Marc's Musings Reality from Marc's point of view!

Of course, in my opinion, we should have in place a system where folks are re-tested every few years. The laws are *always* changing – those legislators have to justify their existence somehow – and are you really sure you know what the current thinking is on the correct way to handle a driving situation?

Even if your approach *is* the best, if it is unexpected as far as the other drivers are concerned then it is *you* who are the hazard.

I just finished reviewing the 2010 Driver’s license manual and got 100% on this (rather simple) test. I challenge you to do the same.

What do you do when a schoolbus has its amber lights flashing? What about its red lights? On a divided highway? I see people doing the wrong thing all the time, they are endangering EVERYBODY’s lives.

Posted under General, Opinions

When people speak about “corporate culture” it often seems like such an esoteric term.

But there is a certain reality to the way some companies deal with you that appears to be the manifestation of that esotery.

For instance, when I deal with Amazon.com or Sears or Wendy’s I get the sense that I’m getting something of a fair value for what I am paying and that the retailer is legitimately concerned that my experience is a satisfying one. They certainly clear a profit, but their focus seems to be much more on the transaction, satisfaction and their reputation than it is on the “making a buck” aspect of it. Hence, pretty much every time I deal with these businesses I come away satisfied that I have most likely received very good value for my money – at least as far as legitimate retail sales go.
Other business I favor include:
Applebees
Affordable Electric
Roto Router
Flushmate
Vonage
…There are many others that don’t come to mind immediately

On the other hand, there are some institutions out there who seem solely focused on separating you from as much money as possible for whatever product or service they provide. Every single transaction with them leaves me feeling … well … a little dirty if not abused. These are the companies that will send you marketing fliers advertising great promotional savings and nowhere can you find what the post-promotional price will be. Their rate increases manage to deftly outpace inflation and you can be sure are driven much more by what the market will bear than value for service. Every mailing I receive from these companies I scrutinize because I know I will find some new charge or limitation on my services that I need to be wary of.

Hence I try to avoid doing business with them as much as possible. If I’m forced to work with them I keep my eyes open for the first opportunity that I can move away to someone I trust more or someone I don’t even know at all since there is a chance they may be better.

The bad boys in this list for me include:
Ticketmaster – Not only can I never get the seats I want, but the final price I pay is always well above the actual seat price.
Comcast – They will eke every red cent they possibly can out of you for any service you have with them.
Bank of America – I briefly held a bank account and credit card with them until I realized that they LIVE to charge service fees for every possible interaction.
AT&T – Caps on internet service. Plus the fact that my worth to them as a customer dissolved when uverse was introduced.
Hooters – Seemed to pioneer the overpriced soft drink. I pay full price for a plate of tenders and fries cost extra? Really?
SprintPCS – I’m paying $10/month/phone for this mythical 4G service that I’ve seen maybe 5 times since I started with them. I have no choice due to the phone I’ve selected.
All Pizza delivery companies that charge “Delivery Fee” yet don’t give it to their delivery people – if any of the ones I deal with would drop that stupid fee, I’d use them excusively.
DirecTV – Have to keep calling them to get the price down to something reasonable, if you sign up for automatic payment, they draft the money immediately upon producing the bill and then tell you that the bill is for zero dollars. Weird.

There are, of course many, many others that hover somewhere in between which is to be expected. They walk that line between being inoffensive and just meeting expectations. I would say it’s a good thing that so many are in this middle ground. Of course there will always be exceptions where folks have bad interactions with a retailer on occasion. Maybe there was a computer glitch or maybe some manager was having a bad day, but if your day in and day out interactions are uneventful, I still score that as a win.

But there is true pleasure to be gained from dealing with a company or even an individual between whom an exchange will happen where both parties feel that they have received real value from their interaction.

Who are the good boys and the bad boys on your list? Who do you deal with where you just feel good and confident that you will get what you paid for?

Conversely, who do you deal with that always leaves you feeling kinda gross?

Posted under Opinions, Retail Experiences

Definitely a good laugh. The “problems” of the first world, even contrasted with those faced in the first world even 30 years ago, should make you roll your eyes.

When it’s a personal tragedy that your automatic garage door opener isn’t working, you *really* need to reevaluate your priorities. Hell, I still get a little giddy when I play with my power windows in my SAFE, QUIET, DEPENDABLE car. Which car will probably need a tire change in maybe another couple of years and will require me to manually tinker with its engine um.. never.

Posted under Affluenza, Amusing

I purchased this KVM after my TRENDnet TK-207K bit the dust after only 6 months of use.

I have to admit that I’m now happy for being forced to change. The TRENDnet was only about $23 from Amazon where this Syba weighed in at closer to $60. This is still a very good price for a fully functioning KVM.

The reasons I am happy are twofold:

The Syba uses native DVI ports so I no longer have to use any converters or VGA cables. I really can’t tell if this has improved the quality of my video performance but I am finding that I have no more issues with my screen resolution being reset on me when I remove and replace my laptop (something that happens frequently as I take it to and from work).

Swapping ports is nearly instant with the Syba where there used to be a lag of several seconds plus a little acknowledgment sound from each computer as the change was made before. I silently swap between machines now with just a click of the Syba remote button or a double-click of my mouse middle button (scroll wheel). Quick, easy, reliable and the settings are remembered.

So far count me very happy with this new Syba KVM.

FYI my setup is:

1 desktop machine (Alienware) with two monitors (Syncmaster 226BW and SyncMaster 2343BWX). I am sharing the Syncmaster 226BW whose native resolution is 1680 x 1050.

1 Dell Lattitude E6410 with a port replicator

Basic 3 Button Alienware optical mouse (USB)

Basic standard Dell keyboard (also USB)

I don’t like using laptop keyboards or the eraserhead or trackpad pointer devices. I’m a mouse and full-sized keyboard kind of guy.

The laptop travels with me to and from work so I can have a consistent platform as my primary workstation.

Posted under Opinions, Tech Stuff, Utils / Tools

I’ve had this switch for almost exactly 6 months now and it’s just failed utterly on me this morning.

My setup is:

1 desktop machine (Alienware) with two monitors (Syncmaster 226BW and SyncMaster 2343BWX)
1 Dell Lattitude E6410 with a port replicator

I don’t like using laptop keyboards or the eraserhead or trackpad pointer devices. I’m a mouse and full-sized keyboard kind of guy.

The laptop travels with me to and from work so I can have a consistent platform as my primary workstation.

I used the TK-207K to share the 226BW between the laptop and the Alienware along with a proper keyboard and mouse. This has always presented a minor issue where, each time I replace the laptop into the port replicator and switch to it, the resolution on the monitor is ALWAYS incorrect with no correct option to select from. I always need to log onto the laptop and then PULL THE VIDEO PLUG out of the back of the port replicator and then plug it back in. After this the computer recognizes that the resolution is incorrect and allows me to select the right resolution. The monitor that I use at work has exactly the same native resolution so there is something a little odd here. Once this is done I’m good until the next time I remove the laptop.

This morning I was working on my Alienware machine when the keyboard and mouse just stopped responding and the computer threw up a message indicating that it did not recognize a USB device.

Several restarts later and after swapping out keyboards I come to the conclusion that the TK-207K is no longer of this world…

I am not going to try to get a replacement as others have done. I’m sure TRENDnet will probably honor their warranty but frankly I prefer my stuff to work the first time and work right.

I’m going to look for another solution. Until then I will have an extra monitor on my desktop and two keyboards and two mice.

Posted under Opinions, Tech Stuff, Utils / Tools

Yesterday morning I awoke to the sound of my CO2 detector letting out a brief but piercing chirp that tells me that the power has gone out.

As we have a guest staying with us this week I figured it must be something where everybody was using hair driers and toasters and the like at the same time.

Mysteriously, none of the circuit breakers in the fuse panel were thrown but all the items associated with circuit #6 (Yes, I’m geeky enough to have mapped out everything in my fuse box) were without power.

Figuring that perhaps the circuit breaker had gone bad, I zipped over to Home Depot to pick up a replacement, popped open the fuse panel, swapped out the circuit breaker and… nothing.

At that point I knew I’d need to get an electrician to take a look-see. I checked out electricians in my neighborhood via Google and then cross referenced them with the Better Business Bureau.

Gritting my teeth I contacted what I thought was the strongest candidate, Affordable Electric.

Mike answered the phone and, after a few questions to narrow down the problem, he quoted me a flat rate of $199 to come and resolve the issue, all labor, time and parts included.

The price sounded reasonable for what I was sure he was in for and 30 minutes later he was at my front door.

After a bit of discussion, he walked over to the electrical panel and flipped the circuit breaker (I had left it off after the new breaker had failed to resolve the issue) and everything came back on. Uh oh.. it’s never good to have an intermittent issue.

We went through the house and he was quickly able to determine that the cause of the issue was an outlet that our guest had been using to recharge some batteries. The wiring for the receptacle had somehow come loose and, if you shook the outlet everything else on that circuit would flash like it was part of a disco tech.

So he corrected that issue, then went back to the fuse panel and he wasn’t happy with how some of the other circuit breakers were not sitting flush as they should be in there and adjusted those. We then had a discussion regarding some new trim options that can make some of my can lights look a bit more attractive (not to sell me, but just so that I was aware of the options).  He then asked if there was anything else that I wanted him to check out while I was there which I’m sure he would have addressed on the spot.

Total for the quick service and resolving that mysterious (and not very safe) issue: $199. Exactly as quoted. No muss, no fuss. He was on his way and I was confident that I didn’t have a mysterious electrical problem lurking and waiting to inconvenience me (or worse!).

This may not be the cheapest that I could have paid for this service now that I have the benefit of hindsight and knowing exactly what the issue is, but that price would have been the same had he also had to go up into the attic and work his way through the junction boxes and all the circuit wiring to resolve the problem.

Having a flat rate for service rather than an open ended per hour charge plus whatever other unknowns is very comforting to me and leaves me as a very satisfied customer.

So I heartily recommend Mike and Affordable Electric, Inc. (404-509-1799) if you are having issues in or around the Marietta, GA area.

Posted under Retail Experiences

This is a topic for which libraries full of books have been written. It has no simple explanation, nor a simple solution. People, society are complicated – and wonderfully so.

I was musing this morning that the source of so much conflict in our day to day lives stem from unvalidated and distorted perceptions of reality.

Everybody has a perception of reality that is slightly different than the next person and almost certainly flawed in some way. Often it manifests itself as the belief that “People / situations should behave or be this way” and it is incredibly distressing when a situation is encountered which does not conform to this perception. We have to leave our comfort zones in order to accommodate the reality with which we are confronted.

I believe healthy people are able to subtly adjust their world views based on experience and that folks who steadfastly refuse to accommodate the world as it exists enter into a spiral of conflict and distress that eventually consumes them.

A simple example are landscape planners. Have you ever walked up to a building and saw that, although there was a walkway leading up from the sidewalk, there were also paths of tramped-down grass cutting diagonally across the lawn leading to the entryway? Someone had a vision of how the front yard should be used and did not consider how folks would really use it.
What is the rational solution here? Should hedges be planted? Should “Keep off the Grass” signs be erected? What have you seen in your travels?
I have heard of a brilliant landscape planner that really didn’t know what to expect so he waited several months before finalizing the design and then simply ensured pathways were created where he saw folks were actually coming across the property. Folks use the property in a way that is convenient for them and their use can be incorporated into the design. This must surely be more attractive an option, and less frustrating for all, than muddy footpaths cutting throughout the property.

But what if your view of the world involves thoughts that are overly simplistic and you refuse to acknowledge or accept that the world is more complicated than that?

What if you are Howard Hughes and can’t accept that the world and especially the human body, was never meant to be absolutely sterile? How do you deal with that?

What if you feel that each person is unique and that the loss of all those experiences and personality to death would be unacceptable? How do you deal with the loss of a loved one? What if the universe does not cater to your ideal?

What if you feel that there is an underlying “fairness” to the universe and yet your house is flooded and destroyed by a storm? How do you deal with something that so fundamentally flies in the face of your world view?

What kind of person does it take to accept such realities, roll with them and move on to continue to grow and flourish? What kind of person collapses under these realities?

Posted under Metaphysics, Opinions, Seeking Insight