Archives March 2008

I keep forgetting that I wanted to post something else regarding my experience at Chico’s while shopping with my mom and Ali.  Evidently Chico’s is a very popular store and I think part of the reason is an incredibly simple but brilliant plan.  They have their own unique sizing system that only goes from 1 to 4.  So if you are a fatty whom normally squeezes into a size 18 in a normal store, at Chico’s you would be a size 3 or 4.  It is amazingly brilliant and plays upon the oldest trick in the book, make something seem much better than it is.  For example when a store raise it’s prices 30% but offers amazing 25% discounts! What a deal, saving 25% is nothing to sneeze at!  Similarly, why would I shop in a store where I would have to be relegated to wearing clothes with numbers in the upper teens when at Chico’s I can wear a nice and tidy single digit number?  Brilliant I tell you. Preying upon the weak human mind combined with a nation full of gluttonous hippos equates to big money.

The alternative silica cat litter experiment is an official failure.  Ali said she almost passed out from the strong ammonia smell when she went in the utility room yesterday.  They just piss too much, plain and simple.  I also put down a bowl of  conventional hard cat food this morning along with the wet food.  I am sick of Spook looking like she just got off the boat from Ethiopia.  Her dramatic weight loss seemed to correspond exactly with when we switched food.  I am hoping getting some more carbs back into her diet will make her look less skeleton-like. 

Back in the summer I bought a few Scoobas at a discounted rate and resold them on ebay to make a few bucks, very few.  People do this all the time on ebay.  The purchaser then can register the unit under their name and they will be covered by the manufacturer one year warranty.  Well I sold one back in August to some young kid in the military and it has turned into a huge fiasco.  He appears to be not too bright and to make matters worse he is being advised by his apparently not too bright father.  In a nutshell, the kid broke the handle of the Scooba, somehow figured I was responsible for it, tried to contact me once via email,  which I never got and then decided he would file a grievance with paypal even though it was way past the time period that he could do so.  When I saw the notice from paypal I contacted the guy and asked why he would file a grievance on something he purchased months ago.  Well the email exhange that follows picks up about there.  If you want to follow chronologically, start at the bottom. My stuff is in blue. After the exchange I sent the kid one more email with a link that would allow him to buy a replacement tank for the Scooba for $29 bucks since he was unwilling/unable to grasp the concept of getting it repaired under warranty.

Ok I am done with you.

From: [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 7:45 PM
To: Shawn Duffey
Subject: RE: Why

actually you are no help at all, you just told me to commit fraud which is a misdemeanor, and since I don’t lie either I feel i should report you.  How you like that for a threat.  I know howe to open a handle so if you were worth a damn you would help uphold your obligation as a good guy, guess that ain’t so though so YES I will have to contact ebay and tell them the facts.  PS, I thought about not sending this but I just couldn’t help myself

Subject: RE: Why
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 19:45:26 -0500
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

You aren’t very good at following instructions are you? Which is why you probably broke that handle in the first place. 

Go to irobot.com and register your Scooba there. If you are asked where you bought it from enter Irobot (which is where it is from) or even ebay.  The unit has never been registered before, Irobot does not ask to see a receipt from where you bought it.  After you have registered the Scooba follow the support links and then email support.  It is important that YOU register the robot so if you have any other issues you can get them handled.

Please understand that I have zero obligation to do anything at this point from a paypal or ebay perspective since you have waited so long to address this. I am only trying to help you out.  If I see one more threat I am done helping.

From: [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 4:53 PM
To: Shawn Duffey; Ski SFC; dad david
Subject: RE: Why

Sir, this is not a threat just a fact in case your filter deletes my email again.  If I don’t get a fast response I will contact paypal and ebay again.  I just got back to my apt after another 2 month mission away and contacted IROBOT.  They said the unit is not under a warrenty for me because I bought it from you (this is what I said to you in the first place).  Now I still have a alomst 500 dollar brand new paperweight and I am running out of time for this.  Tomorrow I will be in Illinois for a week and then back here.  I will be able to mail it in to whoever to get repaired or you if you have to send it in but I would greatly appreciate it if it gets resolved with positive results for me.  Please let me know as soon as possible.

Subject: RE: Why
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 06:12:36 -0500
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

I never received your email.  If I would have received it I would have responded.  Irobot doesn’t care who bought it, they care who registers the unit.  More than likely your email got nailed by my spam filters, it happens to hotmail addresses all the time.

From: [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 6:43 PM
To: Shawn Duffey; Ski SFC
Subject: RE: Why

I got it, ain’t there right now to do it and like I said, the manual says ORIGINAL PURCHASER and I believe you are the one that bought it from the company so I DON’T APPREICAITE YOU SAYING YOU NEVER GOT THE MAIL,  that’s why I save them.  PayPal woundn’t have had to be involved if I got a reply.  Thanks for your assitance.

Subject: RE: Why
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 21:19:12 -0500
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

I never received your email in December, for whatever reason.  All you do to get it fixed is contact Irobot.  Give them the serial number and the date you purchased it and it will be repaired or replaced under warranty free of charge.  If you looked at your manual it would have told you exactly what to do if there was a problem. I don’t appreciate you filing a false grievance in Paypal when I did nothing wrong.

Go to irobot.com and follow the customer service links.

From: [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 8:10 PM
To: Shawn Duffey; Ski SFC
Subject: RE: Why

First of all thanks for finally replying to me after I sent you an email in December asking what to do (see below).  There are limited ways to get PayPal to deal with a situation according to what I found for assistance from them when the seller refuses to respond to a customer.  This was the way I was told to try it to get results.  If you read the email the 500 dollar product was only used 10 times or less, I DID NOT PLAN ON WASTING THAT MUCH MONEY ON A 10 USE ITEM.  I purchased it with the intention of using it for a while and when I got back it wouldn’t open therefore it was a 500 dollar paperweight.  As I asked in the original email, can you help with this or what can I do to get it repared or replaced. The warrenty says “original purchaser”.  I believe that is you.  Please reply back with assistance as soon as possible.  I am currently not at home again, this time on a two month+ deployment.  Thanks in advance hopefully…

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: RE: Message from eBay Member Regarding Item #120155967247
Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:18:06 -0500Sir,  My father is an avid buyer and seller on ebay and he says this is the way to go about this situation.  Please let me know if it is or isn’t and what to do either way.  As you can see I bought the item from you a few months ago and used it about 10 times.  During the past three months the Army had me in the states and when I returned yesterday I went to open the Scooba to use it and the handle broke completely off.  Now obviously I can’t use it at all.  What can I do to resolve this problem to get it fixed under warrenty or however I have to.

---

Subject: Why
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 18:20:57 -0500
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Why would you be filing a paypal dispute on an item that was brand new that you bought back in August??

I don’t think I will even have to fight Ali on this one.  Check in on the pooch from work!

Not much to say.  I guess today will decide if Hilary is dead in her presidential run.  I think it is a foregone conclusion that she is.  People are seeing Obama as a square peg that doesn’t fit in a round hole and we like that.

The Naples city council just approved a smoking ban at the public beach areas.  The change is supposed to take effect in April.  They say that a big part of why they are banning it is because cigarette butts make up the majority of the litter found on beaches.  The thing is, they already have littering laws in effect that aren’t enforced, how do they expect to enforce a no smoking law?  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t smoke, I don’t like being around people smoking yet even I feel like this is local government overstepping their boundaries.  It is an outdoor environment after all.  I know Ali applauds this move as she can’t stand being around cigarette smoke in any circumstances.  Although on a personal level I would like to not have people smoking by me at the beach, the logical side of me says that taking that right away crosses the line.  I mean hell I would like to not have people blaring loud techno, fat women in bikinis and little kids running by me kicking sand in my face too.  But I realize that you can’t sterilize the world, as much as one may like to at times.

Not feeling chatty otherwise so I will fall back on pictures of fat people.

So Saturday was my big test of the timing system.  I drug myself out of bed around 4 am or so.  We decided to take the van so Nicki could come along and hang out in the back of it.  Even though it was 5:15 when we pulled out, I managed to get a big laugh out of Ali as I went to adjust the rear view mirror and have it fall off in my hand.  She also found it funny how the radio has developed a mind of it’s own.  As we drove down the road the volume would range up and down without any interaction from me.  I told Ali I was controlling it with my mind. 

We were a bit worried when we first got there as we didn’t see anybody around.  After about 15 minutes we finally saw some volunteers and found out where the race was supposed to finish at.  Setting up all the equipment took a bit longer than I expected.  To get power out for the timing equipment we had to run an extension cord up and over the registration area, tying it off around a security camera, a palm tree, across the ladders used to create the finish line and down to me.  Being my first time setting up at a live race it took a bit of time to figure out what should go where.  Early on I got the wireless network up and got Ali set up with a laptop by registration so she could enter “day of” runners.  I got the equipment up and ran a few quick tests with my 3 test chips that were successful.  We handed out those 3 chips to 3 runners we knew and we were all set to go.

I walked down to the start of the race and started the timer on my watch on the GO, to sync up with timing box.  I walk back and patiently wait for our first test runner to come through the line.  Somewhere around 25 minutes she turned the corner and headed for the line.  As she crossed I was anxiously awaiting the confirmation BEEP and her time popping up on the screen.  My heart sank as NOTHING happened, no beep, no time….. wtf….

I immediately went over and got the chip from her and read it on the RFID scanner.  It showed it expired on 2/22 which would explain why it wouldn’t read, however, the chip read just fine during my pre-race test, strange.  Ok well hopefully it was just a fluke, I’m sure the next two will register just fine.  The other two runners cross the line pretty close to one another and once AGAIN I get nothing! Shit!  I was pissed.  It didn’t make any sense.  In every test I had done up to this point I never had a problem with a chip read. of course when it matters it fails.  Then one of the club members working the finish line saw that one of the power cords looked like it was unplugged.  I looked and saw that the detachable cord that goes into the power brick for the timing box was UNPLUGGED! Earlier I had moved one of the laptops around and in the process I must have bumped the cord, which wasn’t in tight enough, and unplugged it.  I was a bit annoyed that the monitoring program I was looking at gave no noticeable visual indicator that the timing box was off. Well at least it made sense now.  I powered the box back up and then in between runners crossing the finish I ran the chips through and they registered just fine. Son of a bitch.  The rest of the race I was kicking myself mentally about the stupidity of the incident.  I should have had the ac adapter under the table, out of harms way.  I also should have made sure the cord was securely attached to the brick. Oh well, there was nothing I could do about it now.  It was a good practice to see how the whole deal would go.  Ali got some insight on how things need to change to facilitate getting runners into the computer cleanly in the hectic registration table environment. 

During the time period between the race start and the first runners coming through, I quickly took Nicki out to do her business.  She dropped a number two.  I used my plastic grocery bag to pick it up but was sloppy with my aim and got some dog crap on the outside of the bag.  I needed to find a trash can to put it in.  I walked over to the shopping center next to the race.  This is an ultra-ritzy shopping plaza.  As I turned the corner I was greeted by beautiful tile walkways that looked like they belonged inside a mansion instead of being trampled by shoppers.  In the middle of the beautiful tile were a line of pristine, spotless stainless steel trash receptacles that looked like works of art.  I felt strange irony tossing a bag of dog shit into one of them.

We packed up all the equipment and were out of there by 9:30 or so, not too bad.  Once we got home we unloaded the van and then I started right into a few chores.  I didn’t really have anything major on the docket for the rest of the weekend.  Late in the afternoon after Ali took a nap, we headed for the track for her to do a run.  Since I just ran a 5k the day before I didn’t feel it was smart to push it and run again the next day although I almost felt like I could have.  So instead I roller bladed while she ran.  Ali ran her own 5k.  She wanted to try to get ready for the Treasure  Run this upcoming weekend, a grueling back and forth run over the highest bridge in Lee County.  It turns out she isn’t going to be running it anyway.  She had some Phi Mu lunch thing scheduled for the same day, too bad.  Oh well I guess I am running it solo. It’s going to be hot (doesn’t start until 9:30) and hard.

Sunday was extremely laid back.  I figured once the fence project starts it will be tons of ass busting work for quite a few weekends so I better enjoy calm while I can.  In the span of maybe an hour and a half I got almost all of what I wanted to done.  The rest of the day we enjoyed the glorious weather and actually spent some time just laying out by the pool, a rarity.  Later that night we watched the last Indiana Jones flick.  I like the third one a lot, almost as much as the first.

Filling out the permit to build a fence is a royal pain in the ass.  You have to fill out several forms as well as two copies of the survey with the fence drawn in and then include a copy of your warranty deed, drivers license and have the form notarized.  I can see why people just blow permitting off.

We got some good news from our accountant this weekend, we are getting a ton back from the IRS, more than we ever have before.  It was a pleasant surprise.  We didn’t know what to expect tax-wise since Ali became a consultant.  The benefit is there are a ton of things that can be used towards business expenses.

We had to get toner for our HP Color 2600N over the weekend.  The toner costs more than the printer.  I literally could save money by throwing out the printer and buying a new one as opposed to replacing all 4 cartridges at once, it’s such a scam.

I had such an annoying experience with Symantec last week regarding problems with Symantec Endpoint.  I called Wednesday afternoon looking to talk to someone.  I was told the wait was an hour or more and that someone can call me back in two hours.  Well two hours would have been 5 o’clock so they said they would call back Thursday morning.  Thursday morning came and went, no call.  I call back after lunch and ask where my call back was?  They apologize and say I will get a call later that afternoon, no call.  I call back Friday morning, livid.  I tell the phone traffic cop that I have been waiting to talk to someone since Wednesday afternoon and that it is ridiculous.  Without apologizing or acknowledging my complaint, the person drops me into the “live queue”.  After 45 minutes of anger I had to hang up because I had a meeting to go to.    So again after lunch I call back again and read the guy the riot act, again he wants to put me in the live queue.  I said “Hold, on!  I am not going back in the queue and waiting and hour” The guy said the queue was only 15 minutes long.  I told him that if I am hold for more than 15 minutes I cam calling back and raising holy hell.  An hour and 15 minutes later, a tech picks up the phone.  The first 10 minutes of my phone conversation was me ripping Symantec up and down about how stupid their policies were and how frustrated I was with them.  The tech had no answers for my complaint but instead wanted to move ahead working on my issues.  I was on the phone with the guy for a good hour.  A lot of times it felt like I knew the product almost as well as he did.  At the end of it all we came up with the general conclusion that many of my problems could be related to my upgrading from the old version as opposed to doing a fresh install.  So my latest plan is to uninstall the product and then try a fresh install once I add some RAM to the server.  I am so disgusted with Symantec right now.  I mean we pay a couple grand a year to them, what the hell for, bad support and bloated, resource swallowing software?

I saw this posted on John’s blog.  The cynic in me is skeptical if it is for real. It does however make me feel like my vocabulary needs work.