This Is Framingham

Last November I developed plantar fasciitis, you should be so lucky if you never had it or even had a reason to hear of it.  I asked a podiatrist while I was training for the Boston Marathon  if it’s okay to still run and he said yes, while it’s not damaging, it’s just uncomfortable, he suggested having surgery that snips the tendon that runs along the bottom of your foot and releases the strain.  Sounded a little drastic so passed and  I tried acupuncture, which some people swear by and I found to be a total waste of money (as is the strassburg sock– for me anyway).
I’ve been stretching and rolling my feet which helps but it’s not completely gone. Some days are worse than others so when my sister heard of “Good Feet” near her in Oregon she said they have stores in MA and they’re supposed to have something that cures PF.  Sounded great so I went to check it out.
It’s a small store at 497 Worcester Rd. ???? ???????  I was greeted by an older lady who was cheery enough and eager to show me how amazing their three step system was.  They are three different levels of arc support, one you wear while you run, one while you walk and one in slippers around the house. ???? ???????  She had me put the first kind in asked me to walk around and asked me if the pain was gone. ???? ????  I didn’t want to be difficult but I didn’t notice a difference.  She said to keep walking – still nothing and she said that’s unusual.  So we tried another kind, same thing.  after a couple of minutes it was slightly better but it gets better on it’s own anyway so I couldn’t tell if it was from the insoles.  Third, same thing.
Then she had me try these sneakers they sell there that have springs in the soles.  They were just ok to walk in and there was no way I’d run in them.
After a while she explained the system and basically these non-customized pieces of plastic are $289 each, actually I think the ones for slippers are in the low $200’s.  With prices like that I asked what their refund policy was and she said if I don’t like them I could get store credit(?)  I said if they’re not working for me I wouldn’t want store credit and she said I could put them towards the shoes.  I said I didn’t like how the shoes felt and wouldn’t want those. And then it was so weird, she said “Well we have a store in Newton that makes custom men’s shoes”. I looked at her and said “but…I’m not a man” and she just shrugged her shoulders and said “well we can’t take back used products that have been in your shoes”.
I don’t know, you’d think if these things are so super-awesome they’d stand by the product and give you a refund, especially for what they charge.  So that was the deal breaker for me.  I know some people must like them because they have stores all over the country but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to about $800 without being able to get a refund.
If anyone has had a good experience with these products (or anything else for PF) I’d love to hear it.

As I’ve posted before, traffic caused by construction in town has been kind of like a canvas to showcase the darker side of people driving styles.  They block intersections, cut people off, run red lights etc…

This morning while I was inching down Union Ave and came to a standstill, some guy behind me started beeping and then yelling.  Apparently he wanted me to touch the car’s bumper in front of me so he could eek by (and actually thought he’d scrape my car if he did) and take a right. ?????? ??? ??? ?????   I didn’t feel comfortable getting that close to the car in front of me, I don’t know if they have  standard and might roll back a little before they go or what and I have a little rule where I don’t do something I’m not comfortable with just because someone is laying on their horn.  Like when people try to get me to go faster than the speed limit  on a road but yet I’d be the one that gets a speeding ticket. 

Anyway, apparently this individual had enough of waiting for traffic to move and got out of his car and started banging on my window and screaming at me- all sorts of nice words and calling me all sorts of nice names.  I quickly locked my door as I saw him stomping over and grabbed my camera (yes, as a blogger I always have my camera in my bag).
Above is the…person who apparently has a lot of issues going on besides dealing with traffic.
When traffic finally started moving I tried to get a shot of his license plate but all I got was this:

The construction in town is just out of control and making an insanely short commute a total nightmare.  People are really turning into animals and I wish they’d switch to just night-time construction. ???? ????????? ??????   I did contact a senior town employee working in the area of planning/construction but they said they don’t do night construction due to residential disruption.
Also, the police probably have bigger fish to fry but I may report this although I really don’t have much information to give them.  So unfortunately people can act like total lunatics and get away with it. ???? ???? 2024
It was just a scary terrible way to start the day and unfortunately the stress of driving in Framingham due to construction  is becoming a way of life because it’s all over town.

I was walking by Sampan the other morning and saw it’s for sale. I wasn’t sure if they’re closed and for sale or still open and for sale. Out of curiosity I called tonight to see if anyone answered and they did, so I guess they’re open while looking for a buyer.
I can’t say I’ll miss it since I only went there once but it’s been there for a long time so it’ll be weird to not see it there.
Also, I saw that Astro’s pizza has closed after just opening last September.

As you may know, I love supporting local businesses but every once in a while there is a local business that gives me a rough time and I’m not crazy about.  I had an experience with Bacson printing that I tried to give the benefit of the doubt to and thought maybe the person answering the phone was having a bad day and because of that, was lacking in customer service skills – not that I even feel that is right, but you know, it happens sometimes and is usually forgivable when you call back another time and they are back to being nice.

I’ll try to condense my story and say I somehow made a mistake and paid an invoice twice without noticing, granted it’s not much (a little over $20) but still, why pay for something twice.  So I called and said something like “Hi, I made a mistake and just realised I somehow paid an invoice twice and I see that both checks have been cashed” and the girl on the other end of the phone was just silent, which was akward.  I said “So…” waiting for her to tell me who I need to talk to or ask me the invoice number or something but just got more silence “…I’ll need to speak to someone about that” and she just said  “I’ll have someone call you back”.  So I gave her my name and number and that was that.

I assumed she meant someone would get back to me sometime that day but  no one ever called back so I called back at the end of the following day and said I was calling because someone said they’d have someone call me back and I haven’t heard from anyone and it was the same girl and she just said “Yeah, we’re really busy” and then was silent and to make sure she was done, I sat there too for a few seconds and when I realised that was the end of her statement, I finally said “So, I can’t talk to anyone about that?” and she said “we’re just really busy so someone will get back to you when they can”  and I said “Okay, so should I call you guys next week if I don’t hear from you this week?”  She said “You can, but someone should get back to you eventually”.  I was hoping for some sort of time table and just wanted to clarify and I said “eventually?” and she just said “Yeah.” and then was silent.  Like I was supposed to know when I first called the day before how busy they were and that I needed to wait for someone to get back to me “eventually”.

So in the middle of the following week, I called to check in and the same predicatble converation took place.  I said who I was, what I was calling about and was responded with the usual silence, which I really feel like is an attitude in itself, especially at this point when the girl knows what my sitauation is.  So after a few seconds of silence I said “So….can I please just talk to someone about this?”  and she said “We’re really busy, we know and someone will write you a check eventually”.   I guess I was supposed to know that(?).  After all, I never even got to give her the invoice number since she wouldn’t let me talk to anyone.  I said “Okay, but please understand from my end that I have no way of knowing that, I’ve only been told that you’re too busy to let me talk to anyone” and she just ignored that and said “Yup, they’ll write you a check, I mean it’s not for much, what – twenty bucks? They’ll get to it eventually because we’re just really busy”.  Okay, I get it – you’re busy, jeez!  I said “Well I’m glad business is so good for you and that you’re so busy” and she said “well short-staffed is more like it”.  I said something like “yeah I guess you are”.  At this point I’ll just stop calling and wait because I can’t stand more conversations like these.

It’s not even the waiting that bothers me.  They could’ve told me someone will get back to me in the next two or three weeks, I don’t care, it’s the lack of information I was given and then I just hate calling a place I gave some business to and I feel like a jerk for calling.  To just get silence and an aloof attitude gave me the feeling that I was a bother to them and I shouldn’t have added to their workload in the first place.
Someone told me that when it comes to printing the kinds of things they do that they’re “the only game in town”.  But I’m not a fan of places that don’t care because they don’t have to.

I don’t think they’d like it if I ordered something else and didn’t pay the invoice and then when they called asking for a payment from me and I’d just be silent, make them repeat themselves and then finally respond with “Yeah I’m just really busy, you’ll get paid eventually – I mean it’s only for what- twenty bucks?”.

Anyway, I’m sure people like Bacson since they’re the “only game in town” but that was my experience with them.

Game Universe on route 9 closed recently.  I didn’t go there much, but I did find it very useful to have a place in town where I could buy old game cartridges for my Atari 2600. neteller  
I also liked that there was a place in town that brought together the gaming community in a similar way of how arcades did back in the day (like when Fun and Games was fun).

Their MySpace page doesn’t mention why they closed or if they have any plans of opening anywhere else.   It seems like they had a lot of fans so I’m sure they will be missed.

Not to get into the whole reason why I used geocities instead of the thisisframingham server to upload some photos, but it was convenient when using this ancient mac laptop (with no ftp and it wouldn’t install filezilla) that I’d blog from when I was in the living room.  Geocities ended the other day and I’ve lost most of my photos on there so you’ll be seeing this lovely red X where a photo used to be.  For some reason I thought they were just not allowing new accounts,  I didn’t realise they were vaporising all the pages and images but in the end it’s a good thing since I’ll have to keep all my photos on one server now.

Anyhoo, I’ll try to salvage what I can but sorry about any missing images.

So according to the MWDN the RMV in Framingham is closing, which I think is terrible.  I just had surprisingly decent experiencethere in May and was grateful to the convenience of having this close by.  So this adds to the exodus of services that I used and were in walking distance of my house that were functioning when we first moved here only 5 years ago:  Friendly’s, Farmer’s Exchange, Fabric Place, White’s Hardware. ?????? ???????  I never would have thought any of those places would be going anywhere considering how long they had been at their locations. ???????    I don’t know if the building will be vacant because the article says they will still conduct driving tests in Framingham, I’m just not sure if it will be at this location. ????? ??????
Chalk up another bad move for Framingham 🙁
We need Wings Over Framingham to open and have something good to write about!!