VCU Blog Girl

Virginia has been my home my entire life. There isn't another place on earth that I'd want to live. There is so much beauty here. Mountainous views, beautiful oceans, and glorious waterfalls.

My friends here at VCU, talk about moving away and I just don't get it. Move to where? Some insanely built up city where the people are unfriendly and seasons barely exist.

I think it's the seasons that make Virginia such a wonderful place to live. Winter gets cold with just enough snow but never lasts too long. Just when you've had enough winter and are wishing for warm weather it appears.

Spring in Virginia is absolutely stunning. Flowers blooming, and the birds chirping about. All of a sudden the city of Richmond begins to bustle as families dawn the streets of Carytown.

When I've finally reached the mommy time in my life, it will without a doubt be the beautiful state of Virginia that I settle in.

Other states are great for visiting, but no place can do home like the great state of Virginia.

I am so fed up with Verizon. I can't believe how insane my phone bill is. I hardly ever use the phone. Except to talk to my mom and she lives 10 minutes away. In May I received a bill for $71.12 - way too high for a phone bill, so I went online and took a look around to see if I could save any money.

Here is my verizon account for a couple months.

Following are my Verizon Services :

Current Verizon Plan: Verizon Regional Package Extra
5/16/2007 $71.12
Insane. Why is Verizon so damn expensive?

Verizon Plan: Verizon Regional Package
Posted date Amount
6/22/2007 $75.99
I went to the Regional Package and assumed it would be cheaper. Turns out it doesn't even include long distance. So my bill was higher and I didn't even have the ability to call long distance. What kind of scam is that? Grrrrr...makes me so mad!

Here's the 6/22/2007 break down:
Monthly Rates 6.50 ( This is the fee for a dial tone. Shouldn't the Packaged Service at least come with a freaking dial tone?)

Packaged Service
Verizon Regional Package 37.95

Optional Service
Monthly Rates 3.99
Verizon Monthly Charges May 23, 2007 thru Jun 22, 2007 $48.44
Verizon Tax, Surcharges and Other Fees $5.84
Verizon Additions and Changes $7.84
Total for Miscellaneous Charges and Credits USBI $13.87
Total Bill: $75.99 (ZERO LONG DISTANCE)

So I went back online and changed my plan yet again. This time I thought well let see how great this Freedom plan is. Unlimited Long Distance sounded nice, I thought it would be cheaper especially since I found I was being charged for hidden extras I never use. I dumped 3 way calling, call interceptor, and something else which I had to search and search for. They did not make it easy to dump these. I only kept call waiting and caller ID.

Verizon Plan: Verizon Freedom Essentials
New Charges (as of 6/23/2007)
Verizon 79.84
Amount Billed: (Total New Charges Due Jul 22,2007) 79.84

Here's the 6/23/2007 break down:
Monthly Rates 6.50 ( This is the fee for a dial tone.)

Optional Service
Monthly Rates $3.99

Packaged Service
Verizon Freedom Essentials 44.99
Verizon Monthly Charges Total: $55.48
You subscribe to Verizon Freedom Essentials(sm), which includes Regional Essentialsprovided by Verizon-VA and Unlimited Long Distance provided by Verizon Long Distance. ($12.95 of the total package price of $44.99 is associated with long distance services).
Verizon Additions and Changes 7.58
Verizon Tax, Surcharges and Other Fees $7.90
Other Provider(s) 8.88

Total Bill: $79.84

I just can't get a break. I'm really thinking hard about going to a VOIP service. I'm definitely going to check it out. I'll post again as soon as I find out more about Voic Over IP.

Continue reading "Frustrated & Mad at Verizon" »

So Paris goes to jail. Imus gets fired. Lindsay Lohan leaves her coke behind. Yeah, yeah - interesting light reading sure. But what's going on when people get fired up and mad over others blogging about stupid celebrity mistakes? I was just looking at one of my favorite trash reading sites and there was an entry on some of the top celebrity goofs. This was fine and I enjoyed reading it. But the big mystery to me is why do people get upset about these stories? Check out the comments on this story here: celebrity oops

I am just beginning to get my toes wet in the world of the web. Everyone I meet these days has a blog. My question to these people was What is a blog? The truth is most people had no idea what blog stands for, even though they had one themselves.

Blog = Web Log
In dummy terms which is exactly what I needed it is pretty much an online diary. You write, you save, then you publish it. It turns out, I'm not as mentally challenged as I once thought I was. =)

There is so much to know when you are getting started. Words like web hosting, domain, url, server-side, are words that at first made me cry and want to just go throw up in an alley.

Dictionary's definition:
Web Hosting: a business providing hardware and services to store, maintain, and present Web sites and provide Internet connection to those sites
ACKKKK - definitions like this tell me nothing.
My Dumb definition: You pay a company to put your web site on the internet. There are 1000's of these type of companys. Each of them offer different services at different prices. Once you understand some of the basic terms you can get a break down list of the top companies for web hosting at Rankaboo.com.

Domain is just the name of your site, you can usually purchase these for as low as $3-$4 depending on what plan you use. It of course does not include hosting. Free sites give you a long name like my blog http://blog.vcu.edu/williamsam9/ which no one can remember. Fine by me since it's just my personal opinions and not for making money. But if you want to be remembered then you need a short, snappy domain name. One like the entertainment gossip site I visit way too often.

I'll write more later. Just talking about this stuff is giving me a head ache. Learning web site stuff is confusing but it's also fun.