Category Archives: Family

Shopping for Health Insurance

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This week our television was finally fixed. So, it was down and out for a whole month. As I mentioned before, this does not bode well for us buying a Mitsubishi ever again. Another company had to come out and fix the problem that the other company couldn’t diagnose. This time it worked. Jennifer is glad to finally have a television down stairs. She was having to wait until after the girls went to bed and sneak up and watch their television at night.

One thing that you miss when you go back to working for a small company is really good health insurance. The company I’m working for now is pretty small, only about 60 employees, and as such, the monthly charge on their health insurance was quite high. Because of this, I shopped around and found one that we are going to try out. It continues to be with UnitedHealthcare, which is the provider we had for EA. We had to go with them because they have doctors both in Florida and Texas. We really don’t go to the doctor that much, so this one has a low monthly cost, but you have to pay for the visits in full up to the deductible. I played around with some scenarios and this one ended up being the best for our average case. We figure if it ends up costing more than we expected, we could just switch next year. The difference between the monthly savings and deducible are within a few hundred dollars, so I figured it was a safer bet to go with this insurance. We’ll see.

Exploration

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Today was a day of exploration for me. First, I went to the 11:00 service at First United Methodist Sugar Land. This is the church we are thinking of joining when the whole family is here. I signed up Isabelle for their pre-school just last week. The service was okay. The minister was good, a good southern preacher who draws you in with his stories. However, this service was a contemporary service and I’m not so keen on that type of service. It appears that the 9:00 service is a traditional one and I’m going to try that out next week. One thing I thought was interesting was that they had a church podcast. I dialed it in for my Zune and I figured I would try it out.

The other thing I checked out was a Mongolian Bar-B-Q restaurant in Missouri City called Nyonya Grill. It was a family run joint, but was pretty good. It had the traditional Mongolian Bar-B-Q bar and grill with regular sauces that you mix to get the taste you like. It reminded me of the Hans Mongolian that we like over in Clear Lake.

Back in Orlando, Jennifer wrapped up the week long Hannah’s Closet consignment sale up at our church in Winter Park. Jennifer always helps out with the sale and they expressed their thanks and sorrow for seeing Jennifer moving back to Texas. It was a long hard week and I know Jennifer is exhausted. They are continuing to show the house on a regular basis, but no bites yet. We are still hopeful that they will be joining me in Texas real soon.

Still No Television

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Nineteen days without a TV and one thing is for certain: Mitsubishi has guaranteed that we will never buy one of their televisions again. They have the most incompetent service organization working for them in Visions Electronics. They told us (without ever coming to see the TV) that it was the bulb. We waited two weeks and guess what, it wasn’t the bulb. They plugged in the bulb and drove off. Within a few minutes, the television was shutting itself off again. They then said it must be a sensor (again without really looking at the TV to diagnose the problem) and said they would be back the next day. They never showed up. When Jennifer called them today: their phone had been disconnected. Mitsubishi, whether they know it or not, has this company representing them. I consider them an extension of their brand. And if they are that incompetent, then how am I supposed to have confidence in their company? Jennifer called Mitsubishi and complained. First they called Visions Electronics because I suppose they didn’t trust Jennifer when she said that their phone had been disconnected. They then put her in touch with another company which proceeded to tell us it was a fuse again without really coming to see the television. So, we are once again in a waiting game while the fuse is ordered. As stated before, will probably never order a Mitsubishi television again just based on their level of customer service.

One Week In

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I made it safe to Houston and just finished my first week at TimeGate Studios. It’s a whole new game and a whole new company to get used to. A lot to take in over the last week. It funny how you don’t really know what it means to miss someone until you have to do it for a long period of time. I really miss Jennifer, Abby, Emily, and Isabelle. I will be flying back to see them in a few weeks, but the time can’t pass fast enough. I know this has been though on Jennifer. The three little terrors nipping at her heels while she has to try and keep the house cleaned up just in case that last minute house hunter wants to jump in and see. It’s hard to say “no” because you know that person who just drops right in might be the ticket that sells our house in Orlando and reunites us. Anyway, next time to see us wish us luck, because it’s only been a week and I don’t know how we are going to last very long.

On the Road

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With the coming of a new job at TimeGate began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Today I hit the road back to Houston leaving behind Jennifer and the girls in Orlando. A man and his dog traveling the country side looking for a good cup of joe. Actually, me and Austin we were trying our fastest to get out of Florida and back to Texas. It was sad leaving everyone back in Orlando and I will miss them. Hopefully the house will sell soon for several reason beyond the obvious: being reunited with the family.

First, the house keeps breaking. No major breaks, just little annoyances, which keep digging me deeper in debt. We replaced the carpet and the blinds. Yesterday our kitchen faucet broke and we had to get a plumber out to install a new one. I tried to do it, but the connections were way up behind the sink and I couldn’t get the wrench to twist because of the tight quarters. At first we tried Roto Rooter, but once they got to our house and told us how much it was going to cost, Jennifer turned them away and called a local plumber. They fixed us up and it didn’t break the bank for something so simple.

Second, the neighbors are driving us crazy between our across the street neighbor, Jane, who pealed out backward from the bus stop today; and the old wind bag behind us who loves yelling at the girls telling them to be quiet. The Wind Bag decided to pay us a visit today to tell us what she thought of our kids. Now granted Emily can shriek at a pitch that can hit your spinal cord just right and make your eye twitch, but coming over to my house and complaining that the kids are too loud at 3:00 in the afternoon. What’s the home owners association going to do about that? Are they going to start advertising that our subdivision is not a family-friendly place to live? I doubt it. Wind Bag, go find a nice retirement community, there’s plenty of them. It’s Florida after all.

No TV Sunday

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Yesterday my new-ish 52″ DLP HDTV stopped turning on. The horror. I’ve had it for only seven months and it decided it didn’t want to be watched anymore. So, I spent some time on the phone with a customer service agent in India who proceeded to tell me that they couldn’t help me and I would have to call back on Monday. Sigh. Today then became “No TV Sunday” here at the French household. It’s amazing how much more you can get done when you aren’t watching TV. I was behind on all of our bills and calculating our budget, so I spent most of the day working on that.

Another event which happened today was the cleaning out of my office at EA. This up coming week is my last week and since we were already down in that area for church, I figured it would be efficient to pull the big Sequoia up to the building and get the remainder of my stuff. So, the five of us went up and collected the rest of the knick knacks up in my office and hauled it home. It still hasn’t sunk in that I’m leaving yet. In about a week when I’m driving to Houston, maybe it will be real then.

House for Sale – Cheap

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Yesterday we had a pair of Realtors come over and we put the house on the market. It was lower than we thinking we could get, but we will still get out with a profit. The rest of the day was spent sprucing up the place, mainly mowing the lawn and putting some fertilizer down.

Since we bought seasonal passes to Disney World last October, we felt we needed to use them before we leave Orlando. So, we decided to head over there today and go to the Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We were just there a few months ago, but we only got through about half of the park and we decided we had best go back so we could finish out the rest. We saw a few live shows: Beauty and the Beast, Playhouse Disney, and Lights, Motors, Action Stunt Show. Isabelle loved the Playhouse Disney show because it featured the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and the stunt show was amazing with the live car stunts. The two things that the kids didn’t ride, but me and Jennifer opted for were The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Rock n’ Roller Coaster. Both were great rides and had a lot of unexpected features to it. The Tower of Terror I figured was just something that took you way up high and then dropped you, but it was more than that. It had some special effects that tied into the Twilight Zone and then it rose you up and let you free fall several times. The Rock n’ Roller Coaster was also great. It is an indoor roller coaster, which goes upside down. It was one of the better coasters that I’ve ridden. It was a long day, we got to the park at 9:30 and didn’t leave until 5:30. Probably the longest we’ve stayed at a Disney park before.

We headed home and got there just in time for the start of the Super Bowl. The Giants ended up winning by a field goal just as I predicted. However, I thought it was going to be a last second field goal to win. It turned out to be a last second touchdown. Now the long seven month wait for football to come back. Too bad I’m going to miss Baseball Spring Training this year. But, I guess I can now go to live Astros games. So, no complaints.

End to an ErA

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While in Houston over the Christmas break, we made a family decision to go ahead and move back to Texas since we missed it so much. Since we both like Houston so much, I looked up the only game company I knew there, TimeGate Studios. It turned out that they had a position that fit me perfectly: part manager and part software engineer. After much debating with myself and encouragement from Jennifer, I put in my resume. The following week I flew in for an interview and liked what I saw. This past Wednesday, they made me an offer and I accepted. We are going to be moving back to Houston.

This left me with the unenviable task of informing the company I’ve worked for for the past seven years, EA-Tiburon, that I would be leaving, leaving in the middle of production. I didn’t get much sleep the night before, but like a Band Aid, I just went ahead and did it quick. They are all sad to see me go and I thank everyone at Tiburon for all being so understanding.

Tonight we told the girls. The only one who really was sad was Abby. She said that she was going to miss all of her friends, especially our next door neighbor. It was tough seeing her cry. I remember my mom and dad tell us when we were moving away from Houston when I was in the seventh grade. But, I think this is for the best. We’ve really missed being close to family over the past five years and we feel it’s time. I will continue to update Frenchville letting everyone know what’s going on during the big move back. The first step is getting the house sold and that starts tomorrow with a visit from a real estate agent.

Universal Day

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Today the company I work for, EA-Tiburon, bought everyone tickets to Universal Studios Florida. It was foggy and misty this morning, but we decided to head out anyway. I had visited Universal once before, but this was the first time for Jennifer and the girls. Overall, everyone had fun. However, it wasn’t anything that you couldn’t see at one of Disney’s parks. The one exception being the Revenge of the Mummy, which is one of the best roller coasters I’ve ridden. We ended up riding the following rides: Jimmy Neutron, Shrek 4-D, Twister, Revenge of the Mummy, Jaws, Woody Woodpecker’s Nuthouse Coaster, Fievel’s Playland, and E.T. Adventures. We had to explain to Abby how each ride was based on a movie, since she had never seen Twister, Jaws, or E.T. We told her it might be a while before she can see Jaws, but we would try and add E.T. to our Friday movie night. Isabelle was quite funny during the Jaws ride. She kept burying her face into my side each time the shark would pop out. Everyone kept saying “awww” every time she would do it. By the afternoon the fog had burned off and the sun turned the park into a sauna. After that we only spent a few more hours because we all were starting to get cranky.

One other event of note is that we’ve been potty training Isabelle over the past week, starting last Monday. So far it’s looking like success. She now tells us when she needs to go instead of us asking every hour or so. It has been two days straight of her staying dry and she even survived the trip to Universal Studios and stayed dry all day. This is quite a momentous occasion for me as a parent. This now marks the end of seven straight years of changing diapers. Yea!

Home Sweet Home

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We finally arrived home yesterday evening from our long two week Christmas trip to Texas & Louisiana. That last day was grueling. We started at 8:00 a.m. Central Standard Time and didn’t get home until 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Basically: sunrise to sunset. Everyone was tired and the girls are very whiny in the back seat. We were all tired from the 16 hours in the car. I’m not sure if we are going to be making that trip again by car. It’s just too tough.

The last week was spent in Houston at Jennifer’s parents house. I went to see the last Houston Texans’ game of the season thanks to my friend George. They won ending their season 8-8, their best record ever. Afterward, Jennifer picked us up and we met up with George’s wife Heather for some dinner at a restaurant.

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The rest of the week was just driving around and eating or looking at places where we used to go. The highlight of the week was Jennifer’s parents taking Abby and Emily to one of the many stables near their house and setting them up with horse riding lessons. They both enjoyed it and will remember that for years to come.

Though the driving was long, we had a nice trip. Thanks everyone for the gifts and for letting us come and visit. I’m anxious to get back to work and the swing of things. I can now say that I’m working on NCAA Football 09 as the Development Director. They announced that there will be an NCAA 09 over the break as a tie in for the Bowl Championship Series. We are about half way through Production and will soon be heading into Finaling at the beginning of March.

One last thing I have to mention is that today is Emily’s 5th birthday. It was 5 years ago today at 1:11 p.m. in the afternoon that Emily was born. We are having her party on Saturday. We always have to have her party on the weekend after because no one is back from vacation on the weekend closest to her birthday. In celebration, we went to have some ice cream after dinner. I will have some more posts and pictures from the actual celebration.