Not much to say about today (like you expected that, eh?) except that we spent it almost exclusively at the mall. Today was an off Friday for Matt, so Patty was able to get up on her own, without worrying about Gabriel and what he needed. After spending a little time starting her day off, the Chipster did require some breakfast so Patty took care of that in a way that only she can. He went right back to sleep after nursing, so Patty gently nudged Matt awake to let him know that she was going for a run. Five kilometers and one stop at Starbucks later, Patty was back with a coffee for herself and a hocho for Matt.
Pretty soon they were all off to the mall to do some looking and some actual purchasing. They didn't really expect to be there that long, but six hours later they were finally ready to leave. Patty had some new "walking around" shoes, Gabriel had some new shoes of his own as well as a World War I era plane mobile to put up in his new room, and the three of them had a lead on new cell phone service. Gabe did really well as his parents looked in (with very little exaggeration) every store at Lenox Mall. They returned their beloved meat thermometer, which had stopped working several weeks ago leaving the two cooks with little to judge meat doneness on besides a vague idea of what the meat is supposed to feel like. Williams Sonoma apparently gaurantees almost everything they sell for life. Patty and Matt had gotten the meat thermometer over a year and a half ago (as best they could figure) and W S took it back with no questions asked.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the Angles detest Sprint PCS. Not only is their customer service questionable, but they don't seem to have coverage in the forthcoming new Angle abode. After doing some serious searching around, we decided on changing over to T-Mobile. Their coverage map indicates that our new house should be in the middle of the their highest coverage area, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. Either way, they aren't Sprint. After determining that T-Mobile had a family plan with two phones and a decent amount of minutes for less than they are paying for their Sprint "service", Patty and Matt had only one hurdle left to leap: getting out of their Sprint contract.
Under normal circumstances, we would have had to pay a $150 early termination fee if we wanted out of our Sprint contract. We figured that since we didn't have coverage in our new house, it wouldn't be a big deal. They told us that that was the one condition under which we could terminate whenever we wanted (not having coverage at home). The problem comes in that their coverage map shows our new house to be very well covered indeed. It took about an hour on the phone (in the heat outside of the T-Mobile store) to convince the fine shysters at Sprint that they might show coverage at our house, but we sure weren't getting any. And that's what having coverage is all about, being able to actually use it. Finally Matt was able to talk to a sympathetic ear (after being told that he should take the phone into a Sprint store near the new house because they'd know where the coverage holes were in that area) and they agreed to waive the fee. They even made it clear that we would be welcomed back to Sprint whenever we wanted. Can you say, "Yeah, right"? Now Patty and Matt each have a phone. We currently have temporary numbers, but one of the phones will have our old number on it as soon as we can determine that we really do have coverage in Dallas and the people at T-Mobile can "port" (that's an industry term, apparently) our old Sprint number over to our new phones. We really love the phones! Patty's has all sorts of bells and whistles while Matt's is a little more understated.
Matt's dad should be getting into town early on the morning of Saturday the second as race day is right around the corner. He'll probably take a couple of hours to sleep off the drive and then who knows what we'll do. Gabe seems to maybe be sick. He certainly has been a pooping machine lately, and we're not sure if his diarrhea is due to a new tooth that seems to be working its way in or from him being sick. Hopefully tomorrow will be better for him but right now he's none too happy about the state of things.
