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May 01 2004

My dog never barks. While the neighbor’s dog barks all day long, my dog ignores it. He has the run of a pasture during the day and is in a chain-link kennel by the barn at night. With his history, I was aggravated when he started barking in the middle of the night. It is loud enough to wake me up. When it does, I get up, trudge to the front door, open it, and tell him to quit. I can see him run back into his dog house and, usually, that is that for the night.

But it kept getting worse and more frequent. I borrowed a friend’s barking collar (small static charge when a dog barks) and planned to put it on him if he kept it up. That evening, he barked again. I went to the door and quietly opened it trying to surprise him. As I crept onto my front porch, a full-grown coyote ambled across the lawn right outside the door and headed past the dog kennel.

To emphasize the point, on the following evening the coyote stood very near the house and howled at the moon.

Apr 01 2004

I just bought a German urban assault vehicle. This particular vehicle is named after an obscure nomadic tribe in Sub-Saharan Africa. Far from the simple, no-frills life of its namesake, it’s loaded with computer wizardry to the extent that I think you either need to be a fighter pilot or an engineer to operate it. Based on both edicts from the EPA and a Germanic sense of overkill, there are sensors for about everything. You are told when you need to refuel, if a tyre (yes, that is how it’s spelled) has too low air pressure, whether the spare is fully inflated, doors open, lights left on, you are too far over/under the speed limit, and popcorn is done in the microwave (just kidding).

Diligently I read the owner’s manual to make sure I was worthy of driving such a fine instrument of conspicuous consumption and Deutschland intricacies. One night shortly after acquisition, we went out for the evening. About a mile from home going down a gentle hill, a warning light flashed “Check your gas cap” while somber music played on the 12 speakers spaced around the cabin. I pulled over, got out, took off and then put on the gas cap, but the warning remained (now a simple yellow icon of a gas cap). After trying this a couple of times with the engine running or off, the light finally went out. I called the dealer and took it to them the next day. They performed an hour-and-a-half computer check that produced 25 pages of printout that told them nothing was wrong.

Two days later, the same thing happened. Nothing I did seemed to make the warning go away—not removing/replacing the cap, not filling the capacious gas tank. But, it did go away after sitting on a parking lot for an hour. And it happened again a couple of days later. I did notice, however, that the warning light always came on at exactly the same place each time. Ah, some consistency.

Again, I drove to the dealer who said that this was a problem for the manufacturer’s service hotline and the technician (they are not mechanics these days). For two days they consulted, checked, ran computer tests, and then called with the “good news” that they had an answer.

You know the old story. Man goes to his doctor, lifts his arm and says: “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” The doctor says: “Well, don’t do that.”

After two days and consultations with Stuttgart or Berlin, they concluded that when the car is cold, its multifarious sensors are on high alert. If there is a change in barometric pressure (e.g., as you go downhill), the computer thinks there is a loss of pressure in the gas tank—thus the warning light. The solution: warm up the car before leaving the house. Ah, German ingenuity wins out again.

Apr 15 2003

You know the five second rule, don’t you? Food that lands on the floor and stays there for five seconds (more or less) is fine to pick up and eat. I tried to apply that rule in another setting, but it does not translate. After cleaning the stalls this morning, I filled the dogs’ water bucket, a nice stainless steel one, and carried it out to their pen. Upon setting it down, I heard splash, clunk. Looking down, there was my mobile phone at the bottom of the bucket fully submerged under six inches of water. I quickly snatched it out of there, ran inside and dried it off, but it was giving wacky messages on its LCD.

Time for the emergency room for wet electronics. I got out Marian’s hair dryer, took the phone battery off, dried everything I could, and blew hot air on it until everything that I could see was dry. Well, the triage was to no avail. When turned on, nothing happened at all. When plugged into the charger, it went through several berserk things like wailing, telling me that the phone was out of range, and other not-very-helpful messages all cycling without me doing anything but watching in horror. So, it was toasted, so to speak (drowned?).

Luckily, I had bought a service policy from BestComputerCircuit when I got the sucker a little under three years ago. I gathered up the original box, manual, charger, and the phone and took all of this stuff with my service policy to my local branch of the store. No problemo, they told me. After filling out some paperwork, I was told that I would get credit on any new phone in the amount I had paid on the old phone.

The young woman at the Sprint counter told me that the phone I had originally bought (which I had replaced due to breaking off its antenna about a year or so ago with a totally different phone) cost $200. Boy, howdy. Phone prices have come down, so I could get a goody. Options that met my needs for something that can stand up to barn and outside work meant that there were two choices: $130 or $299. The only difference, really, was the higher-price phone had a color screen. I told her that the $129 one would be fine since I did not want to pay the extra $99 if I bought the other phone.

Now comes the strange part, and it’s all good. I told her I needed a leather case and a car charger. She told me that if one bought two accessories when buying a phone, the cost of the phone was cut in half. Thus, I could get the $299 phone and not pay anything extra. Fine. She also sold me a two-year service plan for $40.

So, I went to the register with her with a $299 phone, service plan $40, car charger $30, and case $25. Got that? I fully expected to pay for all the extra stuff, just get the credit for the phone. Total bill was $34. I didn’t ask for an explanation, just left the store. Love those service plans!

Oct 01 2003

Our housekeeper, Chris, came in this afternoon and said that our trash tote (that big blue thing on wheels) disappeared from the curb. Today is trash day and it was out there when I came home about an hour ago. So, I call Big Blue Trash and Garbage to inquire. The customer service representative tells me that there was a note from their driver that the tote (her term) was broken, he picked it up, and there would be no charge. Naturally, I ask when a replacement tote would be here.

She tells me that there is a rental charge of $44 a year for totes. Since the tote had been in good shape this morning, I inquire how it was now broken. She tells me the driver probably broke it when it was on the lift on the truck. So, why would I get charged for something they did? And I had never been charged before and wondered why I would be charged now. I am politely informed that she does not know why I had not been charged all along. Had the tote come with the house? I respond that we’ve been here longer than they have been collecting trash out here and that I got the tote from their predecessor trash company (who also had not charged me for it). Well, if I want a tote, I would just have to pay for it. After sparing back and forth she asks: “Would you like to speak to a supervisor?” Bet your sweet bippy I would.

Supervisor comes on the line. I tell my story all over again. She wants to interrupt me a couple of times, but I tell her to let me get all of my side out and then she can tell me hers. We got into a Catch 22 conversation. This is the shortened version.

“These are old containers and they are due to break.”
“It was fine and you broke it. Why charge me for your error?”
“It would have broken anyway soon. “
“But it was fine and not broken and who knows how long it would have been if you had not broken it today.”
You know the stress of being outside in the cold.”
“It’s 75 degrees today and it sits in a heated garage all winter except on trash day.”
“We’re doing an inventory of the old totes from the previous company, so you would have been charged soon anyway.”
“So, sometime between now and never you might have charged me for a tote that you didn’t give me and that now you have broken.”
“Well, you could always buy some trash cans and use them until they break.”
“Not a good idea since our drive is very long. Can I buy the tote?”
“We don’t sell them, just rent them.”
“Guess you have me over a barrel. Well, please send a new one out.”
“That will be at least 30 days. They are back ordered.”
“So, you broke my tote, carted it away, and now won’t give me another one?
“We have people who ordered totes in August who still don’t have them.”
“What am I supposed to do with my trash and garbage for a month?”
“You could just take bags to the curb on trash day.”
“Does not seem like a good idea to have bags of garbage smelling up my garage for a week and then have to transport them in the trunk of my car down our very long driveway.”
“I’ll talk to the customer service manager and see if we can get you one in a week. Perhaps she would also agree to waive the rental charge.”

Wait a minute. Gotta get to a window to see if there are any pigs flying by.

Apr 01 2003

I took a stroll through Best Buy on a recent Saturday. Nothing really in mind. Just there to look at the merchandise. Since I had not been in for awhile, I stopped to glance at the new phones available from Sprint, with whom we have service. As I looked at tiny phones with buttons meant for gnomes, I marveled that this is one thing where a guy thinks that smaller is better. I looked at the phones with color screens and the ability to do email and download from the web. Interesting idea, but you would need to have much younger eyes than I have to be able to read anything. And do I really need to pay an additional $20 or more per month to be able to download new games to play on the phone, new ringer tones to annoy those near me, or (be still my heart) a new screen saver for the itty bitty color screen?

Next, I picked up the current rates brochure more to see what the new service they were offering costs than anything else. Well, lo and behold, there was a rate in there for double the minutes we have on our current plan and a savings, before tax, of $35 a month. That is 30 percent less than we are paying now.

This plan is for what they call “anytime minutes.” The mobile phone industry has consistently constricted the euphemistically named “night and weekend” minutes so they are not of much use to us at all. But this offer was for double the anytime minutes we have and a savings as well.

You would think that if I went on the Sprint web page and clicked on “change plans” that I could switch to this new, lower-price plan right there. I mean, they do want us to do our business on the web so they can have fewer employees, don’t they? The only plan I could find was not only $10 a month higher than the one in the brochure, but also said the offer expired two weeks before the date I was looking at it. So much for up-to-date web-page management. I logged off my account and looked at the offers as if I were a new customer. Ah, yes, there was the brochure offer.

So, I called the handy-dandy toll-free number and got a voice-recognition computer that asked me what I wanted. I told “her,” and “she” said to wait and I would be connected to a customer service person. I told the customer service guy about the brochure price and he said I was eligible to get that service.

Would I like to have voice dialing free for three months? No, I wouldn’t. Time passes as he enters keystrokes on the computer. He then tells me that the voice dialing feature is free on the second phone. Hmmm. Nothing seemed hidden up his sleeve, but why is it free on the second phone rather on the first? More keystroking.

I told him that I noticed I could have “up to 50 free long-distance minutes per month” on my home phones as part of this new plan. Yep. No monthly fixed fee. Only seven cents a minute after the first 50 minutes free. And you wonder why the telecommunication companies are having problems and their stocks are in free fall. I signed up, with the obligatory third-party verification to prove that I was not being “slammed.”

The moral of this story is that going to Best Buy on a regular basis and checking out the rate sheets can:

a. Save me money.
b. Make me wonder how low rate plans will go and what companies will not survive.
c. Initiate a change in our long-distance company again (this is the third time this year).
d. Start me thinking about where else I am being charged more than I should be.

Addendum: My wife’s phone was broken. We went to the local Best Buy to purchase a new one. We found a model that she liked and bought it. We also bought the service plan which is now a year shorter than it used to be (two instead of three years) and more expensive.

My wife was also looking for a digital camera. So, two days after we had bought the phone, I went into the same Best Buy to look at cameras to suggest to her. Out of curiosity, I looked at Sprint phones as I passed that counter. Who knows what new doodad or model would catch my eye? What I did see was that the phone we had purchased was now $50 less than the price we had paid. So, the following day I brought in my receipt and got a $50 credit. I guess I will have to cruise by that counter every week now to make sure we got the lowest price equipment and the lowest price calling plan.

Later, I bought the digital camera and a Compact Flash memory card. I did it on a day when there was ten percent off. A couple of days later I went back looking for a card reader. Lo and behold, the memory card I had bought was $50 cheaper on a special just that week. Thank goodness I’m retired.