Happy Anniversary, Baby
Days come. Days go. I’ve just realized that I’ve forgotten a few milestone dates recently and today marks another.
- Monday May 28th, Memorial Day, marked my eighth anniversary of hashing. I’ll always remember the day because I started on a Monday night, specifically the Monday night following the hash’s annual Hedon camp out in Newnan, Georgia. I used to run my anniversary hash every year, but have trailed off in recent years. At least I have a good excuse this year — I was in another state.
- As of last Friday it’s been an entire year since I’ve been on a date. Wow, time flies when you are beating yourself up constantly for being a loser who cannot manage to convince a woman in whom you have interest to spend a mere few hours with you eating dinner and having drinks.
- Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the first day that Apple computers went on sale. I was a proud owner of an Apple //e, as my first computer back in 1985. That screaming machine was equipped with a 1MHz 65C02 processor, 128KB of RAM [edit: corrected from MB's -- we wish we had Megabytes in the 80's], two 5.25″ floppy drives, and a green screen monitor. That machine cost me about $1500 and was purchased from Ray’s Computer Center in Clearwater, Florida. (I found the receipt in a file at home last night but was too lazy to snap a photo to upload)
- Today marks the one year anniversary of my food poisoning. It’s a day that is really easy to remember since it occurred on June 6th, 2006 (06/06/06). I’ll never forget the feeling. I do try to forget that it was also the night that I was booed by a bevy of female hashers when I entered the bar in which their “Chicks No Dicks” hash ended that evening (even though I was asked to show up).
And One More Reason To Mark The Date
Because it may be the day after I made a really stupid mistake. I received a call from a collection agency here in town. Confused as to why I would be receiving such a call, I returned their call. The woman could not find my phone number in her database, and after hearing that she dealt with the medical field I was certain this had to do with a bill dispute I’ve had with Virginia Highland Primary Care I gave her my social security number over the phone. Yes, I said I gave her my social security number over the phone! WHAT. THE. FUCK. WAS. I. THINKING!?!?! That might be the dumbest, fucking thing that I have ever done!
She still could not locate any record of me. Then, the woman told me that it was her last day on the job, but that I would most likely be receiving another call from them later in the day.
I’ve since verified that the phone number I called was for National Asset Recovery, but am still extremely concerned and angry that I would do something as stupid as willingly divulge my SSN in this age of identify theft.
Learn from my stupidity. Hopefully, I will not have to as well.
ITP Flickr Pic
Right now my confidence is about as big as the people in this photo.
I need to go out and shoot. Perhaps that will take my mind off of everything else.
And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood – grumpy
Current Music – Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing The White Stripes — “Icky Thump”
Website Of The Day – Have you ever wondered what the ratio of residents-to-Waffle House is? Thanks to Mollie for supplying this link which maps out the ratio across the country.
Exercise (b)Log – none
Mode Of Transportation To Work – My car
May Goals
1) Lose five pounds. (starting weight 200+ lbs)
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
You can beat yourself if you like, but my guess is they already had your SSN.
Nice pic from the canyon. I have yet to really see anyones photos that can capture the (insert word for really breathtaking, majestic, overwhelming vista).
-FP
Perhaps, but I consider myself savvy when it comes to protecting my critical information and then I go and do that…
Thanks. I was taking the picture for the grandeur (sorry, that’s the best work I could think of) and then happened to notice the people in my viewfinder.
I was listening to Clark Howard one day & he was talking about a way to freeze your credit, just because you want to. It take a few days to unfreeze it, and you would need to do that to buy a car, house, open a new credit card, etc., but I’ve considered looking into it. I don’t buy cars on impulse, and no new credit cards would stop me from buying something I may not really need. it would make stealing your identity a whole lot tougher.
Uh, hello, Mr. WeeBit?
I’m from Nigeria and have a million dollars for you if I could only have your bank account and SS number… just email it to me please…. Thanks!
dude, I would have probably given that to them to try and sort it out too. They already had it anyway like Steve said…..
I never gave the Nigerians my SSN, just my mother’s maiden name and checking account number so that they could deposit money. Was that wrong too?
Next time – just give them the last four digits. Oh, and if you’re really concerned, put a “fraud alert” on your credit report – if someone tries to open an account with your information, the company will see the alert on your report, and they’re supposed to call you to verify that it’s really you opening the account.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/infocompalrt.shtm
You can also get one free credit report every 12 months: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/freereports.shtm
This has been a PSA from your friendly local victim of identity theft!
Thanks Elizabeth. I have gotten credit reports from two of the big three (I somehow missed a security question with Equifax).
I’ve since read that it’s a smart idea to stagger credit reports from the big three. This way you get three free credit reports a year.
I think that Apple had 128KB not MB.
Yikes, I didn’t even realize my error. Nice catch.