Tag Archives: Life

Consumer Alert

Merry Christmas from Allstate?

Hi Thomas,

I have always had Bob XYZ as my agent, but you are now listed on the website as my agent when I login, so I am now contacting you.  In addition, I will be sending a copy of this email to Bob XYZ and posting a copy on my website.  I was not able to find a general customer service email for Allstate that I could also involve.

I cancelled all three of my Allstate policies effective midnight 11/1/2011.  I had paid my renters (renewed 08/11) and motorcycle (started 07/11) policies in full, but was making monthly installments on my auto policy (renewed 08/11).

When speaking with Bob regarding the cancellation of my policy, we went over the fact that there would be “penalties” for cancelling my policies, and discussed the refunds I would receive on the motorcycle and renters policies, as well as the bill that would be due for the auto policy.

Within a week of cancellation, I started receiving significant amounts of “spam” mail to my home from Allstate.  I understand, but do not appreciate, these aggressive attempts to win back my business.  With equal swiftness to the spam mail, I received an invoice for the outstanding balance on my auto policy.  It has been less than 60 days since my policies were cancelled, and I believe I have received 2-3 notices for my outstanding balance.

Continue reading Merry Christmas from Allstate? →

Life

we’ll see

So I’ve decided to take an interest in blogging on this site..  I’m even thinking about importing my myspace blog from early college days.. would be funny.  I’ve gone through the phases of write, enjoy it for a bit, get bored.  I think the biggest difference this time is that to me, my life is pretty exciting.  I truly enjoy life, the people I’m surrounded by, etc. etc…

It’s so easy to sit down and reflect on the day. Certainly I have my stuggling moments.. like today for instance, it’s my last day in the office for a week.   Busted my ass to try and get everything done.. FAIL. So tomorrow I go in extra-early so I can get a few things wrapped up before my Dr. appt with the Osteopath…

So, I fell through my buddy’s ceiling on Sat.  OUCH!  Caught myself before I fell completely through, but did not avoid sizeable damage.  How do you fall through a ceiling.. well.. Monday, I went to a  6am cycling class, and aftwards, my right leg was numb from the mid-thigh down.. feel slowly trickled down until now only my foot remains “asleep”.. (original reason for Dr. appt.).  Now my everything minus my face is in pain.

Life

Receiver for a Bose Acoustimass

I picked up a Bose Acoustimass surround sound system off of ebay for a good deal. Now I’m hooking everything up, and I’ve run into 2 1 problems.

  1. Pre-wired from old system.  I can run the same standard speaker wire into the jewel double-cube speakers, but I have to plug them into the floor module with an RCA plug.  Can I connect speaker wire to the Bose Acoustimass surround sound system by attaching RCA plug to speaker wires?  I have no idea.. so I need to find these.. Radio Shack?  But I don’t want to buy a huge cable.. and then have to rewire the existing speakers.  I want to buy just the plug, and ideally it be sold for its future purpose… took me forever, but I found it – http://www.iec-usa.com/cgi-bin/iec/L7422-01 it’s a 1 foot speaker wire with RCA on the end.. .just get some wire nuts.. BAM!
  2. Old receiver.. not gonna happen.  The old receiver was a Panasonic DVD theater system, with a custom wire harness that went to the panasonic sub.. and panasonic speakers. New system has bare speaker wire, wanting to go into what I can only assume would be a real stereo receiver.  What I don’t know is whether I need to buy a Bose stereo receiver?… Powered stereo receiver?… no idea.

Seriously though, I have no idea.. wtf?

Update

Okay… so I thought it would be a good idea to give you an update on what I have done to solve these problems.

  1. I bought a Bose Speaker Wire Adapter Kit… all my speaker wire hooks into one unit.  A wire plugs into the wall unit, and easily plugs into the bass unit.  I bought mine from the Bose store for around $50..
  2. I bought the Onkyo HT-RC160… found it on sale at NewEgg.com for $400.  Love the receiver, it is awesome.  Set-up was easy, as it auto adjusts the speakers for you.  The best part is that I only have an HDMI cable running to the TV, so I don’t have to worry about input, yada yada.  Xbox, Blu-Ray, etc.. all plug into the receiver (video and audio) via HDMI/Component/AV cable and the receiver sends the video to the TV.   The only downside is that the model I bought doesn’t have an RGB input, so I was stuck with either plugging the media center PC into the TV, or buying a video card with HDMI so I could go through the receiver.