It's Sad How Corrupt Huntsville Utilities Is!!!

A little local issue has come to my attention and I feel a need to rant about it. This issue is with Huntsville Utilities.  Huntsville Utilities needs some work. Their customer service is SERIOUSLY lacking.

Here is some interesting little things I learned about Huntsville Utilities.

(Mind you, I do not claim to be a very intelligent person. But if I noticed how ridiculous this is why isn't everyone else seeing it as well and why isn't anyone DOING anything about it?!)

So..first...a little confession..I was late on my bill. Okay, I admitted it.  I'm not particularly proud of it in ANY way but it happened.  I have the world's worst memory.  I didn't write it down.  I got caught up in life like sometimes happens to people and well...I just forgot and it's done and there's nothing I can do about it now. But it caused this problem to be brought to my attention.

For those who live in Huntsville did you know that if you are late on your bill, instead of like it was in the old days when they sent you a late notice and maybe charged a late fee, they send someone to your house now? Not only do they send someone out (often more than once) to place a lovely little note on your door reminding you that you are late BUT they also charge you $40 for each trip! Not to mention they don't send someone out and then a few weeks later send someone again if it's not paid. Nope, they send someone out and then just a day or so later send someone AGAIN.

 I contacted them letting them know that I had two $40 charges on my account for a "trip fee". Which I had absolutely no idea what that even was to be honest. I was told by the ever so sweet (that's sarcasm...the girl wasn't rude but she pretty much told me that was the way it is and I could just get over it because there was nothing I could do about it. I'M NOT KIDDING! She seriously insinuated that was how it is and asking for it to be reviewed was a waste of time.) I never received these two lovely little $40 door hangers.  Believe me if I did receive them I wouldn't stoop so low as to publicly announce that I had forgotten to pay my bill.  I would hang my head in embarrassment, like anyone with sense would do, and sheepishly hurry off to pay my bill.  I told her that I never received my personally delivered late notice and she informed me that they have tattlers on their trucks and she knew exactly what time the utility personnel was out there.  Well,...that's fine and dandy that you know he was there what my question is, "Where is the proof that he gave me my $40 hanger?"  For that price I should have it framed or something. For that matter, for that price I should have to have signed off on it or something right?  I mean I have to sign off for FedEx to drop off a $3 Mickey Mouse sticker for my car. All joking aside though, how does this even make any sense?! How is this practice actually practical or economical for Huntsville Utilities and it's clientele in any way?

It was my understanding that a piece of paper, some ink, a stamp, and an envelope all still cost under $2. They have machines that fold and seal the bills so I assume no additional employees would be needed for that lovely little job. So Huntsville Utilities is saying that it costs $40 to send someone to my home to "leave" a note on my door and that THAT is a more practical, economical, and ecologically sound idea than to..oh, say...mail me a late notice?!   Save the trees! Use up that ever so free-flowing fossil fuel!!! If you can even call that saving the trees. Maybe if they left the cute little color leaflet they put in with every bill they send me, informing me to friend them on Facebook and of what an awesome company they are, out they just might would be able to send that late notice without any new expenses to add to their FOREVER messed up expense reports or my own personal bill.

Why don't we have an opt out choice for this anyway? I read up on the BBB and it seems that most people who have had utility employees come out to their home felt they were being harassed instead of "helped". I personally never saw anyone.  Maybe this is why I never got my hanger.  Maybe you have to be home to get solid proof of a visit.  I don't know.  If I had received that first visit though and if I had been informed they charge $40 to come out I would ask the employee not to come again. I can't afford $80 for two visits.  I don't know anyone who can. Those who don't pay because they just can't afford it wouldn't have ANOTHER $40 anyway. This was not the case for me. I could have paid my bill. I just forgot about it and never got that first little hanger notice. If I had gotten it, common sense would tell anyone that a mad sprint would be underway to avoid any more unnecessary charges. But, apparently, Huntsville Utilities can charge people for a service that they cannot verify they provided other than to say the vehicle stopped at said person's home. Personally, I want to see the carbon-copy of the notice he placed on my door.  Then I would be grudgingly satisfied with the FIRST charge.  But they can't provide me with that, yet I'm expected to pay for it. 

Two visits is just ridiculous and is extortion-ism.

On their website Huntsville Utilities states the following, "Due to our common goal of outstanding customer service and cost savings, Huntsville Utilities has also worked with most of the Madison County Water Systems, the City and County Sanitation Departments and the City Water Pollution Control Department to provide our customers with a single bill each month. By sharing in this billing, we all save on postage, paper, payroll, benefits, computers, vehicles and insurance while giving the customer the convenience of one stop service and a single monthly bill. As a “Public Utility” we answer only to the people we serve. Decisions are not influenced by the effects on our stock prices, but are based on what is best for our customers."

Phfew!!! I'm so glad that by only sending one little piece of paper you are able to save the City and County SOOO much money. (Don't get me wrong. I'm all for EVERYONE saving money.  Even the government.) But like I said before, gas, vehicles, employees, OH, and that PAPER door hanger that's all cheap right?

Let's also look at other businesses. You are allowed to opt-out of the $25 or so over-draft privilege at most banks. Huntsville Utilities is claiming this "trip fee" is a privilege. Shouldn't it be the same? Shouldn't customers be allowed to opt out? And what happened to old fashioned late fees? Even doctors offices somehow manage to afford to do that. Usually they send MULTIPLE LETTERS before going to collections. Late fees I've seen spoken of usually ranged between $10 and $25 at the MOST. I've heard of doctor's offices and credit cards going nearly a year before going to collections too. No late fees for Huntsville Utilities.  They'll just charge you $40 per reminder and go straight to cutting you off and stiffing you with that $95 reconnection fee. Huntsville Utilities has combined their bill, late notice, and letter of disconnect into one lovely very customer-friendly piece also... No joke.... The FIRST bill they send you, your monthly bill states very clearly on it, "***FINAL NOTICE***...This is to notify you that it may be necessary to discontinue your utility service as of (blah blah date) unless prompt payment of this invoice...is made before this date." And it ends with "No further notice will be provided." In lovely bold lettering. Wow! If I had any other choice this bill alone would inform me this company doesn't give a squat about even being polite! Given a choice I'd take my business elsewhere! Alas, Huntsville Utilities like so many other areas is a monopoly and somehow in this context I'm assuming that it's legal. Regardless, it's the way it is. 

Oh, and did I fail to mention the bill they send lists your cut-off date as less than a week after the due date listed.  This month's bill for me lists the cut-off date as only 4 days after it is due.  Way to really show you care with that grace period Huntsville Utilities!!!

It's a sad sad world when companies, or people for that matter, see it as just and acceptable to behave this way.  They claim to care but I just don't see it. It makes me sad and very angry.  I wish someone would do something about all this.  It's just wrong...why don't more people see it.  Why won't someone who CAN do something speak up and do it?

SpongeBob & Patrick Cake

For my son's 1st birthday I decided to go completely crazy throw my munchkin a really nice party.  I mean you only have a first birthday party once, right?!?!  Anyway, when making my son's cake it occurred to me that there might be others out there who would like to have a bit of an overly detailed step-by-step guide on how to do it as well!

Here are pictures of the finished SpongeBob Cake  and a Patrick Star smash cake:

 

 

Would you believe at one time both these cakes were this:

 

 

 

Yep!  A lovely but standard half sheet cake from the local grocery store.  I prefer to use pre-made cakes for the following reasons:

• Those girls who can do it all DON'T EXIST!!!  Either they take shortcuts you don't know about or they NEVER sleep.  (I enjoy my sleep!)
• I HATE doing dishes but I love cooking & baking (go figure) this saves like...at least 2 bowls, two cake pans, and probably ten dropped two spoons.
• It saves SOO much time!  No baking needed!  Just make or buy your fondant and get started decorating!  So, anyway, let's get started!!!

 

You will need:

 

• 1- sheet cake (home-made or store bought)
• 1-dowel cut into 4- roughly 6 in. pieces and 1- 4 in. piece (5 total)
• marshmallow fondant-either two Wilton boxes of white or 2 batches of homemade
• 1 batch of white chocolate modeling chocolate. 
• red, yellow, black, brown, and blue food coloring (for SpongeBob)  pink, black, green, & purple food coloring (for Patrick)

Recipes for marshmallow fondant and modeling chocolate can be found on the Internet.  Just do a general google search.  I'll provide a few tips on using each below.

 

Step 1-Modeling Chocolate

 

Make the arms and legs out of modeling chocolate.  This can be done a week in advance.  Modeling chocolate is basically delicious EDIBLE moldable dough! Once you make it (which is EASY as long as you follow the directions) it's an idiot-proof and fun to work with!  The recipe I use comes from www.food.com and only has two ingredients.  The thing about this recipe is, first, it HAS to chill.  If you try to use it warm all the oil from the chocolate leaks out and you have a gritty mess of useless sweetness.  Second, once it's chilled it will be a freaking brick and you will think you've messed something up.  You haven't!!  All you need to do is break or chop it into small chunks and knead it like crazy!  My hands usually hurt something awful after making something out of modeling chocolate BUT it's all worth it in the end. 

 

 Also, using the white chocolate is crucial to getting the colors you want.  If you try to use regular food coloring in the milk or dark modeling chocolate,  you won't get nice colors AND it will do something called "seizing".  Seizing is were it turns hard and gritty and once again you have a horrible mess of useless sweetness. 

 

Basically, to make the arms, nose, and legs I tint roughly 1/4 of the modeling chocolate a bright yellow by kneading the food coloring into it.  (I use Wilton food coloring because it's easy to find locally.)  Then I take all four of the longer "limbs"  dowels and small chunks of the warm kneaded dough and cover the dowels with a thin layer of the modeling chocolate.  I've found that once I get the dowels covered all over that it helps to rub each dowel back and forth between my two palms to smooth and even it out. (Make sure you work on a smooth surface like a counter top and lube the surface and your hands liberally with shortening.)  Then I made 3 even balls with the remaining yellow dough.  I do all this by eye so if you don't have enough just mix up some more yellow dough.  REMEMBER THIS IS JUST GROWN-UP PLAY-DOH! HAVE FUN WITH IT!!!  Lay two of the three balls down, insert one dowel halfway into each ball, then smoosh them a little and just like you did when making cool stuff out of Play-Doh when you were a kid shape them into hand shapes.  I made mine with only 3 fingers and a thumb on each hand.  It's a cartoon after all so it doesn't matter!!! Once you have your hands VERY GENTLY scrape them off the counter and place them on a flat surface, lightly covered, in a cool area to re-harden.  For the legs I rolled some of the white modeling chocolate flat and cut it using a just a regular butter knife into a rectangle.  I very gently scraped it up and wrapped it over the two remaining yellow covered dowels to make socks.  I made over sized shoes from some of the remaining white modeling chocolate that was set aside earlier also.  For this I tinted two balls black.  I shaped both of them into rough kidney bean shapes and smooshed one side of the kidney flat to make the soles of the shoes.  Very gently I inserted the sock covered legs into the "shoes."  Set these aside also to harden.  For the nose, I took the remaining yellow ball and just like the first two, I covered the smallest remaining dowel.  I made mine thicker on one end o give the nose more definition.  Set the nose aside to harden.  Once, all of these parts are hard I placed them gently into an over sized Ziploc bag and put them on top of the refrigerator for safe keeping until the day of the party. 

 

Note: They are FRAGILE so handle gently when hardened unless you like to cry!!!

(I didn't make any up close photos of the hands, legs, and nose but hopefully you can get the idea from this side shot.)


Step 2-The Cake


Now there is two things you can do here. The first way is the simplest.  Basically, all you do is scrape the bigger details like the flowers and the borders off the cake.  This leaves you with a basic rectangle for SpongeBob's body.  (However, this will not leave you with cake for a Patrick smash cake if you wanted one.  But, you can still make Patrick from a cupcake or something like that from the store.)

OR you can make a more detailed SpongeBob, but you will have to do a little carving.  Nothing to worry about though! As long as you don't go crazy it's easy to accomplish.  Start by scraping all the icing off the pre-made cake if you bought one.  I scraped the colored roses into one bowl and all the white into another. (I'm anal)  Be careful when you get close to the actual cake part because you can take big hunks out of it if you get wild. (I get wild sometimes)  Once it's scraped it should look like this:

Now the carving!  I wanted to give SpongeBob some movement.  To do this I very gently, with a bread knife, cut a dip in the middle of SpongeBob.  Just like pictured below:

 

Next, I cut the waves (you can see the side view above) in SpongeBob.  I did this using half of a small biscuit cutter.  If you're good with a knife you could probably just cut the half rounds out yourself.  I did this all around the edges on the top and 3/4 of the way down his sides.  I left the bottom parts straight ( but for more effect tapered it with the bread knife) because this is where his clothes will go.  I also cut some pores into SpongeBob using a grapefruit spoon taking out random half circle chunks. I'm sure a regular spoon would work.  A large melon baller might work too.  For some reason the pores are not visible in the picture below but they are there:

 I don't have a picture of this part before I covered it with fondant but I took two of the half chunks I cut out with the biscuit cutter and about 1/3 of the way from the top put them back on the cake to raise the corners of SpongeBob's mouth.  After adding back the corners of the mouth, I re-iced the cake with the white icing I pulled off earlier (the picture above)

Step 3-Fondant the Cake

Take one half of the fondant and tint it yellow by kneading the color into it.  Make sure you have a well lubed (with shortening) counter top just like you did with the modeling chocolate.  Lube your rolling pin and roll the yellow fondant out making sure that it will cover the cake on all sides with extra hanging off.  Smooth the fondant down to the cake and gently push it into the "pores" so you can see the indentations, if you made them. Once you have it smoothed down and sticking to the icing very carefully cut off the excess around the base of the cake with a sharp knife. Pictured below:

 

Now is the fun part!  Decorating SpongeBob!  Here I really don't have a lot of tips.  For the sleeves, I rolled out white fondant and cut it into rectangles using a butter knife.  I used a little warm water, applied with my finger, as glue to get the fondant to stick to itself in a circle and to get it to stick to the cake.  Same thing with the pants legs using fondant I tinted brown.  I believe I used a shot glass to cut the irises on SpongeBob and another biscuit cutter I had to make the whites of his eyes.  His tie is 3 triangles I cut out with a knife and stuck together on the cake with more warm water on my fingertip.  Just have fun with it!  The great thing about fondant is most of the time if it doesn't look just right you can pull it off, knead it, and put it back on again! 

 

Don't put the legs, nose, or arms on until just before guests arrive to prevent accidental bumping and things like that

 

 

Step 4-Patrick Smash Cake

 

With the cake I had left over from carving, the icing I had left over from the roses, and just a little bit of leftover fondant I made Patrick.

 

Basically, I took the cake and broke it up into small bits and mixed it with the icing just like you would do to make cake pops.  I set all, but a tablespoonful, of the blob of icing and cake onto the dish I was going to serve it on and just shaped it into a generic star shape with my hands (just like Play-Doh) Once I had the star I heaped the remaining tablespoon into the center of the star and rounded it a bit  to make Patrick's belly.  I tinted some fondant pink, rolled it out, and covered the star being very careful not to put too much pressure on it when I smoothed the fondant down.  Cut carefully around the edges to neaten it up.  Wipe the excess off the plate with a damp paper towel.  Then I decorated just like I did with SpongeBob.  I used a small flower cookie cutter I found in the back of the spoon drawer to make the flowers on Patrick's shorts.  His tongue is a piece of red I had leftover from SpongeBob's tie that I rolled into a small kidney shape.  His eyebrows are just little 'snakes' just like we all made as kids.  And his eyes are teeny tiny balls of fondant I rolled between my fingers and smooshed flat.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed reading about my cake and I hope it helps you in making an awesome SpongeBob cake of your own!  If you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them!  I will try to respond as quickly as I can to any questions you may have!  Enjoy!