Puffenberger??I have a few things I’d like to talk about as I greet the new week this morning. I’ll get the Mug Shot done at lunch, so if you’re a Monday Mug Shot fan, be sure to come back for that!
First off, catching up since I haven’t blogged in a few days, David and I did finally get to celebrate our wedding a month later! We went to Mancy's on Friday, 8 PM reservation and went to a locally renown steak restaurant and both has fish! David had the swordfish steak, a common favorite of mine too, but I wanted to try something different! I had Shrimp Alexander. OH MY, what a treat! Trying something new was a very good idea! We shared a split of Sauvignon Blanc with our fish dinners. David is very well adjusted to “Nani doesn’t do Chardonnay,” and picks excellent white wines from the rest of the wine list. I’m really waiting for a new fad white wine. Most of the white wines in restaurants are Chardonnay. The od fads don’t go away. Through the Merlot fad I could still get a good glass of Cabernet! I would love to see Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Gris (not Grigio, but Gris) become popular. For dessert, we shared a turtle pie. Mmmm....
Saturday was sunnier than expected. David went out looking for trains, but I stayed home. It’s not that I’m just a wicked coward when it comes to the cold. I did some scrapbooking and other winding up the end of 2008 stuff on the computer. I still have to finish bundling the full Chronicles of Nani. I had to recopy all of the web stuff and retype the written stuff. My file for the year corrupted while saving, of course, and it killed the whole year! I need to get into the practice of copying the full files or putting them on disk or something. I have the full year, that I add to as I go on my extended hard drive, but I only had the one, even if I had copied it over, if I had been copying a corrupted file, it really wouldn’t have helped. So, now I think I need to back it up on disk once a month to make sure I don’t lose data. I do some of my personal entries right on the computer. Those ones from 2008 are lost. That makes me a little sad. I write in my private journals to work our problems. If something is bugging me, I might type ten pages, then the answer to my problem hits me like a V-8 moment! Losing those entries doesn’t unsolve my problems, but it’ a nice affirmation to read them later and if someday my nieces, or great nieces inherit my books, they might gain some insight from my woes and solutions too. But, if I find I’m really bugged about losing the 2008 entries, I’ll write about them in 2009!
What’s In A Name?
With marriage, my name changed. Of course, it didn't have to, that was a choice, a choice that made two important men to me very happy. I took David’s last name, but kept my Dad’s last name as my new middle name. With that change, I now use my middle initial on my accounts and in my signature. When I order things, I put my first name and middle initial in the first name section of forms.
I use PayPal more to get money than spend it. All of my internet income get to my bank through PayPal, so of course, I needed to change my name at PayPal so it matched my bank! The procedure for doing that seems easy enough. I need to email, fax or mail a copy or scan of my new ID and my marriage certificate. So, I scanned those things and sent them through PayPal’s system for name changing. Now, when I got my ID done, they had to do a second one because the first one had my old middle initial on it. Understandable mistake, since they had the old ID right in front of them when they did it. Fortunately in Ohio, driver licenses are done while you wait, so it was only about ten more minutes to fix it and have me out the door. Since the PayPal system didn’t even ask what my new name was, they were just going from the new ID, I wanted to make sure that they included the middle initial since I didn't use my middle initial before. I sent an email that was replied to by an automated computer problem solver with a reply that had nothing to do with my question. I figured I should find a customer service phone number so I could talk to a person!
Imagine my surprise when I logged into my PayPal account and was greeted with “Welcome (Mrs.) Puffenberger!”
I just stared, wide-eyed and laughing. They got the first name right, but the last name is no where near correct! It took me a moment to figure out where in the heck they got the last name. Puffenberger is the last name of the probate judge, not even the judge who married us, but his name is on the certificate. Now I’m wondering if a computer doesn’t scan and pick out names for name changes too! No offense to the judge, but perhaps I would have considered keeping my maiden name if David’s last name was Puffenberger. In fact, David said he might have considered taking my name!
So after 10 minutes of speaking into the phone and hitting buttons while an automated computer system tried to figure out where to send my call, I finally spoke to a person! It took about another ten minutes of explaining what my name actually is, but the woman with whom I was speaking finally got it figured out and changed it while I was on the phone to the correct, matching my bank account, name. Whew! When I mentioned that I wondered if it was an automated computer or if it was outsourced to India and the person processing my paperwork didn’t speak English, there was silence. (Now I think I recognized that tinge of an accent she spoke with!) “Global” or not, PayPal is based in California and the people pushing their papers should be able to read something as simple as a marriage certificate in the company’s home language. Yeesh!
This is becoming a long morning coffee, so I’ll finish it up with a promise that the mug shot is coming and there are a few more neat things this week!
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