Entries this day: Dream email work

Dream

5:05am CDT Monday 21 August 2000

(dream)

I was totally a spy. There had been a treasure buried on the hull of a crashed airplane and the treasure was marked with a rubber spy-vs-spy (from MAD Magazine) mask. To get to the treasure, one had to get the key from inside an elevator shaft, and to get the key, one had to have a flashlight, and the elevator shaft was in a fancy hotel somewhere far away from the airplane hull.

We road to the bus stop nearest the hotel in some desert middle east seeming type of country, all bright blazing hot sun and dusty sand with dry cracked rocks and mountains all around. Straight out of Indiana Jones. Everyone got off the bus and about 3 or 5 people knew about the key in the elevator shaft. Somehow the bad guy was on the same bus with us and a different spy had stolen his flashlight. I happened to have a flashlight disguised as a plastic coke bottle (full of coke (actually Dr Pepper)) hidden in my cargo shorts.

I got off the bus with the crowd and started walking toward the hotel and Rick saw me walking that way and immediately turned and walked ahead of me, but he was "following" me. Rick was a good guy.

Behind us we heard machine gun fire as the bad guy tried to scare everyone into giving his flashlight back. We kept walking with intention as if we hadn't heard him. As we were a few hundred yards up the road, somehow the bad guy appeared somewhat before us on the road and he had a chain saw. He tried to scare the crowd of people who were all innocent just to see who would freak and he'd know that person was the one who had stolen his flashlight.

I hadn't stolen it, but I knew who had, and I had a different flashlight in my cargo shorts pocket. The bad guy started feigning toward individuals in the oncoming crowd, hoping to scare someone. People mostly ignored him as a nuisance. He approached Rick and put the chain saw against the back of Rick's neck, but didn't hurt him. Then the bad guy put the chain saw against the back of my neck. I knew who this man was (from previous spy days?) and he had a pretty good intuition that I would know something, but I didn't let on. He grabbed my sheet that I was carrying and flung it open. Nothing concealed inside. I was all, "c'mon, man; I'm just trying to walk." He brushed me again with the chain saw in a menacing manner, then left me alone.

We had just arrived into the hotel at that point and were walking through the hotel restaurant, and I had the coke-bottle flashlight in my shorts pocket. I didn't need it at this moment, so I hid it in the little phone book cubbyhole of a pay phone on the wall. I knew if bad guy came back, he wouldn't be so lenient and he would search me more thoroughly.

We got into the elevator with the key hidden on it, and didn't need the flashlight because the light was on in the elevator. I looked out the elevator window and saw that the bad guy had gone down a different elevator and I knew he would got down a floor or two, walk over to our elevator, then press our elevator's button, causing it to go down a floor or two where he could surprise attack us. I was pondering how to avert his action without pushing the STOP button on the elevator, thereby bringing attention to ourselves.

And I woke up. Whew! Scary dream.

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email

14-21 August 2000

Wende and I have used Priceline.com for gasoline. We've saved up to 12 cents per gallon on gas! We also got this email. The resulting thread of emails is below...

GasTransactional@webhouse.priceline.com wrote:
Dear Rob,

Thank you for using the Priceline for Gasoline
service.  Our records indicate that you visited
River Oaks Exxon, Houston on 7/28/00 8:28:00 PM
and pumped 21.2 of Regular Unleaded at a pump price
of $1.53 per gallon.  As a result you over pumped
your prepaid gasoline purchase by 1.2 gallons. Our
policy is to honor your prepaid price of $1.41 per
gallon (or the pump price if it is lower) for up to 5
additional gallons. We have charged your credit
or check card on file with us $1.69 for these
additional 1.2 gallons of gasoline.

If there is a difference between your station
receipt and our records shown above, simply reply
to this e-mail and include the information printed
on your receipt. For your full account history,
click below (AOL users cut and paste into your
browser):

http://gasoline.priceline.com/gas/myaccount.asp

To add more gallons to your gasoline account,
click on the link below (AOL users cut and paste into
your browser):

http://gasoline.priceline.com

Thank you again for using the Priceline for
Gasoline service.

Sincerely,

The Priceline for Gasoline Customer Care Team

--------------------------------------------------

HI

I think there is a flaw in your logic:

If I am allowed 5 gallons over my requested amount
(which was 20 gallons), then I may pump up to 25
gallons.

I pumped 21.2 gallons, which is not more than 25
gallons.

Please do not charge me extra for the 1.2 gallons.

    Thanks!
    - Rob

--------------------------------------------------

GasTransactional@webhouse.priceline.com wrote:
Dear Rob:

Thank you for your e-mail.

We want to help you save money on gasoline! We
understand that over pumping sometimes happens.
If you over pump by 5 gallons or less, we
will charge your credit card your prepaid price.
If you over pump by more than 5 gallons, we will
charge your credit card the retail pump price.

Thank you for inquiring about Priceline for
Gasoline.

Sincerely,

George L
Priceline For Gasoline Customer Care

-------------------------------------------------

Hello,

I think your auto-reply did not read my email.

I did NOT pump more than 5 gallons over.

Please have a human read the original message you
sent me!

21.2 gallons is LESS THAN 25 gallons.

Please do not charge me extra for 1.2 gallons.

Please have a lovely day.

    - Rob

-------------------------------------------------

GasTransactional@webhouse.priceline.com wrote:
Dear Rob:

Thank you for your recent e-mail.

When you go to the station to pump your prepaid
gasoline, you may pump as much as you need, as
long as you do not exceed the total number of
gallons on your Prepaid Gas List.

Please note that if you over pump by less than 5
gallons, we will charge your credit card your
prepaid price. As you had overpumped 1.2 gallons
we have charged you with your prepaid price of $1.41
which amounts to $1.69.

Thank you for inquiring about Priceline for Gasoline.

Sincerely,

George L
Priceline For Gasoline Customer Care

-------------------------------------------------

George-

In the original message sent by you guys, it stated
that we pumped 21.2 gallons.

21.2 gallons is not more than 5 gallons over 20
gallons.

Please for goodness sakes admit that.  Just please
admit that 21.2 gallons is not more than 25 gallons.

Then please explain why your computer believes we
pumped 5 gallons over.

-------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Nugen:

Thank you for your e-mail.

We apologize for the confusion regarding overpumping. Our records
indicate that you have over pumped 1.2 gallons and since it falls below
the 5 gallon overpump limit we have charged your credit card for 1.2
gallons at your prepaid price ($1.41 per gallon) for each gallon
overpumped.

To make it more clear, please note that if you over pump by 5 gallons or
less, we will charge your credit card your prepaid price for each gallon
overpumped. If you over pump by more than 5 gallons, we will charge your
credit card the retail pump price for each gallon overpumped.

Please check the status of your account 24 hours a day on our Web site
at http://www.priceline.com . Simply click "My Profile" and "Your
Account History" to view account details.

Thank you for inquiring about Priceline for Gasoline. We look forward to
helping you save money on gasoline!

Sincerely,

Fred J
Priceline For Gasoline Customer Care

work

8:23pm CDT Monday 21 August 2000

Work was stinky today. On Friday I gave an ETA of Monday to our client that my project would be done. Kevin said he could help me on Monday.

However, Kevin got tied up with a problem he discovered in the latest SAS version 8.1 (which replaced 8.0 that had a bug in the Share thing)

8.0 bug was a memory leak that caused the system to slow down. This could be 'fixed' by restarting the dispatchers.

8.1 bug causes inaccurate results when combining data sets. The one has no easy fix that we know of. Tonight Kevin is going to bypass the Share (so that only 1 dispatcher will run tomorrow). Pretty much only 1 dispatcher will handle the load so we're not too worried about it.

Because Kevin was mired in finding the source of this error, I got relatively no help and consequently did not finish my part of the project today. I just hated having to tell our client "1 more day."

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