Crabby’s Comments

Nothing brings a father and son together more than a project for school. There is nothing like working with your child and sharing your knowledge with them. This is a statement of what it ends up like, but not how it usually starts.

The project information is given as an overview to the student, who takes the information he or she got from the teacher, to Mom or Dad. The concept of sharing information with the parent is a good thing in theory, but in reality, the adult that is involved becomes somewhat confused over the fact that the child used selective hearing when he/she got this information from the teacher. This results in a partial understanding of what the project is supposed to be about, plus a few wonderful assumptions the young learner has added, like salt, to season the discussion.

Because my son only understood part of the project’s requirements and was (obviously) confused on the finer details of the assignment, I was rather happy to attend an orientation session for his upcoming task. There, I was given lots of information, while watching my daughter, who was determined to visit with her friend. The only problem is that her friend was clear across the room. For most parents, this brings to mind nightmares of his/her child being the only undisciplined kid on the planet.

Orientation helped out, sort of… I was told that information on the project would be on the school’s website. I did not know that THIS particular information required filling out a form and getting access credentials from someone in the front office. I discovered this the weekend before the project was due - oops, my bad. I also misplaced the paperwork for the project. (Guy who has taught a LOT of courses, did the famous, “I lost it!” in REALITY - yes, my ego was crushed!)

Fortunately, I had taken photos of some sample projects at the school, so I had an idea of what was expected.

We started to work on the project and my son decided to change his project to an entirely different topic. We were originally going to work on studying molding on bread products, now we were going to find out about sinking a rock in a thin versus a thick liquid.

I brainstormed for a while on it, and I came up with a thickener that I assumed would work well - Oatmeal. We decided to cook the oatmeal to make it more consistent and make it a better thickener. After a number of trials, my son and I realized that the lumpy nature of the oatmeal made it harder to use as a controlled thickener, so I suggested we use a stick blender before cooking to make it a finer solution to work with. It worked better, but now I had to blenderize each time that my son put in a new dose of the thickener. Add to that the fact that we were doing 2 to 7 trials per run to get numbers that would give us an accurate average of the sinking times, and you have one word - MESSY.

We did complete his project (very early in the morning) and he turned it in today. I hope he did well. I did not do so well myself. I don’t know if I will ever want to eat oatmeal again!

Ok, I’ll shut up now…

When do we have time for our family members? I don’t know about you, but it seems that the day is always so busy that I never seem to get enough time for anything but my work.

That is the problem.

The tail is wagging the dog. YOU have control of YOUR time - use it wisely. Talking with or doing things with your family is an important activity. I would say it is as critical to keeping the family running smoothly as changing the oil in your car is critical to its smooth operation.

Take some time today to say something nice to a family member. Better yet, do that for several folks in your family. They will appreciate it.

You might want to plan an outing or picnic or just plan a walk in the park together. It doesn’t matter if it involves you and those you love. In fact, you may find that the time spent with family may expand your ability to resolve work problems, get more work done in less time, and to focus when you really need to.

Give it a try, I PROMISE it won’t hurt a bit.

OK, I’ll shut up now…

We always hear, read, or are told “What is Right or Correct,” only to see the source of this instruction do exactly the opposite. It appears to fall under the old saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

One of my favorite peeves is people saying, “Click OK.” This is interesting, since most texts on computers say that you CLICK a mouse button but you CLICK ON an object, such as a button, hyperlink, etc. In the same texts you will find statements such as, “Click cancel,” just a few pages later. I find this a little irritating. Which is really right - what you told me is correct, or what you said later?

The same goes for things in the computer field. Let’s take hard drive capacity, for example. We are told that Memory is the physical RAM in the computer. We are also told that hard drive space is called “storage.” Yet, without fail, you will hear someone describing his/her computer saying, “I have 300 Gigabytes of memory.” Yeah, right - you have a supercomputer in your office!

What about folks that “need to work out more?” These are often the same folks that leave their shopping carts where they were parked - instead of walking the cart to the cart corral. I guess they didn’t need the exercise that day…

Dad or Mom got onto little Johnny for stealing a friend’s toy. Later that evening Dad downloads a movie that was just released from the Internet and burns it to disc for the family movie night. Is one “stealing” and the other “borrowing?”

The bill collector is told that you are too broke to pay them because you made only X dollars in the last month. Later on that evening you tell your friend on the phone that you are making more money than you can spend.

I am not perfect by any means, but I think it is important for each of us to look closely at ourselves. We need to take an inventory of what is not right, and at least try to make it better. There is an old saying that, “God isn’t finished with me yet.” The thing is that we are His greatest tools for change…

Ok, I’ll shut up now…

I am a computer geek.
There is no other way to describe me in a very short sentence. I love technology. I enjoy learning new technologies and new ways of using them. But, like everyone else, I find days that I am battling with the technology to get my work done.

Today was one of those days. The day was going OK until I decided to work on my WordPress and WordPress Direct blogs. In one blog, I was trying to fix a problem that was created by me adding a new advertisement to it. The effect was that the other ads that I had on the site disappeared. The thing is that the ads were still showing up in the dashboard - but not on the blog. Since I am an affiliate marketer, this is a disaster. I have a new blog, on a great niche topic, and my ads, which pay my bills, are not showing! After battling with the blog in vain for about 3 hours, I came to the conclusion I had to resolve the problem - at least for the short-term. What I devised was a work-around for the problem. It allowed me to get my ads back up - at a price - more work and hand-coding some html on a system that is set up only to allow limited changes of this nature.

The second blog was a different issue. The pictures I had prepared for the blog were a bit larger than they should have been, making the text get broken up around each of the 6 photos I had embedded in the blog post. Oh what fun!! I did a couple of quick fixes and I guess I will do the major repairs tomorrow - after getting a good night’s rest!

I was posting about my blogs in facebook when I noticed that one of my family members was complaining about the photo adding feature in facebook. I could understand her plight totally - technology can be a real pain!!

Ok, I will shut up now.

I had an interesting experience today.  I had scheduled a payment on one of my creditors and I was charged $20 more than I had understood that I would be billed.  I double-checked my information I had jotted down on paper.  It showed what I understood to be true.  I then checked my recording of the conversation between me and the creditor.  I often record my conversations as a standard practice.  In fact, my phone is set to record all conversations automatically.  This way if I make errors on my notes, I can verify them, then erase the recording.  So there is nothing crooked or deceptive involved here - just trying to keep my records straight.  The recording gave me the same information - what was wrong with this picture?

I called to check with the creditor to verify what had happened.  As I got past the introductory greetings the system said I had paid $20 less than what my bank account showed - very strange.  I was also informed that the call would be recorded for “quality assurance.” So anyway, I talked to the customer service rep.  He said the twenty dollars was a fee for doing the transaction over the phone.  I told him I was not informed about this, and that my recording of the conversation verified this.  That is when he got VERY quiet.  He asked if this conversation was being recorded.  I stated yes, it was, and that I always do this so I can go over my notes to correct errors so I don’t make mistakes.

I then asked why I was not told about the fee, he then stated he WOULD NOT TALK on a line that was being recorded.  Now remember, I was told that THEY were going to record the conversation.  Why is it that they can record the conversation and I can’t?  It doesn’t seem right, or legal, for them to do this. I am living in a “one party state,”  which means that if one person in the conversation knows about the recording it is legal.  He requested that I turn off the recording BEFORE he would talk about my question.  I replied, “NO, What do you have to hide?”  This little tug-of-war continued for another 5 minutes or so before I gave up. At this point I was steaming, so I told him to remember this phrase “Customer Service,” I then thanked him for being so unhelpful and told him to have a nice day. (Always be nice to the other person, even if they are being a jerk…)

It seems really strange that some companies (and individuals) are not willing to play by the same rules they have forced upon you.  All I needed was some customer service, nothing more.  I was also very displeased with the fact that they did not tell me about a twenty dollar pay by phone fee.  I remember when companies would tell you the truth about what you were being charged. There was a time when people were straight shooters and were true to their word - I guees that day is gone.

Ok, I’ll shut up now….

I found these on YouTube and just had to give the links to them….

(funny) Customer Service Video on YouTube from spricket24

(serious) Customer Service Video on YouTube from wlwttv

(serious) Customer Service Nightmares Video on YouTube from wbal

It has come to my attention that selling is not an art, it is insanity!

I remember trying to sell candy bars and albums in Band and Choir in High School.  The candy bars should have been an easy sell, but at $1.00 each during the early 70s, people looked at you funny and said they were going to go buy a Hershey bar.  Never mind the fact that it was going to a worthy cause, not to mention it helped to keep the property taxes down (the money would have to come from somewhere).  The albums were another story.  Here I was offering an item that, unless you were a music lover, friend or family member, you didn’t REALLY want or need.

That’s the thing - the majority of sales should be for things people have a want or need for.  Instead, a seller must help the buyer see their need for the product.  Most of the time it is like selling ice water to someone who lives in a polar region.  They nod approvingly as you spill your guts out, instead of saying a polite, “no thank you,” to you.  If the item was really what the person wanted, they would have gotten it at Wal-Mart or on eBay.

Times have changed.  We used to go to the store for an item.  Now we check to see if it is online and what the online stores (who have little or no overhead), are selling the item for.  The local merchants are forced to take a very low profit margin just to get the sale.  Then we have the gall to complain when Computer Discount Place (ficticious name), goes out of business.  Get real, folks.  If the price on a product that is local is only a few dollars more, buy it.  You may save someone’s job. (If you work for their supplier, you may save your own!)

Back to the original course I was on…I used to sell on eBay.  Being an eBay seller can be very interesting.  You have people that want you to sell for one-third of your asking price.  SURE THING! I really want to sell this to you and lose money.  That is what I am in business for!  You also have the occasional seller that sends you junk and expects that you won’t demand a refund.  I had one guy that took 2 months to refund my money - when I REALLY needed it.  Then there are the majority of folks on eBay that are awesome, they make buying and selling easy and great. Overall, I really did enjoy my time being a PowerSeller - despite the occasional headache.

I am now doing some Internet marketing.  This is a different sales world.  You must meet with the approval of your audience, Google, Yahoo, bing, and those that are buying your products.  There are lots and lots of little do’s and dont’s, some are clearly written and some are only given out by word of mouth from the experienced marketers.  I came into this stuff pretty naive, I thought that with the Internet, things would not be as complicated as with other sales I had experienced.  Not so.  The Internet is STILL growing and changing.  The rules are in motion to keep up with what Society is expecting of the Internet and its population.  What was acceptable a year ago may not be alright today, but tomorrow those rules may be null and void - go figure.  I just hope that I get good at Internet marketing before I lose all my hair….

Ok, I will shut up now.  Have a nice day!

Have you ever met someone who just can’t get a clue that they shouldn’t mess with certain things in life?

We are not ALL experts in ALL things.  The last time I checked, there was only ONE perfect being that lived on the planet, and He has not, to my knowlege, passed on ALL His knowlege to any one person.  So there, those that have “arrived” and think they are smarter than everyone else, you have not become all-knowing…

I know that I personally try to solve all my problems and never think once that I MIGHT need some help.  That is, until my entire house of cards falls to the floor - OOPS!

We all need to occasionally look at ourselves in the mirror and discover that we are only human beings, and as such, we only know a limited amount.  I believe I read somewhere that we only use 5 to 10 percent of our brain’s capacity.  That means there is a LOT of unused grey matter up there.  We are so bombarded my the media and the information available to us that we rarely stop to smell the roses, or take time to look at anything beautiful. It is a shame.

I was told several years ago that I had a life-threatening disease - diabetes.  This is not something you play around with unless you really want to die.  One thing that was covered in the education class was that high blood pressure and heart disease follow along with this illness.  The instructor suggested that we slow down and occasionally stop and enjoy the flowers to lower our blood pressure - not bad advice.

Yesterday evening I was at my local church (yes, I am one of THOSE guys), and we were watching a movie about a man who had a wife with Alzheimer’s disease.  He kept trying to do everything to please everybody and the load of responsibility for his business, his wife’s health and his family was wearing him out.  A friend told him that you can’t solve all the problems and be everywhere all the time, that is God’s job.

Whether you have spiritual beliefs or not, you can NEVER do it all.  Do what you can, then leave the rest for others to do.  Don’t overload yourself.

That’s it for my mini-sermon, I’ll shut up now.

Have a great day!

Crabby

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Did you ever notice how some people are in a HUGE hurry to get EVERYWHERE?  I could understand it if hurrying would somehow solve a problem, but last time I checked, you can’t warp time or space.  I took my son to day camp this week and I saw a lot of people that weren’t late driving 30 MPH in a 10 MPH zone.  This was right by the campsite, so they weren’t going to gain much by driving so fast.  Let me explain:  If you live an 60 miles from your destination, you will have to travel at 90 to get there in 45 minutes.  The math is pretty simple on this one, yet I see people that are less than 15 minutes from their destination trying to trim 7.5 minutes off the trip.  To do that, you must DOUBLE your speed.  Most police officers (and most drivers) don’t think a lot about someone in a 75 MPH zone driving 80.  Unfortunately, I don’t know any officers that will say it is OK to drive 150 MPH, even if you have a medical emergency.

The point here is this - plan ahead!  Leave early or accept the fact that you will be late, period.  There is no sense in endangering your life and the lives of others to prove that you should be driving in NASCAR.  The car is NOT a time machine, and you can’t change the laws of space and time (at least if your vehicle is like my clunker).  A 10 mile trip will still be 10 miles.

Alright, I will stop my ranting and tell my wife why I am late to meet her, AGAIN!!

I ORIGINALLY wrote this on the 8th of July - my apologies - I put it in the wrong spot in this template and I couldn’t get it right without re-posting it. So here it is - Late!

I love holidays.  I really enjoy the time off with my family and friends.  I also have a great time getting to do things that I don’t normally get to do.  This is the positive part of any holiday, and of any celebration.

What I don’t like is what some people do on these wonderful days.  It appears that they leave the manners that Mom and Dad taught them at home for the day.

I went to a fireworks display during the holiday, and it was awesome!  The display was really great - even though it was only 20 minutes long.  My family, and especially my kids, had a great time.  We arrived about fifteen minutes before the display and  were really happy that we found a vacant picnic table.  The first thing I noticed is that the local symphony orchestra was playing on one side of the park, while one vendor that were selling barbeque and sandwiches had his or her PA system blaring some rock music.  It was obvious the person was wanting to sell the food, but come on, they didn’t have to be so rude.  I enjoy rock as much as anyone, but half the volume would have given folks a choice in music for the evening.

Once the fireworks started, the vendor’s PA finally was shut down.  They just couldn’t compete with the main event.  All went well as each firework was launched high into the sky.  It was really great.  Then it was time to leave.

As we began to exit the park, I couldn’t help but notice the massive amount of trash and litter items left behind by the spectators.  There was trash all over the place - along with a number of GLASS beer bottles strewn all around the grounds.  Glass containers were a item that were requested to NOT be present.  One thing I was taught as a kid, “when you are a guest, obey the rules and clean up after yourself.”  I guess these folks thought that Mom was going to clean up after them.

Almost everyone at the event was shuttled from parking lots a few miles away to control the crowds and keep the congestion to a minimum.  It was about an hour before we could board our bus to leave.  You could hear a number of the people whining and complaining that the wait for the busses was too long.  Give me a break, folks.  You just got free parking, were driven to the display, got to see free fireworks, and are now getting a free ride back to your car, and you are complaining?  Some people…

Just my .02 worth.

You can view my video of the Fourth on the Third at Fort Carson here - it is at the bottom of my videos page:

Fourth on the Third Video

Hope you enjoy!

Crabby