Jeff James

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One of my closest friends throughout my life has been my cousin Jeff James.  I’m only three months older than he is which means we’ve been hanging out for close to 40 years.  Even though we’ve lived hundreds of miles apart most of that time we’ve been to the beach together many times (one trip when we were about 20 was particularly memorable for reasons I won’t go into to protect both of our careers), and hung out at his house or mine whenever we could.  When I moved to Winston-Salem a couple of years ago I was looking forward to seeing much more of my extended family, and in particular my two cousins closest in age to me, Jeff and Wendy.  Unfortunately I haven’t seen as much of Jeff as I’d have liked but there’s a very good reason for that, and it requires a little background.

When we first got out of high school in the mid-80s all of us went to college.  After a couple of years Jeff decided that school wasn’t for him so he dropped out and went to work.  He was married pretty soon after leaving school and he and his lovely wife Debbie had their daughter Courtney not long afterwards.  So while I was doing the fraternity party thing Jeff was working and starting a family.

A few years ago Jeff decided that he was ready to try school again.  He enrolled at High Point University and effectively lost the concept of free time.  He’s been in school year-round since then, taking a couple of classes each term, all while working full time at BB&T, fulfilling his role as husband and father (Courtney’s a senior in high school this year) and playing in a band. 

Last week Jeff finished his final class and he will be graduating with honors.  If my memory serves me correctly, which isn’t guaranteed due in large part to my brain-frying fraternity activities 20 years ago, Jeff had only one grade below an "A" so his GPA is probably higher than I can count.  To say it is an impressive accomplishment would be doing Jeff an extreme disservice.

Getting through college when you’re 21, have no real responsibilities outside of school and have the energy that comes with being young and not yet beaten into submission by your children, is what I would consider a moderately impressive accomplishment.  Doing it when you’re working full time, haven’t cracked a book in over 15 years and have all the responsibilities that come with being married with children is an accomplishment that few of us can claim.  To do it and graduate with honors is simply one of the great achievements I’ve ever witnessed.

We had a little celebration for Jeff after our family Christmas gathering last Saturday and Debbie threw a surprise party for him on Sunday so that he could celebrate with some of his co-workers and friends.  It was great to see his efforts and accomplishments celebrated, and I hope he realized how proud everyone was of him and how pleased everyone was for him. 

Jeff has always been a great guy, kind and level headed, loyal to his family and friends, always there when needed.  He made some tremendous sacrifices to get his degree (so did Debbie and Courtney by the way) and my hope is that he will realize great rewards for that sacrifice.  He’s certainly earned them.

Nothing I write can do Jeff justice, so just let me end this by saying that I can’t remember ever feeling greater pride in a friend and I’m grateful that I’ve had 40 years to be graced by his presence in my life.  Now that he’s done with school I hope we’ll all be graced by his presence a whole lot more. 

In other words, it’s time to party big guy!

Blackmail Pics Part Deux

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Jonflame
In an effort to beat my cousins to the punch I’m going to show you what I meant by my predisposition to pastels in college.  On top of that I looked like I was about 12 when I was in college.  How the hell did I ever get a date?

Here’s another fairly bad picture of me to be found online:
Jonatconvergebig_1

It was during my "I wonder what I’d look like if I put on 15 pounds in six months and crop my hair" phase and was taken at ConvergeSouth in 05.  I look like some kind of deranged Chia pet. BTW, I’m the one on the left.  I wouldn’t want poor Roch to be cursed with anyone thinking he’s me.

Blackmail Pics

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JodyrussjasonwendychrismariaSee that picture to the left (click on it to bigify it if you want)?  Those are in order from left: my cousin Jody, my brother Russ, my cousin Jason, my cousin Wendy, my cousin Chris and sitting in the front is my cousin Maria.  I’m guessing the picture was taken in the early 80s (ya think?).

Love the hair!

You might wonder if I’m worried about retribution, but with a self portrait like this I’m not sure there’s anything they can do to me.  Oh wait, there are those pictures of me in college when I had a real predisposition to pastel colored shirts.

This could get ugly.

App State is Hot, Hot, Hot for a Couple of Reasons

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Appalachian State, about 90 miles from my house, repeated as Division 1-AA (or whatever they’re calling it these days) football champs last Friday so people around here are fairly well a-buzz about it.  Now I’ve found another reason that the Mountaineers should be proud: Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics fame was an undergrad there.  A commenter on Dubner’s post linked to the App State Hot, Hot, Hot video on Youtube, something for which they might not be so proud.

A couple of my cousins are App grads and in my book they’re even more esteemed than Dubner (what up Wendy and Jody).  I’ll have to ask them how they feel about Hot, Hot, Hot.

Book Me

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I’ve always thought that you could tell a lot about someone by what they read.  Well, if you want to know exactly how strange I really am all you need to do is look at my wish list for books this holiday season (in no particular order):

You Gotta Smell This Stench

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One of my favorite bloggers and a guy that I wish I could get together with more for lunch is Jeff Martin, aka Fecund Stench.  His Christmas wish list is a perfect example of why I love his writing.  Here’s the link and here’s the list:

To the following, I wish anything but the Joys of the Season:

  • Telemarketers – I’m sorry that you are poor and this is the best job you could get.  It’s still no excuse.
  • Banks – There may be a good one out there. If so,
    I apologize. But the conditions that bank employees and customers
    endure is inhuman.
  • Politicians – I could put all the good ones in a small closet with Howard Coble.
  • Rabid Liberals – You’re just not helping.
  • Rabid Conservatives – You’re just not helping.
  • Rabid Libertarians – You just want to legalize pot.  We get it.
  • Food Lion – Again, inhuman conditions for employees and patrons.
  • News & Record – One day when you are retired,
    I want someone to explain the editorial gestalt. I don’t get it. See,
    when I make a booboo, I apologize and get on with it. I don’t stand
    there quietly looking at the 800 Pound Gorilla in the room.
  • New Car Dealers – I pray there is a special place in Hell for you.
  • Property Developers – My hands ache to get a hold of you.
  • Jesus Freaks – Why is Jesus such a babe?  Would you not have fallen for an ugly man?  Or God forbid, a woman.  Wake up and smell the coffee.

Circuit City and Verizon

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When I was in Circuit City buying a new router today I walked past the Verizon Wireless kiosk which happens to be next to the cashiers at the front of the store.  I wanted a new case for my PDA so I grabbed it off a display tree and went to the register.  The clerk looked at my two items and said that he could handle the router purchase for me, but only the Verizon folks could sell me the PDA case. 

I looked over at the Verizon folks and saw one of them talking on the phone while he tried to assist a lady with her phone and the other talking on the phone while he processed the phone order he was working on.  Standing in something that could be loosely defined as a line, since there wasn’t really a "line starts here" place by the kiosk, were three people looking pretty pissed off as they waited for service.  Of course I bought my router and put the case back on the display tree.

The whole thing made no sense to me.  Why wouldn’t Verizon work out a deal with Circuit City to allow the Circuit City employees to process the purchase of peripherals?  I understand not letting them process the phones (i.e. contracts) but why not everything else (ear pieces, cases, pre-paid phones, etc.)?  They have to know that there will be times when their employees are busy helping customers get new phones, which is a long sales and paperwork process, and consequently there will be a long wait for someone who wants to make a simple peripheral purchase.  Verizon might get a lower margin on the peripheral sale if Circuit City processes it, but they could build that assumption into their contract negotiation with the store.  20% of something is still better than 100% of nothing.

And why would Circuit City create a situation that is potentially irksome to customers?   Believe me, when the clerk told me I could only buy the case from the Verizon guys my first inclination was to look at the clerk and say "Are you serious", and that’s what I did.  That gave him the opportunity to show me his surly "the holidays suck" side, and that’s what he did.  Consequently I’m ticked off at Circuit City, not Verizon.

The irony is that it’s probably the Verizon employees who really made the situation worse.  I took one look at them chatting on the phone with their girlfriends while working with customers and knew it was a minimum 45 minute wait to get service. I’m not waiting that long for a $20 case.  Unfortunately that is exactly the kind of service I’ve come to expect from Verizon so I wasn’t surprised, while on the other hand I expect Circuit City to be able to take my money for a simple purchase (I long ago gave up on looking to them for expert advice on anything they sell) so when they couldn’t meet my already minimal expectations I was really put out of sorts.

By the way, I was there at mid-day on a weekday.  Yes it’s the holiday season, but it really wasn’t very crowded at all.  Imagine what it will be like at 5:30 today and how much business Verizon could potentially lose and how many customers might show up at the cashier to be told they can’t be helped?

Fried Router and Google Desktop on Today’s Menu

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There are lots of pluses to self employment and/or working from home.  Not having to shave for days on end, wearing sweats and a t-shirt on a daily basis, showers-optional, etc.  On the other hand there are some definite negatives like bad-smell-syndrome and anything related to technology.

This morning my router was fried (me thinks it had something to do with the crackling I heard emanating from my power strip) so without the convenience of tech support it was off to the store to buy a new router.  The router that was fried was a Linksys Wireless G router that I purchased when the G standard had just been produced, I think around four years ago, and this morning as I was driving to Circuit City I had a vivid recall of the decidedly non-automated set up procedure for the old router.  In other words I remembered how painful an experience it was for your average non-tech-geek to install a wireless network.

I bought the next version Wireless G router (with speed and signal booster!) and ran back home.  I popped open the box and saw these magic words on a big red sticker: "RUN CD FIRST: Do not unplug any existing PC or Networking Equipment".  For once I followed instructions and two minutes later the router was up and running, the security settings were set up automatically without me having to re-learn all that crazy lingo (WEP, WAP, whatever) and my computer, which is the only one cabled to the router, had a nice internet connection. 

Next I was asked by the install program if I wanted to install other computers on the network.  When I clicked yes it asked if it was wired or wireless.  I clicked wireless and then it asked me if I could temporarily attach it by cable to the router for the install.  I said no and it then asked me if I had a USB flash drive.  I said yes and it prompted me to plug in the drive and then it installed a setup program and said all I needed to do was plug the drive into any other computer I wanted to install on the network and the program would automatically configure the computers for the network (assuming they’re all running Windows XP).  SWEET!

I went downstairs to Celeste’s office and kicked her off her computer so I could get it back on the network.  I plugged the flash drive into her USB port and then waited, and waited, and waited.  What the hell? So I pulled up Task Manager and saw her CPU at 100% usage.  I looked at what was running and noticed a butt-load of memory being chewed by Google Desktop and other Google Pack goodies.  I shut them off and she instantly went to 23% usage.  Hmm.

As soon as I turned off Google the Linksys install program launched and we had her online in about 60 seconds. When it was done loading and I’d confirmed her connection was good, and that she had a much stronger connection than she’d ever had with our old router, I uninstalled all of her Google stuff. 

All told my tech support job cost me about an 1 1/2 today, but the result is we seem to have a much stronger wireless network and I’m coming to believe that Google really wants to be like Microsoft.

I’d Be the First Voted Off the Island

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Last week Celeste and I were in San Francisco.  I was there to run an event for my client (Competitive Financial Intelligence, if you’re curious) and Celeste flew out later in the week. We stayed through Saturday, flying home on the Saturday night redeye, and in general we had a great time.  Unfortunately one event has me seriously questioning my decision making skills and my ability to survive outside my safe bubble of suburban tranquility.

On Saturday afternoon we were at Ghirardelli Square trying to decide what we would do before heading back to the hotel to collect our bags and head to the airport.  Celeste wanted to see the Victorian homes and we decided it might be a nice walk there and then we could catch a bus, trolley or cab from there to our hotel.  We’d gone a few blocks when it started raining pretty hard with a nice strong wind (gale) thrown into the mix. So we turned around and headed towards the trolley stop which we figured we could ride back to Union Square and do some store browsing before we went to the airport.  When we got to the trolley stop we saw an amazingly long line so I figured we could walk a ways and try to catch a cab…in the rain.  Brilliant!

So we started walking and were continuously passed by overflowing trolley’s and unavailable cabs. I had the forethought to spend $5 on a cheap umbrella before we left the waterfront, but it promptly succumbed to the wind and rendered itself useless.  So we walked, and we walked.  Alot of it uphill. All of it in clothes that weren’t exactly weatherproof. Eventually we decided we were far enough into the walk that we might as well go all the way, which means we arrived at our hotel in the early evening looking like a couple of wet rats.

Obviously I made a strategic error in deciding to walk.  We would have been much better served by going back to Fisherman’s Wharf and standing in line for the trolley or walking down to the Embarcadero where there was a taxi line.  But no, I had us walk uphill for a couple of miles through a driving rain, knowing that we had nowhere to change clothes before heading to the airport.  Decision making at its finest, and one more reason I’ll never even consider trying out for Survivor.

Bankers are Giving Lawyers a Run for Their Money

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I’m beginning to believe that bankers have supplanted ambulance-chasing lawyers as the slimiest sharkskin-suit-wearing industry in the country.  Actually, they may be in a tie with health insurers (see my post about that), but right now I’m thinking the bankers are in the lead.

Here’s what has my dander up today: When we got back from San Francisco we had a message from Chase saying we’re late on our last car payment.  This confused Celeste because we’ve been paying with autodrafts from our bank account for four years, or the entire lifespan of the car loan.  When she called Chase back they said that if we’d read the fine print of our loan we would have known that they don’t accept autodrafts for the last payment.  Okay, fine.  So Celeste asks the very unfriendly bank rep why we’re hearing about this only now that the payment is 90 days late and we’ve been put in collections?  The rep’s reply is that she can only handle payment, not answer customer service questions.

It gets better.  Celeste asks how much we owe.  The rep says she needs our bank information before she can answer any questions.  Huh?  After Celeste asks again the woman gives her the amount and they take care of the payment information, which by the way requires a $15 processing fee.  Huh?  (Celeste truly has a knack for getting the asshole reps).

Before she gets off the phone with the bank’s collection-dolt Celeste gets a customer service number, calls it and enters into banker-logic zone. The customer service rep asks her for our address to verify that he’s talking to the right person.  When she gives him the address he says that it is the wrong address.  Bingo, they never got our change of address when we moved two years ago, which probably explains why we didn’t get a late notice on the final payment.  Yet they were able to track us down for collection purposes.  Nice.  Eventually he’s able to confirm Celeste’s identity using other information and Celeste, who is absolutely fanatical about protecting our credit score, asks how we can get this cleared off our records.  After all we’ve never been late on a payment for the entire lifetime of the loan, and obviously there was a mix up with our change of address.  His answer was to give her a fax number to send a letter to and then wait seven days for their verdict.  Huh?

Here’s my problem.  The bank is probably within their rights, technically, to treat us like this but in the real world they are behaving reprehensibly.  We’d obviously been good customers for four years, but they’re treating us like criminals because of an honest mix up?  And who’s to say it’s our fault?  If they could track us down for collection couldn’t they have done the same for a courtesy call reminding us that an autodraft wouldn’t be accepted for our final payment?  Assholes. 

We’re not the only ones feeling this way about the banks.  Greensboro blogger David Hoggard has some thoughts about banks (he compares them unfavorably with payday lenders) and there’s a very good Frontline piece on the credit card industry that is enlightening to say the least.   It’s not just the credit card side of the industry that’s sullying its reputation; let’s not forget the banks’ investment branches involvement in the dotcom debacle.  With the loosening regulation of financial institutions I think things might get worse before they get better and ironically I think our best hope is, gag, the lawyers.  Hopefully we’ll get some class-action cases going that will have the bankers begging for re-regulation from that den of thieves otherwise known as Congress.

Oh, good Lord.