Everyday Randomness

Finally Talked To UPS

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I finally got through to UPS. Seems like if you mention filing a police report and contacting the attorney general they’re finally willing to talk to you!

Once I started explaining the situation to the woman she was all ears. Of course she claimed it’s the driver that’s at fault. I said ok I could see that if it were just ONE driver, but so far I’ve seen TWO drivers do it.

She pulled the “can’t turn around in the driveway” card. I said would you like me to take a picture of my extremely large driveway? Yeah that’s the one that I’ve parked a total of 13 cars in at once, and we could have probably squeezed a few more in. Yeah, I’ve had house parties. I know these things.

After we got all that out of the way, I explained about where I live, the way the roads are, the problems we have with traffic on this road, and the fact that you can’t see what’s on the other side of that curve until you’re coming out of the curve.

That didn’t phase her.

When I mentioned the huge drop off on the other side of the road, that hit the spot. She forwarded the complaint to the regional office, and within 10 minutes UPS called me back asking for a ton of information. They wanted to know the truck numbers. I couldn’t give them that, but I gladly gave them a detailed description of both drivers.

Then I said three nasty words.

No
Left
Turn

What? Both driveways are on the left side of the road? Why didn’t I say so! The man who called me back must have been looking at records and pulling up maps because he asked if the drivers could stop at the used car dealership that was showing near my house. I said the dealership is next door to my house…and it’s a left turn.

I was just about cracking up on the phone at this point. By the end of the phone call I had them agreeing that no drivers should be parking in the blind curve, and it’s quite obvious they can’t pull over on the right hand side of the road. They’ll just have to pull in our driveways.

Jenn 1 UPS 0!

I’m expecting a package that’s showing a delivery date for tomorrow, so we’ll just see how that goes. I’ll have my camera ready for them!

UPS No Left Turns Driving Me Crazy!

For those of you who don’t know at the end of January UPS announced they would be cutting left turns out of driver’s mapped routes in order to save gas by eliminated 28.5 million miles driven by UPS trucks.

The first time I heard this I laughed thinking it was totally bogus, so I did what I always do. I ran home and looked it up. Sure as shit it’s the truth.

Now, up until about a month ago I’ve raved about the fact that UPS is actually good in our area. I hate having things sent here via USPS because I’ve personally witnessed the mail lady stand in my driveway and toss my packages towards my front porch. One of them happened to be very breakable, and of course that’s exactly what happened.

UPS has never given me problems, and the driver on our route is an extremely nice man. He always checks to see if I’m home before leaving any deliveries. If I am he’ll bring it to the front porch for me or even inside my house if it’s heavy. If I’m not home he’ll walk down my long driveway and around the back of my house to put the package out of sight, then he’ll slip a note under my front door to let me know it’s there.

Last month my feelings changed drastically. About a week after I found out about the “no left turns” I started noticing the driver parking in the middle of the road. It wasn’t our normal driver, and he was delivering something to my Grandparent’s house, so I thought maybe he just doesn’t know if he can turn around in their driveway because it was the day we got snow. There wasn’t any traffic on the roads, so no biggie.

A few weeks later I saw the same guy do it again, and that kind of pissed me off because we live on a very dangerous road. Here was this huge UPS truck parked in the middle of the lane in a blind curve!

Then yesterday I got a delivery from UPS. This time it was my normal guy, and he didn’t park in the blind curve, but he still parked in the middle of the road right in front of my house. When you come around the blind curve you would have about 3 seconds to see the truck and react before hitting it. Then you’ve got a steep embankment across the road from my house, and at least one vehicle is sure to roll down it. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times.

We’ve got a huge driveway and plenty of room to turn around, so screw how much gas UPS thinks they’re saving. How is it good to safe gas if you’re creating a DANGEROUS situation? Making a left turn into my driveway, then circling around to pull out of the driveway is nothing compared to what’s going to happen when someone comes around that curve with a UPS truck parked in the middle of the lane!

This morning I decided I was going to call UPS to file a complaint, but guess what! It’s virtually impossible to get through to anyone for a complaint! There’s no option with the 1-800 #. There isn’t even a “general questions” or similar. I finally had to go through the option to check tracking before I got a human on the phone, and even then I was told they didn’t know how to contact for complaints.

So UPS, here’s my complaint. You’re going to be in hot shit when you’re getting sued because someone rear ended a truck sitting in the middle of the road in a blind curve! I guess you really don’t care do you considering in South Carolina all rear end accidents are the fault of the driver who hits you!

Last Total Lunar Eclipse Until 2010

I’m trying to get done the things I need to so when 10pm rolls around hopefully I can take a nice long hour break. I’m waiting for the total lunar eclipse tonight, and I can’t wait!

It’s fairly cloudy here, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to view it, and possibly take a few photos. I pulled out my mini telescope since Saturn is supposed to be in plain view on one side of the moon with the star Regulus on the other side, but Saturn is supposed to be close enough to us that if you have a telescope you might even be able to see Saturn’s rings.

I’m hoping one day I’ll be able to afford to buy a nice telescope and camera setup because I love watching the skies. Tonight would be the perfect night to have something like that.

If you live in North America the total lunar eclipse will be visible to you if the weather’s in your favor. The East Coast should be able to see the full hour long show beginning at 10pm, but the West Coast can expect to miss the beginning of the eclipse because it starts at 7pm for you guys before the moon has fully risen.

If you’ve got a chance to take a few minutes to enjoy the eclipse please do. This will be the last total lunar eclipse until December 20, 2010.

A New Way To Fundraise

I saw this site today that I decided is pretty neat. It’s called shoutback, and it’s a place where you can join together with others who support your same causes. If you’re part of a church group, school organization like booster club, PTA, Beta Club, Key Club, etc who needs to raise money for a function, Shoutback.com is also a great place to do that. It’s really easy to get started. You can sign up for a free account, then you either search for a group you would like to join, or you can create your own. Once you’ve got your group you can raise money by shopping, saving money, or even selling stuff on the website. They’ve got an auction section setup ready for you to sell your stuff.

As soon as I saw the site I thought about how our motorcycle group thought about raising money this year to help families of those who have lost their lives to motorcycle accidents. We’ve all lost friends, and we know how hard it can be for a family to lose a loved one, and it would be great if we could raise money to help. I think I’ll mention this to the group to see if they’re interested.

In the meantime, here’s a short little public service announcement I put together about Shoutback.com. It gave me a chance to try out the video function on my new camera!

Police Officer Arrested For Drunk Driving

I can’t say only in South Carolina for this one, but I sure will say “only in Pickens County”, and that’s just for you Sam!

People like our next subject really need their name, job description, and crime commited blasted all over the internet. It’s really makes you rethink the kind of people we have working on our police force, especially around here.

A Pickens County (next county over from me) police officer was arrested on New Year’s Eve after wrecking his patrol car while under the influence of alcohol.

Yep, I’ll say it again. He was DRUNK. Officer Irving “Rocky” Simmons hit a tree around 2 am after running off the side of the road, over correcting his steering, and crossing the road again. He had left his home with a blood alcohol level of .11 (.08 is SC’s limit) after a fight with his girlfriend.

What exactly did Officer Simmons do for the police department in the (less than 1 year) time he worked there? Someone please slap this man upside the head because he…get this…mostly worked DUI cases. Thankfully Simmons was immediately charged with a DUI and fired.