Author Archives: Carson

Cowboy Up, Link

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I just had a chance to checkout the first gameplay video from Zelda Twilight Princess. I am impressed. Realistic graphics, lots of time on horseback, new items and functionality, and some sweet looking gameplay. I’d say the extra wait will probably be worth it.

I’ve been pretty busy lately. Our Christmas trip started last Tuesday night when we headed out to Des Moines after work. We made it to Albion mid-afternoon Wednesday and started taking care of lots of wedding details – marriage license, photographer, florist, meeting with the priest, cake, reception – you get the idea. We also had Christmas with Amber’s parents and her dad’s family, plus a little wedding stuff included. All of her dad’s siblings got together to get us a Kitchenaid mixer (like this reconditioned unit on Amazon, only new). One of Amber’s aunts set up a Pampered Chef party just for us that I was pretty excited about (can you feel the excitement sarcasm?). Needless to say people were overly generous and we had to find a way to spend over $600 without buying any big ticket items like cookware or dishes because we already have some picked out at Bed Beth and Beyond. It was a little frustrating because we ended up buying a bunch of stuff we don’t really need instead of being able to apply that money to things we really wanted.

We were in Andover mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve for some time with my family. My parents decided to go for quantity and gave us tons of less expensive gifts which was fine with us. Of note are our new crockpot (the biggest), an old Beta video my mom had put on DVD, and a slideshow movie of my life from birth to 22 that my mom and sister weren’t quite able to finish because of old computers. Monday morning we got up early and made the trip back to Madison in 10.5 hours (fastest yet).

I decided to put part of my Christmas bonus towards a GPS unit so that Amber and I could start a new hobby – Geocaching. I did some research and really couldn’t decide what unit wanted. There are basically two brands to choose from – Garmin and Magellan (Magellan gets props for a cooler looking website). We finally found this Garmin bundle at Dick’s and it seemed like a really good deal (we got it for cheaper than the price on the website). For those who don’t know what Geocaching is and are too lazy to click the link, it’s a sort of large scale scavenger hunt in which players use GPS coordinates to find little treasures hidden all over the place. Each cache has a log book to sign, and some have small trade items/trinkets in them.

We decided to try our luck at Geocaching first in Albion. We put in five different Waypoints and spent a few hours looking. We found our first one without much trouble, but because of the snow on the ground and a lack of proper attire to be venturing into treelines and digging in the snow, we finished 1 for 5. We decided to try again in Andover, this time with my family along and had much better luck. In about 2 hours we found 5 of 5 caches and with any luck we got my parents and sister hooked on it. We haven’t had a chance to check out any caches around Madison, but it’s only a matter of time. I’ll try and get a few pictures up of our Andover adventures. I’ll also try to get back in some sort of posting routine. Until next time.

It’s Coming

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I know I’m late with this news, but I just finished watching the new trailer for The Da Vinci Code. I’ve been anticipating this movie since I first heard they were making it not long after I finished reading the book. I have to say a lot of it looks very cool, but some things in the trailer aren’t quite as I imagined them. I’m not sure what I thought a cryptex would look like, but I don’t think that was quite it. Still, I think the casting looks superb, and I trust Ron Howard to do it justice.

We’re probably going to see King Kong this weekend. I’m interested to see if it lives up to all the hype; I’ve only read one review that wasn’t absolutely raving. I’ve also got to wrap up my Christmas shopping, and Amber and I will probably exchange at least some of our gifts. Then there’s just two days of work and a lot of driving, wedding stuff, Christmas gathering, and more driving before we’re back in Madison late on the 26th.

More Revolution Specs?

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IGN has gotten some developers to spill the beans on Revolution and it’s hardware. I think it’s a little early to know if this info will remain accurate until launch, but it’s interesting. I knew that Nintendo was aiming for a lower target than Microsoft and Sony, but this is the first news of any kind that the price could realistically be lower than people think.

Software houses we spoke with also waxed on the immediate advantage to Nintendo’s approach with Revolution, which is, of course, system price. Every developer was in agreement that Revolution should launch with a price tag of $149 or lower. Some speculated that based on the tech, a $99 price point would not be out of the question.

That’s pretty crazy, considering the Nintendo DS is currently $129.99. I’ll remain skeptical until closer to launch.

Gotta Love the Holidays

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It’s a pretty busy time, but it’s one I really enjoy. My parents along with my sister and her boyfriend (who I finally got to meet) were up for Thanksgiving. We sort of hosted, and I think we did pretty well with it. I gave them a (limited) tour of Madison through the snow and slick streets. We also went bowling and saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The movie was pretty good, but there is no way Dumbledore would ever grab a student like that. I think Michael Gambon really missed the target with his portrayal of the headmaster this time around. A few other changes for the movie were mildly annoying, but overall it was really good. It was also nice to talk to my family for more than 30 minutes on the phone.

My bowling team has been doing pretty well lately. After the first seven or eight weeks, they reset the standings and since then we’re right around .500. My average is still going up (six pins in the last two weeks) and we’re third in our division. Bowling in the league is fun, but I think it’s a little too competitive for my taste, at least with my current performance where it is. I’ll probably try to get into a mixed league next summer.

So after losing every single coach’s challenge for the entire season, the Chiefs finally won not one but two today, one overturning a crucial play that helped them beat the Broncos. My three Chiefs fantasy players all did pretty well too which was nice, even if the rest of my players were lousy today. Oh, and the Bears handed Green Bay one of their bigger losses of the season. I am highly amused with the Packer’s total suckage this season, especially since I’m now surrounded by fans of The Pack.

I’m about 1/3 done with my Christmas and birthday shopping (both my mom and sister have birthdays within a week of Christmas). I’m hoping to have the rest done by the end of the week. I just have to figure out how to keep Amber’s hidden away until I can wrap them. This apartment isn’t that big. It is big enough, however, for a 6 foot Christmas tree. We went and got ours yesterday at a tree farm north of Madison. The place was OK, but I’ve been totally spoiled by Prairie Pines. It took quite a while but we eventually got it inside and decorated. It’s twinkling away as I speak (although it was an adventure finding some lights that did what we wanted).

I really think Amber and I could get into GeoCaching. It’s something I heard about on TWiT while I was listening at work this week. It sounds like lots of fun. I need to do some research on GPS units…

Edit: Here’s our tree. Happy Holidays!

Not too shabby.

Fighting Fax Spam

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I guess I didn’t realize that junk faxes were a major problem, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not really any different from bulk mail or spam email. The Washington Post has a pretty humorous article about the ways people battle the junk fax.

For many home fax machine owners, the junk-fax pandemic has grown into an annoyance equivalent to telemarketing at its worst — before the National Do Not Call Registry struck a blow for privacy and sanity. These dastardly faxed commercials typically break federal law. Like spammers, junk-faxers broadcast the same message to millions of fax machine numbers at once. And more often than not, the faxes promote scams not worth the paper they’re printed on.

I particularly like the lady who taped sheets of paper together to form a loop of paper for a continuous dark fax. It’s too bad there’s not a way to cost email spammers money for their sins.

A Lesson in Customer Service – What Not to Do

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  • Don’t misspeak when giving the customer an estimate of the work to be done to his car leaving him to speculate if the estimate was even for the correct vehicle or price.
  • Don’t continue to give estimates of when the work will be done when it becomes clear that you will be wrong.
  • Don’t get “too busy” to call the customer and tell him why his car isn’t ready.
  • Don’t believe you shouldn’t call the customer to tell him about his car because if he wants a status update he will call and ask.
  • Don’t run around all over the city for a day and half looking for a part that no one carries and not tell your customer it’s a big cause of the delay.
  • Don’t tell your customer it is OK for him to be angry if you don’t mean it.
  • Don’t imply that you don’t care if your customer is angry because your shop is already busier than it can handle. You’re not helping your case.
  • Don’t assume your customer will be satisfied when the total price tag comes in under the estimate when you have given him absolutely no details along the way about why the work is taking so long.
  • And for God’s sake, DON’T get angry and start cussing when the customer still isn’t happy just because you came in under the estimate (which was already in question) and then start a debate about what is considered cussing. (For the record, I would not consider “going to hell and back” to be cussing, however dropping the F-Bomb in front of a customer is never appropriate no matter how angry you or he may be.)

I’d like to clarify a few things without getting too lengthy. All of these guidelines were broken by McDermott’s Service and Repair when I took my car to them to replace my head gasket and fix an oil leak. Once I was finally able to talk to the mechanic actually doing the work (Troy), I was given most of the answers I was looking for and I felt mildly better. He told me that once he opened up my engine he found a lot of little oddities from previous work that required a lot of tweaking and extra parts to fix. One rubber fitting was mashed back into place and horribly deformed, etc. While unfortunate, those things are not unreasonable. I understand that these things happen. I realize it takes time to get parts from other vendors. These things are all acceptable to me.

However, the lack of information from Debbie who answers the phones and makes the estimates was maddening. I finally went to pick up my car this evening. When I started to convey my dissatisfaction to Paul, another guy who works there, he was mildly sympathetic, but tones quickly changed and he proceeded to piss me off even more. I was told that they had been spending a lot of time looking for a part that no one seemed to carry. They were finally able to find one and got the work done fairly quickly from there. Still, Paul didn’t seem to mind that I was pissed off and even got angry with me when I wasn’t overjoyed when the price was less than the estimate.

It’s probably too early to tell, but I believe they probably did some very fine work. Troy seemed very knowledgeable in the 10 minutes or so that I talked to him and this place was recommended by someone at Epic. I’m not even mad about the price, I think it was probably very fair for all the extra work they had to do but weren’t expecting. However, the complete lack of customer service gives me a great reason to never go back. You can get quality automotive work done at lots of places; the things that set one apart from others are the customer service and a fair deal. Paul getting angry enough to cuss in front of me is just ridiculous and Debbie’s apologies and assurances that she really does know what she’s doing are not enough to salvage this experience for me. I believe it was an honest mistake on her part, but her apologies just weren’t worth much when stacked up with all the rest. I won’t be back, and I assured them I would be sharing my story (both good parts and bad) with the rest of Epic (at 2,000+ strong with lots of friends and family) before the week is over.

Revolution Details on the Horizon (Really)

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Nintendo plans to reveal the Revolution in all it’s glory at a press briefing before next year’s E3.

The Mario factory sent out a “save the date” e-mail this morning saying that in “a mere 165 days to go (give or take)” it will reveal “all the incredible details about Nintendo’s upcoming games and hardware, including our next home console, code-named Revolution.”

I was really hoping it would be more like March, but I can deal with that. I’m hoping that they’re trying to keep the final details under wraps as long as possible and that the console will launch shortly thereafter, but I could probably handle it if it ended up being a little later as long as it’s not too far off.

Some New Revolution Details?

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Well, Revolution Report thinks it’s a possibility based on this patent filed by Nintendo. It definitely seems that this could be a big hint as to what Revolution’s Virtual Console will offer. The only thing that worries me at all is there is “no dedicated hardware for Virtual Game titles.” Does that mean that there will be nothing built into the unit to store the games on? Or does that simply mean that there will be no dedicated processing power for those games alone? Interesting nonetheless.

The Bad and the Good

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It’s been a strange day. It started out with me getting a ride to work from Chris again (more on this in a minute), followed by 4 long boring hours of Prelude Administration. I ate a quick lunch then walked 10 minutes back to my office. We’re moving to a new building on Monday and since I’m taking Friday off, I needed to pack up my stuff. I got everything organized and onto my moving cart and ended up leaving around 3PM because Chris decided he was ready to duck out early. All in all, not too bad for a work day, but that’s not the annoying part.

About 3 weeks ago I took my car to Jiffy Lube for an oil change. I already knew I had an oil leak that was getting progressively worse and they confirmed it was something they could not fix. I started trying to figure out where I could take it and got some recommendations via the Classifieds at work. A few calls and my options ranged from estimates of $600 to just under $1,000 to fix the problem. I ended up going with the cheapest place, although it wasn’t my first choice simply because of the strong recommendations for a one-man shop not far from here that wasn’t much more.

I think I made a huge mistake. First, the cost was doubled because the problem was worse than originally thought. I was told it should be done Monday or possibly Tuesday. Tuesday came and went and I was informed that it wasn’t done yet. So I called again today during a break from class and was informed they were waiting on a part. They were expecting it anytime and my car should be ready today. Ok, not so bad. But there’s more…

I’d been home for about 15 minutes when I get a call.

I’m calling to let you know that we just got your parts from the shop. I’ve got some bad news for you. It’ll take three more hours to get it done. It won’t be done today.

Keep in mind that tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I asked when they were open next, already knowing the answer was going to be Monday. I responded by saying that was pretty much unacceptable, that my family was coming into town and I needed my car. She offered to “hook me up with a rental” which I considered for about thirty seconds before she said they would only pay for half. Half of $25 bucks a day for five days? I don’t think so. Not when I’m already paying out the nose for this repair.

So lets recap. I’ve been given an estimate on the cost; it’s doubled. I’ve been given two estimates on when it would be done and both have come and gone. I’ll have been without the car for a week and a half. Not to mention the costs involved make less and less sense the more I think about it. One part plus installation = $600. Two parts doubles the cost. Wait a minute…I can understand doubling the cost of the part, but once they take the engine apart to install the first one, they don’t have to take it apart again. Why should the cost of labor double as well? That makes no sense. Let’s just say they’ll have a hard time convincing me to pay their full price when I go to pick it up on Monday (assuming it’s even ready). I wonder how they’ll react when I let them know that I work in a company of over 2000 employees, the majority of which will read the story of my experience with McDermott’s Service and Repair.

The day wasn’t all bad. My family got here before bowling and it was good to see them, although it was a little tainted from the events with the car. League also went pretty well tonight. Although my first and third games were nothing special, my second was a 196, my new high score and the best so far for our team. Only 2 open frames and 7 strikes (4 of them consecutive). Let’s just say I was shocked.

Lost was also pretty good tonight. I finally understand where Ana Lucia is coming from, but I still don’t think her past gives her an excuse to be such a bitch. They’ve got a long ways to go before they get me to like her.