As a ten year resident of Chicago, I finally broke down and got a car. I have deeding parking in my apartment, so generally I don’t have a lot of worries. Still, I know that to park on a Chicago City Street I need a special sticker.

When I got the car (Nov 13) I was told the dealer would get my license plate within 60 days, but I needed to pay for the City Sticker on my own. Within 30 days. I waited 28 days and, when it was clear I wouldn’t get the plate within the 30 days, I went downtown to City Hall (I work nearby) and got a sticker for my dealer plates. At the time I asked ‘I know the sticker has my dealer plate on it. Do I need to trade that in when I get real plates?’

The lady said yes, but promised me I wouldn’t have to pay again. Great!

On January 7th, I went back down, having gotten my plates, and said I needed ‘real’ stickers. I had not brought my sticker in, since I didn’t really want a ticket, and my neighbor (who parks beside me) just got one. They said I needed the sticker and promised that any tickets within 30 days of the new plates being issued would be dismissed. Of course I asked for a print copy of the law that said they can’t ticket me, to keep with my insurance issue.

Instead I got one that stated, and I quote “Motorists CAN NOT receive a ticket for having … an inaccurate license plate number … printed on their sticker.”

So while you have to have your license plate on the sticker, there’s no law that says the plate has to match yours. It’s a ‘security’ feature only. Which is amusing to me. How does it secure anything if no one checks it?

Just photos this week. Thinking things later.

As time goes on, I’m less and less fussed about showing up to work a little damp. It’s only a drizzle today, and it didn’t really start raining until my train got downtown, so I feel it was the right choice today. I’m much better about biking in the rain now than I was back in March. It’s been seven months since I started bicycle commuting, and I average four days a week right now.

I like to look at how much I’ve changed. On my first commute I said:

So today I was a really slow biker, but I made it to the train in 30 minutes (which takes into account the 10 or 12 minutes it took me to sort out the bag situation). It’s 3.3 km (2.1 miles) to the train from home. I walk it in about 40 minutes, so right there is 10 minutes saved. I know I used to be able to run faster, but this is a work in progress.

Now I get home in 15 minutes from the train, on average. I’ve done it in 10, hitting every green light along the way, but accounting for school being back in session and the construction on California street, which makes me go a couple blocks out of my way to avoid biking on the metal ‘hole covers’, I’m back to 15. I don’t like how my bike skids on them when it’s wet, and the dust is insane. I can take the hills without having to shift down, and in fact, most of the time I bike home in high-gear, since it’s a slight downhill after that hill. To work is mostly in my middle gear, though downtown I may up-shift and go faster.

Other things that have changed is I don’t always stop at a stop sign. I will always stop at a light, but for stop signs I slow down, check traffic (since most of my stop signs are at one-way streets, this is really easy), and then zip through. My only problems are when people see me signal to turn, and then decide that they’re going to be nice and let me through, when I’ve judged my speed to be able to turn AFTER they proceed through the stop sign. I try to signal for them to go, since they got to their stop sign first and legally have the right of way, but. They’re nice, I guess.

The title for this blog actually comes from my friend Rae (she who let me use her car for my license exam), who is generally mother-ish about my biking habits. Only once did I accept a ride home from her (it was pouring rain). Usually, even if the weather is iffy, I’m still pedaling to and from work. I’ve only once been caught in a downright deluge (back in April) on the way to work, and the rest of the time, I’ve not needed to worry about silly Gortex pants. One day, we were predicted an outright downpour. When I woke up, though, it was clear skies, so I decided to chance it and biked in. As soon as we walked in, the rain started. It didn’t stop until about 3:45pm, and when I left at 4pm, the sky was clear again. That lasted until I stepped into my apartment, and it poured again.

Sometimes fortune favors the bold.

Not to mention the first time I took my bike on the train, in its bag (which now has a small hole… damn it), I got snarked at. The Wed-Fri conductor thinks its cool, though and chats with me. Today we were talking about the future of Metra. The train I take in used to be full. Really packed like sardines full. Each car can fit about 150 people, and we used to cram in 160 to 175. Now we’re lucky to hit 100.

The recession, I suppose, is the reason for the room, but with the possibility of the Olympics looming, it’s about time Chicago got their transportation gear in order.

Some ideas I’d like to see:

• A bike car during peak hours
• A free transfer to a train that goes right to O’Hare from Union/Ogalvie
• No more paper tickets!
• Taking credit cards
• A ticket vendor machine (the lines to get tickets can get really long)
• Handheld computers for the conductors (instead of those log books they use with pencil and paper)

I compare my riding on the Metra to the trains I took in Japan, which were infinitely better, cleaner, and automated. You could get paper tickets, or a plastic ‘Go Card’ that was usable on multiple lines, even though the lines were owned by different companies! And by sharing the costs, the made credit-card processing come with no extra fees to the riders.

I’m sure we can do this too.

For what it’s worth, the RTA has decided that maybe a universal fare system for the CTA, Pace (suburban busses) and Metra is a good idea. Ya think!?

Rollerblades are great for up to 5 miles commuting, I’ve found. But they have serious limitations with the weather. If it’s not dry, you don’t rollerblade. Period. I’ve wiped out more times than I care to count trying to, and I just don’t do it anymore. From the time I moved to Chicago (1997) until just this last summer, I rollerbladed all over. Everywhere. All summer long. I loved it. Around 2005, my father and my mother both started making veiled comments about biking. My aunt Susan is a huge biker fanatic (she and Uncle John have ass-kicking bikes and go all around the hills where they live) and she would always comment on how city people do bikes more than rollerblades. Finally I broke down and when my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday (2008) I said ‘I think I want a bicycle.’

Negotiations began and after looking at regular bikes, hybrids, mountain and recumbent, I finally struck on the idea that what I need is one I can bring on the train. If I was in Europe or Asia, this wouldn’t be the case. Bike theft, while common there, is a little easier to combat than in annoying car-centric US. And I live in the Rogers Park area of Chicago. Were I to park my bike at the train station (1.8 miles from home), it would be at the Rogers Park stop. Anyone who lives in the area knows that the Alderman who governs that part of town is just terrible. Bike theft from that stop is horrendous. I saw my options as being a beater bike or … or … a folding bike.

Three people on my train (two guys, one girl) ride folding bikes and bring them on the train. The girl and one guy have Dahons, and the other guy has a BikeFriday. I struck up conversations with them, casually, about biking and the foldability. Eventually I slipped into a local shop and poked around at the bikes, tested a couple, and realized that the Dahon was what I liked best. It felt more put together than the BikeFriday, it was upper/mid-range, and it looked cool. I mean, hi, it’s bright red and was immediately named ‘Scream Latifah’ by my significant person.

The bike came via FedEx (it was out of stock locally) and it’s the 2008 Dahon Curve D3, bright freakin’ red and a very solid bike. It doesn’t have the bag, so I’m making a run to a local shop that said they had the bag for the 16″ wheels. I did a very short test run in the apartment, and then the weather, which had been a lovely 60 two days before, tanked to 10. No photos, because I was dressed in possibly the LEAST flattering shirt I own. Seriously, it made me look like I have Shatner’s Star Trek paunch from season 3! It’s a snug across the chest shirt that is very warm, but it hangs weird. And yeah, I know I need to loose about 5 pounds, but that shirt made me look like it was 15!

I’m not ready for biking in winter. Yet. My goal is to get bike-strong by doing my 2-miles twice-a-day for a couple months and, if my knee likes it, rock on through to November. Frankly, with the terrible way my streets are plowed and shoveled (i.e. not at all), I suspect I won’t be biking much from Thanksgiving to Purim (or St. Patty’s Day, if you don’t know when Purim is). That’s about three months of not-biking, and since I should be able to ice skate on some of those days, I may be able to keep in shape after all!

Speaking of St. Patty… I am going to try to show up for the Southside parade on Sunday, to cheer on my buddy Margie. And yes, I plan on bringing my bike.

Meanwhile, enjoy this highly useful route map.

As the busses show up, we realize no one knows what bus goes where. After all, we’re city bitches. We take our bus to our stops. The bus drivers are perplexed, and as we ask ‘Do you stop by…’ they get irritated. So I whip out the iPhone and pull up the transit maps.

“135 will take you to the same stops as 134 from here.” People turn to look at me. “33 goes to Ontario, so if you need the loop, don’t take it.” And so on and so forth.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re on our way to work and someone buys me a coffee.

Oh yeah, baby. I rock.

I love you. I love your snow, your wind, your bitterness.

I was out in weather that was -23 with the wind and I looked for an apartment.

I found a new place and now I must pack.

And while I shall be living on the edge of your land, I remain forever yours.

Oh, Chicago, Chicago, Chicago.

I say yes to my yes my midwestern flatland.

I declared myself a Democrat, again, must to my own frustration. Not that I don’t like being a Democrat, but … I don’t like being a Democrat. I’d rather be Libertarian, but it’s like pissing your vote away. I suspect one year I’ll go Republican and vote to get the more moderate Elephant on the November ballot.

I do want to point out something, though. This year my signature was challenged. And yeah, it was my scrawl instead of my pretty name, and the Voter Ticket had the pretty name, but … the signature was not the same. Shit. It took us about 15 minutes to sort it out, with the Republican Officer following the rules (and I kept assuring her I understood and supported it) and the old Democrat (seriously, he was 80) saying I’d obviously scrawled it, but he knew me.

After they relented, let me sign again, and gave me my ballot, the Libertarian (who lamented with me about Libertarians and Greens), read aloud from the booklet that they had the right to refuse. Everyone was surprised about it, and I asked if I should tear up my ballot. They let me submit it, chided me, and I pointed out that they were doing their job and I not only understood but supported them in their right to challenge my signature.

“We’re practicing Democracy. I’m just glad y’all had me, who thinks this is a good thing, instead of someone who’s going to get pissy and quit voting.”

They agreed I was a good sport about it, and the female Democrat joked ‘This is how the dead vote!’

I suspect the Republican was irritated, but I did keep telling her I was cool with it all, and I understood and blah blah.

It was funny, though. And I was glad they called me on it.

My DSL got disconnected in a weirdly twisting and turning set of circumstances, that even involved my phone line itself being down on Saturday and part of Sunday. There was nothing I could do. There was no one person I could talk to and get it fixed faster. There was no comfort, no easing of the agony of having business screwed up and work not done. There was, simply, a type A personality in the desert without a canteen, and she lost her mind.

Wikipedia defines slammming as:

Slamming is any fraudulent, unauthorized change to the default long-distance carrier selection for a subscriber’s line, most often made by dishonest vendors desirous to steal business from competing service providers.

I define slamming as being fucked over by the phone company who is, technically, doing nothing wrong. But they sure as shit ain’t doing anything right.

Wednesday

I woke up to find I was without DSL service. AS I was supposed to work from home, this put a monkey wrench in my ‘work in my jammies’ day. After spending 4 hours (5am to 9am) arguing with various people, I picked up the laptop and caught a $20 cab ride to the office to work, being ‘assured’ it was a modem breakdown and I’d have a new one on Thursday at 10am.

On the way home, I swung by Best Buy and scooped up a DSL modem, but it was hard-wired to work with another company so I exchanged it for some DVDs.

Thursday

The new modem arrived at 10am, and I got permission to go home and test it at noon. At 1pm I determined that it wasn’t just the modem, and the hunt was on. By 1:30pm I finally got an answer. My DSL company said they could not detect a line share on my phone line.

Techie Moment

Your phone line shares ‘space’ with your local telco, your long distance carrier and your DSL/ISDN. Hence, they call it a line share. Makes sense, right? So when Speakeasy says they can’t detect their carrier on my line, it means that someone flipped the switch to turn off my DSL from reaching my home. That falls under the ‘last mile’ provider responsibility, which belongs to SBC.

So I ask Speakeasy to put in a ‘please turn my net on, you idiots!’ request to SBC, knowing it’ll take three to five business days from the moment SBC gets the request. This generally means from the time you ask, it’ll take at least 4 days to get something done. This happened when I moved, I understand it. They have to send a guy over and make the switch.

I asked Speakeasy if they could tell me why it was off, and they couldn’t. I asked if they could say when it was off, and they said 5am on Wednesday. I asked if they could speed it up, and they said they’d do their best, but the brunt of the matter was on SBC.

Fine. I call SBC. SBC, after a hellish phone tree, a ‘press # to talk to an operator’ disconnecting me, and another number kicking me back to the start after saying I’m from Chicago, I got a person. I explain the situation. Right away SBC plays the blame game and says it’s not their fault. I tell them I’m not blaming them, but I want to know if a work order came in on my phone line on the 15th. They say (shockingly), yes! A work order was submitted on the 14th and was completed on the 15th for a DSL removal of service. Interesting. I ask who made the order, and they say they can’t tell me.

There was a pause here, and admittedly, at this moment I snapped. There’s a level to the idiocy I can cope with in a day, and this was where I’d had it. I cried. On the phone. To SBC. I’m a little ashamed about that- No. I’m a lot ashamed. More so, I’m embarrassed that I was still freaking out and sobbing when I talked to my boss later. My friend Q said I sounded really fucked up. Ipstenit told me to soak my head to cool down.

I should have, but instead I call Speakeasy back, tell them what I know and ask if they put in an accidental work order on my line. They say no. I ask if they can check with the middle man (the people who own the DSL lines) if they did, and Speakeasy says they don’t see an order for it. I’ve had good luck with Speakeasy. I trust them. I understand there’s nothing anyone can do on Thursday, and I have a small mental collapse.

Seriously, I was fucked up on Thursday night. Bitchy, moody, irrational, and taking it out on Ipstenit a little. I made it up to her Monday, but still. I was also supposed to do some night work for the office, and I had to hand it off to my boss. I felt bad about that, but mostly I was irate that there was nothing I could do to resolve the issue, and no one whose ass I could kick to make me feel better. I disliked being out of control of an out of control situation.

I know, I’m obsessive. Your point? Weirdly, I handled a suicide attempt (a friends in High School) much better than this. Geeze.

Anyway, Thursday came and went.

Friday

Speakeasy was having a bitch of a time getting SBC to commit to a date, and they were still trying to figure out what happened. Interestingly, some information was back-dated into my trouble log. At first, SBC slipped and gave me the IP address my DSL order came from (which was a company I’ve told all my friends about, but I’m not naming here because I have a couple possible court cases on them and … this could become slanderous in a moment). I had that traced (I love my geek friends) to the company and promptly sic’d the BBB on them to check it out. I’ve had good dealings with the BBB before.

The ‘new’ information I get was that a second DSL ‘connect’ order was sent in when I moved, on accident. Now, it’s possible that this new order was from my DSL, but I’m not 100% sure, and it doesn’t explain the Company connection on my line that was there on the 15th. But it does explain one thing: After oopsie order #2 was sent out, they kicked back a ‘please cancel/disconnect’ order to SBC. Which SBC did on the 15th.

Interesting to note that SBC takes 3-4 days to turn on your service and 1 to turn it off.

Even more interesting, I actually hypothesized this with Speakeasy on Thursday when I found out about the dual order. Speakeasy says essentially I was slammed, but they weren’t 100% sure either. Again, Company’s info on my line? Yeah. It’s sketchy.

Since it’s the weekend, I know there’s piss all I can do, so I take up Speakeasy’s offer for Dial-Up. Oh my G-D. I forgot how much 56k hurt.

Monday

I ask for status. It’s a Bank Holiday, so I’m off work, and I have a sinking feeling so is SBC. But as it can’t hurt to try, I try. Speakeasy is waiting for an FOC from SBC. An FOC, as I’ve learned, means ‘firm order commitment’ and is as I call it the ‘drop dead date’ for getting DSL turned on. FOC is cooler than DDD I admit. Speakeasy says they should have it by end of business Monday.

They don’t.

I consider “Friday is a nice day to have DSL. When I go to services and don’t get home until after Shabbat starts, you assholes.”

Tuesday

At the office, I check on the trouble ticket. No update. So I ask ‘Any good news for me?’ and get a reply 2 hours later. Speakeasy contacted the SBC directly since there was not update on the FOC date. It appears that DSL has been re-added to the circuit.

So I have to check when I get home, which puts me at 6 hours or more of waiting.

In conclusion

The freaky thing that I learned is that SBC services any transfer request of any kind, other than long-distance service. For long-distance, they require your written approval. Q, who is moving as well, checked on this and asked outright if he could call up SBC, claim to be with a company and ask to modify service on an account, and SBC would just do it? The answer is a yes. That’s exactly what I was told on Thursday.

HOWEVER, SBC also told him that they ‘must be able’ to tell us who made the order. They agreed that slamming DSL was illegal, but they didn’t tell me who did it, and in fact told me they couldn’t. I wonder now if SBC was just choosign not to say, rather than being technically unable to say, which was what I was told on Thursday. Either way, by not tellign me who did it, they’re enabling slamming.

SBC confirms an order to disconnect was made on the 14th and followed up with on the 15th. I never get 1 day service on my legit requests, so that seemed a bit sketchy. Also, SBC’s ‘we already did it!’ reply on Tuesday made me think that there’s a cover up going on.

There has been some legal follow up on my end as well, which included talking to a pro-bono lawyer about this (he was bored), the BBB (who said it’s not their court but have me some leads) and a news outlet who seems interested.

But. Tuesday night the DSL, she was back. Working fine, and I sent a very nice thank you to everyone at Speakeasy. They’re phenominal and worth the price.

I also edited Wikipedia’s entry on slamming to say the following.

Slamming is any fraudulent, unauthorized change to the default long-distance carrier or DSL internet service selection for a subscriber’s line, most often made by dishonest vendors desirous to steal business from competing service providers.