with one of THOSE banks. Yeah, anyone in the US probably knows what I'm talking about. I didn't have a lot of options while I was in Cali, though.
Anyway, today will be Christmas shopping day (I am going to get out cash for that, just in case the bank decides to spring anything else ridiculous on me, like "you can't actually use your money for buying Christmas gifts," which would, of course, be about as ludicrous as what they have already done.). I'll be buying for local family today; my friends who aren't here I'll buy for online, to make shipping simpler.
I've been looking into information about gallery assistant/attendant careers. It looks like the sort of thing I'd love to do, actually. The Museum of Fine Arts offers a course for volunteers that might be worth my time and effort to take, actually, once I'm able to figure out a way to get there. Work for the museum is volunteer-based, but the coursework and experience would look very, very good on a resume when I do go to a paid position somewhere.
Well, I've gotten the computer payment issue worked out with Dell; they'll split the payments between three days. That was... remarkably easy. Now to figure out what to do about my bank. I'll keep them for now, but I'm certainly not very happy with them. My traveling lifestyle makes it difficult to find a bank with chains everywhere, and I've had some problems with banks before-- one of them evidently got the wires crossed between my account and another, and I ended up excessively overdrawn with charges I did not make. Needless to say, I was NOT happy with them, especially when I became aware of the fact that there was pretty much no customer service available, just a parody of such. After hours and hours of being bounced back and forth between Texas and California, and being told there was nothing that could be done, after going into a physical branch location to talk to a rep in person and being put on a phone to run the same gauntlet as before, I finally marched up to the teller and told her in no uncertain terms that I was closing this account, and NO, I did NOT owe them money, and if they tried to collect, I would take them to court over it. Fortunately, that seemed to do the trick, because I haven't heard from them since.
So, yeah, banks are not exactly my *friends*... more like a necessary evil in this society.
Wow. That was a rather long rant. *sheepish grin* I'm going to close this blog entry for now, because I have to start getting ready to leave soon. Till later!
Another week has begun. It's so strange how very quickly the time is going by recently. It's almost Christmas! I haven't done any shopping yet for it, either. I'm actually going out today.
So, I ordered an Alienware computer, after I about threw this one out the window in frustration yesterday while working on a project. It's just not possible to work on something when your computer decides to overload and stall out every two minutes. (That's what I get for going with a cheap Wal Mart special. I know, I know. I just needed something in the interim) But, lo and behold, my wonderful bank (not) has decided that I shouldn't be allowed to spend more than five hundred dollars of my own money at once. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't really appreciate a bank telling me what I can and cannot do with my own money. I'm seriously considering closing down the account-- what if I had to pay rent or a car payment or some other bill that was over $500? It's ridiculous. For the time being, though, I'm going to see if I can't call up Dell and work out some sort of payment arrangement. I don't want to finance the computer, but if I can't put everything down at once, maybe I can break it up in a few increments.
That's what I get for banking with one of THOSE banks. Yeah, anyone in the US probably knows what I'm talking about. I didn't have a lot of options while I was in Cali, though.
Anyway, today will be Christmas shopping day (I am going to get out cash for that, just in case the bank decides to spring anything else ridiculous on me, like "you can't actually use your money for buying Christmas gifts," which would, of course, be about as ludicrous as what they have already done.). I'll be buying for local family today; my friends who aren't here I'll buy for online, to make shipping simpler.
I've been looking into information about gallery assistant/attendant careers. It looks like the sort of thing I'd love to do, actually. The Museum of Fine Arts offers a course for volunteers that might be worth my time and effort to take, actually, once I'm able to figure out a way to get there. Work for the museum is volunteer-based, but the coursework and experience would look very, very good on a resume when I do go to a paid position somewhere.
Well, I've gotten the computer payment issue worked out with Dell; they'll split the payments between three days. That was... remarkably easy. Now to figure out what to do about my bank. I'll keep them for now, but I'm certainly not very happy with them. My traveling lifestyle makes it difficult to find a bank with chains everywhere, and I've had some problems with banks before-- one of them evidently got the wires crossed between my account and another, and I ended up excessively overdrawn with charges I did not make. Needless to say, I was NOT happy with them, especially when I became aware of the fact that there was pretty much no customer service available, just a parody of such. After hours and hours of being bounced back and forth between Texas and California, and being told there was nothing that could be done, after going into a physical branch location to talk to a rep in person and being put on a phone to run the same gauntlet as before, I finally marched up to the teller and told her in no uncertain terms that I was closing this account, and NO, I did NOT owe them money, and if they tried to collect, I would take them to court over it. Fortunately, that seemed to do the trick, because I haven't heard from them since.
So, yeah, banks are not exactly my *friends*... more like a necessary evil in this society.
Wow. That was a rather long rant. *sheepish grin* I'm going to close this blog entry for now, because I have to start getting ready to leave soon. Till later!
