Until New Year’s Eve 2008 you can pickup a 3G iPhone 8GB refurb for just $99 from AT&T’s online store. If you are a new customer this is an easy process, very straight forward, but if you are an existing customer - well, good luck!

I first heard of the deal from Engadget yesterday evening and made the decision to finally jump on the 3G bandwagon. As eager as I am to get make my new purchase, the AT&T website forbid it - there is no way to update to any Apple product from an existing phone line (two AT&T customer service reps confirmed). This isn’t the first time AT&T’s website has been disappointing for iPhone purchases.

This morning I drove to the AT&T store to give this the good old fashioned face-to-face attention that the situation warranted. The sales clerk had no idea what I was talking about - “It must be an online only deal”, so I went home and looked online again. No mention of this deal being online only and still no clear way for me to make my purchase.

Next and final step was to call customer service. 45 minutes on hold and I talked to a customer service rep, who couldn’t help me, and forwarded me onto the online support department. 25 minutes on hold, and another clueless customer service rep. Am I really the only existing customer looking to upgrade at this time!?

The outcome? The second AT&T call center rep gave me a work around that involves opening a third phone line on my existing account (my wife is already on my second line), buying the phone at the discounted rate this way, wait for phone to show up, call and ask AT&T to waive all my extra activation costs and the cancel the third line, moving the 3G iPhone to my existing line. Whoa - what a mess (for $50, and yes VanderGiessen is Dutch)!

Couple words for AT&T: Fix your website. If it is an “online only” deal, say so, before I take the time to drive to your store. If I ever come into your retail store again, please solve my problem and don’t turn me away. kthanksbye.

UPDATE: My new iPhone 3G showed up within 48 business hours. From iTunes I could upgrade my current device to the 3G with ease, and then take the reset 2G and give it to my wife (we actually visited the AT&T store again and obtained a new SIM card for the 2G, allowing Cassi to keep her current SIM in her razor to access phone numbers, etc). Called AT&T Customer Support today and asked them to cancel my third line and they did - no problems.

Today I took a few minutes to build a list of books that I plan on attacking this coming year. For me this is a large list of mostly big books, so I may be a little too ambitious here. Some of these I have skimmed through at some point, but all books that I would like to spend more time in. In this list I have a combination of theological/study, work related and personal/hobby.

I plan on accomplishing this reading plan through three time blocks that I have sketched out in my weekly calendar. Wednesdays are my study/project days, so I will chip away at the work related and theological/study books here. I will continue to work through the bulk of theological/study content in the evenings after I put my boys down for bed. Since a bulk of my personal/hobby is in pdf form, I will use the simple terminal command to produce an aiff audio book and use my commute time for this ‘reading’.

Here is my 2009 reading list:

(image capture from ‘Delicious Library 2′)

It has been a crazy night! We were planning on the baby coming tonight for a few days now, but after a call to the midwife we found out that there was already another birth going on and that we should attempt to slow or stop the birthing process.  That didn’t work out so well.  Cassi went into labor at 6:20pm, her water broke at 6:30pm and Jax was quickly born at 7:16pm.  Our normal midwife didn’t make in time, but by God’s amazing grace her assistant midwife showed up a minute and a half before delivery.  Here are the stats:

• 7lbs 2oz
• 20.5 inches long
• born at 7:16pm on 11/11/2008
• 10 fingers, 10 toes

Thank you Jesus for a safe delivery and a healthy little boy!  We look forward to everyone meeting Jax in the coming days and weeks!

Starting today, apparently Starbucks is providing free wi-fi to iPhone users in store:

Still no free wi-fi for all the laptop users out there, but i have found what I believe is a functional work around that will fool the wireless networks into believing that your laptop is an iPhone:

1. Download and install Firefox 3

2. Download and install this plugin - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

3. Navigate within FF3: Tools>User Agent Switch>Options>Options

4. Select ‘User Agents’ and then click on ‘add’

5. Fill out the information fields to match this:

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

6. Click OK, and click OK again.

7. Navigate within FF3 again: Tools>User Agent Switch and select iPhone

8. Attempt connecting to the internet

I have no idea if this will actually work, but plan to try it out soon. Let me know if you try it out…

Since starting work at MHC in 2004 i have had the ability and benefit to work from home a few days a week.  I have tried setting up my workspace several times, but our last home was simply too small and didn’t allow for me to take advantage of this oppertunity.  This became more and more impossible as we have welcomed a new little boy into our family each year for the past three years.  This past Summer we purchased a new home with many rooms (7 currently), of which one is my new office.

Yesterday was the glorious office setup day and today I worked my first full day from home in years! 

Here is the official tour of my fancy new desk:

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

I launched my blog with three short posts early July 08 and haven’t posted a single thing since.  Yes, I am new to blogging and have been very busy.  Here is a quick rundown of what has been going on to get up to speed:

1. We bought a new house, moved, sold our old home

2. Started an extensive remodel - replaced hot water tank with new tankless system, replaced all the old duct work with new, installed a new furnace, replaced all the sewer lines throughout the house, re-plumbed the main floor bathroom.  There is still significant work to be done.

3. Started in ‘new’ position at Mars Hill Church.  Been working at MHC for 4 years (as of last week) and have overseen production related technology for the entire time, but over time additional responsibilities were added to my plate.  It simply became too much and needed to be split up across several departments.  The outcome?  I now have the privilege of launching the Production Technology Department and implementing a program management approach to managing the core audio, video, lighting, and satellite systems that we rely on week in and week out for our Sunday services.

That is all, nothing much else.  That is the best excuse I have, take it or leave it - either way I promise to post before Thanksgiving.

BOY!

For those of you keeping score at home, that makes it boys 3, girls 0

Here are a few pictures from the ultrasound this week, i especially like the scary skull picture (i might just make a t-shirt out of it).

There are still a few design bugs to work out, but we are going live with this NOW!

I will be using this location on the world wide web to talk about a few main topics:

1 - Technology in Churches

2 - Projects I am working on at Home

3 - Occasionally I may post on Family outings, although these will normally live at ofthegeese.com