Communication Breakdown V1.5

Today was an interesting day, not by the events that happened, more along the lines of the thoughts, ideas, and anxiety that passed through my mind. Maybe I should rephrase that to yesterday? Due to the fact that I am on a different time schedule than most of the world, seeing how my day ends around 8AM. Any ways I was awoken to a phone call around 10AM from Bank1 inquiring about my recent transactions for my new computer. I knew this was going to happen. You see when you have 2 grand lying dormant in a checking account for several months and all of the sudden you pretty much empty your account through internet transactions, it sends up red flags. The man asked me pretty standard questions. Have you made such and such purchases from such and such place? Bla bla bla, let me just verify the purchases for you. In know way do I consider this a hassle, to the contrary I am glad that the credit company's watch for fraud and are I want to say my best interest, but I know its for theirs.

After my conversation from the man I was reminded that I had to go to my older bro Chris's house and wait for his new computer to arrive. He bought a Dell. What kind and the specks on it? I have no idea because I didn't really have a chance to talk to him about it. My other older Bro Jon and I had a conversation about Chris's new computer yesterday? Strike that, the day before yesterday (my time is different once again). Jon seemed a little agitated over the fact that he told Chris he needed a new computer, and Chris told him he didn't. Something to do with Chris needing to be able to run CAD programs or something. Interesting note while we're on the subject of CAD, my father in one of his drunken rants, claims he caim up with the term in the 70s. Except I think he said he called it computer accelerated drafting. He also went on to tell me about how he knew the guy who invented Teddy Ruxspin. If you forgot or don't know this posh toy from the 80's check this site for a refresh http://members.tripod.com/grubbyoctopede/teddy.html. He later changed his story saying he new the guys girlfriend, who happened to be one of the programmers who worked for him, or somthing like that. He then went on about how he begged the lady to give him a proto type because his kids would love it. Ya I know proto type, whos ganna give that up, and since when did my father have his kids interest in mind back then? Oh ya we got on the tpoic because a comercial for one of those new suposedly high tech dancing Robo Dolls was on TV, and I commented on how It reminded me of Teddy Ruxspin. Thinking back now I dont know what about it reminds of TR, except the price tag.

Back to the story. Runnig on 2 hours sleep I high tailed it over to Chris's place to make sure I would be there when the UPS guy showed. Since when does the UPS guy come at 10 on the dot? Never in all likelyhood, but one can never be to sure. I raided his fridge upon my arival and found some pumpkin pie, which I scarfed down. I don't no where he got it from, but I found it to be way to pumkin spicy for my likeing. I then decided to lay down and watch some giant screen HDTV. This was a mistake because I preceeded to pass right out.

When I awoke, I found his Cat Toonses lying on my chest and the time to be 3:30PM. Oh shit! Looks like I slept through the delivery. Yes I did, but when I looked over to my right, I found a note:

Francis, the computer came. Love Mom

That was nice of my Monmathma. She saved my ass, but why had she come over. (A) She just looks for excuses to come over and admire Chris's home or (B) She didn't trust me to stay awake to answere the door for the UPS guy. Either way I think it was very nice of my Mom to come by, just wish she had woken me up.

Upon return to the casa de F Chereck I immediatly recieved a phone call, litteraly as I walked through the door , from extreme gear. I hate talking over the phone to people I dont know, It causes me great angxiety and stress. I've always been this way, Little Bro Andrew can testifie to that. It seems the BFG Geforce 6800 GTOC wasn't in stock like their website said, and they wanted me to trade/substitute to what seems to be the same card only made by a different manufacture Lead Tech. Not Knowing anything about the componets in my computer, but aware that this type of Graffixs card is the most important and soul of my computer, I said I would have to get back to them on that. Calling Jon about this crucail crisis, in my oppinion, was very stressful. Hes sick and groggy and I didn't have time to dick with the situation because I was on my way to work. I asked him to deal with this matter, but it was like talking to a brick wall. In my family when someone doesn't want to do something at the moment you ask them, it doesnt get done. Knowing this to be true, my anxiety was further compounded by Jons seemingly lack of motivation. I know now it was stupid to get bent out of shape over this temporary set back, but my parents critiscism over this project and trusting my brothers skills was driving my brain into the red zone. This constant barrage on my psychie was causing me to have a panic attach.

I could go on about the rest of the events, but I'm lazy and tired of writing. Long story short, Jon told me to cancell my order with Extreme Gear, saying they were pulling a bait and switch. My anxiety in full swing, it took a lot of courage on my part to call back and cancell. Ya I know whats their to be afraid of when cancelling an order? well when you get paniced you rashanalize a million different bad scenarios in your head, each one worse then the first. What if they don't give me my money back? What if they won't let me cancell? What if we cant get the right grafix card? Maybe I should wait and they'll get one in stock? All kinds of crazy thoughts. All containing rational answeres in my mind.

I calmed my self down and made the call. It turned out all my fears were once again in my head. Stupid head, stupid brain, stupid hormones or whatever that controls my behaviors. Now that I was thinking clearly, or what I consider to be thinking clearly, I new Jon would fix the problem and the computer would live. He would just do it on what my mother and I call "Jon time". Jon time is when ever the hell he gets motivated to do something. Could be an hour, could be weeks, months or never. This is what earlier intial trigured my anxiety. This is also a good time to bring up my long standing fear over building this computer. That if it doesn't work, he'll give up and I'll be stuck with the $1,800 worth of parts to look at. His constant reasurances over the matter helps little to sooth my suspicions. This all goes back to the time when I enlisted Jons help to buy a new reciever. When he couldn't get all the channels to work, he simply said " I dont know dude, you figure it out, I have to go home now." this has changed my out look on what I consider to be his genious. Ah maybe not I'll probally always look up to the bastard : ).

Not to fear the next day Jon was on the job of hunting down the new BFG, and had found one on http://www.newegg.com. He even went as far to tell me that he called them to double check that they did indeed have one in stock. All my worries at this point were for nothing. That still leaves us to see if Jon has once again over estimated his skills and competancy. My parents keep beating that one into my mind. As my dad keeps saying, "You should buy a Mack."