Another beautiful day at the beach!
phingers’s posterous
Think for yourself.
Mmmm brownies
Sooo good!
The Butterfly Effect
Driving home today from work, I noticed some construction that had the 3 lane road down to one lane. Thankfully, or so I thought it was going the opposite way as me. The traffic was backed up for miles. I crossed the bridge, and it was still backed up. So much so that people were getting off at my usual exit to try and go a different way. This caused me to be stuck in traffic for an extra 10 minutes to get around these people. But then I noticed, that the bums were out in greater number, all taking advantage of the stopped traffic to pan for more money.
Once I got through all the traffic, I noticed tons of people standing at the bus stations along the rest of my way home. I bet all the buses are running late as well. I think all in all that 1 mile stretch of road that was down to one lane probably effected the entire city tonight. So much so that most people probably don't even realize why they are late, stuck in traffic, or waiting on a bus.
Just thought I'd babble on about this a little bit so people can understand a little bit more how we are all linked together in those mysterious ways. Be nice to your neighbor okay?
Fitbit - my thoughts and review
Well my fitbit from www.fitbit.com finally arrived a few weeks ago. These are my initial thoughts based on the past couple weeks of use.
A little background.The fitbit is a pedometer on steroids. It wirelessly sync's with your pc, uploads the data to their website, and tracks your sleeping patterns. It is a small black and blue large paperclip like style that clips onto your belt and you wear it around everywhere. Battery as advertised is supposed to last 2 weeks, and it has lived up to that hype. It has a small OLED blue screen with a small button that lets you cycle through number of steps, miles traveled, calories, and a flower for how active you have been recently.
Mine had been pre-ordered for over a year while they worked out the kinks in the software, manufacturing process, and website. Overall I think they could have done a better job communicating with their customers on the very long delay.
I signed up for the website a few days before my fitbit arrived, and it does look very well done. The website lets you also add in weight, water consumed, and food you at each day, to help track all aspects of your fitness and diet. I find entering my food to be tedious, and haven't gotten going on that enough. I'm also hoping that their food database will get a lot better. I searched for Chipotle Chicken Burrito, and it couldn't find it. I don't weigh myself everyday, so that is pointless, and water consumption needs some work too, it would be better done with a few icons so I can choose which size glass I just drank, and it marks that accordingly, instead it is a slider in ounces. Who knows that good enough?
The fitbit iself is plastic and my hunch is not water resistant. So it probably is a matter of time before it goes through the wash. I clip it onto my pants every day, and depending on the type of pants, it stays, or wobbles around. I find on the days when I have a belt on, if it is tucked under the belt, it stays perfectly. I've dropped the fitbit from about three to four fee in the air at least 20 times, and it is still ticking. Last week I was running around with the dogs in the park, and it had disappeared. Luckily I was able to retrace my steps and found it. So when running around with the dogs, I now place it in my pocket, but their instructions say you'll get less accurate results.
My favorite feature is the sleep function, you hold the button down for a few seconds, the small screen says start, then strap it on your non-dominant hand using the included strap, and head to sleep. If you had asked me on average how much sleep I got before the fitbit, I would have said seven to eight hours. In reality, I only seem to be getting five to seven hours, closer to around 6 hours each night. That is including the average five to eight times I wake up each night and toss and turn a little bit. So even less when you take that into account. All that sleep data uploads to their website, and shows you some very cool graphs for how you've been sleeping.
Today I had the fitbit on my belt, which is a little thick, and I caught it on something, and heard a small crack, I think the paperclip design was stretched too far, and now it doesn't sit well on the charger without a rubber band pinching it closed to charge, but it is still working fine. So I believe it is just a matter of time before I'll need to replace it. At 99 dollars plus 10 dollars shipping, it will be something I have to think twice about if I replace it.
Overall I think it is fascinating, and I wish the fitbit team well and success, but I think the device has a lot of room to grow along with their website features. I look forward to purchasing version two.
Perhaps though our cell phones will just have this feature built in, in the future? Or better yet, with the powerpad technology, why cant we just embed it under our skin someplace, and wirelessly charge the battery up once or twice a month?
HP Customer Support - I am blown away.
The whole point of ordering online is to do it quickly and easily, and have full customer service options available. Well I just ordered a laptop for work from HP, and was completely shocked at their customer service. Order placed online. Noticed it wouldn't ship out till Dec 29th. But we chose 5-7 day free shipping. So I called them to see if they could change the shipping to two days, so we could get it on time. They said no, transferred me to the order cancellation department, and hung up on me after holding for 5 mins. I call back again, jump through their hoops, and wait 30 mins on hold. Again they wind up hanging up on me. Call back a third time, ask for a supervisor, 5 minutes later. I supposedly get the order cancelled. Still waiting for the cancellation email.Just mind blowing. I mean I understand why they do it, but it is most definitely not because they are trying to help the consumer, or improve their bottom line. Most likely reason is because their lazy corporate programmers haven't built the program on the website yet to cancel the order. Or their backend systems are so archaic that to interface with the system to cancel the order is a nightmare. They are overwhelmed with calls, and the cancellation department is probably too. Why they cant update an order with a different shipping option is also beyond me, probably goes back to their systems yet again.Problem is really that HP has a product that you want, and you need it customized. No one else makes one like that, so I have to put up with their terrible service. If it was Joey's sub shop down the street, I just wouldn't go there anymore, and he'd be out of business.I think it just goes to show how amazing Amazon is, since you can do everything all online. I've never had to call amazon for anything, and I've ordered a million things from them. Wish they let me buy a laptop customized. Maybe that's coming soon.
[Jason] Is Facebook unethical, clueless or unlucky?
1. Is Facebook clueless, unethical or just unlucky? Why?
I think they are both clueless, and unethical. You are absolutely right, this is a complete trick, I read it carefully and said use the old settings for everything, but my wife, probably just clicked through. We already have strangers commenting on her photos. Which in my opinion means they could have already downloaded copies of them and found out other personal information.
2. Will Facebook's latest behavior result in more lawsuits and/or industry regulation?
I do hope that it results in a lawsuit or two, but not industry regulation. I just don't see how it could be regulated properly.
3. Do you trust Facebook with your information?
I do trust Facebook with my basic information, but nothing more than what I would give for a library card application. Beyond that no. It's just ashamed nowadays that I get emails in my inbox, which say I have an email at Facebook, that I have to go log in and read. Facebook is taking over. I hate single points of control or failure.
Christmas 2009
A little Christmas Tree decorating...
Last night Marla and I decided that before Thanksgiving is not too early to put up our tree. So we did. It looks gorgeous, and we're still missing some tinsel and a tree topper at this point. Hopefully we can find those today before the stores close. We have a new unique tree this year, I have a remote control for it, and it is wired up with both white lights, the kind that my wife likes, and colored lights, my preferred choice. So now with the flick of a button we can switch back and forth between them and both be happy.
It is a good thing that I am in charge of all remote controls throughout the house, that way it will stay mostly colored lights. <grin>
Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! Please don't get trampled in tomorrows sales, and I hope I get to see you around Christmas time. TTFN.
Why Century Link should cancel my phone service.
Century Link, formerly Embarq, formerly Sprint telephone should cancel my phone service. You see the house where we have it, is way out on a rural road in Ohio. There are probably only maybe 10 houses on our whole street. The telephone company was nice enough to bury the telephone lines when they put them in, right along side the drainage ditch along the road. This is great since when tree's and other things fall down, they don't take out the telephone line. Plus when they come repair them they don't need special trucks or anything.
On the other hand though, I did mention it is in the rural country right? So we have a few farmers around, and mice, and rain, and other fun things people in the cities don't quite think about. Well they get in the telephone boxes, or knock them over with their tractors, and lots of other things happen to them, like say having a farmer plug their electric fence into them etc. All of which make your home phone line buzz, hiss, crackle, and barely usable.
Well the kind people rolled out internet access to us a few years ago, which puts even more burden on them ensuring the phone line is working perfectly. As humans with nice good ears, we can make out the words from the noise, and somehow manage to coordinate a conversation in some rudimentary fashion. Well these computers are a different story, they demand perfect yes and no answers coming across the telephone lines each and every time. Otherwise your internet speed drops down to a crawl, or halts completely.
So with that background, once we got the internet at the house, I have been making regularly scheduled phone calls to our phone company to fix the internet. The mice or ice, or tractors seem to knock something around in our phone wires about once every two months. So once every two months I call and have them come out and fix it. That has to cost a pretty penny, I mean at least 15 minutes on the phone with them, talking to two or three departments. Their software to coordinate my ticket, dispatching, gasoline, parts, time, labor, etc. Has to easily cost them $150-200 dollars each time I call in. My phone bill is less than $100 a month. You do the math. They have to be losing money over the course of a year. Especially when they say they will fix it by Tuesday, and they don't then I call in and they give me a partial credit for the down time.
The frustrating part is, figuring out how to get them to be more aware of the problem, and fix it once more permanently. Put in some mouse traps, make the area fenced off so the tractors cant run it over. Something! But no each time I call I have to re-explain my case to them. The other time I told them I was out of town. They said they couldn't schedule a repair ticket unless I was there so they could walk me through their normal troubleshooting steps, which never produce results, but do frustrate me to no end. So I again have to go against my believes, to lie to them. I hang up, and call back, pretend I'm there, explain my situation about having them come out so often, pretend to do the steps they want me to do, to finally get a ticket opened for them to come out and fix the box down the street further that the mice got into again. So that the next time I am home I can have perfect (hopefully) phone service.
I'm stumped though, how do you propose I get them to fix it?
First time Whole Foods let me down.
Yesterday, after a long day at work, my wife and I headed over to Whole Foods to pick up our Turkey and a few other essentials for the upcoming holiday. You see Whole Foods is our favorite grocery store, we look forward to exploring it each time we go. We got our cart, and loaded up on the festive thanksgiving day items. It was a little bit crowded, but not as much as some days when we go on the weekend. That is almost expected, so we didn't mind. The gentleman at the butcher counter was very helpful, they only had two mild italian sausages left, so he threw in a mild turkey sausage for the sale price for us to get us up to the one pound we needed for the recipe. The nice lady at the deli counter helped us slice the paper thin prosciutto, and did it with a cheerful smile.
The last item on our list was a case of Peligrino sparkling water, my wife is addicted to the bubbles, so I found the last case up at the front of the store. My wife unloaded the cart while I was picking that up, and I took it and put it in the empty cart. I asked our cashier if she could scan it, and she said, "It looks heavy, no worries I'll just type it in for you, just put it in the cart." I thought that was nice of her, she finished up, we paid our big turkey day bill, and headed to the car. On the way out I asked my wife if she could scan the receipt and see how much the Peligrino came up to. Of course in the hustle and bustle of bagging up our groceries, the cashier forgot to add it in. By now I'm pulling out of the parking spot, and someone is anxiously waiting behind me for it. Parking spots are quite a rare find in the small lot Whole Foods owns.
So our quandry begins. What do we do? I don't want to circle the lot 5 more times to find another spot, it was an honest mistake, can I just leave and head home to get some dinner? I'm starving. I mean I don't want to steal, but these things happen. Just let it go right? Whole Foods is making a ton of money, they seem to be doing fine. What is another twenty bucks to their top executives paychecks? Not to mention the time it would take to fix this mess. I voted to leave, but my wife is a better person than me. She hopped out of the car, as I pulled off to the side and put my four way blinkers on. She came back about five minutes later, and I could tell she was disappointed.
She had to wait in the customer service line, okay no big deal, then she explained to the gentleman what had happened, and he acted begrudgingly and without any happiness. He looked up the code, swiped our card, and handed us the receipt. All without any real words of gratitude. In fact from my wife's description of it, he had a look of disdain. As if he was thinking "You made it out of the store with the water, why are you wasting my time making me charge you for it?" Now I'm not expecting a standing ovation or anything for doing our good deed for the day, but I am expecting the customer service representative to smile, and be extremely gracious about it.
So I do hope that if this happens to you, you'll take a deep breath, and do the right thing, even if it costs you a little more time or money, and even if it is against a big corporation. I truly believe if everyone in the world did this we would be living in peace. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
