A few years later, I discovered Matt on one of those school class listing sites. It seems that not long after our mother died, his father moved them to Texas without telling anyone. According to the information on the site, Matt attended high school in a town outside of Dallas called Carrollton. I tried contacting him through the site, but he did not respond. His unresponsiveness led me to believe that his father had turned Matt against me.

Matt's father and I had a very contentious relationship. Things between us got so bad, that I chose to enter into the foster-care system when I was 14 to escape the emotional and physical abuse that he frequently subjected me to. So it was easy for me to assume the worst. Nevertheless, discovering even this little information about Matt provided some solace, but my concern for his well-being remained.

More recently, as the use of social networking sites grew exponentially, I tried to find Matt again without success. Then one day late last year, Leslie found an individual on Facebook who lived in Texas and resembled Matt. She tried to establish contact with him but he did not reply. She convinced me to try and add Matt as a friend to see what would happen. Several weeks later, Matt confirmed me as a friend. My surprise and joy at reconnecting with Matt were curtailed by the length of time that passed since I first tried to connect with him through Facebook, and the fact that he did not offer any communication after confirming me as a friend. So I was hesitant to do more than just browse through his profile and read his wall. We finally had a connection. The last thing I wanted to do was sever that connection by being too pushy. So I waited for Matt to make the next move.

Matt made that move in early August with a message stating that he was coming to San Francisco for five days and wanted to know if I wanted to have coffee or lunch! But he sent the message on a Saturday! I didn't check my email until Monday morning! So it was shocking and distressful at the same time. He also included a very full itinerary that seemingly left little time for us to get together.

Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I immediately replied yes and sent him my mobile number. Except that it wasn't my number. In my haste to reply, I had typed a nine instead of a zero. Another message from him alerted me of my error and I sent him the right number. On Monday evening, he called. A quick conversation on the phone led to plans to meet for lunch on Tuesday. Lunch on Tuesday led to dinner plans that night which led to dinner plans the next night and plans to get together Thursday and Friday as well. It was a whirlwind week of getting re-acquainted.

I was relieved to find that Roger had not turned Matt against me. Roger had simply cut off his entire family when they moved to Texas. Unfortunately for Matt, this meant that the only person he could depend on for support was a neglectful and apathetic father.

Matt's experience with his father has made him very cautious about who he will allow to get close to him. He also felt that our 13-year age gap was a barrier to us being able to relate to each other. But we quickly found that that is not the case.

Now we are working to firm up our familial relationship. We're are looking forward to plans for the Winter Break (Matt has gone back to school at the University of Texas). We're having regular communications via email. We're going to keep in touch. We're going to be brothers.

On the plus side, we're saving thirty bucks a month for standard cable. And don't forget, that $30 is only good for a year. After that, Comcast jacks the price up another $20. It is outrageous to have to pay that much just to watch a couple of cable only channels. As a result, we're also watching less TV because, let's face it, the networks really don't have a lot to offer. But this is a good thing. Our Netflix queue is getting shorter by the day thanks to our changing TV habits.

On the down side, we can't watch Food TV, Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network, Sci-Fi Channel, HGTV, CNN or ESPN. We will also miss the continuing adventures of Jon & Kate's pending dissolution of their marriage. OK, maybe that's not really a down side. But I will miss Shark Week.

Certainly Berkeley has its own problems and issues, but few of them have such a direct impact as those you encounter in Oakland. Within six months of moving into our old place in Oakland, we had a break-in and several valuable items were stolen. Our insurance covered our losses, but it did little to restore our sense of security in our own home. To make matters worse, once the police arrived, they told us it would be more than six months to process the fingerprints they collected because the lab was understaffed due to budget issues.

It's no secret that crime is a major issue in Oakland. But there is very little being done to actually reduce crime. It's not enough to just throw more police on the streets. Since living in a police state with curfews and cops on every corner is not a option, other solutions are needed. The root of the problem is societal and cultural. Unless and until the social issues that plague Oakland's underprivileged are resolved, the problems will persist and crime will continue unabated.

Unfortunately, in this age of no new taxes, the situation will only get worse in Oakland. It seems that we have gotten out just in time.

If you are at all familiar with I-5, you know that the the North and South bound lanes are divided by a grassy median that is at least two lanes wide. The car that hit my uncle, apparently drifted from the right lane onto the shoulder, then swerved across two lanes, through the grass median and into my uncle's car. My uncle was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the other car and his two passengers all survived with minor to major injuries.

Now my aunt and my two young cousins (14 and 8 years old) have lost the most important person in their lives. They will get support from insurance policies, pensions, etc. but that doesn't alleviate their loss at all.

But I did get some of the design section done. Some things to look for in design include the individual project descriptions that include an JavaScript-controlled in-page navigation, and a JavaScript dynamic gallery.

Other enhancements to look for in the near future include special effects transitions for the in-page navigation and the galleries. But I have to finish the design, art and articles sections first. Plus, I want to add a PHP rotator to the home page for the featured photo.

I liked the Centro in theory, but I went to an AT&T store and tried it out and was unimpressed. The screen is too small. The web browser displays web content for mobile rather than web as the iPhone does. Finally the phone lacks Wi-Fi. If I'm forgoing an iPhone, I at least want to be able to cruise the web without relying on a data network all the time.

Now Palm has introduced the Treo Pro. At first glance, it has everything I need. Nice screen. Wi-Fi. Good form factor. But it runs Windows Mobile. I run Palm OS. I'm sure they have a way to sync old Palm profiles with the WM OS, but why make me do that. Why not give users a choice?

Maybe I'll just keep using my old m505 til it bites the dust completely and just get the best phone I can.

First of all, they sent the exact same model of phone that has the design defect that leads to the screen failure that so irked me to begin with. Not only that but the phone was missing the front and back covers. Granted I can replace those with the ones from the previous phone, but the term "replacement phone" kind of implies that I would get a whole new phone.

Nevertheless, I have a backup phone for when my phone goes on the fritz. My wife has decided to continue using the old Motorola because it has never failed her and she's fed up with the Sony Ericsson phone.

The moral of the story is: If you can't get satisfaction from customer service, make some noise and maybe you'll get enough attention to actually receive some service. Which is a shame really, because customers are your best form of free advertising. Why subject them to such poor treatment to begin with. Why make them go to such lengths just to put things right?

I'll give Sony Ericsson credit for at least trying to resolve my problems. They could have ignored my letter and dismissed my concerns as inconsequential. I may not buy another phone from them, but my opinion of them is significantly improved.

A call to Sony Ericcson support proved fruitless. Since the phone was no longer under warranty, servicing the phone would cost over $100. That cost combined with the cost of shipping the phone a second time, exceeds the retail value of the phone. The support rep and her supervisors refused to waive the service fee and pretty much stonewalled me as far as connecting me to someone who could and would waive the fee or even replace the obviously defective phone.

Since 1999, I have had one Nokia and two Motorola's and all of them were reliable. In fact, I've gone back to using the last Motorola between phone repairs and it has been as reliable as the day I bought it in 2004. If only the Z525a's performed as well.

So now I'm left with a useless brick of a phone, the prospect of buying a new phone, and a lesson learned that Sony Ericsson does not care about the quality of its products or the customers that buy them. It used to be that if you bought something with the Sony name on it, you were assured that it would be the best product of it's kind on the market. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

One final note. It wasn't until after the first phone malfunctioned that I read the reviews on CNET that pointed out this particular problem with this phone. That means that everyone who bought this phone has probably had the same experience. In fact Sony seems to be aware of the problem. One of the things the support tech told me, was that the phone had to be TURNED off daily in order to ensure that the screen would not go blank. How ridiculous!

Sony made a bad phone, and the consumers are the ones who get stuck with the bill.