I am truly under the impression that car alarms serve no purpose. No one pays attention to them, and they do nothing to stop a potential car thief (unless it has one of those nifty ignition disabling alarms). I heard three alarms this morning and I didn’t even budge, just became annoyed as the sound went on and on.

With OnStar being installed in more new vehicles it is just a matter of time before it is used to alert authorities as to when a car is being stolen. I just wonder how much the fee is going to be for “false” alarms…

Of all of the things that frustrate me with cell phones, voicemail has to be the worst.

Let’s look at how my current voicemail works:

1. I call my voicemail. (I’ve turned off the password prompt)
2. I get a message stating whether I have new messages, how many there are, and if there aren’t any how many saved messages there are.

Now, things can go two ways here. If I have new messages:

1. The monotone voice proceeds to the first message.
2. I am given information about the time, the phone number of the caller and the message itself.
3. I am given options to save or delete the message.
4. The voice proceeds until the new messages are finished.

If there are old messages after the new ones or no new messages the following occurs:

1. The monotone voice starts at the beginning of the “saved” (we’ll get to why that’s in quotes in a bit) messages
2. I received the same information about the message and the message itself.
3. I am given options to save or delete the message.
4. The voice proceeds to the next message.
3. I am then told there are no new messages and the personal options menu is read.

Three or four years ago this system was fine. The number of people with cell phones was lower and the amount of calls people received on their cell phones was definitely less. Now, cell phones are some people’s main form of communication and the phone companies need to do something.

1. Give me a text message like structure.

   I should not have to listen to a voice telling me what a message’s associated number is and when it was received. I should be able to see the phone number and the date/time when the message was received. I should then be able to choose whether or not I listen to the message. This point blends with the next one…

2. Messages should be saved on my phone.

   There are some technology and space issues to work out with this one but I think it’s a necessity. Right now messages are saved on my provider’s network, yet, somehow, even though my messages are saved, they disappear after a certain amount of time. That’s not right and is unexpected behavior. If I save a message, I saved it for a reason and it should have a permanent space on my phone until I decide I do not need it anymore.

   If messages are saved on my phone, it would facilitate the first point and allow easier browsing of messages and would take out the hassle of having to listen to every message, or in my case, counting the number of times I hit the save button so that I can get to the message I want to hear.

I really do not think I am the only person with this as a pet peeve. If the phone companies can put music players in their phones, I am pretty sure they can give me enough memory to hold a few voicemails.

I recently upgraded my old cellphone to a brand new Sanyo VI-2300. Compared to my old phone, this thing is amazing. I can do pretty much everything I need to do, minus Bluetooth and a camera. Granted, the phone is heavy and bulky, especially considering that it doesn’t have a camera, and it is missing a front color display.

I have always been critical of Sprint and their service, especially when I have problems with my phone and have thought about switching services to Cingular recently. However, I have heard serious horror stories of people switching to Cingular (or any service for that matter) and having nothing but problems with their billing, service, and network. So for now I am going to stick it out with Sprint and hopefully here in the very near future I will upgrade to the brand new Samsung A900 or a new model Treo.

After driving through the night with Courtney and her sister Christy I am back in Sugar Land. It is good to be back in town and hanging out with my family.

The break will be a welcome change from school everyday and with my grades in I am already in a good mood.

Brant, my middle brother decided to buzz cut his hair before I came home and bleach it. He looks pretty stupid. Kind of like an Eminem wannabe.

Today is the beginning of the end. After today’s final in Operations and Productions Management I will be one semester away from graduating. I am leaving on Friday morning to head back to Houston for the holidays and will be there until January 9th.

It’s been a good semester and hopefully next semester will be just as good, if not better. My schedule is pretty full for next year since I am taking 18 hours to make sure I graduate but the classes sound interesting and that will give me the boost I need to get through it.

For those not in the know, this past Wednesday was December 7th, also known as Pearl Harbor day. It’s the day when the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor in O’ahu, Hawaii. The attack killed 2,403 military servicemen and 68 civilians and drew the U.S. into WWII. It had history altering consequences and would change generations of people around the world.

The anniversary of Pearl Harbor got a small mention hidden in the interior of most newspapers and maybe a 15 second blurb on the national news.

Yesterday, December 8, was the 25th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. It received frontpage coverage on most major newspapers in the U.S. and probably around the world and was the headlining story for some news reports. Does anyone see a problem with this? Yes, John Lennon’s death deserves mention, but more so than an event that pushed this nation to war? I am not trying to downplay what Lennon did for music, I think he was a genius when it came to music, but he did not alter history. His music did not end up dropping an atomic weapon on its enemy. His music did not end tyranny in 1/3 of the world’s population.

I see this as a sign of the times that we live in. We are more focused on the death of a man who changed music than we are on the deaths of many men and women (and children) who’s demise led this country into the largest armed conflict the world had ever seen. It’s all a little unsettling.

Some people have been wondering what I want for Christmas so last night I sat down and wrote some stuff down. To be honest, my dream Christmas present would be a 15″ Powerbook and one of the new iPods. Now, I know both of those are a little out of reach, so below is a list of reasonable wishes.

• A 120GB Harddrive. My harddrives are pretty full and I’ve done all I can to clean them up and delete the unnecessary stuff.
• A pair of Tyler jeans from Buckle.
• Two 17″ LCD monitors.
• A bookshelf
• A Canon Digital Rebel XT SLR
• Rounders

You can also take a look at my Amazon wishlist.

Texas Tech University has a professor/teacher assistant evaluation system in which every student is given a scantron type form to fill out. Each of the forms has a standard set of questions and space for user comments.

To be honest, most students just go down the questions and fill-in

I have a persuasive presentation due on Wednesday and I need some resources on telecommuting. The presentation is to be directed at mid-level and upper-level managers in a medium sized consulting firm. The objective is to convince these managers that implementing telecommuting would benefit the company in both cost and time.

Right now my problem is finding resources on telecommuting. If anyone out there has some resources that would be useful I would greatly appreciate it. You can e-mail me at s [at] badice.com. Thanks!

I hope every (U.S.) reader a great Thanksgiving. Mine was spent in the plains of West Texas on a huge ranch west of Snyder, TX. My mom, dad, and brothers all drove up and met Sarah and I there.

Saying this place was in the middle of nowhere is a understatement. After exiting highway we drove about 30 minutes down a dirt rode, through a stream, and back into a enclave in the hills. It really is a beautiful location, just a little difficult to get to.

Both mornings we were there we went quail hunting, waking up at 6:00am, getting some coffee, watching the sun rise and then heading out to spots we thought we could find some birds. We had pretty decent luck on both days and were able to get about 13 birds total.

It was a great trip and a much needed relaxation period. School starts back up on Monday and I needed the break to recharge my batteries and get focused for the end of this semester and the beginning of next.

You can view a slideshow of some of the pictures I took while on the trip here.