Last night KoL put on a great show. I had heard great things about their performance and I was not disappointed. It also didn’t hurt that the venue was within walking distance of home, so that was an added bonus not having to mess around with traffic. If they come to your town, check them out, you will love them!

~david

This week I received a text message from an “Unknown sender” and it read:

“This is an automated message from Franklin Bank.Your ATM card has been suspended.To reactivate call urgent at 866-545-2647″

Being the curious little monkey that I am, I just had to call it. So, the first thing I did was find a phone which did not display an external caller ID (ANI). After finding a phone I called the number above. I was greeted by an automated voice asking for my credit car number, my expiration number, and my 4 digit pin. I entered random information. After it was trying to verify my information, it asked for it again. However, this time it said it could not verify my account at this time and to call customer service representative… however it didn’t provide me with a number.

This is a scam, although I must say a some what ingenious scam. First, there’s an automated voice which answers the call, this can’t be tracked to any one person which might throw of a caller because of an accent or tone of voice. Second, is very similar to text messages received from various financial institutions. Finally, they have a toll free number which they provide for you to “activate you call”. Pretty cool, huh?

I think I’ll set something similar up at my home and even have it go to a web service to verify the credit card number is of the correct format just to say I can. :-)

~david

I’m out here to do a presentation and this place is absolutely beautiful. The sun is out and shining brightly, while the temperature is in the mid 30s. I’m staying at this beautiful resort called the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and the place is immense with a lot of great things to do and see. The room I have, while it takes around 10 minutes to walk to it, has an amazing view of the mountains. Here are two pictures I took.

And another:

One thing I also love is the fact that gardens here consist of rocks, sand, and some shrubs. My type of gardening.

~david

It really amazes how something as simple as a cell phone bill gives you an insight on how busy someone’s life has been. Through out the years, this has been very true for me.

Price

Minutes

Ultimately, the above has let me to change my plan to Sprint’s everything plan. And while I used to try and not go over my minutes, now I make as many calls as possible from my cell phone… not sure if this was a good move by Sprint, but I’ll try my best to get my money’s worth.

~david