Failures - not catastrophic, but annoying nonetheless

I ordered some baseball tickets online. The Phillies were fine. The Jays' site, however, gave me a very ambiguous error message. I tried again. I tried a third time. Then, for two days I was wondering if I'd ordered three sets of tickets. I emailed the Jays to tell them their ticket ordering system was flawed. They emailed me back to say that they don't deal with spring training tickets; I had to talk to Dunedin, Florida. We went back and forth several times. I just wanted my tickets.

I ordered a new Dell for Luther via AAFES. The machine is on its way. On the AAFES site, there is a link to track the package via Dell. But the AAFES site fails to forward an order number to the Dell site, so Dell doesn't know who I am, and I have no reference by which to track the order.

UPS's automated contact service called a few days ago. The recorded message told me to expect the package on Monday. Before I even had a chance to find a pen, it had given me a tracking number, something like 20 digits' worth. I was unable to write it down, and I was given no option to replay the message.

I need to leave town on Monday. The automated message from UPS said the computer would arrive on Monday, and a signature was required. I could have gone to the UPS depot today, if I'd been able to confirm that the package was there. With no tracking number, however, I have no way to identify our package.

I ordered some software online. The idea was to get the software in time to load it onto Luther's new machine. The site has a "track order" option. On the "track order" page, I am informed that I was given a tracking number via an email sent to the email address registered with my account. I registered my correct email. I got a copy of my order confirmation. But I never got a tracking number.

I went to book a hotel room online. Luther had signed up for a rewards program the last time we stayed at this same hotel (it's near my business partners' home), so I tried to use the reward. The booking failed. It was unable to book my room, no reason given.

Luther's Mom just called. We bought her a really cool present for her birthday, a DVD player that should be able to play her PAL DVDs from Greece on her NTSC TV. We sent it only two days before her birthday, so we sent it via Priority Post. I took it down to the post office myself. We had the correct address. It's been over a week, and she has still not received anything from us.

I have lots of homework to do. For the life of me, I'm just grateful I can actually log into the class website. Anything more would be miraculous.