Because they made me feel like an idiot for doing business with them. Again.

Here’s the story:

In May of this year, I took my seven and five year old children to the local Bank of America branch on a Saturday morning, with about $115 each that they’d been saving. My goal was to open a simple savings account, so that they could start learning what it was like to have a bank account, and the value of saving money with someone you could look in the face and talk to.

We opened two savings accounts, with me listed as the custodian and deposited the money. They both wrote down their deposit in the free deposit book that BoA gave us.

I’m pretty sure I asked lots of questions about fees and interest rates, because I distinctly remember hearing that the interest rate was ridiculously low (like 0.1% interest) and I don’t remember hearing anything about fees. I’ve been screwed by BoA before on fees on other accounts I have open with them (they charged me a $25 service fee on an checking account with $50 in it, because I wasn’t using the account (WTF?)), so I know I asked about them, and I don’t remember hearing anything from the bank officer about fees, that said, I could be wrong. It was six months ago, and I made the mistake of trusting them again…

About a month later, the boys and I took another $100 or so in change to the bank, and had them sort and count it, and then we deposited the money evenly into both of their accounts.

Because it’s a savings account, we get a statement once a quarter.

This morning, we got the second quarterly statement from BoA, and I opened it, just because I wanted to see what their balance was.

I was surprised to see three $5 charges for “monthly service fees” on the statement.

I grabbed the paperwork we got from the bank when we opened the accounts, and the boys deposit books and drove to the bank to talk to the bank officer that I opened the accounts with.

She doesn’t work there anymore. Figures.

So I sit down with another banker. As calmly as I could, I asked her to “refund the money that they’ve taken from my kids, close the accounts, and give me the cash, so I can go do business with a bank that my kids can learn to trust with their money.” I should have said “stolen from my kids” btw, because that’s what it feels like.

I was upset. I was upset because I felt like an idiot. Here I was trying to teach my children the value of saving money, and working with a bank that they could go into and talk to a banker at, and what lesson did I learn that I can teach them?

I guess this statement sums it up: “Never use Bank of America for anything!”

Seriously. What other conclusion can I draw from the last six months?

We took our money into the bank. We sat with a banker for an hour while she explained the accounts to the boys and I. We got our deposit books, and while disappointed with the super crazy low interest rate, we figured that having the experience of walking into a bank every few months, depositing cash, getting a receipt and seeing our balance grow would be a super powerful lesson for them about the value of saving your money. Isn’t that what we should be teaching our kids, considering the current state of the economy?

Instead, we got a lesson that goes something like “Don’t trust your bank” or “You’ll make more money keeping your money in your ceramic piggy bank at home, than you will be entrusting it to a real bank.”

Ugh. So pissed at myself for trusting Bank of America.

Anyways, after the banker looked into the two accounts, she informed me that they’d charges us the $5 fee six times. Once each month since we opened the account.

I asked her as politely as I could to refund the entire $30 for each boy, close the account and hand me the cash. She told me that she wasn’t authorized to go back more than 3 months. I asked to see her boss.

He came over and told me he didn’t have the power to go back more than 3 months either. I asked if his boss was at the bank today. It was a Saturday, so his boss wasn’t there, but they both told me they could file a ticket and that the big boss would look into it on Monday.

“Fine,” I said, “close the accounts and I’ll deal with it on Monday.”

Moral of the story there: “Bank of America lets a stupid computer make a bad decision to charge us $5/month for six months, but won’t authorize a human the power to make a right decision and refund us $30.”

So, I closed the accounts, took the cash, and will be going into a credit union on Monday to open two kids’ savings accounts, or I might call USAA to open two kids’ savings accounts with them.

I’ve had an account at Greater Texas Federal Credit Union for almost 20 years now. It was my college bank, and when we got out of college, we left about $50 in the account. They’ve never charged me a fee for having that account open, and even pay us interest on it, and I trust them to not make me feel stupid for doing business with them.

Ditto Navy Federal Credit Union… my wife has used them for savings accounts and car loans for twenty years. Love them too.

I’ve used USAA for at least 15 years now too, and trust them to not make me feel stupid. In fact whenever I call them, I feel good about doing business with them. Every time.

Bank of America, you just lost my trust forever, and I’ll make sure my children never bank with you, and hope that everyone that reads this thinks very hard about doing business with you too.

A person would have to be an idiot to do business with Bank of America, and I refuse to be an idiot again.

I’ll be closing my business and personal checking accounts at BoA on Monday too, btw. I’m sure someone else will be happy to make sure I don’t feel like an idiot for doing business with them. I’m not the only person leaving BoA, there are lots of others. It’s not that hard to move your money, folks.

Want to read more stories like this? I’m sure you can find them on BankofAmericaSucks.com.

Either way, your adrenaline gets flowing, whenever you start a new project.

In the last two weeks, I’ve taken on a few new projects.

First, I launched AggieCamusology.com, and pre-populated it with about 2 months worth of content, added some Google AdSense ads, so that maybe it’ll pay for itself later this year, and posted a few comments on Aggie related sites, so that we can start getting some natural search ranking and some free inbound traffic. Already, we’ve gotten about 10 page views… not bad for a site that’s less than a week old, and in a very very niche market segment.

The second project I’ve started is a completely new website, that requires me to open up my old PHP manual, and read a bunch on php.net or other sites, so that I can learn how the basics again. It’s super challenging (it’s been about 7 years since I’ve really looked at writing any real code) and super fun. Definitely gives me fuel to keep diving in, and opening up whatever possibilities might present themselves. I’m keeping this second project in beta for a little while, while I build it out more, but it’s fun so far, and I’m loving doing it and talking about it with others.

Third, I’m going to write more. More on that below.

One thing that I’ve noticed during the process of thinking about and starting these new projects:

Passion is what has enabled these projects.

• AggieCamusology.com wouldn’t have gotten launched if I didn’t go to Texas A&M and have a decent amount of passion for the idea. Would you launch a website about kittens if you didn’t love cats?
• The second project has been brewing in my head for months now, but I couldn’t justify investing much in the idea, because I couldn’t get around the “what problem does this idea really solve?” and then it struck me last night around 7:00… building this project doesn’t neccessarily solve a huge problem for anyone, but it will give me the chance to dust off my PHP skills, and that’s something that I will enjoy, and bam… work began.
• I’m committing to writing more on inluminent.com, because I just got done reading pretty much every post on Spencer Fry’s blog, and am totally inspired by his writing. I’m not sure I’ll stack up to him after it’s all said and done, but I am inspired.

What is your passion? Can you make enough money to live on doing it? What are you waiting for?

I don’t get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

What if I’d been born fifty years before you
In a house on a street where you lived?
Maybe I’d be outside as you passed on your bike
Would I know?

And in a white sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you

Next door there’s an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away

I’m sorry, I know that’s a strange way to tell you that I know we belong
That I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

And another version:

It’s fun to find a little inspiration when you aren’t looking for it.

I hope this guy comes out with a book someday… It would sell well, and I’ll be one of the first people to buy it.

I was inspired by Joe Eason, who was a family friend and owner of the Eason Insurance company in Houston, TX. Joe also owned a log cabin in Oak Hill, Texas, right outside of Bellville where I grew up. The Eason’s were famous for having a large fireworks display at their farm every summer, and people from all over would drive in and line Highway 159. which ran right in front of their land, just to watch the show.

Mr. Eason was a role model and hired my brother and I every winter to feed his cattle and buffalo. He also had his own smithy with a blacksmith’s forge in it, right outside his cabin, and that always inspired me.

I was reminded of this longtime dream today, when I saw these utensils on ThinkGeek.com.

Some day, I’d like to grow up to be a blacksmith. Someday.

I had no idea what it was. I figured it was just the next version of Warcraft, which I’d LOVED playing in college.

Come to find out, it was what it is… a massive online role-playing game. But there was one problem: I couldn’t play it at the hospital. I had to get online.

So I waited until we got home, and booted it up one night around midnight, while feeding the baby. And I started to play. And play I did.

I played WoW almost every day, for three or four hours at a time. It got so bad (I loved playing it so much) that I was even playing it during the day sometimes, while I was at work. Heh… Good times.

I played until I got to Level 60 (the highest you could go at the time), and I was pretty good. I started a guild, and got it to like 100 members, and had some “good friends” on WoW. And then Blizzard came out with an upgrade. Their first for the game. And I realized that I was screwed. I was going to end up playing even more WoW. So one day, I decided to quit. And I did.

Cold Turkey.

I sold everything I had… gave away all of the gold to my guild members, and turned over the guild to one of my co-leaders.

And it was like quitting cocaine or heroin, I’d imagine. It was tough. Trust me… quitting cold turkey like that. What was I going to do with all of that extra time? Heh.

Now that the boys are getting older, I’m actually starting to think about playing WoW again, but I don’t want to start over again at Level 1… at least not for my main character. So I’ve been looking into buy a character.

In my research, I’ve found BuyMMOAccounts.com, which offers cheap Alliance WoW Accounts, cheap Horde WoW accounts, wow key codes, and more. And the super Elite accounts they have aren’t all that expensive when you consider how long it takes one to actually achieve level 80. I found this Level 80 Human Death Knight for under $700, with two additional characters.

And they offer a 100% unconditional guarantee on the securitve of any accounts you purchase.

Love it. When I’m ready to jump back into WoW, I’m headed to BuyMMOAccounts.com.

Charley: hi

John: hi there

Charley: you not talking to me for a wile

John: not for a long time

Charley: lol

John: do we actually know each other? I can’t remember…

Charley: hm…
Charley: no…/

John: so, why are we friends on facebook?

Charley: hm.. dont no

John: lol.
John: that’s classic.

Charley: so you wont to be m8s

John: we’ve never met
John: how could we me mates?

Charley: dont no up to u

John: lol

I unfriended him after that, btw.

From: Roy Hayhurst
To: John Engler
Subject: Fwd: From a Baylor Fan on How To Cope with being in Last Place….
Date: November 23, 2008

John: I thought of you when one of my Baylor alumni friends sent this to me. Hope you’re well and all of you have a Happy Thanksgiving.

From a Baylor Fan on How To Cope with being in Last Place….

I wanted to share some thoughts from the hit book, How to Handle Being The Worst Team in the Big XII South. This book, originally authored by fans of Baylor University, with foreword by Oklahoma State, has been a work in progress for 25 something years now.

Now that we have handed that prestigious torch off to your school, and it looks like it will stay that way for quite some time, you and your Aggie friends may want to really get into this material. Here are some highlights:

Chapter 1. Bring up past records when discussing your program with friends. The best way to do this is to start from the present and go back through the past until you can find where you have more wins than “x” team. Inconsistencies in time frame do not matter – it can be 5 years for one team and 45 for another.

Chapter 3. Find other parts of your athletic program that you can be proud of and meticulously learn and promote their accomplishments, no matter how embarrassing the sport. Baylor has done this recently with women’s basketball, tennis, and most notably, track and field (Olympic gold medalist anyone?). Rumor has it that your men’s club lacrosse team is pretty awesome. Just throwing that out there.

Chapter 5. Find a couple of solid scapegoats and complain tirelessly about them. Your fan base has already advanced far in this area, with “Shermione” and “$Bill” taking the brunt of this effective relaxation technique.

Chapter 10. Pick a team to hate and root for their failure. For Baylor fans, this has been you, and look how well it’s worked! It’s like The Secret – the power of positive thinking. It’s very refreshing to change the channel from a frustrating loss and watch your sworn enemy fail. You may have to really dig deep here – you want a team that is average to pretty bad. You losing and them winning is a double whammy, so don’t set your sites too high (UT/Tech). Arkansas is a good start, they’re down this year.

Chapter 11. THIS IS A BIG ONE. Focus on moral victories. This chapter has a lot of content, so really pay attention to it. Within the umbrella of the moral victories chapter you’ll find subsections such as: a) Don’t pin your hopes on winning the game, pin your hopes on covering the spread. The spread is key, and beating the spread will bring you years and years of joy. b) Get excited about first downs. These may be harder to come by than you think, so really cherish them. c) Find remote stats that can highlight your improvement. Really dig into improvement. This should be a buzzword to use in the coming years.

Chapter 12. Talk about the other redeeming qualities of your school. This is tricky, because it’s actually really dorky to engage in academic smack talk, but, if done correctly, can deflect the focus of a conversation away from your school’s crappy football program and onto other areas where the playing field is more level. Now, I’m tailor making this to A&M a little here, but I would recommend you focus on your strong engineering and business school reputation, and don’t forget to bring up your various traditions! People never get tired of hearing about this.

Chapter 14**. Find another school to support on the side. This chapter is very controversial and was only added in later editions. I myself never went down this road, but several of my friends found a great deal of relaxation and comfort in finding a side school. While immediate family connections are the best (grandfather graduated from Penn State or mom and dad met at Florida), it is also valid to dig deep into your family’s history to find that great aunt that went to Alabama or that second cousin who got a masters at USC. The further away the school, the better. Claim that you have been watching them for years – especially as a little kid growing up. This helps ward off eye rolls and front-runner accusations from your friends. **Note: though highly successful, this chapter can be very dangerous, and is probably the only method that will incur hatred from fellow alumni and students. Use Chapter 14 at your ownrisk. Advanced students only. I’d say you’ll be there en mass around 2013 – although seeing how your fan-base is bailing after 3 losing seasons out of the past 24, you may be there as early as 2010. Talk about advanced students!

That’s it folks. I’ll send you a copy for free – we’re so excited to share this with a team not named Baylor. And you may read this and think: wow, Baylor is pathetic. This is really sad stuff. No, no! This is you! This WAS Baylor and now IS your school! I’m talking about what you and your fan base will be and have already started saying and doing.

So there you go. Gig ‘Em.

Did you vote yet? I did.

Go vote.

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” –by Shel Silverstein

And so, in celebration of that fact, and hopefully, so I can make some money off the spam I receive, while also letting everyone know what the latest stupid Press Release I got was, I’m unveiling:

Unsolicited PR

Yep. It’s stupid, but simple…

And hopefully I’ll continue to get PR spam from stupid PR companies that aren’t paying attention to how they got my damned email address…

Ugh…

So, I trudged down to the office to check it out, and sure enough, it wasn’t printing.

It was giving me an odd error that I wasn’t used to… and said something to the effect of:

Error 5100: Please turn the power off on this unit and turn it back on, and if you still have problems consult the User Manual.

So, I turned it off, and then back on again, and tried to print. Same error.

So, off to Google I went (we got this printer three years ago, and I couldn’t begin to tell you where the user manual is).

I searched Google for canon pixima 1600 error 5100

And I read this results page, which looked helpful:

FixYourPrinter.com: Canon i550 Service Error 5100

And another results page that took me to a Yahoo! Answers page, which was only midly helpful.

Long story short, something was likely wrong with the printer carriage bar… or something was jammed that was causing the print head to not advance all the way across the bar like it should.

I totally believed that, knowing that I have a 3 year old that is most-likely playing with the printer from time to time when we aren’t looking.

So, I opened up the front cover, and sure enough, the print cartridges weren’t seated well, and one of them was hitting the underside of the cover about three-quarters of the way across.

So, I re-seated all of them, and then turned the printer off and on again, and did a nozzle-check print test. It printed fine. So, back to the computer to resume the print job, and viola… no more printer error.

On those other results pages, they mention things like “cleaning the carriage bar” or “checking for stuff jammed in the printer” so, if reseating your printer cartridges doesn’t work, keep looking for things that would cause the printing head carriage (the thing the print cartridges sit in) to not function properly.

Good luck.

By the way, is everyone else consuming more and more video online, or is it just me?

“HDTV rocks”

totally. Izzy Stevens on Grey’s Anatomy is so hot in HDTV. Heck, Callie Torres is hot in HD too.

If you don’t have an HDTV yet, get one. Seriously.

It’s cold outside, rain/ice and sleet is coming down, and it’s been coming down for a good 36 hours now, and is forecast to keep coming down for another 36 hours.

I realize that for those of you that live north of Texas this isn’t a big deal, but this kind of weather in Texas makes people drive really badly… Not looking forward to driving to work in the morning.

frigtard – as in “socially maladjusted frigtards”.

Love it.