A quick note to those reading through feeds and for those who get posts emailed to them.  I’m placing some of my posts from 2006 on my old Blogger/Blogspot site onto this one.  You may see things come in with 2006 dating on it, or posts you’ve probably read before.

When I first moved from aneweric.blogspot.com to aneweric.com, there was no reliable way to import my old posts from 2005-2006 into this site, so I had to manually copy and paste most of it.  After a couple days of doing just that, something came up and I never completed the task.

Now, I’m mostly concerned about the best of my posts.  Lyrics and some of the silliness might be skipped altogether, but the really good stuff should have been on here long ago.  So bear with me as I move what I can from the old site to… well, this old new site (four years old).

Thanks.

I’ve had issues with WRAL TV (Raleigh, NC) in the past over their “consumer advocate” articles.  A decade ago, WRAL’s 5 On Your Side crew once came after a company I worked for when a consumer complained about a product that was sold to them. A preliminary article was created and aired. After they actually looked at the facts, it turned out the consumer had installed his product entirely against the company’s recommendation, the manufacturer’s instructions, and common practice. Was the article ever amended to indicate it was not the company’s fault? No.

It looks to me like WRAL TV’s 5 On Your Side is still at it.  The linked article was first teased on Facebook as “Hidden Fees on Your Cell Phone Bill.”  After reading the article, it turns out the original title wasn’t entirely correct.  If anything, it was a traditional TV news teaser meant to get people excited about complaining about their cell phone bill.

I assure you, based on my own long experience on this, “cramming” is nothing new, nor is it your service provider’s fault.

The article posted on in this link on Facebook stated the article was about “Hidden Fees On Your Cell Phone Bill,” which certainly sounded like the cell phone companies were raking people over the coals for money. Instead, the article is about third-party billing, which has been an entirely legal system for decades. The same system that first allowed people to make collect calls allows companies - some of them scams, but none of them actual cellular or landline carriers, make a collect charge on your bill. Your link title seems to be a bit sensationalized, as this system was already in place before cell phones came into common use.

The most common of these practices, these days, is in premium text messaging. A premium text comes from a non-cell phone - a five or six digit number instead of the common ten-digit phone number. Some premium texts are entirely benign, such as voting on something or requesting a song with your local radio station, or Google’s 411 search via text program. Others, usually “ads” you see on popular social networking sites, are designed to be deceptive, though you’re almost always given the “fine print” to agree to before hand.

A couple years ago my mother had a $9.99 fee on her cell phone bill for a subscription she didn’t knowingly request.  The charge most likely came from the Facebook site, where she saw an IQ test or something interesting advertised on the right side of the screen. After taking the quiz, the company conducting it needs your cell phone number to give you your results. If you read the fine print, you’ll find the $9.99 reoccurring charge that you’re to by providing the link they need to your cell phone carrier - your wireless number.  It’s very easy to quickly fall into their scheme.

Traditional cramming has been around since before cell phones and the Internet. Cramming companies simply used to bill your home phone, instead. Their practices are much more deceptive than premium texting companies. But in all, this type of scam isn’t as wide-spread as it used to be, thanks to decades of litigation, consumer complaints, and credit escalations with the landlines and wireless carriers.

The most common cramming scam involved your legal right to switch long-distance carriers with your landline service, known as long distance slamming. Back when everything was limited to your local phone utility company, laws were changed to allow you to select the utility which handles your calls outside of the local area. In 2010, many of the traditional long-distance companies (such as MCI), no longer exist. Wires are now fiberoptic or satelite radio based, and your local phone company is probably now a multi-state or multi-national business. The laws that were set up to protect the consumer don’t make much sense these days, but they’re still there, and now the few companies using these “loopholes” in the legal system use the law to covertly rip you off.

So what’s the fix for all this? The WRAL article grazes the true answer. Asking your landline company to block cramming usually means having them lock your long distance carrier. Additionally, they need to set it up where only chosen people are authorized to make changes to your account. These days, I’m not sure if people working for the landline company know the term cramming, so you may need to be specific about what you’re requesting.

On your wireless bill, your carrier is usually locked on your long distance provider. If your wireless provider is a national company, your carrier is also your wireless long distance company. If you’re using a smaller, regional carrier, you may want to know who they use for long distance, and if possible, ask them to lock you into a known and reputable company. This should avoid the cramming that the article speaks about.

As for the other incidents that the article said little to nothing about, namely third-party charges to your cell phone bill, also request a block on premium texting, request to lock your account to allow changes only from specifically authorized people, and you can usually ask to remove the ability for third-party billing. These specific requests will protect you from typical “extra charges” on your cell phone bill, but in most cases, the scam that 5 On Your Side is talking about traditionally effects landline companies. If you still have a home phone, be sure to protect it. If you have a cell phone, you may have already run into some charges that don’t make much sense.

Lastly, contact your local utility commission with issues your phone company will not work with you on. Keep in mind, the charge wasn’t from your phone carrier, so they are losing money by crediting you for charges (they lose millions to these companies, just like consumers do). But if they’re unwilling to work with you at all, the only organization set up to handle complaints is the utility commission or utility board. Even the FCC can’t help you.

Ultimately, if you want the problem fixed, you have to go through your elected representation. Congress has had bills fixing these issues bouncing around Washington for years, but they never seem to get anywhere. Ultimately, a law must be changed to fix the loophole. Changing the law is your representative or senator’s responsibility. Contacting them to let them know you’re tired of scam charges on your home or cellular phone bills is YOUR responsibility.

And remember, if you don’t like the fees, charges, and taxes on your phone bill, that is also the responsibility of your elected official. On your bill, you should see your local city, county, state, and 911 system getting all sorts of taxes or charges. You should also see a local municipality charge, which is the fee paying the landline company for handling the transfer of calls between brands of carriers (the government protects your local landline, even if you’re not their customer). You will also see fees that are used to pay for rural phone systems, so people out in the middle of rural areas aren’t solely footing the bill for telephone poles, wires, and switching centers. And on top of all that, you should see as much as a couple dollars in fees the government allows the carriers to charge to recoup overhead - the fee actually going to your provider. This is standard practice, at least until the law changes.

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Tonight, I had planned on blogging about something else entirely.  I went looking for an old photograph to scan into the computer as part of that blog.  I was pretty sure I knew where the picture would be hidden: my box of memories.

Over the years, I’ve held on to many things which I couldn’t bear to part with.  When I lived in North Carolina, some of these things were in various places in the house, but the bulk of it had been boxed up years before when I had left home for college.  When I returned home (at the end of one semester), I began a tradition of adding to that box.

At first, the box ended up moving within my parent’s house.  Then, when I bought my first house in 1997, it moved to the new place.  Some of the stuff inside found its way into my computer room, but was packed away when we started renting out that room.  When we moved from North Carolina to Utah, I took a marker and wrote “E’s Junk” on it.

In Utah, at a relative’s house, the box didn’t get opened much, but stuff would occasionally find it’s way in there.  After a couple years, we bought another house and the box was put in a storage room.  Occasionally, I’d pop it open looking for something, or add something to the pile.  It never really made it’s way out of that room while I lived there.  At some point before selling that house last year, the contents of the box were transferred to a plastic container, the words “E’s Junk” written on the lid.  The fifteen year old box was used for something else when we moved to the new house.  The box itself now sits in my garage’s loft area.

The plastic bin made its way into my office.  Recently, I consolidated some things and put new items into the box.  It was there that I thought I’d seen the photograph I was searching for.  So, tonight, Jill and I opened the bin labeled “E’s Junk."  My box of memories.

Sifting through its contents, Jill seemed surprised to see some of the things in there.  Even more, I think she was surprised that I could recall the history of most any object within the box.  While looking for the photo, I remarked that the box would serve as good inspiration for the blog.  And since I didn’t find the photo I was looking for, I decided to do just that.

The first thing from the box concerns one of the most pivotal events in my life: the accident with my left thumb.

I don’t talk about the accident much.  It happened at work.  I was using unsafe equipment and took that fact for granted for many years.  In one careless moment, I’d almost completely severed my thumb from my hand.

After hours in the ER waiting for an orthopedic specialist, I found myself in surgery.  They drove pins through the bone to repair the break, and stitched it to repair the flesh and skin.  A moldable impression was made of my thumb, which served as a splint while it healed.  The thumb was then wrapped up in gauze and Coban, and placed in a sling to keep it above my heart.  With medications running through my body, I was sent home.

For seven weeks I stayed home, using some of the same pain medication I’m using now on my foot.

Daily, I switched out gauze.  I applied hydrogen peroxide to my thumb.  I lived with nastiness.  I lived through pain and disgusting smells.  I got through the healing process.  Every day, I could see the pins sticking out my my thumb.  Every day, I placed that splint on my thumb, even as the thumb itself began to take on a different shape than the splint.

Even after returning to work, I lived with my thumb in it’s state of healing.  I continued to see my doctor.  At some point, he was concerned about the healing.  He told me I wasn’t cleaning it enough, when I knew I’d been doing it just as he asked.  He told me I’d be able to move the thumb in the end, even after I told him I healed quickly and would probably need the pins out sooner than he was expecting.  In the end, I came out of the ordeal with a slightly mangled digit with a fused bone inside.  My thumb today, 14 years and about two months later, is a shadow of what it once was.

Now, I see that splint, which was molded to my thumb as it appeared on the day I cut it, and I can’t help but think of how my life changed because of that accident.  The splint fits the lower-half of my thumb just as well as it did when I was 20.  The upper-half of the splint does not conform to my thumb as it is now.

The splint is a reminder of what my thumb used to look like.

The pins, one of them misplaced, probably lost, remind me of the pain I endured.  Until that time, I never fully realized how much pain I could take.  I never knew that I was capable of turning off much of my pain for a period of time.  I would guess that this incident was where I learned that trick, though there were lots of cuts and close calls over the years that I managed to subconsciously get through in much the same way.  Today, as my legs hurt from constant pain, pressure, and stress from what little walking I can accomplish, I can’t help but think about how debilitating that thumb accident was all those years ago.  Seeing the splint and the pin only reminded me of that more.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t see the splint and note some great loss for my thumb.  For a time, I thought the incident was meant to be.  When the reasons for that fateful path in my life dissolved and disappeared, I found myself resenting the whole thumb ordeal.  I relived the anger of what had happened to me all those years ago, and found myself adding new angers I’d never experienced 14 years back.  However, in short time, I moved on again.

I wish I’d never had this accident.  I recognize that my life as it is today may have been completely different if not for this event.  Still, it doesn’t change the fact that I deal with my damaged thumb each day.  I jokingly tell people that I look forward to a future where genetic therapy can cause your own cells to regenerate and mold damaged tissues into their original genetic format.  In other words, one day I could have a procedure to have my thumb’s cells reborn in the original blueprint my thumb was designed for.  While this joke sounds like science fiction, I know all to well that it could be possible in time.  And even more so, I know that deep down, I’m not joking at all.  In reality, it’s the first thing I would fix if given the chance.  I’m not sure if that’s sad, hopeful, or simply human of me.

And so, I close this entry by putting my thumb splint and bone pin into a plastic bad, to be placed back into my box of memories.  Part of me is glad I held onto them.  Another part of me wishes I’d never needed them.  And my entire being knows that, as I type without using my left thumb, or steer my car without my left thumb, or hold my silverware in funny ways, I will never be able to forget these items.

They sit in my box of memories.  They reside within my mind.

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Today, I was thinking about a friend.  This friend started his blog about the same time that I did.  Now, he’s decided to move on, leaving the blog he’s tended to for years behind.  Oddly enough, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for some time now, and recently blogged about.

He’s going to hang up the personal blog nonsense and focus on at least one of his interests instead.  No forwarding from the old site to the new one.  A clean restart.

I thought about his decision today, and posted some of my thoughts on his now-retired blog.  I hope he doesn’t mind if I share some of those same thoughts here.

One of the greatest dilemmas for a blogger who’s been writing for years is change.

When someone takes up a blog, often it’s in order to have an outlet to talk about their lives, good or bad.  Sometimes, it’s very personal, almost a diary.  Other times, it’s about an interest someone wants to share, or they have a common bond with other bloggers, such as stay at home moms.  There are even blogs designed around some of these purposes with the side goal of making a few bucks on the side.

A blogger usually goes through the trouble of doing a lot of set up, choosing a name, choosing a topic, setting up a site, posting articles, and promoting their blog.  For some, a lot of time is put into it.  For others, a little or a lot of money is put into it as well.  A blog is well-invested, to say the least.

And then everything changes on you.

The things you were interested in six months ago have faded away.  You’ve moved on to other topics.  You’ve lost interest.  You’ve had coworkers, friends, or family discover your blog, which almost always changes your blogging voice entirely.  Sometimes, life comes to bite you in the ass and you need to deal with the real world for a while.  The point is, things change.  Life changes.  What you blogged about yesterday won’t be as important tomorrow.

And yet, you’ve invested time, money, creativity, sweat, pain, and a lot of yourself in the process.  It’s hard to abandon something you’ve put so much of yourself into.

But to the blogger, it’s almost necessary.

Most bloggers I know have used their site as a means to grow and change.  For instance, many of the people who started blogging around the same time that I did, as I mention in the article linked above, were recovering from leaving the LDS church.  They needed an outlet to speak their mind as they moved forward, and blogging was a natural means to that end.  But many “exmormon” bloggers, especially the ones who are merely wrestling with their decision to leave their faith and not looking for a battle, give up on their blog in time.  That’s because, given enough time, they change.  The accomplish what they set out to do by blogging (among other outlets), and in doing so, their reason for blogging ceases to exist.  They either move on to some new topic, or abandon their blog in favor of new interests.  I did it, too.

For others, where blogging was more about a hobby, interest, or commonality, time still moves you forward.  At one time, my blog was specifically to chat about whatever came into my mind.  For a while, I used it more for writing exercises.  Then, it was a memoir.  On occasion, I’ve used to to post photos that interest me.  A look through my categories list (the tags connected to each post, which concern the topics expressed in that post), show a diverse number of interests and topics over the years.  Today, the blog is a reflection of who I am, and a culmination of almost five years of blogging.  For me, my topics are so broad, I sometimes wonder if I’m too diverse to have much of an audience.  I have no idea who reads this blog, other than my wife, my parents, some family and friends.  For all I know, it’s just them.  For all I know, I have thousands of readers (who never comment).  That could be a direct result of all the changes that I - as well as my blog - have been through.

Where some move on, change blogs, change topics and layouts, and some even change names, I cannot.  I can add to my hodge podge of blogging.  But if I abandon my past for a future that I, as a blogger, long for, I will never be satisfied with my new iteration.

I think that’s why I didn’t blog for most of 2009.  I blogged each day in 2008, sometimes merely to say I blogged that day (rather than quality of content).  In that time, my life changed.  Blogging each day at the beginning of the year was different than blogging daily at the end of the year.  And instead of changing everything I’d worked on, I practically abandoned it instead.

I believe that most bloggers, in time, feel the need to move on.  Ironically, it’s commonly WHY people blog - to be able to move on.  But even those who blog about their interests - say writing, or amateur radio - in time move on to something else.  Thus is the blogger’s dilemma: to be, or six months later to be something else.

Even the name of my blog is a perfect example of everything I’m trying to say here.  The title, a new eric, was chosen specifically because I’d blogged about finding a new me.  The version of myself that wrote that entry in April of 2006 would soon be separated from his spouse, facing divorce, learning to be a single father, and dealing with a new reality.  Interestingly, that was what I was seeking at that time.  What I got was drastically different.

A new eric was a goal… it was a direction.  And I didn’t even have a clue what was coming my way only six months or so later.  That new me was based on my old reality.  My world has changed many times since then.

Now, a new eric is a search for self-purpose.  It’s partially to know myself.  It’s partially to know my role in the world.  And it’s partially just the same thing I’ve been writing about for all these years: me.

In all my years of blogging, I’ve moved on about a dozen times.  I know the drill by this point.  But still, every once in a while, I wonder if I should start over.  I wonder if I should follow the lead of my friends, leaving this site for another.  Starting over, entirely.  New site, new topics, new eric.

But then, I can’t help but think that I’ve come so far.  The Eric that started blogging in 2005 as a result of having to cope with religion has been long gone (that didn’t take long).  The person who merely wanted to write about random things has grown.  I could have changed it all a dozen times.  Perhaps changing images and layouts has been a part of that.  But most importantly, as I’ve changed, this blog has stood as a testament to that change.  If I ever wonder why I blog, I merely have to go back to 2006, 2007, 2008, or 2009 to realize how far I’ve come.

I applaud those friends who find it time to move on.  I understand that feeling, entirely.  In my own way, I do it, too.  But as for this blog, I will keep adding to it as long as I can.  Perhaps, one day, I’ll feel like I finally found that new eric I’ve been looking for.  Until then, I’ll keep searching for myself, and the next thing to write about.

I thank my friends, bloggers and readers alike, for their contributions over the years, as well as their new directions for the future.  May your best writing come each and every day.

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I’ve accomplished things in my life. I’ve failed to accomplish many other things in that same amount of time.

I could give you a laundry list of the things I have and have not completed. I would probably be embarrassed to admit to most of it. The talent of completion is something I’ve yet to master. In fact, if I accomplish ANYTHING in this life, I hope that it will be the ability to see something completed from beginning to end.

Let’s take a pretty benign example. We have a hot tub. The hot tub was purchased in 2006, when my life was completely different. I lived at my old house, in my first marriage. It took me some time to get the electrical for the hot tub ready, but fortunately for me, I had time between ordering the thing and having it installed. I got the wiring done just in time to have it hooked up, filled and doused with chemicals, then ready to use.

Life moved on. After my marriage went south and my ex-wife moved out, I didn’t have as many visitors over to use the tub. I didn’t have much reason to clean it as much or put in chemicals. It happened less frequently, even some time later when I had Jill to help. When we were selling the old house, there didn’t seem to be much reason to maintain it, knowing we were going to move it.

And then, we moved. I mounted a brace on the heavy side, so we could store it vertically (as hot tubs often are stored) after moving it. It ended up sitting in the car port at the rental house. And then it ended up sitting vertical in the car port of the new house.

For six months I contemplated where to put it, and how to get it there. After deciding to put it next to the shed on a concrete pad that was already there (hidden by the fence shared with the Naked Neighbors, so they can’t see ME in all MY glory), I thought about how to move it, as well as when.  I’d figured I would need to have a gathering of people to move it.  We had a decent chance of moving it when people cam over for Jill’s birthday in May, but decided not to do it then.  After that, I needed another good gathering of people (without using the tub as an excuse to get together).  Given my track record of getting people to come visit and/or come over for a BBQ or party, it was going to be a while.

Using braces on the frame, I was initially going to use 2x4s to hoist it up like a Sultan in a caravan through the yard.  I figured it would take at least four people (given my experiences with moving this thing in the past).  After getting some braces at Home Depot, I discovered that idea wasn’t going to work with the framing on the underside of the tub.

Then, I decided to mount large wheels to the underside of the frame.  I bought four 10″ all-terrain swivel-caster wheels through Harbor Freight.  But my foot has impeded my ability to do things like cut plywood sections, mount huge casters to them, then mount them to a hot tub sitting on it’s side.

And then, my never-seen brother-in-law was in town.  We planned a BBQ for him and his friends while we was here.  A couple days before the BBQ, I’d thought that having a bunch of men over for food was a good time to move the thing, but didn’t think to say anything until my brother-in-law asked about the hot tub sitting out there.  He even suggested we could move it on the day of the get-together.  How could be not, then?

Of course, by that day I hadn’t mounted the wheels, but we brought up moving it anyway.  After the initial claims of the true nature of the BBQ, my father-in-law, brother-in-law, and about five other men all started looking at the tub.  I suggested how I had thought to move it.  They lowered it, set 2x4s under it, and started to position it.  While my father-in-law and I went to look at the wheels, the rest of the guys practically picked up the tub and walked it across the lawn to the concrete slab.  It was that easy - with five men.

And now, the tub will sit.  I have to wait until I have some money to buy the wire to power the hot tub (it takes 220 volts of electricity), and my foot to heal in order to wire it up.  It could be a while.  In addition to the reasons for me not to finish the hot tub, there will naturally be the procrastination that has plagued my life for many years.

And this is where this story comes back into focus.  This is one of many things that I’ve dealt with over the years.  A lot of it could be have been completed in short time when the situations first came up.  Instead, it’s dragged on for months at a time, turning into years.

And what have I learned from procrastination?  Nothing.  I’m in my mid-30s, wishing I’d finished a lot of the stuff I’d set out to do in my 20s.  Some of it normal, most of it not.

Studying for this ham radio exam, which is on July 21st, has been another indication of something I started but never completed.  15 years ago, I meant to learn more about the hobby.  I started in it, got my feet wet, and stopped when the wind changed.  What I’m doing now could have been done 15 years ago.  In fact, I used to listen to AUDIO CASSETTE versions of what I’m studying now.  I was attending Barton College in North Carolina, and instead of playing Duke Nukem 3D with my dorm-mates, I was sitting in my car listening to morse code and electrical theory on now-obsolete audio tapes, wanting to do more.  I can’t help but wonder, if I had mastered amateur radio in the mid-90s, would I have finished my degree, discovered something new and more complex, or completed at least one more thing in my life?

So, this exam isn’t about progressing to the next level in amateur radio.  In fact, I don’t have the equipment (or money to buy equipment) needed to use all of what passing this exam will allow me to do.  No, this exam isn’t about talking to some person in England or Alaska over radio - it’s about finishing something I started 15 years ago.  It’s about completion.  And it’s about hoping for a trend.  It’s about moving on.  It’s about inspiring myself to be more, do more, and accomplish more.

In it’s own way, this is all about the entire topic of this blog - to find a new Eric.  To find me.

I WILL succeed.  Spending the summer at home has taught me that I should have been the one in charge of my own life all this time.  Not my foot.  Not my job.

Me.  The New Eric.

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