Cut the pathos about how this guy was a victim, a Good Samaritan trying to help someone. He was another something-for-nothing, money-grubbing opportunist who got what he deserved and the only people who are victims here are his wife and kids and possibly the landlord. (Guy claims he was robbed of $800 that was supposed to be his rent money — so why was he withdrawing it to give it to these grifters in the first place?)

Stokes said he was offered money for his help.

“If you take out money, we’ll match it. You can take your kids on vacation,” Harris County Precinct 4 Deputy Constable Sgt. David Mayes said Stokes was told.

* * *

Stokes withdrew $800 and was robbed a few moments later.

“He pressed a pistol in my cheek,” Stokes said. “I have children. My life is not worth $800. I gave it up.”

The men ran away with the money, Stokes said.

“That’s my rent,” said Stokes. “It’s gone and the first (of the month) is right around the corner.”

Color me completely unsympathetic.

I don’t usually blog about my web design clients. But this … this just takes the cake. Guy monopolizes my time for days on end, calls constantly, emails constantly. Sent the first bill, which he paid. Sent the final bill, after I rebuffed him by telling him I couldn’t possibly drop what I was doing to install WordPress, upload and configure plugins and tweak a design in under a day given my current schedule. And he knew that my husband was in the hospital and that I was running back and forth for that and had several ongoing projects I was also working on. But no matter. I was to drop everything for this web site that had to be up that day. I politely refused and when that didn’t work, I became a bit more stern. I finalized his current project according to his wishes. And sent my final bill. Fair enough, right? Apparently not.

For your reading pleasure. His email was sent after he received the $40 final invoice from me. (Believe me, I understated my time here.) I’ve redacted the name but I’ll be happy to supply it to anyone who asks for it. For your own sake, if you do any amount of WordPress work, beware this guy.

— Original Message —
Date: 6/22/2008
From: “Joni Mueller (Pixelita Designs)”
Subject: Re: xxxxx.com .. Final Invoice

It wasn’t my learning curve, Xxxxxx. I explained to you it was an issue with the plugin itself and contacted the plugin author who corrected it. Explain to me then, how you think it was me who had something to learn? Oh, well, I take it back. The internet is full of gimme gimme gimme people like yourself. Self-absorbed, selfish, unprofessional boors. In fact a term has been coined for these people, and I count you among them: Emotional vampires.

And I have the over 100 emails you sent me in the span of several days to prove how much of my time you consumed.

I’ll just write this off and consider it the price I had to pay to learn what a FIRST CLASS JERK you truly are. And believe me, MY name carries more weight in the WordPress crowd than yours ever could. Bring it.

Regards,
Joni Mueller

On 6/23/2008, “Xxxxxx Xxxxx” wrote:

Invoice not approved.

The misc efforts to replace and provide a working calendar was not billable time unless you want to bill for learning time

This invoice must be removed or I will file a note of dissatisfactin [sic] with misc[.] Word[P]ress groups

I am sure you want to withdraw this immediately.

Goodbye and good luck.

And those emails? Oh, you didn’t think I’d leave you without proof of the nearly 100 emails he sent in the span of less than a week, did you, my pretties?

When it rains (literally) it pours (figuratively). There was lightning storm that passed through here last night from around 4:30 p.m. until around 6:00 p.m. I was upstairs in my office on the computer and decided after the latest lightning bolt to unplug my systems. So I yanked both power strips from the wall and went downstairs to make sure Robert’s laptop and mine were also unplugged. And the cat and I proceeded to watch some TIVO’d programs. (You should have seen that fat old thing high tail it out of the room when the lights went off briefly. He was just an orange blur!)

Anyway, after the storm passed, I decided to head upstairs and plug my equipment back in and settle in for an evening of coding. Everything roared back to life (external fantom drive, router, both printers, monitor, speakers, flatbed scanner) except the desktop computer. Nothing. So I dragged it out of its enclosure and opened up the case. I didn’t see anything loose. I did see a green blinking light on the motherboard. It continued to blink (although slower) when I removed the power cord. Shit shit shit shit. Well, I needed to open up the case anyway to install a second 750GB SATA drive I recently purchased from Woot!. I figured it had to be the power supply since if it was the mobo, I wouldn’t be seeing a green blinking light.

I then decided to drag my laptop upstairs to get some work done. No sooner had I plugged it in, hooked up the monitor and started typing than the “V” key fell off. I tried every trick of Eve to get that sumbitch back on. I even took off the “B” key next to it so I could study how it went back on. I’d been having trouble with that key for awhile. Apparently, there was a small metal flange on the bottom that fell off. This would necessitate buying a complete new keyboard. Oy. So now my less than two year old, nearly two grand Sony Vaio looks like a toothless old hag. Thank heavens that I also recently purchased a wireless mouse and keyboard. So I hooked that up and for now, we are rocking along.

I waited for my personal tech support guru to get back with me about what he thought the desktop problem might be. He too suspected the power supply and the local repair shop confirmed it. They are also going to replace my lappy keyboard.

The Sony Vaio Desktop (RB43G) was purchased mere days before Hurricane Rita hit in September 2005. I’m the kind of person who believes in the computer being on at all times, so I guess it was just a matter of time before that nearly three-year old power supply gave up the ghost.

I’m more disappointed in the Sony Vaio FS780W laptop Robert bought me the same month we bought our house. He paid a pretty penny for it and I think the keys should have lasted longer than that, but maybe, being a power typist, I’m just naturally hard on keyboards?

I’m done.

And when I’m dead, dead and gone…. There’ll be… iGoodbye.com. Where my heirs apparent can have access to all my top secret information, information which I (heir) apparently don’t want them to have beforehand. Well, if I can’t trust them while I’m alive, why should I trust them when I’m dead? I can’t decide if this is just another great organizational tool or a scary-creepy web app.

From their home page:

Many of us have information about assets, financial accounts, and personal data that we would like to see passed on privately to ours heirs that we may be hesitant to share before we have actually departed this world.

It kind of hits close to home for one good reason. I’ve got a web design business that I run with my partner who is in Europe. We communicate strictly by email and ICQ. Other than the fact that we have never, not once in the two years we’ve known each other, gone more than 24 hours without touching base with each other, how would he know if I shed the mortal coil? Several days of silence? Robert would likely be unable (either due to his extreme state of grief, merriment or lack of computer knowledge) to contact Ivan to let him know of my demise. What then?

Well this *could* be a solution. I trust my web design partner with my life. And we work very closely together although we are 5300 mile apart. Because I’m a planner, I’ve already foreseen some of this issue and prepared a password-protected document that has all my account logins and a To Do List with regard to the business, current projects and clients. He always hates when I try to talk about death. Just exactly the way I hated it when my mother tried to talk to me about her death, and what I should do. So when mother did pass away, I was lost. Utterly and completely lost. I don’t wish that on anyone.

So for that reason alone (the obvious discomfort of my much loved biz partner and friend), $30 a year seems like a bargain. Unless I end up living to the ripe old age of 90, in which case this will cost me about $1200. And I sit here and think of the fun I could have fun with that money.