So I checked their website, and this is what I see.

Generic – my cost $50, plan pays $39.
Name brand – my cost $30 – plan pays $107.

Huh? The only way this makes sense is if they are getting some sort of huge kickback from the brand name manufacturer. Why else would the insurance company voluntary pay 3X as much as it needs to? This is a fairly common drug that has been around a while, not some exotic cancer treatment anything weird like that.

This was at The Green Turtle. BTW, the food there is very good, a step above what you would expect at a sports bar. The flat screen in every booth is a nice touch too. We’ll be back.

Monday: 3 packages out for delivery for Michelle. I also have one I’m expecting, but I don’t have the tracking number..

Monday night: Packages still show out for delivery. UPS usually hits our neighborhood late, after 6 PM. The roads were cleared around 3 PM. Michelle calls UPS but can’t get any useful info from them.

Tuesday AM: Packages now show another destination scan back into Fredericksburg, so they are no longer on a truck. Michelle calls UPS and is told (allegedly after somebody called the local hub) that the packages are actually out for delivery. I tell Michelle no way. If the packages have left they hub they have to be scanned on the way out. At 6 PM Michelle calls again and is told that they are delivering until 9 PM and that we should still expect delivery, even though the online tracking indicates that the packages are in the hub. At 9 PM Michelle calls again and is told they are working all night to catch up and the packages will likely be on our porch when we get up in the morning.

I’m surprised they didn’t offer to sell us a bridge too. WTF? Do they have untrained holiday help manning the phones and just making crap up to get the customer off the phone?

Wednesday AM: 1 package shows out for delivery, the other two apparently still sitting in the hub. Michelle calls again. This time the phone rep tells her whoever she talked to yesterday was pretty much full of shit. Our neighborhood was declared undeliverable on Monday and just taken off the list last night. So UPS never even planned on trying to deliver on Tuesday. So I guess we’ll get 1 package today, and maybe the other 2 tomorrow? Or maybe not. Who the hell knows? At least 3 boxes have been in Fredericksburg since Sunday and they still haven’t managed to get them to our house. USPS and Fed Ex have delivered every day.

7:20 PM 12/13 update: Surprise surprise, still not a damn thing delivered. Michelle called the toll free number and the lady she talked to there said that she thought maybe the packages were still in Richmond. It’s like the customer service people at UPS have never actually looked at the online tracking application at UPS.com. We know the damn boxes are in Fredericksburg, they’ve supposedly been out on a truck for delivery both Mon and Tues this week. So I tried to circumvent the clowns at the toll free number by calling the local number. The guy there told me they have thousands of packages locked in trailers that they couldn’t deliver due to the weather and they are hoping to get them processed and onto trucks tonight. Of course, he can’t explain how my boxes magically got out of the trailers and onto delivery trucks the last two days. One of the boxes has been out for delivery since 6 AM yesterday. I’m guessing that one is just lost at this point. Michelle also has a 2nd day air shipment of temperature sensitive medical supplies that has been out for delivery since 6 AM this morning. The packages never showed out for delivery yesterday, but today they show that they were out for delivery yesterday? This morning we were told our neighborhood had been declared undeliverable, yet now tracking shows they were out for delivery?

It really seems like the UPS hub in Fredericksburg has just completely fallen apart this week. It’s not just us, we have not seen a UPS truck in the neighborhood all week. It’s like we’ve fallen off their delivery map. We’ve talked to 4 or 5 different people now and have gotten 4 or 5 different stories, and no real sense that anybody at UPS gives a damn about anything more than getting off the phone.

Look, weather happens, trucks break down, etc. Just tell me what the hell is going on. Instead, every time we call it’s an exercise in creative story telling.

10 PM Update 12/23: No sign of the medical supplies. They didn’t even get into Fredericksburg until last night, so there is no way they can blame the weather. Maybe somebody at UPS just hates us. The supplies are sensitive to temps below 38 degrees, so I think Michelle is going to have to make Minimed ship out a new supply since we have no idea where the box has been since 6 AM this morning.

10:50 PM 12/23: Just called about Michelle’s medical supplies. I got the “drivers must deliver everything on their truck” line again. So they want me to believe a driver is out at 11 PM at night still doing deliveries. They’ve wanted me to believe that every night this week. So far they are 0-3. I don’t believe for a second that UPS is sending all this stuff out and it’s coming back in every night. Either they are loading the trucks and they are never leaving the parking lot, or they are faking the data and not even bothering to send stuff out for delivery. Something is very rotten at UPS Fredericksburg. And if the driver really is out at 11 PM…just how safe is it to have this guy on the road 15 hours after he started his shift?

12/24 9 AM: One definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results. So I will no longer be calling UPS. It’s obvious nobody knows what’s going on, or cares. The current score is thee ground packages in Fredericksburg since Sunday night, 1 ground package that is allegedly out for delivery today, and one missing 2nd day air package containing $500 of temperature sensitive diabetes supplies. We haven’t seen an UPS truck in the neighborhood all week. The boxes just keep scanning at the Fredericksburg hub, they aren’t even trying to deliver then. The 2nd day air package has been out for delivery since 6 AM yesterday. Where the hell is it?

Michelle made me call again. I can’t get anybody at the local number to talk to me, so I called the toll free number. They claim that all 4 missing boxes were physically scanned onto a truck last night and are out for delivery today – on the same truck. Interestingly, that is not supported by the UPS web site. The only one it shows out for delivery is the 2nd day air that has been out for delivery since 6 AM yesterday. Maybe their web systems are hosed and are not up to date, maybe she was filing her nails while talking to me and never actually tracked the packages. At this point either is probably equally likely. Anyway, I’m done worrying about it.

12/24 11:30 AM update: Last night Michelle was promised a call by 10 AM today with an update on the missing 2nd day air package. Since that call never came, she called them back. Now they claim they don’t know where the 2nd day air package is and have put a priority research request on it, which is supposed to result in a call to us within 90 minutes with new. Any bets?

2:30 PM: About that call we were going to get within 90 minutes…

4:30 PM: Michelle called UPS, since they didn’t keep their commitment to call us back. Customer service rep comments that he had never heard of Fredericksburg VA when he came into work this morning, but he has now after fielding multiple calls from the area. He brings a supervisor in that confirms the Fredericksburg hub is FUBARed, and that they brought people in from Richmond this morning to try to fix the mess. He confirms that everything is on a truck, and that we will see it sometime today or tonight.

8:30 PM: It’s a Christmas miracle! We got 7 packages. And thus ends the 1300 word blog post on UPS. Crikey!

Merry Christmas, and remember, ship Fed Ex!

So Facebook is not causing 20% of divorces, Facebook is making it easier for 20% of married people to discover that their spouse is a lying scumbag.

That, I think, is a good thing for America.

*Note – I doubt the accuracy of the “research” and would bet that Facebook hasn’t been mentioned in 2% of divorce petitions, let alone 20%. Maybe it comes up as evidence frequently though.

2. When you get home, make a fresh cut on the trunk and immediately put the tree in water. This is the key step. The sap starts to dry out and harden in the truck the instant you cut it. If you aren’t ready to put the tree in the stand then put it in a bucket of water. When you move it to the stand get it set up and get some water into the stand ASAP.

3. Keep it watered. Our tree, which I cut 7 days ago, is still sucking down over a gallon a day. It’s starting to slow down, but it will still be green and holding onto it’s needles at Christmas, which is all that really matters.

That’s it. Cut it yourself, make a fresh cut when you get home, and keep it in water. It’s not rocket science.