A tale of great customer service

Last year, at Valentine's day, my mother-in-law bought our daughter a pink, stuffed cat. Pinky, as he's been named, is my daughter's "favorite and best!" Pinky sleeps with her every night and comes down every morning to sit with her as she has breakfast or watches TV. Out of the last four show-and-tells at school, she has taken Pinky to show off four times. I'm not exactly sure how to make this clear to you, but....

She really loves this cat!

My wife and I live in terror of the day something happens to Pinky. Since we got our new dog, we've found she has a fondness for chewing on stuffies. Since he is well loved each day, Pinky spends a lot of time in the washing machine and has lost a lot of his luster. You can see this clearly in this picture with him and a not-so-loved sibling.



So, on a whim, we decided to look around some to see if we could find another kitty just like Pinky we could keep on hand as a "spare". Now, we know clearly that should we need to replace Pinky, it isn't going to be a one for one swap. She'd know immediately it wasn't him. Our planned cover story is that Pinky's brother came to town to be her friend since Pinky got lost. Or, something like that.

After poking around for a few, I decided one night to just look at Pinky's tag. Sure enough, the name of the company, Galerie USA, was there along with a URL. Score! I was a little discouraged at first as it appeared they might not deal directly with individuals, but figured I'd drop them a line all the same.

I relayed basically the same story to them as I have now to you and a day later I got an e-mail back from someone in customer service with a picture attached of a stuffed pink cat. She wanted to know if this was him, and if so they could help us out right away. It wasn't the Pinkster, so I sent her one of what's left of our boy (note: see the above picture again). The next day, they replied right back with a picture of a brand new Pinky!

I replied that was our kitty and offered to pay however necessary to get him in hand and was told...nope, thanks, just send us your address, we'll send him out to you. Wow! When I sent the address, though, they told us they were sending...well, let's just go to the picture...



Yup, that's Pinky, second from the left, surrounded by THREE siblings! They sent us THREE! They arrived today and are waiting patiently for the day they can come out of their box in the closet (our second daughter is arriving next month, perhaps she will one day get her own Pinky).

Now, granted, this was a small gesture and probably cost them all of $2 to do this, but that's not the point. Joni, the lady I dealt with spent a couple of days e-mailing me back and forth trying to find the right toy and then shipped them out within minutes of confirming we had the right one. It made a big difference to this dad to know there are potentially a couple of future tears that could be avoided by our having something to fill the void should it ever come, and that means the world to me.

Thank you, Galerie, and especially Joni, for helping us out. You got 2012 off to a great start for us!

The decimation of language

This video is awesome, but not just in the creativity (you really have to stick around until the very end to see it's full awesomeness). The phenomenal Steven Fry's point about the intractable disdain some people have for failures in grammar and expression is provoking at a fundamental level for me.



I admit it, I still bristle when I see a sign saying "thank's for your support". And, seeing pictures like this still causes me to guffaw a bit:



But, as someone who studied Linguistics during his brief college career, I also must acknowledge that language is about communication. Grammar, spelling and punctuation rules are nothing more than arbitrary conventions created for the sole purpose of greasing society's linguistic needs. They don't do a whole lot to convey meaning in and of themselves. As Steven points out, we all still know what "10 items or less" means, even if it's proper to say "10 items or fewer". Frankly, how many of us even knew that "10 items or less" was wrong before watching this? I confess I didn't.

Funny as it is, "We out of meet" still conveys the message intended. It did so with a humorous flourish, I won't dismiss, but meaning was still conveyed. Only those who choose to be scrungent, when faced with a grammatically incorrect but symantically valid sentence, will fail to understand...

No, I'm wrong. They'll FEIGN ignorance while fully grasping the concepts presented, but bemoan loudly to everyone trying to ignore their rants that they just don't understand "how someone could be lacking in the becoming acquainted with?"

To me, even worse are those who still can't grok that meanings change. Anyone who has read ANY Shakespeare knows that between Bill's time and ours our language has evolved slightly. They manufacture* extensive artificial* complaints about how awful* the latest generation's understanding is. If they're feeling brave* enough, they'll tell* you to your face how you're an example of our declining civilization. Yet, I have to wonder how they would read THIS paragraph, seeing as I chose a few common words whose meaning has become quite different from its original intent. I wonder, too, if they'd read the title of this article to mean "the utter destruction of language"?**

Perhaps they're just nice***?

There are currently two major wars in effect, not to mention a few minor border skirmishes and disputes and a couple of completely insane dictators who seem to think they own the world. The economy's collapsed, and while it shows some signs of rebound the fact is it's only going to continue to get a lot worse overall since people keep voting in the same dimwits who created the messes in the first place. The Earth's climate's being forced to change in new and terrible ways. A billion people in the world don't have access to clean drinkable water or a consistent source of food...and yet there's still a large percentage of people who will read this paragraph and complain about my excessive use of ellipses and/or commas.

Seriously, it's time to worry about more important things, don't you think?


* Manufacture: to make by hand. You thus can't "manufacture" an argument. Artificial: full of skill. Awful: wonderful, amazing. You know...full of awe. Brave: cowardly. No, really. Google it. Tell: to count. Now you know why they're called "tellers" at the bank.

** Decimation: a form of military discipline used by officers in the Roman army for punishment. After conquering a country or town then would line up all of the people who lived there. They would then kill every tenth person; man, woman or child. Just enough to make a point without, ahem, decimating the resources of the Roman Empire.

*** Nice: In Latin it meant "not to know". A nice person was an ignorant one. Hmmm..

**** Bonus: scrungent's my word. I made it up. :)

Thankful? Me? Duh!

Of course I'm thankful! How could I not be? First, I've got the greatest wife in the world. She really is magnificent. She's brilliant, she's talented, she's funny and she loves me (for whatever reason). That's not to mention that she's also drop dead gorgeous and a fantastic mom to our beautiful, intelligent and hilarious daughter..

Whom I'm also thankful for! Holy crap, I had always thought being a parent would be a lot of hard work and sleepless nights. Hmmm, maybe that's more true for my wife. After all, I was mostly in it for the spankings. But, Maeby's really made me realize how awesome it is to be a parent. Granted, I think we were really lucky and got a really good kid. I'm sure my mother would have plenty to say about the ease of raising one like me. I'm thankful her curse of "I hope you have a kid who's just like you" appears to have not taken hold. In general, that kid of mine is pretty laid back and usually listens when you tell her to do something. Usually.

I'm also grateful for my family, as annoying and wacky as they can be. They certainly add a whole lot of "color", and I'm not just talking about my father's side...

And then there's my friends, some of whom we're spending the day with tomorrow gobbling down a gobbler. But, there's some new and truly wonderful friends I've met as a result of TEDxRochester...which I'm also thankful for, but only when it's over. :)

All in all, I consider myself a very lucky guy.

The new "paper or plastic"

A friend recently posted the question on his Facebook page "Nook or Kindle?". Some folks offered up useful advice, but just as many felt the need to chime in with "REAL BOOKS!!" Sigh...

I often wonder about people who get upset when new technologies supplant the old. Do they still have rotary phones? Hell, do they still have a land line? When Verizon stops automatic delivery of phone books, will they call to get one? It's been a decade since I've even had one of those in my house. When I come home and find them on the porch, they go right into the recycling bin. I have an iPhone, why do I need a phone book? To quote the song, I've got the whole world in my hand. These strike me as the same kind of people who would've dwelt on the "loss" to society when cars replaced horse-drawn carriages.

As someone who is a habitual pack rat, even I see the value in not holding on to the past. My comic books are stored in digital format, along with my documents, ebooks, pictures and movies. As pointed out in an earlier article, if there's a fire in my house, I won't lose a single picture of my daughter. Can the Luddites say the same?

Look, I get it. There's a certain romanticism about books. Back when I had time in my days, I used to read as well. I love to read, but the reality is, actual books are inconvenient. Electronic books and publishing is the future, so you might as well start dealing with it. The last couple of books I've purchased were both ebooks. I read them on my iPhone when I had a moment or two. There are times I feel like putting the effort into finding pirated digital copies of every book I have and ditching the paperware versions. It would certainly make my wife happy, and certainly make moving a whole lot easier when the time comes.

And since some will wonder, my response to my friend's question was: iPad. Before the "fanboi" accusations start flying in, yes, I have an iPhone. But, I won't be going back to an iOS device for my next phone, I'm going Android. The Apple platform's just gotten far too restrictive and I have no interest in dealing with it anymore. However, an iPad wouldn't be my primary device so I could live with some level of restriction there. For my friend, for just a little more than the cost of either dedicated device, he could get an iPad, install both the free Nook and Kindle apps as well as a host of other apps and get a much better experience. I've seen the iPad's book readers, they're fantastic. The iBook app is brilliant, you really feel like you're turning a page with it. Personally, I'm waiting for the second gen of the iPad (With a camera, please, Steve! Seriously, what were you thinking?), but there's no reason the first gen can' t be a primary ereader.

Nope, I know I'm a technophile and I know others are not. But, when someone's making a decision between two new technologies, they're obviously not interested in hearing that they're destroying civilization and should stick with the old stuff. Because, really, that's what these people were saying. These kids these days and their new-fangled ebooks...

Ya gotta let the good days just happen

Last night at work I received a frantic call from our babysitter. Her daughter had bonkered herself on the edge of a table and was bleeding profusely. Since my boss is a bit more flexible and my wife was loaded down with appointments at work, I headed out to pick up my daughter.

I arrived to find our other friend covering for the babysitter and my daughter thoroughly engaged in an episode of Wonder Pets in which the team, through teamwork, attempt to rescue a baby chimp from a space capsule before it's hit by a meteor. I won't spoil the episode for you, but it is a nail biter!

We headed out and had a good time talking and singing the Wonder Pets theme when I noticed a giant Tim Horton's cup dancing around in front of the store around the corner from our babysitter's place. Hmmm...what's that on his sign? Free...Iced Cap?!? Oh, hell yeah! We pulled around the corner and into the lot just in time to see employees heading out with a tray full of my favorite icy treat! "You want one?" they asked. Duh!

Back on our journey home, we passed by the airport. Whenever she & I are in the car, I always look out to the northeast as that's where the planes come in from. I've been waiting for a time when I could pull over and let her catch a glimpse of a plane coming in extremely closely, and tonight did not disappoint. I saw something coming in, and it looked like I had enough time, so I raced into the parking lot of the Sugarcreek and jumped out of the car. I pulled her out quickly and stood her up on the trunk of the car with just second to spare before this roared overhead:



Since it's not that clear from the photo, that's a Hercules C-130, one of my favorite military planes. This graceful, prop-powered behemoth was the perfect plane for her first close-up. She practically fell over trying to keep an eye on it and she let out a loud giggle as it roared past. I said "Wow, was that cool or what? You could almost touch it!" "I can touch it?" she asked? Maybe someday, Sweetie, when I take you to your first airshow. :-)

We got home, and once I convinced her she couldn't have chocolate for dinner no matter how many times she said it, we decided on soup. But, we didn't have any that either of us wanted. So, we headed over to my least favorite store, Walmart and grabbed a couple of cans of Chicken & Stars which we shared. Although it was fun introducing her to this childhood favorite, I think we'll wait a while before trying it again. Who knew it could take a two year old an hour and a half to get every last star from the bottom of her bowl...

After dinner, we played for a bit and then got her ready for bed. She went down easily and Daddy headed down to spend some quiet time with his computer before Mommy came home....which had its own levels of fun we'll gloss over... ;-)

Oh, and this finally arrived!!



That's a "Remembrance of the Daleks" Collector's Set. Only available in the UK, our good friend Michelle (the babysitter that started this tale) was able contact family to get it over to me. Ever since I first saw that episode a lifetime ago I've wanted a Special Weapons Dalek, and I'm pretty sure this is the only time it's ever been available in miniature form. SQUEEE!!

Taken together, each of these are minor incidents, but together they made for one hell of a good night. Probably one of the best I've had in a long time. I'm sorry Michelle's daughter had to get five stitches for it to happen, but I certainly wouldn't trade it for anything!

What's with the name?

"Oh, look! A chicken!"?  What the heck is THAT supposed to mean?  Those who know me know I have ADHD.  As I was only diagnosed a few years back, I've come to realize that I had been trying to make my essentially flawed brain fit models that are more suited to the general populace than me.  For example, the vast majority of the population learns very well using the standard educational model of  regurgiteachin': "teach, repeat, regurgitate".

While I generally did very well in school, it was very difficult for me as that's not how I learn.   Finding that out was a great revelation for me, but it did leave one huge question: how DO I learn best?  Figuring that out has been a personal quest for the last few years, and I have made some recent advances in my discoveries.

Like most people, I've found I do learn best when I'm immersed in a topic.  This is the generally recommended way, for example, to learn a foreign language (not that I need to do that, I'm an American, dammit!  We speak English and we do it poorly!).  Learn the grammar and syntax, but also engage the cultural side: eat the native foods of that region, read their local news, their books.  Learn their songs and art.  This is great for those who are able to maintain focus on a topic for long periods of time, but what about the rest of us?

I won't mince words: I'm a technology expert.  My primary expertise lies in the area of enterprise infrastructure.  You want a major environment setup that generates hundreds of millions in revenue and needs 25/8 availability to do it?  I'm your guy.  While I primarily deal with the Windows Server world, I'm also quite competent with Linux and other Unix variants as well.  I have a wide breadth of knowledge, and the way I've come to it is because of the ADHD.  For a few months, I might be a on a Linux "kick" and will devote a ton of time and effort into delving further into that platform.  Soon after, I might be full tilt in love with Citrix platforms or the new version of Windows that just came out.  It's tough to say where my brain'll take me next and I've arbitrarily followed it over the years.  Recently, though, I've decided to come up with a more formalized method of maximizing on this "negative" I live with.

The "A-HA!" moment came a couple of years ago when I was doing some remodeling work in our bathroom (I can do carpentry, plumbing and electrical work all due to the fact that I had a brief interest in learning how to do it at one point :) ) I had gotten everything back together and the sink re-mounted when I realized I hadn't tightened one of the screws for the shelf above the sink.  The screw wasn't critical, it's a glass shelf and this was just a tension screw that kept it from flopping around.  Where it was placed made the likelihood of that happening minimal, but I still wanted to do a thorough job.  Unfortunately, I also didn't want to re-remove the sink to get at the screw.  So, I compromised with myself.  I taped a note to myself on the bottom of the sink that said "Don't forget to tighten that screw on the shelf!  Love, you!"  Yes, I always tell myself I love me in my notes to myself.

About a year later, the sink was clogged and I had to take it off the wall to get to the pipes to snake it (it's a VERY small bathroom) and I noticed the note which I'd actually forgotten about.  So, I tightened the screw.   My wife had thought the note was a bit silly, but had to admit it had been a good idea once she saw how well it worked.

The drawback to my previous "interest episodes"  was that it might have taken me months or even years to get back into a particular topic.  As such, I would spend a lot of time during the next one reacquainting myself with the basics.  After percolating for a while in my head, that note under the sink lead to the idea of leaving myself notes when I'm interested in a topic.  Basically, everything I learn, I document.  When I do get back to a topic, I can quickly review to where I left off and just build on that.  At the moment, I'm calling this informal framework "Breadcrumbs".   Like leaving breadcrumbs to find your way back out of the dark forest, my goal is to start using the tools that are available for managing information and using that to create notes I can leave for myself to then build on to greater sums of knowledge.

I've tried this with a couple of topics and initial results look good.  The big problem I did run into is how best to organize this knowledge?  I have pages of notes that don't make a whole lot of sense at times to Current Me.  I'm sure Past Me knew exactly what he was talking about, but I just see some weird ramblings.  Since I'm in the process of migrating this blog, and I'm currently in a writing "episode", I figured what better way to provide myself clear, easy to follow notes than by providing clear, easy to follow notes to the whole world?  There's a line of thinking that says "if you can't explain it to someone else, you don't understand it yourself".  Another saying I'm fond of is "teaching others is the best way to learn".

So, going forward, I'll be writing a lot of technical articles on whatever topic I'm stuck on at the moment (current topic: Ubuntu Linux).  I hope that someone out there might get some use out of some of this.  But, if not, at least I know *I* will!

Future Me, I hope you appreciate this!

Oh, yes...the title of the blog.

 

 

 

Sorry 'bout the RSS spam

A few years ago, I decided to start establishing an online presence to help with that whole "personal brand" thing.  As I had recently setup a Windows Live account to take advantage of all that space available from Windows Live Skydrive, I figured I  would just use the provided blogging feature, Windows Live Spaces.

Alas, as even Microsoft has come to recently realize, Live Spaces was a terrible blogging platform.  Lacking easy customization features and a kludgy editing interface made me less than interested in writing posts and it just slowed me down.  Microsoft has corrected this by simply admitting that this isn't their core competency, and there's no shame in that, and moving everyone to Wordpress instead.  I like this move as we use Wordpress to managed the TEDxRochester, so I'm familiar with it and it does seem to be a good platform.  Time will tell, I suppose.

Anyway, on to the apology: as I wrote about in a series of  earlier posts, I use Yahoo Pipes to merge all of my online writing into a single RSS feed that I can then insert into other streams like my Linked In profile or at Facebook.  Unfortunately, I didn't think ahead about this and when I changed the URL from the old Live Spaces to this new blog, my vanity feed re-pulled everything I've posted to date and I inadvertently spammed those profiles, etc.  So, I apologize to everyone for not taking that into account.  I'll keep a closer eye on things going forward!