Month: December 2006

Installing Vonage

The Week of the Vonage
On the day of the deadline to get 3,000 miles from United Airlines for ordering a Vonage phone system, I signed up. We had been looking into such a system for a few months. It’s a broadband-based system that’s considerably cheaper than AT&T, even though we stopped the AT&T long distance feature and all other “extra features” years ago. We used the cell phone for long distance and phone cards to call France. With Vonage, we get caller ID and a bunch of other features including free long distance—even to France!

Vonage logo

The orange box arrived on Tuesday. I didn”t open it.

I opened the box on Wednesday and read the instructions, seems simple enough. But I found other stuff to do; I wrote and posted The Best Meatloaf of All Time on eatsforone. Meanwhile, we have no phone. Vonage had notified AT&T that we switched and were keeping our same number, and AT&T turned us off.
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Kelly celebrates half century with ATL bash

kelly-hat.jpgA wise man once said, “You”re never as old as you”re going to get”. And you only hit the big five-oh once. On December 8th it was Kelly’s turn. Thinking of fifty as the “new forty” she told me several months ago that she wanted to celebrate this milestone with a big party, bringing as many of her close friends together as possible, and to “partay” like its,well, you know. A tall order, but one I felt I was equipped to manage. Luckily, 12/8 was on a Friday, so I could plan a party without compromise to available time and ‘school nites”. Her sorority sisters from Philly and Walnut Creek were available, and agreed to fly out for the weekend, joining other close friends and relatives from the general area. The Midtown ATL restaurant South City Kitchen, an über-hip place we had visited before was selected from my ‘short list”, primarily because their semi-private upstairs loft is a MUCH nicer way to get together than being shuttled into a dark, private, closed-off room in the bowels of a restaurant. Sitting above the bar, it looked out over the restaurant so we could be part of the atmosphere, instead of being controlled by it. I quickly booked it and the plans started to take shape. As the date approached, Kelly’s brother Brad called me and suggested that ‘since there are several DUI’s in the family” it might be a good idea to get a van or limo for group transportation, with a reliable DD. MIGHT BE??? Why, it was BRILLIANT! DONE!
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