I have been a professional horse trainer since 1979 and have been licensed in 10 states. During my travels I have had the opportunity to meet thousands of people. During this time, I have handled horses for a large number of people, who, for the most part, are well-liked, honest individuals.

When I purchased my 60 acre farm 15 years ago, my doors were open to the public. I was blessed to work with many fine horse owners. We had a lot of fun racing and everyone respected each other. My clients appreciated my hard work and were pleased with the condition and performance of their horses.

However, in all walks of life, there are “bad apples”. Over the past few years I have come in contact with a small handful of uncaring, disrespectful people who looked at their magnificent steeds as mere objects that should be treated like machines. This select group wanted their horses pushed beyond their limits and demanded they race when they were not 100% ready, mentally or physically, for the stress of competition. Not only did they not care about the welfare of the animal, they expected it to be done for little or no cost. All of these people eventually failed to pay for the entire cost of the upkeep on their horses. Having left me hanging with numerous debts, they moved on to their next victim.

Because of these few people, I have closed my doors to the public. While no longer accepting horses to train for others, I will maintain my own small string to race where and when I feel they are ready to do so, without the headache of some money hungry so-and-so constantly demanding too much of these beautiful creatures.

I will be updating the progress of my horses on my homepage at www.sharonsoileau.com. Please stop by to meet our “family” and follow your favorite horse!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Ya’ll, I just can’t believe it!! Lordy have mercy, I tell ya I just can’t believe it!!  My boy Enis and me, well we went down to them river boat casinos. You never saw so much goins on as we saw there! People crammed in those rooms in front of those machines like sardines in a can. Enis wanted to go ’cause they was giving away a bunch of stuff. Now Enis, he likes football. Never did understand it myself. All them boys running around and knocking each other to the ground over some little brown flying saucer shaped ball. But them football boys are meat eaters for sure! They sure are healthy looking and can run so fast!!

Anyway, some of the prizes were tickets to some big football game later this month. Enis called it a super bowl or some such. He says the two best teams play against each other and it’s a really big deal. Anyway, Enis put his name in the drawing for those tickets ’cause they cost something like $1,500 a piece just to go watch them boys knock each other to the ground.  On the way in we saw a lady standing beside a rack of the purtiest fur coats you ever saw. I never seen a real fur coat ’cause peta don’t like people to have ‘em and well, I just never seen one. Them coats was the softest thing I ever did see. Some had two different colors of fur on them, some had real leather on the collars and cuffs and there was a snow white one and I just fell in love with that one!! That nice little lady said they was giving some of them away too. All I had to do was put my name on a piece of paper and drop it in a box and I might just win that purty white coat!

Well, me and Enis went walkin’ around and played some of them game machines. They sure were lots of fun. I played one called Jackpot Party, or somethin’ like that. I pushed a little button a few times, bells rang, lights flashed and it made the darndest commotion I ever saw! Then some fella came out and danced around and around. I don’t call what he was doin dancin’ but that’s what Enis said he was doin. Low and behold, that machine went to makin all sorts of noise, more lights flashed and bells rang, people went to hollerin and jumpin up and down like they all went crazy. Some official lookin fella came over and asked me for my name and all. Enis was just speechless, I tell ya. I didn’t know what in the world was going on but finally someone said I hit the jackpot!

The jackpot!! Lordy have mercy! They gave me $5,000!! All I did was put a few dollars in that machine, push a button a few times and they gave me money and two free meals to boot. I like this place. Enis said we should go get something to eat while we wait for the drawins. He said they had some really good eatin places here, and since they was free, we went to the buffet. There was people crammed in there like hogs at a trough!! I could sure see why ’cause man o man, that food smelled good enough to die for. There was everything you can imagine there. Ribs, brisket, pork chops, fish, shrimps, frog legs, tater salad, steak. I wanted to move in and just live there. Me and Enis ate a little bit of everything. I never tasted food so good in all my life.

Just when we got done eatin, they called the names of the winners for the football tickets. Enis fell over out of his chair when he heard his name called. He jumped up screamin, “we’re going to Florida” and hopped and bounced around like he had frogs in his pants. While we was collecting the tickets, they called the names for the ladies who had won them purty fur coats. It was my turn to jump up and down ’cause I won that white one I was so fond of.

What a nice place that casino is. They gave us food, football tickets, a fur coat and enough money to go see that football game! Florida, here we come!!

©SharonSoileau2010

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Once upon a time I was an AT&T customer, but not by choice. Several years ago, I went with Bell South’s “bundle” offer for phone service, cell and landline, and satellite tv. Not long after, Bell South sold out to AT&T. To me,  that spelled trouble.

 Everything was fine for a while. With the rollover minute feature, I always had a surplus of minutes. In January of 2007, I nearly had a heart attack when I viewed my bill. After years of having a cell phone, I had NEVER gone over my allotted minutes. But now, AT&T was telling me that I had gone WAAYYY over my allotment, to the tune of $500+ dollars.

I immediately requested a detailed copy of the bill. At first they sent the bill for the wrong month. I maintained there was a big mistake but AT&T would not hear of it. After finally receiving the correct bill, I spotted error after error. The first one was on Christmas Day. The bill reflected five calls between my daughter and myself between 4:15 and 4:30pm. At that particular time, we were both in my truck travelling west on Interstate 20, on our way home from my mother’s home in Dallas, Texas. Why in the world would we be calling each other on the phone when we were sitting in the truck together? Other mistakes I found were text messages to and from numbers I did not know at 2:00 and 3:00 am. The bill showed that the texts were sent from xxx-xxxx to zzz-zzzz. If these messages were from my phone, my number should have been listed in the spot where xxx-xxxx was listed.

I made phone calls to customer service, sent emails and wrote letters. NO ONE would talk to me. I practically begged someone, anyone, to go over the bill with me. Over the next couple of months, the amount of the bill gradually decreased, until I stopped trying to contact them. Then the bill jumped back up to over $500.00. This trend continued all year. I made dozens of attempts to contact AT&T about my bill. Every month I found instances where I was over charged. I also began recording the length of my calls. It was no surprise that when the bill came, every call was listed as being several minutes longer than what the timer on my phone said it was.

I even went so far as to scour AT&T’s website searching for all the email addresses I could find. I sent messages to executives, heads of departments, etc. Still, no response. Finally,  I spoke to a woman by the name of Ruth. She was extremely rude and told me “AT&T does not make mistakes and no one is going to go over this bill with you“.  That did it!  Screw AT&T!!

I have spoken to numerous people who went through the same experiences that I went through. One even asked if I would like to join in a class action lawsuit against AT&T. Damn right I would! I figure I over paid this company around $2,000-3,000 in 2007. At the end of the year, I went back to Alltel as my cell phone carrier and left a balance due of $958.00. I did not hear a word from AT&T about this bill until this month, more than two years after terminating my service with them.

They have had a collection company harassing me about payment. I have absolutely no intention of giving them another penny. I made extreme efforts to contact them and try to resolve this matter but they are the ones who refused. Now they can take that $958.00 and eat it.

I would like to hear from anyone who has had a similar experience with AT&T. I would love to sue them and get my money back. They are just  a big bully company with no concern for their customers. I believe that they padded people’s bills to pay Bell South for the purchase of the company. Let me hear from you!!

©SharonSoileau2010

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!