Tuesday, January 09, 2007
I'm moving...
I will be posting here through the end of the month, but be advised: this blog is moving. I will post in tandem over here for the time being.
See ya!
See ya!
An invitation, acknowledged and discussed
This post is in reply to this comment I received from one "SJR" regarding my post on Wal-Mart and the video game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces.
I thank SJR, whomever you may be, for your being the messenger for this invitation. I have taken down the commentary to which you replied and to which you were taking exception. You are correct: I should not be judging Left Behind: Eternal Forces without seeing it for myself.
I do not play video games, nor do I own what I believe is called a "console" or other device on which to play them. I have no interest in video games. Pursuits like reading, learning piano, meeting new people (from all walks of life) on the Internet, or working out at the "Y" offer far more appeal for me. Many people find video games a source of enjoyment and entertainment. I do not begrudge them that at all, any more than I do someone who takes an interest in sports or NASCAR. But like those things, video games just are not "my thing" and don't even know how to make them go.
Now, to your note. The link you provided when you asked that I read the reviews does not function. I copied it and pasted it into the address bar in my browser. "www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.com" returned a Not Found. Removing the extra ".com" on the end also returned a Not Found.
Update: I thought the url sounded familiar. Please refer to my post of 12 December, in which I offer a url that points to the very site SJR attempted to point at in his note to me.
I did indeed finally get to the leftbehindgames.com site, although for some reason it tried its darndest to redirect me to its Exchange server. Mr. LaHaye's own web site, using the link provided on the games links page, redirects me to "timlahaye.com:nnnnn/webhost.rollout/site", with nnnnn replacing numbers I will not put here.
I did indeed work my way to the controversy page you mentioned. Its url is: www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.htm .
Try as I might, though, I did not find the link to the demo you have asked that I try. The only downloads I saw were for videos.
The ADL review quoted at the site uses the phrase "exclusionary theology" to describe the message of the Left Behind series. It is an interesting theology, really. Prince Philip and Queen Isabella got into it heavily about 500 years ago. Right around that time, my mom's ancestors found it to their advantage to depart the reign of the good Queen and head for what is now called Holland.
That the video game fluffs up some comfy pillows underneath this message does not change that message. The game is, however, a marketing masterpiece. It will get the target audience interested in the message through a relatively benign game. The book packed with the game should jump-start that interest nicely.
My view on exclusionary theology is influenced by experience, not legend. These include being told my evaluations in the Navy would improve considerably if I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior; going from among the most valued in my department to - after asking for, receiving permission to take, then taking, a religious holiday off - fired for incompetence.
I even grew up in a house located on land that had restrictions and covenants. These stated that we, among just about everyone one can think of who were Not Christian (or white), were in violation just for living there. I am sure that in all these cases and others, the persons doing these things certainly meant well.
(And some think they have cause to complain because Target says "Happy Holidays"!)
I am fortunate in that I look like an aging Viking and have a Euro-neutral name. This lets me "pass" if I am careful. (Thank you, Grandpa. Making that slight change to the family name when you came through Castle Garden has saved your descendants a lot of bother).
Please. Do not believe for one minute that I despise Christians. I most certainly do not. My beloved late stepfather was Christian, as is my entire step-family. These folks are wonderful; I love them all dearly. As for my friends, religion just doesn't come up. We discuss and debate matters of far greater importance than religious beliefs. I am sure a vast majority are Christian of one denomination or another. But in the end, they see me as a friend, not as someone to be either converted or zapped off the screen of life's video game.
Once again, I thank you for your offer. If I ever find that link, I may take the game for a spin if it will run on something I own.
This statement is posted from an employee of Left Behind Games on behalf of Troy Lyndon, our Chief Executive Officer.
There has been in incredible amount of MISINFORMATION published in the media and in online blogs here and elsewhere.
Pacifist Christians and other groups are taking the game material out of context to support their own causes. There is NO “killing in the name of God” and NO “convert or die”. There are NO “negative portrayals of Muslims” and there are NO “points for killing”.
Please play the game demo for yourself (to at least level 5 of 40) to get an accurate perspective, or listen to what CREDIBLE unbiased experts are saying after reviewing the game at www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.com
Then, we’d love to hear your feedback as an informed player.
The reality is that we’re receiving reports everyday of how this game is positively affecting lives by all who play it.
Thank you for taking the time to be a responsible blogger.
I thank SJR, whomever you may be, for your being the messenger for this invitation. I have taken down the commentary to which you replied and to which you were taking exception. You are correct: I should not be judging Left Behind: Eternal Forces without seeing it for myself.
I do not play video games, nor do I own what I believe is called a "console" or other device on which to play them. I have no interest in video games. Pursuits like reading, learning piano, meeting new people (from all walks of life) on the Internet, or working out at the "Y" offer far more appeal for me. Many people find video games a source of enjoyment and entertainment. I do not begrudge them that at all, any more than I do someone who takes an interest in sports or NASCAR. But like those things, video games just are not "my thing" and don't even know how to make them go.
Now, to your note. The link you provided when you asked that I read the reviews does not function. I copied it and pasted it into the address bar in my browser. "www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.com" returned a Not Found. Removing the extra ".com" on the end also returned a Not Found.
Update: I thought the url sounded familiar. Please refer to my post of 12 December, in which I offer a url that points to the very site SJR attempted to point at in his note to me.
I did indeed finally get to the leftbehindgames.com site, although for some reason it tried its darndest to redirect me to its Exchange server. Mr. LaHaye's own web site, using the link provided on the games links page, redirects me to "timlahaye.com:nnnnn/webhost.rollout/site", with nnnnn replacing numbers I will not put here.
I did indeed work my way to the controversy page you mentioned. Its url is: www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.htm .
Try as I might, though, I did not find the link to the demo you have asked that I try. The only downloads I saw were for videos.
The ADL review quoted at the site uses the phrase "exclusionary theology" to describe the message of the Left Behind series. It is an interesting theology, really. Prince Philip and Queen Isabella got into it heavily about 500 years ago. Right around that time, my mom's ancestors found it to their advantage to depart the reign of the good Queen and head for what is now called Holland.
That the video game fluffs up some comfy pillows underneath this message does not change that message. The game is, however, a marketing masterpiece. It will get the target audience interested in the message through a relatively benign game. The book packed with the game should jump-start that interest nicely.
My view on exclusionary theology is influenced by experience, not legend. These include being told my evaluations in the Navy would improve considerably if I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior; going from among the most valued in my department to - after asking for, receiving permission to take, then taking, a religious holiday off - fired for incompetence.
I even grew up in a house located on land that had restrictions and covenants. These stated that we, among just about everyone one can think of who were Not Christian (or white), were in violation just for living there. I am sure that in all these cases and others, the persons doing these things certainly meant well.
(And some think they have cause to complain because Target says "Happy Holidays"!)
I am fortunate in that I look like an aging Viking and have a Euro-neutral name. This lets me "pass" if I am careful. (Thank you, Grandpa. Making that slight change to the family name when you came through Castle Garden has saved your descendants a lot of bother).
Please. Do not believe for one minute that I despise Christians. I most certainly do not. My beloved late stepfather was Christian, as is my entire step-family. These folks are wonderful; I love them all dearly. As for my friends, religion just doesn't come up. We discuss and debate matters of far greater importance than religious beliefs. I am sure a vast majority are Christian of one denomination or another. But in the end, they see me as a friend, not as someone to be either converted or zapped off the screen of life's video game.
Once again, I thank you for your offer. If I ever find that link, I may take the game for a spin if it will run on something I own.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
This just in...
The Transportation Security Administration, under pressure from Saudi-funded lobbying groups and the Bush White House, is undergoing sensitivity training so as to avoid offending Muslim air travelers.
No word yet on when the TSA will undergo sensitivity training involving Christians and Jews so that they may carry unopened presents on airplane flights next December.
No word yet on when the TSA will undergo sensitivity training involving Christians and Jews so that they may carry unopened presents on airplane flights next December.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Happy New Year
Good evening, gang.
First off, I want to wish each and every one of my readers a happy and prosperous new year. It took me a lot years to outgrow a pessimistic streak, and I still fight it at times. That being said, I think this next years will be a good one.
Time for a story about customer service.
Over the years, I have generally built up my own computers from parts and pieces, upgrading as time goes by, often moving parts like floppy drives (remember those?) and CD-ROM drives from machine to machine. It is really very easy to do. Just get the parts, set aside a good work surface, a quiet afternoon, grab a #1 and a #2 Philips screwdriver, and you have a machine that is what you want.
Then, about three years ago I had a machine fail, and fail hard. Several motherboard manufacturers got whacked with a series of bad capacitors. To you non-tech folks, a capacitor is a device that stores an electrical charge. Some of these devices contain a liquid. These bad ones eventually would swell, and then rupture. A sudden rupture can be messy, and can also be dangerous. Manufacturers now “score” the tops of the little can the capacitor is in so that there is, purposely, a weak point. If the capacitor suddenly lets go, it will fail in a known and consistent way, often saving the component next to it from damage. When you are talking something expensive like the CPU on a motherboard, this is a Good Thing.
Well, my motherboard, from a good manufacturer, had some of these capacitors fail. None did this violently, but fail they did.
So, being the geek I am, decided just to salvage the memory, the processor, the drives... in short, jack up those components and slide a new motherboard under them. That proved to be a dead end idea. The architecture of the memory and processor were just old enough that finding a board that would take it all would take some time and prove expensive.
I began rooting and pawing around on the various parts-and-pieces web sites, and found that to build up what I wanted would run more than I had hoped.
Enter BestBuy.
They were running some sort of a loss leader on a machine that would meet my needs rather nicely, and for about half as much as I’d end up spending on a motherboard, processor, memory, and some incidentals.
The machine I bought was an eMachines desktop with a CD/RW-DVD player, Windows Home, plenty of RAM, and a 3 gHz AMD Sempron processor. Yeah, yeah. I know. It is not the most zoom-bang processor out there, but given what the computer was for, it was plenty. I am not a gamer; I don’t compile 200,000 lines of C++ code; I am not doing the special effects for George Lucas’ next blockbuster.
About a year ago, I decided I wanted a bit more punch out of this machine, so went on the hunt for memory. One place where eMachines is a bit sticky is on parts. I really didn’t find the answers I was seeking about the right memory to by, so I went to the eMachines website. They have one of those live-chat things, so I logged on.
“Hi! I want to fit 512 megs more RAM in my box. Who’s is the Memory Of Choice?”
“Use ours”.
“Uhhh... and how much of my first-born male child do you want for an item I should be able to buy locally for about $60.00 plus tax”?
“Let me look that up, Mr. Grizzly... Here it is. Our price is...” and by the time we got done with shipping fees, it was (drum roll please...) $61.00.
Gads! A factory part for a reasonable price.
What really was nice was, this man on the other end did not fob me off to a sales order form on the web. He took my information right there in the chat window and placed the order for me. I had it in two days.
Since then, I have had a couple of questions for the folks at eMachines and the chat folks have proved informative, prompt, and polite. I have seen a lot of folks on the web give eMachines a bad rap, but so far, I am pleased. I generally “go through” a desktop PC every couple of years, wanting more capability, or I get a failure. I am at about 3 years with this one, and am still very pleased with it. I will likely use it until it fails. By then I will be over to Macintosh entirely anyway.
I wish to contrast this with the folks at Dell.
I have bought from Dell in the past. I have a refurbished Inspiron 9300 that runs well. My only beef was it not coming with CDs for system restoral. Now, to be fair, the eMachines didn’t either, but it DID come with instruction on how to make my own backup CDs, and if memory serves me correctly, they even included blank discs!
Dell said this disc making utility was on my machine, but it proved not to be there, because the policy had changed; that ability was now gone. I would just have to hope that if the hard drive fails that it will do it in a way I could still restore to a new drive. Uhhh.... (head scratch).
Finally, for a “mere” $10.00 plus shipping, they sent what should have been included in the first place.
(You may be wondering why a manufacturer would not just give you discs rather than having you roll your own. Simple. PCs have become a commodity item and often a run of the same model number of machine may have some components that are not the same all the way through. Having you do up your own makes sure you have all the right drivers and such).
In both the order for the laptop and for the discs, the order went smoothly. It went very well for a machine I bought for my mother about three months back. But now, I really have second thoughts about dealing with Dell again.
My latest, and in all likelihood last, order with Dell was for a 20” wide-format monitor for my Mac. Apple displays are second to none, but they are a very steep price. Dell’s 20” offered the setup I wanted and that the Mac “likes”, as do several other monitors. But the Dell has a pixel pitch that is virtually the same as the Apple monitor, so I decided to give it a go. So, how is it? It’s fine. Not bang-on perfect, but then again it was also $300 less than the Apple one.
The problem was with the order. I have no idea how they managed to do it, but they got two different orders going at the same time. I got an email about one, then more progress e-mails about the other order, the first one dropping away.
Two days after Christmas, UPS delivered a monitor to the place where I work. Four hours later, I get a call from our warehouse manager. “Hey, Bear? There seems to be a second monitor here!”, this one delivered by DHL.
O...kaaaayyy... This should be easy enough to straighten out.
Wanna bet?
Dell Computers probably possesses more telephone numbers that General Motors. I played touch-tone roulette for probably 90 minutes, then got placed on “hold”. Hold is bad enough, but being compelled to listen to Kenny Gee clones interspersed every 30 seconds with some announcement is torture. I believe they do this intentionally; they WANT you to give up and go away.
The first two people I got were ill-trained. They were typing cue phrases into a terminal and reciting canned responses. I normally have no real problem with accents, but in one case, the man was incomprehensible. The accent, combined with his having a defective headset led me to hang up. Oh, and both of these men used names like “Andy” and “Jason”. Like I don’t know they are not the fresh-faced kid from Oak Street in Anytown USA?
Finally, I got this really nice Indian lady who was not afraid to use her actual Indian name. She spoke with an accent, but was 100% understandable, and right from the get-go it was obvious she knew her stuff. She recited all the “I apologize for the delay” type stuff demanded of her, but she got the RMA done up, gave me all the numbers I would need right there on the phone, AND I had an email with it all in less than a minute.
So, all resolved? Not... quite.
The monitor was picked up and I got a receipt. But then, I get an email: they are coming to pick up the second monitor! I sent an email to my very helpful Indian lady asking what was going on. She actually telephoned me in response to the email! She could find no reason for the second RMA.
Oh, did I mention that they have me set up with two accounts? Yes. One for refurb purchases, and the other for everything else I have bought. I also cannot get at that second account to view how my orders are being handled. Their add-account screen will not permit me to do this.
Bye bye, Dell.
First off, I want to wish each and every one of my readers a happy and prosperous new year. It took me a lot years to outgrow a pessimistic streak, and I still fight it at times. That being said, I think this next years will be a good one.
Time for a story about customer service.
Over the years, I have generally built up my own computers from parts and pieces, upgrading as time goes by, often moving parts like floppy drives (remember those?) and CD-ROM drives from machine to machine. It is really very easy to do. Just get the parts, set aside a good work surface, a quiet afternoon, grab a #1 and a #2 Philips screwdriver, and you have a machine that is what you want.
Then, about three years ago I had a machine fail, and fail hard. Several motherboard manufacturers got whacked with a series of bad capacitors. To you non-tech folks, a capacitor is a device that stores an electrical charge. Some of these devices contain a liquid. These bad ones eventually would swell, and then rupture. A sudden rupture can be messy, and can also be dangerous. Manufacturers now “score” the tops of the little can the capacitor is in so that there is, purposely, a weak point. If the capacitor suddenly lets go, it will fail in a known and consistent way, often saving the component next to it from damage. When you are talking something expensive like the CPU on a motherboard, this is a Good Thing.
Well, my motherboard, from a good manufacturer, had some of these capacitors fail. None did this violently, but fail they did.
So, being the geek I am, decided just to salvage the memory, the processor, the drives... in short, jack up those components and slide a new motherboard under them. That proved to be a dead end idea. The architecture of the memory and processor were just old enough that finding a board that would take it all would take some time and prove expensive.
I began rooting and pawing around on the various parts-and-pieces web sites, and found that to build up what I wanted would run more than I had hoped.
Enter BestBuy.
They were running some sort of a loss leader on a machine that would meet my needs rather nicely, and for about half as much as I’d end up spending on a motherboard, processor, memory, and some incidentals.
The machine I bought was an eMachines desktop with a CD/RW-DVD player, Windows Home, plenty of RAM, and a 3 gHz AMD Sempron processor. Yeah, yeah. I know. It is not the most zoom-bang processor out there, but given what the computer was for, it was plenty. I am not a gamer; I don’t compile 200,000 lines of C++ code; I am not doing the special effects for George Lucas’ next blockbuster.
About a year ago, I decided I wanted a bit more punch out of this machine, so went on the hunt for memory. One place where eMachines is a bit sticky is on parts. I really didn’t find the answers I was seeking about the right memory to by, so I went to the eMachines website. They have one of those live-chat things, so I logged on.
“Hi! I want to fit 512 megs more RAM in my box. Who’s is the Memory Of Choice?”
“Use ours”.
“Uhhh... and how much of my first-born male child do you want for an item I should be able to buy locally for about $60.00 plus tax”?
“Let me look that up, Mr. Grizzly... Here it is. Our price is...” and by the time we got done with shipping fees, it was (drum roll please...) $61.00.
Gads! A factory part for a reasonable price.
What really was nice was, this man on the other end did not fob me off to a sales order form on the web. He took my information right there in the chat window and placed the order for me. I had it in two days.
Since then, I have had a couple of questions for the folks at eMachines and the chat folks have proved informative, prompt, and polite. I have seen a lot of folks on the web give eMachines a bad rap, but so far, I am pleased. I generally “go through” a desktop PC every couple of years, wanting more capability, or I get a failure. I am at about 3 years with this one, and am still very pleased with it. I will likely use it until it fails. By then I will be over to Macintosh entirely anyway.
I wish to contrast this with the folks at Dell.
I have bought from Dell in the past. I have a refurbished Inspiron 9300 that runs well. My only beef was it not coming with CDs for system restoral. Now, to be fair, the eMachines didn’t either, but it DID come with instruction on how to make my own backup CDs, and if memory serves me correctly, they even included blank discs!
Dell said this disc making utility was on my machine, but it proved not to be there, because the policy had changed; that ability was now gone. I would just have to hope that if the hard drive fails that it will do it in a way I could still restore to a new drive. Uhhh.... (head scratch).
Finally, for a “mere” $10.00 plus shipping, they sent what should have been included in the first place.
(You may be wondering why a manufacturer would not just give you discs rather than having you roll your own. Simple. PCs have become a commodity item and often a run of the same model number of machine may have some components that are not the same all the way through. Having you do up your own makes sure you have all the right drivers and such).
In both the order for the laptop and for the discs, the order went smoothly. It went very well for a machine I bought for my mother about three months back. But now, I really have second thoughts about dealing with Dell again.
My latest, and in all likelihood last, order with Dell was for a 20” wide-format monitor for my Mac. Apple displays are second to none, but they are a very steep price. Dell’s 20” offered the setup I wanted and that the Mac “likes”, as do several other monitors. But the Dell has a pixel pitch that is virtually the same as the Apple monitor, so I decided to give it a go. So, how is it? It’s fine. Not bang-on perfect, but then again it was also $300 less than the Apple one.
The problem was with the order. I have no idea how they managed to do it, but they got two different orders going at the same time. I got an email about one, then more progress e-mails about the other order, the first one dropping away.
Two days after Christmas, UPS delivered a monitor to the place where I work. Four hours later, I get a call from our warehouse manager. “Hey, Bear? There seems to be a second monitor here!”, this one delivered by DHL.
O...kaaaayyy... This should be easy enough to straighten out.
Wanna bet?
Dell Computers probably possesses more telephone numbers that General Motors. I played touch-tone roulette for probably 90 minutes, then got placed on “hold”. Hold is bad enough, but being compelled to listen to Kenny Gee clones interspersed every 30 seconds with some announcement is torture. I believe they do this intentionally; they WANT you to give up and go away.
The first two people I got were ill-trained. They were typing cue phrases into a terminal and reciting canned responses. I normally have no real problem with accents, but in one case, the man was incomprehensible. The accent, combined with his having a defective headset led me to hang up. Oh, and both of these men used names like “Andy” and “Jason”. Like I don’t know they are not the fresh-faced kid from Oak Street in Anytown USA?
Finally, I got this really nice Indian lady who was not afraid to use her actual Indian name. She spoke with an accent, but was 100% understandable, and right from the get-go it was obvious she knew her stuff. She recited all the “I apologize for the delay” type stuff demanded of her, but she got the RMA done up, gave me all the numbers I would need right there on the phone, AND I had an email with it all in less than a minute.
So, all resolved? Not... quite.
The monitor was picked up and I got a receipt. But then, I get an email: they are coming to pick up the second monitor! I sent an email to my very helpful Indian lady asking what was going on. She actually telephoned me in response to the email! She could find no reason for the second RMA.
Oh, did I mention that they have me set up with two accounts? Yes. One for refurb purchases, and the other for everything else I have bought. I also cannot get at that second account to view how my orders are being handled. Their add-account screen will not permit me to do this.
Bye bye, Dell.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all of you for whom this is a special day.
It holds no religious significance for me, but I know it does for a lot of folks. For others, it is not all that meaningful, but it is a day to be spent with family or with significant others.
As for me, it will be my usual Christmas: I generally spend it alone. I might make myself a nice dinner, but that's about it.
Oh, it's no big deal. I have been on my own for a long time. In many respects I am like my four-pawed namesake: I tend to be a solitary creature.
So, how does a friendly grizzly spend the Christmas day? Well, this year, I am doing a major go-through of accumulated junk, paperwork, stacks of CD-ROMs that seem to accumulate like wire hangers or odd socks. My home office has been a disaster area since I moved in to this house; it's about time I got it all squared away. I am also getting old files ready for the shredder.
January will prove interesting. I have three business trips to Michigan, spread out over three weeks. Usually, when I have several stops that are not all that far apart geographically, I will try to set up all the appointments so I can do a circle and come back. This time, however, the dates were set by the customer so I've no choice in the matter. Michigan in winter. Oh, joy oh joy!
Not much else going on here, except for some geek stuff. I have a wide-format monitor coming for my Mac, along with a RAM upgrade.
I decided, about 20 months ago, to give a Mac a try. The Mac Mini had just come out. Because all the used Macs I found were high in price, at least the ones which would run the new OS/X operating system, I decided the Mini was the way to try one out. The only option I added was to order it with 512 megs of RAM. Since then, I added the wireless networking / BlueTooth module.
Do I like it? I love it. Everything is a breeze to set up. The only problem I have encountered with it was a tendency for the drop-down menus to open only after a significant delay the first time you clicked them after starting an application. This was true on browsers, word processors, etc.
For various reasons, I decided to do a complete reload of the machine a few days ago. Guess what? The menu sticking problem is gone. Entirely. Now, it must might be coincidence but I did NOT reload Microsoft Office for the Mac. For those who are used to it on a Mac it may be fine, but I found it to be annoying on several levels. Little boxes scattered all over the place rather than an integrated working area. A significant lack of compatibility in Excel spreadsheets written in the PC version. A seeming inability to make, store, and then use, templates in Word. I am sorry I ever bought it!
Before you go off thinking I am a Microsoft basher, let me state this. I dislike a lot of MS's business practices. Many of their products really DO suck, Word being one of them. At the same time, I will give credit where it is due: Excel is an amazingly good product. Yes, it has a few quirks, but I have been able to work around them. Their mice (mouses?) are first-rate, and their keyboards seem pretty darn durable.
Anyway.
I am slowly moving toward an all-Mac environment here. It will take time, and I also am not about to toss out perfectly good PC gear until either it wears out or MS stops supporting Windows XP. I refuse to move to Vista. For the life of me I can't see the need to switch to an operating system where I will need at least 2 gigs of RAM and a =>2.5gHz processor just to make it run smoothly. This is not to mention the need for some whiz-bang video card.
Did a bit of work on the house this weekend, too. I have two telephone lines; one is for fax and other non-internet data. What I found, when I went to hot up the second line, was a color-coded disaster. I found that the primary pair (the one that is on when you have one line) color code suddenly switched to what is normally used for the second line, about half way through the house. I was also surprised to find a house this new being wired for phones with a parallel loop, rather than in home-run configuration. I got the second line working, but plan to redo all the phone wiring from scratch this spring.
That's about it, gang. If I don't write again for a while, I wish you all a prosperous and happy new year.
It holds no religious significance for me, but I know it does for a lot of folks. For others, it is not all that meaningful, but it is a day to be spent with family or with significant others.
As for me, it will be my usual Christmas: I generally spend it alone. I might make myself a nice dinner, but that's about it.
Oh, it's no big deal. I have been on my own for a long time. In many respects I am like my four-pawed namesake: I tend to be a solitary creature.
So, how does a friendly grizzly spend the Christmas day? Well, this year, I am doing a major go-through of accumulated junk, paperwork, stacks of CD-ROMs that seem to accumulate like wire hangers or odd socks. My home office has been a disaster area since I moved in to this house; it's about time I got it all squared away. I am also getting old files ready for the shredder.
January will prove interesting. I have three business trips to Michigan, spread out over three weeks. Usually, when I have several stops that are not all that far apart geographically, I will try to set up all the appointments so I can do a circle and come back. This time, however, the dates were set by the customer so I've no choice in the matter. Michigan in winter. Oh, joy oh joy!
Not much else going on here, except for some geek stuff. I have a wide-format monitor coming for my Mac, along with a RAM upgrade.
I decided, about 20 months ago, to give a Mac a try. The Mac Mini had just come out. Because all the used Macs I found were high in price, at least the ones which would run the new OS/X operating system, I decided the Mini was the way to try one out. The only option I added was to order it with 512 megs of RAM. Since then, I added the wireless networking / BlueTooth module.
Do I like it? I love it. Everything is a breeze to set up. The only problem I have encountered with it was a tendency for the drop-down menus to open only after a significant delay the first time you clicked them after starting an application. This was true on browsers, word processors, etc.
For various reasons, I decided to do a complete reload of the machine a few days ago. Guess what? The menu sticking problem is gone. Entirely. Now, it must might be coincidence but I did NOT reload Microsoft Office for the Mac. For those who are used to it on a Mac it may be fine, but I found it to be annoying on several levels. Little boxes scattered all over the place rather than an integrated working area. A significant lack of compatibility in Excel spreadsheets written in the PC version. A seeming inability to make, store, and then use, templates in Word. I am sorry I ever bought it!
Before you go off thinking I am a Microsoft basher, let me state this. I dislike a lot of MS's business practices. Many of their products really DO suck, Word being one of them. At the same time, I will give credit where it is due: Excel is an amazingly good product. Yes, it has a few quirks, but I have been able to work around them. Their mice (mouses?) are first-rate, and their keyboards seem pretty darn durable.
Anyway.
I am slowly moving toward an all-Mac environment here. It will take time, and I also am not about to toss out perfectly good PC gear until either it wears out or MS stops supporting Windows XP. I refuse to move to Vista. For the life of me I can't see the need to switch to an operating system where I will need at least 2 gigs of RAM and a =>2.5gHz processor just to make it run smoothly. This is not to mention the need for some whiz-bang video card.
Did a bit of work on the house this weekend, too. I have two telephone lines; one is for fax and other non-internet data. What I found, when I went to hot up the second line, was a color-coded disaster. I found that the primary pair (the one that is on when you have one line) color code suddenly switched to what is normally used for the second line, about half way through the house. I was also surprised to find a house this new being wired for phones with a parallel loop, rather than in home-run configuration. I got the second line working, but plan to redo all the phone wiring from scratch this spring.
That's about it, gang. If I don't write again for a while, I wish you all a prosperous and happy new year.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Fair is Fair
Time for a rebuttal to my Left Behind Commentary. I am a fair man, so offer you this link to consider. Thank you, Rhonda, whomever you may be.
Walmart: Left Behind, hint taken
Yes, yet another commentary about Wal-Mart. No, it is not another screed about how they don't pay well or any of the rest of the usual blather. Why? Because Walmart is really not worse than most retail outfits, and in fact is better than some. Yes, they have a turnover. So does every other major retailer. Retail is a very good place to start up the ladder of a working career. It is not something you have to do your entire life unless you want to.
Another fact few keep in mind is that no one is forced to shop at Walmart. Some folks sound like the disgruntled auto workers of thirty years ago talking about "those Japs bringing those cars in here...". Yes, they did. If we are going to use pejorative terms, so did the Krauts, the Wops, the Limeys, the Frogs, and the (what do you call a Swede if you want to be mean?).
They all brought "those cars" into the USA. What few understand was how many of "those cars" were a resounding failure. How many remember Fiat, Lancia, DKW, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, MG, Triumph, Morris, Austin Healey, Goliath, Bellel (a type of Isuzu), Borgward, Sabra, Simca, Panhard? All are gone from the US market due to poor marketing, poor distribution and service, models brought in that were unsuitable to US driving habits and conditions, or the cars were just plain awful. Some cars of inferior quality sold like hell because of an excellent advertising campaign, but still eventually died or fell to sales levels a mere shadow of the past.
One thing that the successes and the failures had in common: there were no salesmen standing on the sidewalk, pointing guns at folks and saying "come in and buy my car or I will kill you". No one grabbing earlobes and pulling customers in the door. The free market expressed itself by buying Toyota, buying Datsun (Nissan), buying Volvo, and for a while at least, VW. The free market sent the likes of Renault and Panhard packing.
Walmart is no different. If they were not providing something the public wanted to buy, they'd not be around. Big retailers have come and gone over the years, as I mentioned in one of my essays of a couple of years back. Zody's, White Front, Gemco, Fedco... all gone. K-mart nearly went, but seems on the upswing.
If Walmart reaches a point where they no longer are serving the needs or desires of their customers, they will fade away just like the others.
I only go to Walmart when I have a need no one else can fill. I was on a long road trip doing my lighting energy surveys last week. Cold weather hit fast and with a vengeance when I got to Cloverdale Indiana and I needed a warm jacket FAST. The only store near Cloverdale Indiana open that night was Walmart. They also had the de-icer stuff I needed to get a door lock on my truck freed up. So, Walmart is where I landed.
There is something for which I will hold Walmart at fault. It is the general decline of quality for merchandise found in just about every store that middle class and below folks can afford to shop in. If you have a Nordstrom's-level income you are not affected. I am not there (yet). So, for me it is Target. Sears. K-Mart. Dillards. Bed-Barf-and-Beyond. Linens 'n' Things. Penney's.
Because Walmart has the buying power they do, they are in a position to push very hard for price breaks. This is in turn reflected in a drop in quality. Because of their sheer size, their aggressive buying affects the quality of the goods sold everywhere. No company is going to run two assembly lines, one for Walmart and one for other stores.
So, you can no longer buy a decent telephone, toaster, hand mixer, food blender, reasonably-priced portable radio, reasonably-priced table radio. Unless you spend a small fortune, it's all one-year junk.
But apparently, this is what a lot of folks want to buy. It drives me batty, but then again I am in the minority.
Remember above how I said the big retailers come and go due to changing trends and a failure to respond? They can also go because they make blunders.
A long-past president of the now-defunct Montgomery Ward department store chain once publicly stated, in such and so many words, that he would sell the cheapest, low-rent goods he could for the highest price he could get away with. This was stated publicly for heaven sake! That was in the 1940s I believe, and the chain never recovered. I worked for Wards in their camera and office furniture department, and later sold their vacuums and sewing machines. All the stuff was from pretty good to darn good. But the old reputation was still there, and the customers stayed away in droves.
(article shortened. SJR: your hint is taken; see my post of 9 December, which will go up this evening).
See you again soon!
Another fact few keep in mind is that no one is forced to shop at Walmart. Some folks sound like the disgruntled auto workers of thirty years ago talking about "those Japs bringing those cars in here...". Yes, they did. If we are going to use pejorative terms, so did the Krauts, the Wops, the Limeys, the Frogs, and the (what do you call a Swede if you want to be mean?).
They all brought "those cars" into the USA. What few understand was how many of "those cars" were a resounding failure. How many remember Fiat, Lancia, DKW, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, MG, Triumph, Morris, Austin Healey, Goliath, Bellel (a type of Isuzu), Borgward, Sabra, Simca, Panhard? All are gone from the US market due to poor marketing, poor distribution and service, models brought in that were unsuitable to US driving habits and conditions, or the cars were just plain awful. Some cars of inferior quality sold like hell because of an excellent advertising campaign, but still eventually died or fell to sales levels a mere shadow of the past.
One thing that the successes and the failures had in common: there were no salesmen standing on the sidewalk, pointing guns at folks and saying "come in and buy my car or I will kill you". No one grabbing earlobes and pulling customers in the door. The free market expressed itself by buying Toyota, buying Datsun (Nissan), buying Volvo, and for a while at least, VW. The free market sent the likes of Renault and Panhard packing.
Walmart is no different. If they were not providing something the public wanted to buy, they'd not be around. Big retailers have come and gone over the years, as I mentioned in one of my essays of a couple of years back. Zody's, White Front, Gemco, Fedco... all gone. K-mart nearly went, but seems on the upswing.
If Walmart reaches a point where they no longer are serving the needs or desires of their customers, they will fade away just like the others.
I only go to Walmart when I have a need no one else can fill. I was on a long road trip doing my lighting energy surveys last week. Cold weather hit fast and with a vengeance when I got to Cloverdale Indiana and I needed a warm jacket FAST. The only store near Cloverdale Indiana open that night was Walmart. They also had the de-icer stuff I needed to get a door lock on my truck freed up. So, Walmart is where I landed.
There is something for which I will hold Walmart at fault. It is the general decline of quality for merchandise found in just about every store that middle class and below folks can afford to shop in. If you have a Nordstrom's-level income you are not affected. I am not there (yet). So, for me it is Target. Sears. K-Mart. Dillards. Bed-Barf-and-Beyond. Linens 'n' Things. Penney's.
Because Walmart has the buying power they do, they are in a position to push very hard for price breaks. This is in turn reflected in a drop in quality. Because of their sheer size, their aggressive buying affects the quality of the goods sold everywhere. No company is going to run two assembly lines, one for Walmart and one for other stores.
So, you can no longer buy a decent telephone, toaster, hand mixer, food blender, reasonably-priced portable radio, reasonably-priced table radio. Unless you spend a small fortune, it's all one-year junk.
But apparently, this is what a lot of folks want to buy. It drives me batty, but then again I am in the minority.
Remember above how I said the big retailers come and go due to changing trends and a failure to respond? They can also go because they make blunders.
A long-past president of the now-defunct Montgomery Ward department store chain once publicly stated, in such and so many words, that he would sell the cheapest, low-rent goods he could for the highest price he could get away with. This was stated publicly for heaven sake! That was in the 1940s I believe, and the chain never recovered. I worked for Wards in their camera and office furniture department, and later sold their vacuums and sewing machines. All the stuff was from pretty good to darn good. But the old reputation was still there, and the customers stayed away in droves.
(article shortened. SJR: your hint is taken; see my post of 9 December, which will go up this evening).
See you again soon!
Monday, September 25, 2006
Message to the Celebrities
Dear Mel Gibson, Barbara Steissand, Rosie O'Donnell, Al Franken, Sean Penn, and others who make snuff films in Aramaic, sing badly, are unfunny commedians, or can't act but insist on doing so:
I do not give one single grain of care what you think of American foreign policy, the President, or how we Americans live our lives. I further believe that those of us who are the men and women on the street, the ones with steady jobs, ones who are looking for jobs, those who see America as it really is are better informed than people whose main concern is whether it is Evian or Perrier on the location caterer's table.
This holds for the opinions held by ANY and ALL regular working and studying folks here in the USA. I find myself in vehement disagreement with the opinions of some folks. But as long as they allow others to express theirs, I have no problem.
I've just reached a point where I am sick to death of folks who recite lines, sing, or otherwise have reached a level of fame in what is a dream world, can capture headlines. Show us what else you can do besides the above. Show us what else you can do besides crash cars, cause embarrassing scenes in expensive restaurants, or throw tantrums on the set.
I do not give one single grain of care what you think of American foreign policy, the President, or how we Americans live our lives. I further believe that those of us who are the men and women on the street, the ones with steady jobs, ones who are looking for jobs, those who see America as it really is are better informed than people whose main concern is whether it is Evian or Perrier on the location caterer's table.
This holds for the opinions held by ANY and ALL regular working and studying folks here in the USA. I find myself in vehement disagreement with the opinions of some folks. But as long as they allow others to express theirs, I have no problem.
I've just reached a point where I am sick to death of folks who recite lines, sing, or otherwise have reached a level of fame in what is a dream world, can capture headlines. Show us what else you can do besides the above. Show us what else you can do besides crash cars, cause embarrassing scenes in expensive restaurants, or throw tantrums on the set.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
North(west) vs. South(west), (Jet)Blue vs. (NW) Gray
I just returned from a business trip to Fort Polk Louisiana. There’s no big secrets here, so I will talk a bit about what all I did.
Some time back, the Army did energy conservation-related upgrades to a lot of their buildings. My assignment was to try and find more means of conservation in the lighting they had. The project manager handed me a list of about buildings to inspect, and then off I went, carrying an electrical engineer with me. The whole thing was a conventional sort of trip for me; nothing out of the ordinary.
What this issue of The Friendly Grizzly is about this time is airlines and how they operate. As you can imagine, I have been doing a lot of flying since I started my work here in Tennessee. I am back and forth to Florida a good deal, and many other places where Southwest Airlines happens to go, so I use them a lot.
This time, I received reasonably good, and well-intentioned advice. Southwest doesn’t go there; Continental goes but has you all over the place and two plane changes each way or just one plane change but a crazy-high fare. The closest Southwest comes to where I was going was Houston. Northwest also goes where I was going, as does Delta, but Delta had strange schedules.
So, Northwest it was to be. I went on line to book my fare, and come to find that they charge extra to sit in an exit row. I did a bit of research on it, and it turns out that they see the exit row as a privilege. You pay extra, or you have to fly NW enough to eventually be one of their “Elite” flyers. Or you are a member of their club or something.
Last time I looked, the exit row imparted a level of responsibility beyond that held by other passengers. Those in that row are expected to remove and get rid of a door that can weigh 50 pounds or more. Then, you are expected to assist passengers in their escape through this doorway. For this, you get to pay extra.
I got to Nashville airport with plenty of time, got through check-in and security with no problem. The departure time comes. “Ladies and gentlemen, our flight to Memphis is oversold. We are looking for volunteers…”. A Sunday mid-morning flight and it is overbooked. I needed to get where I was going so I sat tight.
The trip to Memphis was okay. It’s a long hike from where my flight docked and where the other would depart, but no big thing: I had over two hours to go before the flight to Alexandria was due for departure. When the time came, “Ladies and Gentlemen, our flight to Alexandria is oversold. We are looking for volunteers…”. I grabbed my cell phone and called National, my rental car outfit. They said they’d be open until 10PM, so I took the chance: I took a bump to a later flight in trade for a ticket good for a free round trip anywhere except Europe and the Orient. I put the overbooking to my advantage.
I had intended to work at Fort Polk for the week, spend time with a friend in the New Orleans area, then fly home Sunday. Plans changed, so I wanted to come home Saturday. I had already paid a standard fare, but a change to an earlier flight meant a $100 surcharge. This is $100 on a ticket that, round-trip (“return ticket” to my British readers), was about $200. What a nerve!
At least neither of the legs of my return journey were overbooked. They had a broken airplane at Memphis, however, so a one-hour flight was delayed for 45 minutes while they got us another aircraft.
In each of the four airplanes I rode on, I saw signs of neglected housekeeping, worn upholstery, trim that needed to be tightened.
Northwest, like United, American, and several others, is called a “legacy” carrier. That being a polite way of saying they have been around since the days of piston-engine propeller planes, the days when you got a meal on flights longer than about two or three hours, and when they cared about service to attract your business because ticket prices were regulated. Now, the legacy carriers are being soundly thrashed in the marketplace by companies like JetBlue, Southwest, AirTran, and the relatively recently revived Frontier Airlines.
Let me compare my experience with legacy vs upstart. Northwest vs. Southwest. You can see my experience above with Northwest.
I will say right out the gate that I find the party seating system of Southwest to be a nuisance. Most of my readers know me as a big man. Even if I reduced to my ideal weight, my shoulders still take up a good deal of space. So, there are seats I make a point of trying to get. You guessed it: exit row on the aisle. Or, on Southwest, there is always one row on the right-hand side on an exit row that has but two seats. In either of those, I have a ton of room. If I can get on the line fast enough, I can get one of “my” seats. And none of that extra-charge nonsense! The aircraft are invariably clean, the “stews” courteous, the ground agents polite and helpful.
The two times I have had to change a flight, the surcharge has been the princely sum of $39.00. This is because I generally book way in advance and so the fare climbs due to my making a last-minute change. Balance this against their good advance-booked fares and internet sales, I still come out ahead.
Full disclosure: Southwest, too, get over-bookings now and then, every airline does. But I sure never have seen them on Sunday mid-day flights!
Although I have not been on AirTran or JetBlue, I have heard nothing but praise for them both. I think Northwest could take a page or two out of their books.
Some time back, the Army did energy conservation-related upgrades to a lot of their buildings. My assignment was to try and find more means of conservation in the lighting they had. The project manager handed me a list of about buildings to inspect, and then off I went, carrying an electrical engineer with me. The whole thing was a conventional sort of trip for me; nothing out of the ordinary.
What this issue of The Friendly Grizzly is about this time is airlines and how they operate. As you can imagine, I have been doing a lot of flying since I started my work here in Tennessee. I am back and forth to Florida a good deal, and many other places where Southwest Airlines happens to go, so I use them a lot.
This time, I received reasonably good, and well-intentioned advice. Southwest doesn’t go there; Continental goes but has you all over the place and two plane changes each way or just one plane change but a crazy-high fare. The closest Southwest comes to where I was going was Houston. Northwest also goes where I was going, as does Delta, but Delta had strange schedules.
So, Northwest it was to be. I went on line to book my fare, and come to find that they charge extra to sit in an exit row. I did a bit of research on it, and it turns out that they see the exit row as a privilege. You pay extra, or you have to fly NW enough to eventually be one of their “Elite” flyers. Or you are a member of their club or something.
Last time I looked, the exit row imparted a level of responsibility beyond that held by other passengers. Those in that row are expected to remove and get rid of a door that can weigh 50 pounds or more. Then, you are expected to assist passengers in their escape through this doorway. For this, you get to pay extra.
I got to Nashville airport with plenty of time, got through check-in and security with no problem. The departure time comes. “Ladies and gentlemen, our flight to Memphis is oversold. We are looking for volunteers…”. A Sunday mid-morning flight and it is overbooked. I needed to get where I was going so I sat tight.
The trip to Memphis was okay. It’s a long hike from where my flight docked and where the other would depart, but no big thing: I had over two hours to go before the flight to Alexandria was due for departure. When the time came, “Ladies and Gentlemen, our flight to Alexandria is oversold. We are looking for volunteers…”. I grabbed my cell phone and called National, my rental car outfit. They said they’d be open until 10PM, so I took the chance: I took a bump to a later flight in trade for a ticket good for a free round trip anywhere except Europe and the Orient. I put the overbooking to my advantage.
I had intended to work at Fort Polk for the week, spend time with a friend in the New Orleans area, then fly home Sunday. Plans changed, so I wanted to come home Saturday. I had already paid a standard fare, but a change to an earlier flight meant a $100 surcharge. This is $100 on a ticket that, round-trip (“return ticket” to my British readers), was about $200. What a nerve!
At least neither of the legs of my return journey were overbooked. They had a broken airplane at Memphis, however, so a one-hour flight was delayed for 45 minutes while they got us another aircraft.
In each of the four airplanes I rode on, I saw signs of neglected housekeeping, worn upholstery, trim that needed to be tightened.
Northwest, like United, American, and several others, is called a “legacy” carrier. That being a polite way of saying they have been around since the days of piston-engine propeller planes, the days when you got a meal on flights longer than about two or three hours, and when they cared about service to attract your business because ticket prices were regulated. Now, the legacy carriers are being soundly thrashed in the marketplace by companies like JetBlue, Southwest, AirTran, and the relatively recently revived Frontier Airlines.
Let me compare my experience with legacy vs upstart. Northwest vs. Southwest. You can see my experience above with Northwest.
I will say right out the gate that I find the party seating system of Southwest to be a nuisance. Most of my readers know me as a big man. Even if I reduced to my ideal weight, my shoulders still take up a good deal of space. So, there are seats I make a point of trying to get. You guessed it: exit row on the aisle. Or, on Southwest, there is always one row on the right-hand side on an exit row that has but two seats. In either of those, I have a ton of room. If I can get on the line fast enough, I can get one of “my” seats. And none of that extra-charge nonsense! The aircraft are invariably clean, the “stews” courteous, the ground agents polite and helpful.
The two times I have had to change a flight, the surcharge has been the princely sum of $39.00. This is because I generally book way in advance and so the fare climbs due to my making a last-minute change. Balance this against their good advance-booked fares and internet sales, I still come out ahead.
Full disclosure: Southwest, too, get over-bookings now and then, every airline does. But I sure never have seen them on Sunday mid-day flights!
Although I have not been on AirTran or JetBlue, I have heard nothing but praise for them both. I think Northwest could take a page or two out of their books.
