May 18, 2007 by Hawk.

There’s a hawk or falcon (not sure which) that’s recently moved into the neighborhood. Three times I’ve gone running outside to get a picture of him and all three times he’s been chased off by smaller birds I assume are protecting their nest/young. This is the closest I’ve come to getting a shot of him and it’s his ass. How nice.

Click here for a larger version of the above.

Hawk

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May 18, 2007 by Hawk.

The other day I was ordering checks for the account we use for the majority of our bills. Looking in my personal (not household) checkbook I realized my checks were issued by a bank that no longer exists. I’ve actually had a cashier call the manager over this. So I decided to order new checks that would have the new bank’s name on them. Our main account gets its checks for free and I wrongly thought this would apply to all of our accounts. I don’t want new checks that bad. $16 is too much for something I use twice a month if I’m lucky. I wrote an email to the bank’s customer service asking that since my checks were old and from the bank they bought out wouldn’t it be acceptable to waive the fee so I could have their checks… Apparently not.

Being the obnoxious guy I am I then called the local branch and asked a few questions:

There’s no fee to close an account.
Correct.
I could then immediately open up a new checking account.
Correct.
My new account would receive the first box of checks for free.
Correct.
The new account would receive a free Visa Checkcard.
Correct.

So… instead of just waiving the $16 fee for checks I could go spend an hour of a bank manager’s time. Have them spend the computing resources to close the old account and open a new one. Have them spend the money to issue and mail a Visa Checkcard. Anyone think that would cost the bank more than $16? I do!

Hawk

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