afternoon gems

i hate identity theft. really, who doesn't? fortunately, we haven't really had a problem with it. today, heather got a call, on her work phone, about a contested charge @ target. the person had just left a message, and heather was trying to get a hold of them. she also called me, to let me know what was going on, and to maybe have me run one of our free, yearly credit checks. you see, we don't have an account with target. at all. so, i got target's guest services number, tried to gain some info, but was unsuccessful. i was asking questions about someone else's alleged account, so i totally understand. i passed their number on to heather (a different on than was left). and, in the meantime, i ran our credit info. it's pretty cool. you can get your credit report, for free, from 3 different credit agencies every year. good way to know what's happening, especially in this day and age where it seems that every other bank, credit card company, or even the gov't, have your info stolen.

so, collected all the info i could, and it looked all good. no open accounts that we don't know about. i was especially pleased to see that there wasn't some bogus target account.

in the meantime, i also was flipping the channels. it was at the end of whatever bs i was watching, and i stumbled upon half time of a champions league match. bummer, half time. even worse, it's 2-2! i missed four goals, not because i was watching something important, but because i was watching junk. dang. i hate that. as you know, soccer doesn't generally have a lot of goals, especially at the top tiers. so, to have manchester united vs celtic in the champions league @ 2-2, wow. fortunately, it was half time, so i got to at least see the replays. not too long into the 2nd, man utd scored. they held on, but celtic played very well, had some nice attempts to equalize. but, manchester played much better, and barely missed 2 or 3 attempts to really put it away. at the end of the match, the mentioned that another match would be on espn classic. hey, i have that channel.

the match? lyon vs real madrid. sweet, i get to watch one of my fav's (real). i really am constructing this weird matrix of teams i follow in different leagues, and deciding who to root for in the chance they were to play.

so, i switched over to wait for that match. hey, heather is calling. she's spoken with target, and it's some other heather on the account, with a different social (neither of ours), an address in huntington beach, but with heather's work # listed. that's fishy, but it doesn't really open us up to any problems. phew.

so, a little stress today, but also some sweet soccer.

for those of you who have read this far, and want to know why i'm sitting at home in the middle of the day, yes, i'm still looking for work. in fact, some real positive steps are happening right now. i ran into an old prof the other day. he works where i want to work. anyhow, i mentioned that i needed to turn in my info to hopefully teach as adjunct faculty. he encouraged that, and also let me know that they're going to post an opening in my field soon. so, i'm also preparing my application for faculty. i've got a nice resume, and some good references (1 seminary prof, 1 faculty @ where i'm applying, 1 pastoral, 1 former employer). so, hopefully things will work out soon. i'm also getting all my junk together to substitute until these other opportunities pan out.