I continue to be entertained by the videos over at TEDTalks. In a nutshell, TED:

...brings together more than 1000 thought-leaders, movers, and shakers in Monterey, California every year for four days of learning, laughter, and inspiration.

They've had quite an impressive speaker list over the years. In June, they started making videos from the speaker sessions available on the TED website (i.e., TEDTalks). I try to visit the site every couple of weeks to catch up on the latest videos. I've yet to be disappointed by a presentation and most have been highly entertaining and informative. Considering I listened to over 50 speakers while I was at MIT last year, I can appreciate the consistent quality of speakers at TED.

I never imagined that I'd one day utter the words (or write the words for that matter): A deer jumped on my car. But it is, quite unbelievably, a true statement.

As vast areas of trees are cut down to make room for "progress" in my area, the local wildlife has to find a new place to inhabit. Deer sightings are a common occurrence while driving on the back roads near my house. This time of year there isn't a week that goes by that I don't see a deer either on the side of the road or dead on the road. My only really close encounter with a deer came about 4 years ago when I was driving behind a large SUV. Out of nowhere, a deer runs full speed into the side of the SUV which was driving at about 45 MPH. The deer was knocked down, but got up and staggered off into the woods. I got out of my car the owner of the SUV got out of his to look at the damage. As you might expect, a huge dent in his passenger side door but no one was hurt.

That was my only deer experience until yesterday. I was driving on another back road around 8am with two cars in my lane directly in front me. All of a sudden I see the car in front slow down and eventually stop. The car behind him did the same. I followed suit. I see a deer sprinting toward the car in front before making a b-line straight for my car. The deer then attempted to jump over my car! I have a Jeep liberty and this was a small-ish doe, so there was no way she was going to make it over my car. And of course she didn't. She didn't even make it up on the hood the first try. She landed on the side of my front windshield and somehow got enough traction to finish the leap off my car before scurrying into the woods.

Fortunately, my car suffered little damage. The experience only lasted 4 or 5 seconds, but was quite dramatic for an early morning drive into work. I feared my car would be damaged more than it was. My windshield wiper was sticking straight out, there were scuff marks all over my hood and windshield, and I had a quarter-sized dent on the left side of the hood. I called the insurance company and they said they are getting inundated by all the accidents due to deer in the NC, SC, and VA areas, but this was the first one they heard of while a car was stopped ;-)

I know, I know, the odds of being hit by a deer a second time are probably about like being struck by lightning. And I know that never happens.

Last year I wrote about my difficulties with Cingular and Suncom. In a nutshell, the service was flaky at best and customer service was not sympathetic. Now, I'm starting to see the same kind of thing with BellSouth.

For a couple of years I used Packet 8 VOIP for my residential phone and long-distance service. I couldn't beat the price: less than $21 per month for unlimited long distance. The service wasn't perfect, we were without 911 service for the first year, but I never had any issues with Packet 8. The problem was with my home broadband connection. My wife and I experienced frequent service disruptions with our Internet connection after moving into our home two years ago which would cause problems with our phone service. And since we live in a new neighborhood, we've had periodic power outages due to lines being cut. This would cause my home network to reboot (I don't have a UPS though I probably should) and inevitably the phone adapter wouldn't register correctly and needed to be manually restarted. Of course these issues would happen when I was traveling on business and my wife was home alone.

After a couple of years of this, we decided we weren't using the free long distance enough to really get the benefit out of VOIP. And since the disruptions were occasionally annoying, we decided to switch to iron clad BellSouth residential service. We had used BellSouth at a previous residence and had no problems with them. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be the case this time around.

First, BellSouth had to run a phone line from the road to the back of our house. That meant they had to dig up our yard. After the first week of service, we started experiencing brief disruptions. None would happen longer than a day, but it was long enough to be annoying. In fact, it happened enough to make my wife and I wonder if we made the right decision switching to the "reliable" BellSouth service. Then yesterday, I called home from my work phone and the call kept dropping. I tried it repeatedly and sure enough, after the first ring the line would drop. I eventually spoke to my wife via her cell phone and she said it had been happening all day. I tried it again this morning and same problem. What made it even worse is that since it would drop after the first ring, caller id wouldn't register so we didn't know who was calling. Maybe it was BellSouth telling us that they were experiencing problems ;-) Not likely.

This afternoon I submitted a service form on BellSouth's website regarding my problem. I mentioned that I'm without service and need it fixed ASAP. This was the email I received back (today is Nov 14th).

Dear BellSouth Customer,

Thank you for contacting BellSouth regarding your inside wiring. A repair report has been generated to have a technician dispatched on 11/20/06 between the hours of 2:00 PM and 6:00 PM. If this time is not convenient for you, please e-mail us or call us at (800) 867-5662 to let us know. We are required to advise you that you will be subject to a service charge since you do not subscribe to the wire maintenance plan.

If you wish to cancel this request, please let us know. Please accept our apologies for your inconvenience. We appreciate your business.
Thank you,

The soonest they can send someone out is next Monday?!?! Not only that, but I'm going to have to pay for the visit because I didn't purchase their "wire maintenance plan". This is eerily similar to my Cingular/SunCom fiasco. I have a major problem with paying a company for service and when the service doesn't work, being asked to pay MORE to get it to work. It might not be so bad, but I went from paying $21 per month for unlimited long distance with Packet 8, to over $50 per month for basic residential and pay per minute long distance. Now my wife and I are thinking about getting rid of the home line altogether and just using our cell phones. Ahh!!!