My new favorite grooming product

Isn’t it cute? It looks like a little crocodile, huh? Actually it’s called “The Croc”. More specifically, TurboIon The Croc Flat Iron. I just call it ‘croc’ for short. And it’s my new favorite grooming product in the whole wide world!

I started using flat irons about 2 years ago when Kay and Kat came over with one. I always wondered how Kayla got her hair so straight and silky and when they showed me their flat iron I knew I must have one.

As I’ve grown older (not a day past 29 of course) my hair has become more and more wavy and frizzy. This would be perfectly fine if this were, say, the 80’s. In fact, my hair would be great if this were 1985! But can my hair get with the times? Oh no. In the 80’s I had perfectly straight hair when big, frizzy, curly hair was IN. Now that straight hair is totally in, I have quite a bit of wave. And frizz. Wave I can live with. Even curls. Frizz? HECK NO. Seriously, who wants frizz??

So the flat iron I ended up getting was heavy, clunky, and awkward. It did the job but I’ve never been in love with it. In fact I dreaded using it. I figured it was just the price I had to pay to have frizz free hair. I was so so wrong!

One day this wonderful little ‘croc‘ came into my life and changed my opinion on using a flat iron forever. This thing rocks. You know the saying, “You get what you pay for?” Well it’s true. My first flat iron cost less than $20 and I hated it. This one? A bit more expensive but very much worth it. In fact, I can’t wait to tell my hair stylist about it. Mine has an LED display that shows the temperature, AND it lights up. Hers doesn’t. This one even has a built-in turbo ion generator. Does that sound cool or what? I’m totally turbo ion’ing my hair! (The ions help keep your hair healthier by sealing the cuticles.)

You know, being a diabetic, I’m at risk of more hair loss than someone without diabetes. So I really do have to be careful about what I use on my hair. One of the things I like the most about my croc over my old flat iron is how much faster it works. I don’t feel like I’m having to hold the plates as long on my hair to get a smooth straight result like I had to with my old one. Which I *know* is healthier for my hair.

Now if you’ll excuse me, croc and I have a date!

Learning to Relax with Yoga

If my recent posts are any indication, my life can get stressful. Very stressful. I’m a wife, a mother of 4, a stepmother of 3, and I work full time. And lets not forget I have diabetes and living with diabetes isn’t easy. Being stressed out or anxious wreaks havok on my blood sugars so it’s important I try to keep my stress level from reaching a point where it’s affecting my health. This is easier said than done.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to recognize that I need to slow down, take a breath, and center myself. If I don’t, the stress creeps up on me and I end up crying too easy, letting little things get to me, etc. In a nutshell, I’m not fun to be around. I know having music on throughout my day helps and I’ve done well this week to keep some sort of music going and it has made a big difference. But I need a bit more help.

I decided a while ago to give Yoga a try. I’ve known people who swear by Yoga and what it does for them. I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of Yoga but have never tried it myself. I have acquired this yoga dvd to check it out. What attracted me to this particular DVD was the quick 30 minute sequences. I figured these sequences are something I can easily do on my lunch break (another perk of working from home).

The first half of my work day today was extremely stressful. I had to deal with an irrational client (he was so irrational on the phone I had to hang up on him, twice). I figure today was the perfect day to try out my new yoga dvd during my lunch break.

I have never tried Yoga before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I watched the first part of the intro but then had to skip the rest since I was on a time constraint and went straight into the first 30 minute beginner sequence. I was worried that it was going to be hard but it wasn’t at all. It may get more challenging as I get a full grasp on doing the beginner sequences and move on to the more advance ones, but it was quite easy to start out. Anyone can do this.

After having finished, all I can say now is wow. Actually it’s more like, “wow man… that was like.. totally cool man…”

As I write this I feel like a wet noodle. Every muscle in my body is relaxed. The stress of all that happened this morning is completely gone and I am ready to face the rest of my day. I did not expect results like this. I don’t know if it was the soothing voice coming from my TV, the stretches, or the breathing. Maybe it was a combination of all, but I cannot believe how relaxed I am. My head is even clear. If this is what Yoga is about, I can see myself becoming addicted to doing this. Daily.

Thursday Thirteen #24 – Annoyed

I haven’t done a TT13 in a while so I figured it was time to do one. I wish it could be more positive, but alas, I’ve had a rough couple weeks and I just need to get a few things off my chest. Here’s thirteen things that really annoy me:

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

1. Laundry. That always puts me in a foul mood. A friend said the other day, “why can’t clothing be disposable?” For real. Why can’t it?
2. Liars. There are many people who lie and think nothing of it. I have zero tolerance for dishonesty.
3. Judgmental people drive me insane and I’ve had my fill of them lately. Especially the ones who base their judgments on information they *think* they have but really have no clue about. Anyone who’s ever hosted a blog knows all about these types of people.
4. People who don’t listen or do a good job in the workplace, but will go above your head to try to get others in trouble to make themselves look better lose all respect from me. There’s a word for people like this: brown-noser. Or: ass-kisser.
5. News flash for the condescending people out there: you make yourself look like a jerk and no one looks up to you.
6. Self-righteousness, it takes a strong person to admit their faults and learn from their mistakes. It drives me nuts when people can’t.
7. Screaming fighting children. It’s a BOX boys.. a BOX. Is it really worth screaming at each other over?? (Yes they were fighting over a cardboard box!)
8. Passive-aggressive behavior makes me twitch and blink. At the same time. I don’t look good when I twitch and blink at the same time. So please just say what you gotta say.
9. Speaking of looking good, vain people annoy me.
10. Speaking of looking good and vain people, hypocrites annoy me.
11. Self-pitying Whiners. If you want something in life you have to go for it. You can’t sit around and wait for others to make life happen for you. John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” It’s so true!
12. Losing weight. I seem to take two steps forward, then one step back. I actually researched diet pills the other day after a friend online said she started on Alli. If you know me, you know that’s totally out of character, and being a diabetic, it’s just a no-no…
13. Did I already mention hypocrites? Just checkin’.

Thursday Thirteen Participants

Links to more Thursday Thirteens: Amanda | Chris

Technorati Tags: thursday, thirteen, thursday thirteen, tt13, annoying people, annoying things

Dreamhost and Lunarpages

There’s been quite the scandal in the web hosting world lately. Dreamhost, a rather large web hosting provider and the company that happens to be my web host, had a major billing snafu. In a nutshell, during a manual update of their billings they accidentally billed for December 2008 (it should have been 2007). This resulted in their computers thinking everyone was past due on their bills and it automatically sent out late notices, charged accounts, suspended accounts, etc. It was mistake of large proportions and I imagine extremely embarrassing for Dreamhost.

But that isn’t the scandal.

Dreamhost owned up right away to what happened. The same day (within hours even) they discovered their goof they had a post up on their status blog with updates, and shortly after that a post on their regular blog that explained in detail what happened. The posted in their usual casual/joking style and this did not go over well with many, so they added two more serious posts with updates and what they were going to do to fix the mess: Refund any erroneous charges, reimburse overdraft fees, and even allow customers to cancel their account with Dreamhost for a refund even if they were outside the 97 day money back guarantee period.

Lunarpages chose to respond to the billing issue at Dreamhost by posting a comment on the Dreamhost blog with a link to their post about the situation. Take notice the post title now: “Robbing Your Customers?”. This is not what the post title originally was. The title was, “Dreamhost Robbing Their Customers”. This is what I saw originally. The proof is in the wordpress permalink (url) for the post:

blog.lunarpages.com/2008/01/15/dreamhost-robbing-their-customers/

Here’s where the scandal lies.

I used to work for Lunarpages. I worked for them for three and a half years. I know who Amy Armitage is and I know how she thinks. I was the assistant manager for customer service and worked side by side with upper management so my knowledge of how they operate is from deep on the inside. Amy prides herself on her ‘quick thinking’ skills and her ‘go get ‘em’ attitude. The problem is she rarely thinks before she reacts and this often makes Lunarpages look like fools. Her Dreamhost post proves this tenfold. Instead of leaving it as-is and taking the flack they instantly received for their vulturous attitude towards Dreamhost, they changed the post title, re-worded the content of the post and censored all the comments. The only comments allowed through are the ones bashing Dreamhost and praising Lunarpages. You don’t have to take my word for it either. There’s screenshots over at Web Hosting Talk of comments people have tried to post that haven’t been allowed through. Lunarpages has even gone as far as banning people for stating their opinion about the situation on their blog.

Now go look at Dreamhost’s blog about this situation. They have literally over a thousand comments across three different posts and threads about this situation. Note the many many comments bashing Dreamhost right on their own soil over this billing faux pas.

Dreamhost endures the heat.

Lunarpages can’t. Lunarpages won’t. In fact, Lunarpages wouldn’t admit there was even heat to begin with. Don’t even bother trying to call them out on their turf. Your opinion would never be allowed and you’d likely get yourself banned. It’s already happened.

Dreamhost made a statement about the Lunarpages situation and admit they (Dreamhost) likely started it with a post last fall about Lunarpages stealing 404 traffic from their own customers:

Full disclosure: I believe they made that post in response to DreamHost offering ‘refugee codes’ and blog posts about their company like this one: http://blog.dreamhost.com/2007/10/10…our-customers/

They finally had an opportunity to strike back.

The commentary from the ‘Renown Web Development Technician and Software Development Lead’ did make for some funny reading, though. What’s a ‘portal infrastructure’ anyway?!

Do you see the difference in how the two web hosting companies operate? Are they both being childish? Sure. They remind me a bit of the Mac -vs- Windows commercials. But who’s honest and up front in these situations? It sure isn’t Lunarpages. And it’s no surprise to me.

In my opinion, Lunarpages routinely uses dishonest and unscrupulous tactics to promote their business.

This includes requiring their employees and staff to post positive comments on their blog posts and to write fake reviews on various review websites, especially if a negative review had been posted by a true customer. We were asked to bury those real reviews with positive fake ones. Lunarpages gave us free web hosting accounts so it was easy to “prove” we were “customers” and our fake reviews got posted. I have lost count how many fake reviews I have posted across tons of review websites in the 3.5 years I worked at Lunarpages.

Here are some examples of the fake reviews:

http://www.besthostratings.com/web-hosting/lunarpages.html

The post from Kiri? That’s me. I did that at Amy’s request while on the clock. So I was paid to write it. The reviews from Ryan Jackson, Scott, Craig Sadil, and Miraenda were all paid for by Lunarpages as they were all staff members.

http://www.webhostingjury.com/reviews/Lunarpages

The ‘reviews’ by Kiri (me again), chase, twitch, James, chapterthree, David, Ryan were all paid for as again these people were staff of Lunarpages at the time the reviews were written. We were asked to post them during our shifts.

I was also asked to start this thread at Web Hosting Talk. The first post isn’t even Kiri’s (my) words. Amy wrote it. She wanted to exploit an accusation that she was using sex to sell web hosting that came about over her ’sexy’ photo on the Lunarpages MySpace page. The rest of the posts on that thread were mine, but I don’t use words like “lamer” or “cyberland”, trust me.

(07:20:52) amy: check this
(07:21:09) amy: we are gonna create a PR slut storm
(07:21:13) amy: [digg link]
(07:21:45) Tracie: lol
(07:22:29) amy: can u get a few staff to digg it please
(07:22:31) amy: not mods
(07:22:36) Tracie: sure
(07:22:52) amy: and later someone can link it on the forum in that post and we’ll get all MAD bout what they are suggesting
(07:22:54) amy: ;0
(07:23:04) amy: my seo guy suggested it
(07:23:15) Tracie: hehe fun stuff

Note she says “not mods” meaning not the volunteer moderators.. she wanted PAID staff members. Then later that day:

(09:43:20) amy: do they have some kinda gossip section over at wht? Imagine if the host haters over there got a hold of the story
(09:46:32) Tracie: not that i know of
(09:49:53) Tracie: i just lost all lp connection?
(09:50:12) amy: my mail is down atm too
(09:50:14) amy: lemme find out
(09:50:43) amy: maybe just email?
(09:50:50) Tracie: no
(09:50:53) Tracie: everything died a sec
(09:50:54) Tracie: no irc
(09:50:57) Tracie: no mail, no web
(09:51:10) amy: maybe check with Lee
(09:55:05) Tracie: dani says she’s notified adam and marcus
(09:59:32) amy: okies
(10:02:44) amy: ah HAH!!!
(10:02:51) amy: webhosting lounge at WHT
(10:02:55) Tracie: ahh
(10:03:02) amy: do we have a remote with an anon profile?
(10:03:24) amy: can kiri do it all pissed off like women who are successful in IT don’t necessarily do it on their backs
(10:03:26) amy: heh
(10:03:55) Tracie: sure
(10:03:58) Tracie: tell me what to say
(10:04:14) amy: ok lemme write
(10:08:24) amy: I’m not sure if this is the correct forum to address this, but I’d really like to open up a discussion on women in IT. I’ve been seeing more and more articles and blogs lately on women in IT or the lack of women and since I ventured into cyberland, I also see it a lot.

I’m a regular on the forums of my web host and I was really upset today to see suggestions that one of the women there is successful because of her sexuality. Some lamer posted a rumor on Digg (link)

I know that majority of users on this forum are men, however are we so in the dark ages that beliefs and rumors like this are acceptable?

(10:08:31) amy: see didn’t mention lunarpages
(10:08:35) amy: they can’t delete it
(10:12:39) Tracie: lol ok
(10:13:58) amy: wonder if they will delete it
(10:15:16) Tracie: Title: Women in IT ?
(10:15:20) Tracie: for the subject thread title?
(10:16:34) amy: no
(10:16:37) amy: make is saucy
(10:17:08) amy: Sexual Discrimination in IT
(10:17:25) Tracie: ok
(10:20:09) Tracie: http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=539850
(10:29:33) amy: u rock
(10:29:38) amy: wonder if they will pull it
(10:30:10) Tracie: guess we’ll find out
(10:30:12) amy: are u a member on sitepoint?
(10:30:28) Tracie: yes but there I’m Staff
(10:34:20) amy: me too lol

http://digg.com/users/alderoneas — This is the user who first dug this, and it’s actually Amy. Most of the comments on the digg article are Lunarpages staff as well.

The photo in question isn’t even Amy. Here’s the MySpace photo and a photo of Amy to compare. The only similarities is the hair color. I asked who the photo on the MySpace page was of and was told she was a friend.

(12:41:46) Tracie: whoa.. wtf? that’s not Amy: http://myspace.com/lunarpages
(12:42:08) chad: lol
(12:42:16) chad: no, its a friend of ours
(12:42:23) Tracie: k. it’s trippy

Coincidentally, Lunarpages very recently made their MySpace profile private. Maybe I’m not the first one to call them out on the fake picture of “Amy”?

I’m not proud that I was a part of these tactics.. at all. In fact it’s one of things that bothers me the most about my time with them. At the time I was told all web hosting companies do it and that most review sites are bogus anyway. They are owned by affiliates who get a commission if someone signs up using the links to the hosts on their sites. Several review sites are actually owned by web hosting companies.

In conclusion, what happened with Dreamhost sucked for a lot of people. But they were open and honest about it and have endured the megatons of heat thrown at them. Lunarpages proved once again they don’t even know what the word ‘honesty’ means, and that they run and hide from any sort of heat thrown their way. Unfortunately, this is only one of the serious issues that plagues Lunarpages.

Maybe sometime I’ll tell you all about the time they orchestrated their biggest reduction in force ever, and left a few of us to play it out alone while they ran off to a vacation in the Grand Canyon on the week the RIF took place.

If you want others to know about this, please Digg It!

Update: Here’s a couple more articles on this situation.

• DreamHost made mistake and fixed it; Lunarpages spreads lies
• Lunarpages Lies About DreamHost’s Billing Fiasco

Update #2: I’ve been asked about Lunarpages stealing 404 pages. Here’s a few articles.

• When a Web Host Goes Bad
• Why I Left Lunarpages Web Hosting
• Lunarpages client’s 404 error pages issue (16 page thread about it at Web Hosting Talk).
• Lunarpages 404 Fiasco – How NOT to put out the fire

Update #3: Be sure to check out the comments on this post. Another former staff member of Lunarpages weighs in with their opinion.

Update #4 Here’s yet another great post from a former Lunarpages customer that explains in detail his perspective of the Lunarpages 404 blunder and how it compares to the Dreamhost billing accident: Dreamhost, Lunarpages, $$$, and integrity

Update #5 This thread gets mentioned quite a bit on various web hosting forums. On April 28, 2008 this post was mentioned again over at WebHostingTalk under the thread titled, Lunar Pages now doing direct spamming!! What a thread title! Amazingly it seems it’s true as the original poster posted the headers of the email spam he received and sure enough it came from Lunarpages servers:

Return-path: Envelope-to: ed@xxxxxxx
Delivery-date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:22:46 -0400
Received: from mail.lunarpages.com ([74.50.13.2]:55552)
by host.lakecountyhosting.com with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256)
(Exim 4.68)
(envelope-from )
id 1JqW7i-0005Jy-4N
for ed@cxxxxxxx; Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:22:45 -0400
Received: from 69-178-184-66.static-ip.telepacific.net ([69.178.184.66] helo=D3K76Y81)
by mail.lunarpages.com with esmtp (Exim 4.63)
(envelope-from )

Check for yourself:
Received: from mail.lunarpages.com ([74.50.13.2])
http://whois.domaintools.com/74.50.13.2

Technorati Tags: Dreamhost, Lunarpages, Dreamhost billing mistake, lunarpages lies, lunarpages sucks, web hosting reviews

Water is my friend

Water is my friend. Water is my friend. Water is my friend. This is what I have to remind myself every time I go get some boring old water to drink. Which happens to be every day. (You know… because if you don’t drink water you’ll die n’ stuff..)

I’m not a big water drinker. I never have been. But when the big Diabetes Diagnosis came, I suddenly had very little choice in the matter.

For a while (over a year actually) I drank low-carb flavored bottled water. Unfortunately splenda does a number on my stomach. It took me a long time to realize all the stomach “issues” I was having was a result of my flavored bottled water addiction. (I would drink 4-5 a day and thought the issues I was having was a side effect of having my gall bladder removed). It wasn’t until this past year and I lost my job (and therefore stopped buying the flavored stuff) that these issue cleared up. Put two and two together.. you get the idea. I can drink it occasionally without too much of an issue. But lets just say I’m much happier not running to the bathroom an extra 4-5 times a day.

A year and a half ago we bought a new refrigerator that came with a filtered water dispenser. Because of this I’ve become a water snob. It’s bad enough that I don’t like water… Now I refuse to drink tap water. I about gag if it’s not filtered. Our kids have gotten used to it as well and they won’t drink tap water either. Unfortunately the reservoir on our fridge doesn’t hold enough cold water to supply a family of six — sometimes nine. (Which is fine if you don’t mind water that’s out-of-the-tap cold rather than refrigerated cold, which I do.) So I try to keep a bottle of water (filtered of course) in the fridge at all times. This is handy when we got out of the house because I can just grab the bottle and go. The downside is if we’re gone a long time I have to either bring multiple bottles of water, purchase more at the store (expensive), or… *gag* drink tap water. I’d rather go without if the latter is the case.

This week I was introduced to a new type of water bottle filter: A water bottle that filters itself. You fill it up with tap water then screw on the cap with the filter attached. As you drink the water is filtered.

I was skeptical as I tested it out. It was physically hard for me to fill up the bottle from the kitchen sink and purposely drink it. But I was shocked. This thing is pure genius. I did a taste test and filled a cup with the tap water and took a sip. Yuck. Then I drank from my new water bottle. It was perfect.

I can have filtered water wherever I go while the filter removes chlorine, the bad taste of tap water and significant proportions of heavy metals including lead, mercury, and copper. The filter is supposed to last 200 refills, or 60-90 days. The replacement filters are pretty inexpensive at $12.95 for two. This is far far cheaper than I was spending on the flavored and regular bottled water… I will let you know how I feel about it when it’s time to replace the filter, but so far I’m loving it!

Technorati Tags: filter water, water bottle, flavored water, bottled water, water

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