“But, it’s a dry heat”

Ahh Vegas in the summertime! Who doesn’t love a steady two months of triple digit temps? Funny thing is, once you live here for a few years, the weather barely bothers you. I think people with kids have it tougher because of hot car seats and such, but us adults really get acclimated fairly quickly. I’ve always joked that Vegas is one of the only places in the world where you’ll here, “Man, it sure is nice. It’s only 99 outside.” Still, prior to living here, I thought people who said, “but, it’s a dry heat” were on some sort of crack. 110 degrees is damn hot no matter if it’s dry or not… Well, after living here 5 years (and one week) I’ve found myself fully understanding the difference and it’s now a saying that I’ve used a lot. If I wasn’t already sold on the dry heat, this week has definitely closed the deal for me!

On Tuesday after work, Chris and I drove to California to pick up our daughter who had been staying with grandma in Lomita. We got there in time for dinner at Captain Kidd’s and then we both went to the movies with friends/family. We then crashed at my sister’s place and set the alarm for 6:30 so we could get up and drive down to the beach to run on the strand. Walking out the door we both noted how humid the air was in Lomita. We had no idea what we were in store for.

We arrived in Redondo Beach about 15 minutes later. We parked on the Esplanade and got out to start our run. That’s when it hit us. 75% humidity! It was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. What was worse was trying to breathe through it. We walked down to the strand and began our warmup. After taking the first 3 steps I was soaked. It was horrible. By the time we were done with our 30 minute run I was twice as sweaty as I would have been had I been running in Las Vegas and the temperature outside was no higher than 75 degrees.

So, next time somebody says, “But, it’s a dry heat” you don’t need to look at them like they are completely mental. There is actually something to it.

A follow up to “The Question”

Previously I had asked for some opinions on how to handle a situation with a store clerk clearly stealing from his company, fellow employees and patrons. Here’s a bit of a follow-up on what has taken place since then.

The day after I wrote the previous post, I went back to the store as I normally would have. While going through the line I grabbed a business card off the counter for the store manager. When I got to the counter to pay, I pulled out a twenty dollar bill forcing the cashier to ring up the transaction and make change. I took my change, left no tip and headed in to work. A couple hours later I dialed the managers number.

I explained to the manager what I had seen and sympathized with her about the difficult situation that I know she’s in. She thanked me profusely and requested that I remain a regular customer. She said that she had been concerned that something fishy was going on with the money but that she never would have guessed that it was the specific employee that I had mentioned. I think much of her shock comes from the fact that this person is NOT some snot-nosed teenager, but is in his late 30s/early 40s and should obviously know better. She assured me that she would take care of the situation by doing the following:

1. Watch him like a hawk
2. Take him off the register
3. Relieve him of his job

It just so happened that I was unable to visit the store for the next 2 or 3 days. When I did go back for the first time, I must admit that I was a little apprehensive. If she had given the guy a “talking to”, there is a very real possibility that he put 2 and 2 together to figure out that it was me that called. Not that I should care. I did NOTHING wrong. But still.

When I walked in, everything was the same as the previous time I had been in there. Our thieving cashier was standing behind the register just like before. The manager was nowhere in sight. So, as far as I can tell, my call to them was a complete waste of time. They have apparently done nothing about the situation.

So at this point I have basically decided that I will give up my minor convenience of being able to whisk my way through the line and instead I’ll wait patiently to pay with my $10 or $20 to force him to make change. I’ll watch the register to make sure he rings it up and I’ll take my receipt and all my change and walk away.

The idea of calling their corporate office had run through my mind. Do you think it’s worth my time?

Here’s a question for ya…

Without giving too many details, there is a place that I go to several times a week where I purchase the exact same thing. The people at the shop know my order and when I walk up they usually ask if I’ll have “the usual”. While it’s being prepared, I take my order slip and move down to the register. My total is the same every day so I am almost always prepared with the proper amount of cash. I leave the remainder of the coin change for their tip jar.

Because of this regularity, I am to the point now where I basically walk by the register and set the money down and the guy just knows what to charge and he knows that the changes goes in their bucket. It’s not quite to the level of everybody in the place yelling my name ala “NORM” from Cheers, but still it’s a comfortable place and I enjoy the familiarity and having the people behind the counter recognize me as a “regular”. It’s probably an ego thing, but whatever…

So, a week or two back, I thought I saw something odd happen. But, I wasn’t sure. I certainly didn’t want to accuse anybody of anything without knowing for certain that I saw what I saw. But I made a mental note to look out for the signs of a repeat offense. The next few times I went I stayed extra alert but still couldn’t be 100% certain that I saw what I thought I saw. Until today. Today, without a doubt in my mind, I did in fact see what I thought I saw. My question now is, what to do about it.

What the hell am I talking about, you ask?

As I walk by the register and set my money down in front of the regular cashier, I repeated my order to him and he nodded in agreement. I walked over to my normal spot where I wait for my order to be completed. I then observed the following:

- The cashier grabbed my money and folded it in his hand.
- He then mock-typed some stuff on the touch screen register.
- He looked around at all the other employees (including his boss who was no less than 5 feet away)
- He then reached out with the same hand that’s holding the cash and grabbed the slip of paper that had my order on it.
- He crumpled the slip of paper in his hand and put his two hands together.
- He switched the cash from one hand to the other.
- In one motion he tossed the trash from his right hand in to the waste basket and placed his left hand (with the cash) in his pants pocket.

Like I said, I had THOUGHT I had seen this happen before. One of the main reasons I thought I had noticed it before was the absence of the sound of the register opening and shutting. So today, I can say with 100% certainty, he pocketed my cash.

When I said I have a question, actually, I have a few:
- Should I confront him about it?
- Should I tell his manager?
- Should I leave only half the money next time and wink at him in a knowing way so I get a discount and he pockets only half?
- Is it my duty to stand in front of him to make sure he rings it up and hands me my change so that he can’t continue to rip off his employer?

As I try to figure out what to do, here are some things that run through my head:
- Business work on a profit basis. If they don’t make enough profit, their prices go up. That hurts me in the long run.
- I hate confrontation.
- Why doesn’t this place have cameras?
- I really hate confrontation.

So, I’m torn. I don’t know what to do, if anything. I know how I’m leaning but I won’t say just now as to not sway the voting. But please, leave me a comment and let me know what you would do.

Thanks.

No More Best Buy Extended Warranties For Me

When you are checking out at Best Buy, the clerk always says, “Would you like to get the extended warranty? It will protect your item in case anything happens to it.” Depending on what the item is, I almost always say no, but have purchased my fair share of them over the years.

Here’s a brief history of my luck with the Best Buy extended warranty:

1. Big Screen TV - Pay a couple hundred bucks for the 4 year extended warranty. Fail to renew the warranty after 4 years which would have cost about $50 bucks. About 1 year later something goes out on the TV and it costs me $450 to replace.

2. Countless small electronics like cameras, mp3 players, etc… pay random amounts for extended warranties and never use them for one reason or another.

3. Digital Camera - Figuring that it’s an item that I plan on carrying in my pocket and may end up seeing some damage, I opt for the $30 extended warranty. After about 6 months of use, I’m heading to the car in the morning with my hands full of several items. One of which is my camera. I need to run back in to the house for a second so I set a collection of items on top of my car. As I turn to walk away I get about 5 feet away and hear a noise that sounds like something sliding. I turn just in time to watch my camera slide off the car and hit the cement. I pick it up to find that the zoom no longer works and it’s throwing a nice error on the screen which makes it difficult to get to the menus and makes it impossible to shoot videos.

I take the camera back to Best Buy and head over to the Geek Squad. They take my camera and tell me they will send it out for repairs. I get a call from the repair shop a few days later letting me know that there is damage to the casing (duh, it fell 5 feet on to cement) and that this kind of damage is not covered with the warranty and it would cost me $196.00 for repairs. Luckily we received this information in the form of a voice mail or else I would have told that guy off right then and there. $196.00 to repair a $220 camera? Not to mention the fact that the NEWER version of the SAME camera is available for $199.

I then went and read through all the fine print of a Best Buy warranty. This warranty does not cover much at all. Damage due to wear? Nope. Water damage? Nope. Insect infestation? Nope. (and yes, I’m serious that it’s listed) Basically, what is covered is after some amount of time your camera just decided to stop working for some unexplainable reason, that would be covered. But, if there was an explainable reason on WHY it stopped working, it’s not going to be covered.

Oh, and if you don’t think I hold a grudge, I stopped shopping at Comp USA several years back because they chose to just out and out over charge people on every single item in their store. So, when I heard they were closing all the Comp USA stores, I drove over and went inside to take a victory lap.

Hey, Best Buy, suck my ass! I went over to Target and bought my new camera. I paid cash. That would have been your profit. Have a nice day.

Pre-Cancer still has the word “Cancer” in the title

A couple weeks back I wrote about my trip to the dermatologist’s office. Since I wrote that before seeing the doctor, I didn’t give any details about what the outcome was..

I was at the doctor because my wife had seen a spot on my chest that she didn’t like the looks of. The first time I had skin cancer I found out because my wife didn’t like the look of a spot on my cheek.

The doctor checked out the spot on my chest and said we’d keep an eye on it, but there was no need to remove it at this time. We will check it out again in 6 months at my next appointment. Since I was at her office, I also went ahead and got my 6 month check-up at the same time. While the spot on the chest was nothing to be concerned with, there was a spot on my back that she didn’t like the looks of. So, she cut out a little chunk to do a biopsy.

After she removed the chunk, she asks me if it is OK if her office only call me if there is an issue. So I said, “You mean, if everything is fine, you won’t bother calling?” she said, “Correct”. I agreed to it, but when thinking about it later, I was NOT really OK with it. But after a week had gone by and I hadn’t received a call, I sorta put it out of my mind and figured I’d see her again in 6 months. . . . Wrong.

Last night there was a message on our home phone. It was the dermatologist’s office. Please give them a call. Instant pit in my stomach.

I called this morning and was informed that I have a “Pre-Cancer” something or other and the spot that they took out did not remove it all. So, on May 18th I get to go back to the doctors office and have them remove another chunk from my back. Only this time, they go deeper and wider and it will require stitches to close. Lovely.

I think my timing for starting a diet, eating healthier, exercising and just in general getting in better shape couldn’t be better. I seem to be falling apart and if I don’t get healthier soon, I can only imagine the health problems I’m be forced to endure.

I guess this wouldn’t be a bad time to put out a reminder about the fund raiser we are part of for Breast Cancer research. If you haven’t already, please consider giving a donation here. Thanks.

Weight Loss Challenge

I want to lose weight. I want to get in to a regular routine of getting some exercise. I’ve said this before. It’s failed before. So, how do I set out to lose weight again, but actually be successful in doing so? I think the problem with my attempts in the past has usually been a lack of focus and no real goals.

Step 1: Set a goal
Step 2: Put a plan in place that will help me reach my goal
Step 3: Stick with the plan

The Goal
Lose 40 - 45 pounds in 6 months.

The Plan
This is actually going to be a work in progress. I realize I need to make some drastic changes. My eating habits are horrid. I’ve tried in the past to cut down on the fast food and especially the amount of soda I drink in a day. For me to be successful, this is where the most drastic of changes need to take place. So, if drastic is required, I’ve got to be willing to do it. So, what would be the most drastic? How about this. As of today, I’m going to replace my soda intake with water. This, for me is NOT going to be an easy step. But, I think it’s a mandatory one. My calorie intake from soda alone is enough to keep me fat the rest of my life.

Next is the exercise. At the moment, I do not have a membership to a gym. And, at least for the time being, I do not intend to get one. I am going to have to be self sufficient in this area for now. I have a treadmill at home and nothing stopping me from doing sit-ups, roller-blading, etc… I don’t think a gym membership is a requirement for getting in shape. In the past, having a gym membership has, I believe, done more harm than good. It works as a great demotivator for me when my schedule doesn’t allow me to get to the gym. So for now, I’ll get started at home. If I change my mind and decide to start going to the gym to work out, so be it.

Vitamins and detailed records are also a requirement. I am going to start taking a daily multi-vitamin and will start keeping a food journal to keep track of what I eat during a day and how much water I’m drinking.

So that’s it. I’m challenging myself to do this. But, since you’ve read this, you are now a part of it, too. If you see me drinking a soda, feel free to remove it from my hand (forcefully, if needed) and dispose of it. Thanks for your help. I’ll keep you posted.

Hockey, dentists & nipple tattoos

How’s that for a title, huh?

It’s been a while since I’ve written so I have a few things to cover…

I spent the weekend playing in a hockey tournament with my buddies from California. That was a lot of fun. We managed to go undefeated in the round robin portion but ended up losing in the finals. We still had a great time hanging out with friends, drinking and gambling. I hadn’t played hockey in about 6 months so I was seriously feeling drained. Then, I ended up with a major head cold starting Saturday morning, so that didn’t help much, either. We got together for a poker tourney at my place on Saturday afternoon and the guys were nice enough to put a bounty on my head. Somebody said it was a sign of respect. I just thought it was a way for Dom to draw all attention away from himself so he could go on to the victory (he split first place with my wife, who knocked me out). I’m on to you, Dom. Next year, I’m personally putting up a bounty on your head. Oh, and as per usual, Dar and I shaved mohawks for the tourney. A tradition that goes back a few years. This year, Pat decided to join in the fun. You can check out a photo of it here.

On Monday night I went and had a tattoo session with Austin. We pretty much finished the work on my chest. I thought for sure I was going to wimp out and only be able to do an hour or so. But, somehow I sat through the entire 3 hour session without once begging for a break. Hot damn! I’m just stoked that it’s finished. You can check out some of the tattoo project photos here. The most fun part, of course, was the area around the nipple. Yikes that is a painful spot. You can check that video out here:

Then, to finish things off, tonight I had a dentist appointment to replace the temporary teeth they had put in place while making my crowns. Sucky part #1, no anesthetic. Just walk in, sit down and they start yankin’, scrapin’ and pullin’. No fun at all. Sucky part #2, while the crown on the bottom feels perfect, the two on top feel odd. I can’t describe exactly how it feels, but it doesn’t feel right. If things don’t get better by mid day tomorrow, I’m gonna have to head back. I certainly don’t want to be going the whole weekend with my teeth feeling less than great.

UPDATE: After waking up in the morning, my teeth no longer hurt or feel odd. Woo hoo! All seems right in the world, again.

Worst Customer Service Ever

I am one of the best customers ever. When I find a service that I like, I will stick with it through the thick and thin. This is mainly because, at heart, I’m lazy. If I’ve found a company that provides me a service that I need at a reasonable price, I am very unlikely to change companies even if it means saving a little money on a monthly basis. This goes double or triple or more for a service that has taken a considerable amount of time to get set up to begin with and would require a considerable amount of time to move to a new service.

To give you an example, I had found a hosting company that I was really pleased with. I had set up an account and moved all my sites on to the one account. This took a week or two to complete. About 2 months in to hosting with them, one of my sites really took off and was getting a LOT of traffic. It was putting a strain on the shared server where I was at and they asked that I moved the site. They were quite helpful the entire time and never once shut my site down. At that time, I went ahead and bought my own server and have been hosting that one site on my server now for over a year. Since I was pleased with the service I was getting with my hosting company, even after the traffic wave had died off on my site and there was no risk of straining my server, I went ahead and continued to keep (and pay for) my account with the hosting company along with paying for my own server to be hosted somewhere else. True, it’s only an extra $20 per month, but that does add up over time. I only recently shut down my managed hosting account in favor of keeping everything on my own server, but that was after I sold off everything last month.

So, with something as delicate as DNS and domain name registration, if I find a place that I’m happy with, I’m going to stick with them basically forever. They are really going to have to screw the pooch in order for me to leave. Well, this is exactly what has happened with RegisterFly.com.

I’ve been a RegisterFly.com customer for 3-4 years now. At my high point, I had over 90 domain names listed with them. Most of which were purchased before they become an ICANN accredited domain name seller, so most of my domain names were actually registered through ENOM. Recently RegisterFly.com become accredited and you would think that their new found freedom and monumental moment in the company’s existence would be reason enough to make sure that all your customers are happy and that your systems are in tip-top shape. With RegisterFly, it seems they have done the exact opposite.

Over the past 2 months, here’s a bit of what I have been subjected to with them:
- I tried to renew a domain name that was set to expire in 2 weeks. Was unable to because it was registered through ENOM originally and there was some sort of issue with getting it transfered to RegisterFly. After sending 4 emails and leaving 4 voice mails with support over 2 weeks, I gave up. The domain expired and I was able to re-purchase it as it became available again (using GoDaddy instead)
- While trying to renew a batch of domain names, my credit card transaction went through, but there was an error in the renewal process so the domains did not get renewed, but my credit card was still charged and now my money is STUCK in my RegisterFly account and I can’t cash it out.
- While trying to transfer a domain name to GoDaddy, since I was using RegisterFly’s “WhoIs Protection”, the transfer request email went to a numerically tracked email address at RegisterFly. After a week of waiting for the confirmation to arrive, I sent my own email to the email address. It bounced.
- To get the auth code for any domain name I want to transfer away from RegisterFly that had been registerd before they were accredited, I’m forced to call ENOM since I don’t have an ENOM account to log in to. Average wait time, 35 minutes.
- Since I had some extra funds in my RegisterFly account, I figured I’d go ahead and burn them up by buying a couple domain names that I’d just transfer away at the end of their first term. When I registered a domain on Friday, while everything seemed fine and my funds were definitely deducted from my account, the registrant info for the domain name was not saved and neither were the Name Servers. So the domain is currently pointing to no DNS servers.
- While trying to update the DNS servers on this new domain, I get an error message on the form when I try submitting it.

At this point, I’m beyond pissed. I have sent several emails and left several help desk tickets with their support team. I have had no responses on any of them.

As for the $40 bucks still in my account, go ahead and keep it. I’m sure I’ll get it back in the Class Action Lawsuit that I’m sure is coming your way. No business can get away with absolutely turning their back on all their customers. You were bragging about having something like 900,000 domain names registered through your service. I would love to see how far and how fast that number is dropping.

Hey, RegisterFly, I would have continued using your service for the
next 10-20 years. All you had to do was not completely suck.
Unfortunately, you failed at that. I wasn’t looking for greatness. I
would have settled for mediocrity. You couldn’t even pull off
“average.” You had to shoot for “really fucking lame.” Well, you hit
that mark perfectly.

And if you think I’m the only one who is having issues with RegisterFly, well, let’s see…

my tooph hurths

toothchunk.jpg

The item next to the penny is (or was) part of a filling in a tooth that was, until this morning, causing me no troubles at all. Now that it is no longer connected to the tooth, it seems to be causing me far more trouble. I guess this means I’ll be going to the dentist soon.

Oh, did I mention OUCH! My tooth with the gaping hole that seems to be a tunnel straight in to my skull friggin’ hurts!

For a purse?

Ahhh, Valentine’s Day. What to get the wife on Valentine’s Day is always a good question. Flowers? Sure. Candy? OK, fine. But, I want to get her a gift as well… But what? After asking her several times what she wanted, she finally came up with an answer the day before the big day.

“I want a Coach purse.” she says.

“Excellent! No problem!” I say.

I then remember back to our trip to the outlet mall around Christmas time. There was a line to get in to the store. Without exaggerating, the line waiting outside the store was easily 100 people long. The thought that went through my mind instantly was, “You are all waiting in line for a purse?”

As we left the house on Saturday morning headed back to this same outlet mall, I remembered a conversation about how there were going to be something like a million extra people in town this weekend for the NBA All-Star game. I had a flashback to the line at Coach from Christmas. When we got in to the parking lot, my fears were realized. The mall was packed. We had to park on the 3rd floor of the parking structure. This was NOT looking good…

Amazingly enough, the line outside of Coach was pretty short. A line, yes, but only a few people deep. No sweat. We got in and Chris found a white with blue polka-dots purse that she wanted. Waite through the queue to pay and off we went.

As we exited the store I noticed that the line was now considerably longer than when we had entered. There were probably about 40 people waiting to get in… I felt like yelling at them, “FOR A PURSE?!?!?!”, but I digress.

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