found_drama

I’ve been doing the “goals” thing on this blog for a couple years now and up until now, the check-ins have been quarterly. I missed 2010′s first quarter check-in. Why? Partly because I got so damn busy. Partly because I felt like I had nothing to show for my efforts.

And I still don’t have (much) to show for it. But we’ll go ahead and disclose six month’s worth of progress just the same.

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A little late, but a quick visual summary of our Maryland trip:

How I spent my weekend; a little extreme close-up “before and after” shot for folks:

According to my neighbors, that’s 20 years worth of dirt and grime and organic funk that got blasted off with a little water and a whole lot of pressure^[1]. If you like that, there’s more here, here, and here.

A few miscellaneous thoughts during the process:

• The nice part about blasting off 20 years worth of dirt is that it’s really obvious when you miss a spot.
• The bad part about blasting off 20 years worth of dirt is that when you’re done, it’s really obvious when you missed a spot.
• 20 years worth of dirt accumulation is really gross. And green when you get down close and look at it.
• With the water flying everywhere, I think I went through every pair of socks that I own.
• The original plan was to sand and paint… but holy crap what a difference the washing made all by itself.
• It is amazing what a little water and a lot of pressure will do.
• Pressure washers are bad ass.

Original photo posted on Flickr.

1. We did the TSP wash later. [↩]

Back from Myrtle Beach! Aside from being sick pretty much the entire time, it was awesome. The Boy loved the ocean, otters, and eating cheeseburgers whole. We loved the fresh seafood, catching up with the family, and the non-freezing temperatures^[1].

1. Not that Vermont has exactly had the coldest winter this past season. [↩]

Or:  on not listening, retail communication break-downs, and getting help via so-called social networking.

In case you haven’t been following the thread^[1], our family just enjoyed quite the roller coaster ride thanks to a broken dishwasher and our (ultimately, eventually successful) attempts to replace it through Best Buy.  I’m sure that there’s a lesson to be learned buried somewhere deep down in the bowels of this tale.  Take extra caution when purchasing from a box store?  Wow, Twitter is actually good for something?  I’m not exactly sure.  But perhaps you can extract that nugget.

Back in December, just a little before Christmas, our dishwasher broke.  Nothing that put it totally out of commission—just that the handle broke off and in order to get the thing open you had to jam two fingers up into the recesses of the door and use a whole bunch of leverage to unlatch it.  So that was frustrating.  Our initial over-reaction was to gut the entire kitchen and start from scratch.  When we came to our senses, we realized it should just be a simple matter of replacing the dishwasher.

All other things being equal, we decided to go through Best Buy as a cost-saving measure—we had a gift card, for one thing.  With that part decided, I headed down to the store with my mission:  find the cheapest dishwasher that will at least “replace” the one that broke.  At the store, I reviewed my options and after speaking with a salesman, decided to go up a notch to something that would meet our needs just a little bit better—and for not that much more.

Now a little bit of back-story:  In the fall we had a microwave replaced (using a different vendor) and it turned into a nightmare.  Delivery went fine but the vendor failed to mention that the installation (which was paid for) was not something they did for over-the-range microwaves.  So we wound up having to install it ourselves.  And then even after multiple phone calls, they never bothered to send their truck around again to haul away the old one, despite the fact that we’d paid for haul-away as well.

Needless to say, I made a really big deal about the delivery, installation, and haul-away aspects while discussing the dishwasher with the Best Buy sales representative.  He assured me that everything would be fine—even referred me to a “worry-free” poster right there over the register.  ”Sounds good,” I said.  And though he warned me it would be a few weeks before the delivery/installation could happen (“…about four weeks, what with the busy holiday season and all…”), we agreed to terms, signed some paperwork, ran my credit card, and off we went.

Fast forward to the day before the scheduled delivery.  I get a phone call from someone at the Best Buy store.  She explains to me that she needs to apologize on behalf of the store but it seems that my original sales rep failed to mention that the dishwasher I’d paid for was in fact a special order item (“normally 6-8 weeks”) and that there was no way that they could get it to me the next day.  This was unexpected but it wasn’t a tragedy^[2].  We explored a few options:  wait four more weeks?  buy up to the next model “at cost” for another hundred bucks and get it within the week?  or get a comparable item from the clearance line and get it within the week?

We settled on the comparable item from the clearance line (since even “at cost” I didn’t feel like I should have to pay more) and set up the delivery/installation date^[3].

Fast forward to the next week.  I jet home in the middle of work one day to meet the delivery guys.  They show up and ask:  ”Where do you want us to leave this?”  Leave it?  Immediately the delivery guys look a little sheepish.  They explain that while Best Buy performs the installation for a variety of “drop-in” items (e.g., refrigerators, washers and dryers), that there are also a bunch of more complicated installations that they sub-contract (e.g., dishwashers, gas ranges).  So the delivery guy (who was really quite nice, nothing against him) tries to make a few calls to find out about the installation.  But he can’t seem to get in touch with anyone—no one at the store, and not the installer either.  He assures me that I’ll probably hear from the installer in the next day or so but leaves me with his number in case I need to follow up with him.

In case I need to follow up with him?

I’m immediately on the phone with the store trying to reach the woman that helped me with this last round of mix-ups.  I needed to know what was going on.  How is it that no one told me about this before now?  Only, the guy that (finally) picks up the phone tells me that she won’t be in until one o’clock and though he doesn’t offer to take the message (not that I expected him to), he did eventually agree to have her return the call after she got in^[4].

The rest of the day passes.  No call back from the store, and no call from the installer.  And thus out of Sisyphean frustration, this tweet.

Allow us to pause there for a moment.  About that tweet…  Frustration sparked it.  Actually doing it?  Maybe I was thinking I should be charitable?  Warn my pals, I suppose.  Help prevent others from having dishwashers land in their dining rooms that just… sit there.

I was not expecting anything like an @reply from @ApplExpert50 with a few suggestions on how to remedy the situation.  Most of which I’d tried… but that was beside the point.  Someone was listening.  A most unlikely set of ears—but someone was listening at least.

It seemed that a little follow-up was in order for me—but I had that in my future either way.  Next thing I knew, some emails and phone calls started coming in about my order and about the installation which was requested but (apparently) never paid for and therefore never requested…

Long story short?  Took another couple of days but we arrived at a satisfactory outcome, and I got my dishwasher installed^[5].

So we landed in a good place.  But it was a long and bumpy road.  Still unpacked the whole affair.  Lessons learned?  Anecdotal evidence for the success of social media campaigns in managing customer service…?  Perhaps more?  Like I said:  still unpacking it.

1. And why should you?  It hasn’t really been posted on this here blog. [↩]
2. Not yet. [↩]
3. It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that this has involved a lot of schedule juggling, what with being busy at work, being a one-car family, and having a kid dealing with a series of ear infections. [↩]
4. Come to find out later she was vacation for another couple of days. [↩]
5. And the old one got hauled away, too. [↩]

An annual tradition here at F_D^[1], let’s kick-off the year with a full disclosure of goals.  Rather than set vague “resolutions” and lame half-promises to yourself, why not think of the new year as an opportunity for a little personal growth?  A couple of little benchmarks to set your aggressive little sights on throughout the year?  Here are mine:

1. Write ≥3 hours each week. Something of a re-hash of last year’s writing goal.  I can do this.  I need to do this.  If I’m going to have goal #2 (vide infra) mean anything at all, it’s going to be through diligence, perseverance, and practice-practice-practive…
2. Submit at least 2 short stories for publication. If I’ve had a writing goal every year, and if I’ve wanted to be a published author since I was five years old, then why did I go all of last year without sending out a single thing?  I had a flurry of submissions in 2008 but then went all “radio silence” last year.  I’ve got some good stuff, I just need to get it out in front of people.  (While we’re at it:  the first one went out last night.)
3. Revise at least one of my novels-in-progress. In case you haven’t been paying attention, I have several novels in progress and “completed” drafts of at least three^[2].  All of them are worthy stories that, with the right amount of polish, are publishable.  The goal here is to turn goal #2 (vide supra) into “submit at least one novel for publication” next year^[3].
4. Read ≥36 books. This is totally a repeat of one of my 2009 goals.  I set the bar at 36 last year and came in at 25.  Why go for 36 again?  Because I read 49 books in 2008.  No reason not to.  And to up the ante a little bit, two sub-goals:  (1) I plan to finally finish Godel, Escher, Bach; and (2) I intend to read these twelve:
   1. Foucault’s Pendulum (carry-over from last year)
   2. Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang: A Novel
   3. The Blind Assassin
   4. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
   5. The Pragmatic Programmer
   6. The Tao Of Physics, and then for contrast
   7. Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces
   8. Illegal Beings: Human Clones and the Law
   9. The Eleventh Draft: Craft and the Writing Life from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop
   10. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
   11. Blood Meridian, and the other McCarthy that has been recommended to me ten million times
   12. All the Pretty Horses
5. Exercise:  get my money’s worth at Bolton Valley. It’s my eighth winter in Vermont and I finally got around to getting a season pass^[4].  This year I got a pass to Bolton Valley.  I worked it out that I need to go at least five times to get my money’s worth.
6. Exercise:  walk or run ≥1 mile ≥2 times/week. I got myself a treadmill for my birthday a couple years ago.  I don’t think I used it at all in ’09^[5].  And since I moved and can’t walk to work anymore, I’m thinking that I should try to get in one or two runs a week^[6].  Perhaps I’ll even join the “barefoot runners” cult.
7. Exercise:  climb at least once each week. Third year running.  Much more than this probably isn’t terribly realistic.  Not for me.  Not until The Boy is a little older.
8. Restrict my “personal expenses” to $70/week. To be honest, this will actually be the fourth year that I’ve done this but the first year I’ll own up to it.  What constitutes “personal expenses”?  That’s money I spend directly on me:  coffee, lunch, my portion of the dinner bill, drinks, etc.  It’s a fun challenge.  And very revealing.

I almost feel like I ought to come up with two more to make it a nice round, metric ten.  And maybe I’ll add some later on in the year.  But these are as good a place as any to start.

Here’s to a happy and successful 2010!

1. Well, since 2007. [↩]
2. The three I have in mind are this thing (which I’ve been working on since roughly 2001), and my 2006 and 2009 NaNoWriMos. [↩]
3. That said:  I’ll give myself a little wiggle room on this goal if it means that I get yet another first draft written.  (But what good are three first drafts and a second-or-is-it-third draft?) [↩]
4. And seven of eight of those winters I even worked for a company that offers discounts on season passes as a benefit.  (Still work there.) [↩]
5. Although…  Well, at least Amy did. [↩]
6. I know the goal says “≥2 times/week” but… that’s what makes it a goal? [↩]

2009 has come and gone.  Every year I make some commitments to myself—be those to improve myself in some way ot simply to challenge myself—and at the end of every year, I take stock of those accomplishments.  2009 was the third year that those goals were featured “full disclosure” style here on F_D.  Where did I land for each?

1. Write at least three hours per week. The good news:  I started to really ramp up again at the end of the year.  The bad news:  it wasn’t until the end of the year.  My “per week” average wound up being 2.3821 hours (almost an hour shy of my goal!) and most of that was due to participating in NaNoWriMo ’09.  But that said, I “won” NaNoWriMo this year, so I have another draft of another novel^[1]  And now for the year-end graph:
   
2. Read 36 books during 2009. I knowingly set the bar very high for myself this year.  ”Knowingly” meaning, I knew that a toddler is like a deli slicer for your discretionary time.  I wanted to read 36 total books (not necessarily new) this year and to read 12 specific books.  The 2009 total came in at 25:
   
   Which wasn’t too bad, all things considered.  It’s 23 fewer books than ’08, but it’s only^[2] 6,850 fewer pages^[3].  Three lessons learned from this year’s reading goal: (1) I really don’t read enough non-fiction; (2) this is the goal most likely to be sacrificed for any other^[4]; and (3) pushing myself to read specific goals, while admirable, also means that I can find myself “trapped” with a book that (after starting) I don’t really want to finish.  But in the case of Foucault’s Pendulum this year, it just never really got started.  Eleven for twelve on my “specific books” sub-goal:
   
3. Walk at least 10 miles every week. Did pretty well through June…  Then we moved.  Averaged 43.8 miles per month until we moved; then I averaged zero.
   
4. Climb at least once each week. His this one about half the time.  But a new schedule/strategy for next year bodes well…:
   
5. Finish up my Ortho theme for WordPress. I said: I’ve been done.
6. Get outside more often. Uh… not bad? Let me get back to you on that.

1. That makes… what?  Four “completed” drafts?  Five?  Does high school-era novel-length fan fiction count? [↩]
2. Only? [↩]
3. That’s like reading Infinite Jest six times (and the footnotes a seventh time). [↩]
4. Except maybe the “walking/running” goal, which gets sacrificed all the time; and except maybe the writing goal, which I sadly let slide (vide supra). [↩]

Or:  a short memoir about a single memorable night in January 2000 and how fond memories of it were spurred by the “#10yearsago” trending topic on Twitter^[1].

I was home from St. Mary’s College of Maryland for the winter break.  I don’t recall exactly if I was working that December/January; if I was, perhaps I was picking up some extra hours doing miscellaneous IT grunt work for MMCRI.  Regardless, the break was drawing to a close and two friends of mine had come up to Maine for a quick visit and then the long road trip back down to southern Maryland.

As part of the visit, we took the opportunity to go see P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia in the theater.  The film hit all three of us pretty hard, emotionally speaking.  So hard in fact that I wound up blowing through three red lights because I just couldn’t think straight, and then realized I had headed the wrong way home.

Luckily we went to the late show.

When we got back to my place^[2], that was when we started drinking.  We cracked into a 12-pack assortment of Casco Bay Brewing Company’s fine ales.

For those unfamiliar with Casco Bay Brewing Company:  they were^[3] a small craft brewery in Portland, Maine.  Good beers; my favorite was called “Rip Tide Red Ale”^[4].  At this time (c. 1999/2000) the label on the bottles featured their bold logotype and a brew-specific illustration or embellishment set on a faded-looking background graphic that appeared to be a nautical chart of Maine’s Casco Bay.

Now after about two beers apiece, Pete (squinting) noticed some fine print set in a small, somewhat anemic sans-serif along the bottom edge of the label.  These tiny capital letters read:

WARNING: CHART NOT FOR NAVIGATIONAL PURPOSES

This gave us all a chuckle.  Then we speculated an absurd scenario where someone might actually go out to sea without maps and charts.  As the scenario unfolded, we laughed some more.  We laughed so much that we decided to send an email to them.  I shall attempt to re-construct^[5] that email here:

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to raise a serious concern about the design and content of the labels on your series of fine ales and lagers.

About a month ago, me and my crew, the fine lads of the HMS L’il Bronco, cast off from port here in Portland, Maine, about to embark upon a relatively routine fishing and salvage mission.  As we were loading the ship, my first mate stopped me and inquired as to the whereabouts of all of our navigational charts and maps.  I reassured him that I had been able to re-sell these maps to help under-write his most recent raise and that he need not fear because I had brought aboard several cases of the Casco Bay Brewing Company’s many fine ales.  With that settled, we cast off.

It was not until we had been out to sea for a full week that my first mate pointed out to me the warning on the label: CHART NOT FOR NAVIGATIONAL PURPOSES

My gods!  We are hopelessly lost!  Lost at sea and have been for weeks!  We are running out of food and fresh water and most of my men are beginning to think that we will never see dry land again.  If we ever return to port, it will be only through pure luck.  I only hope this email in a bottle finds its way safely to your brewery’s shore.

Perhaps in the future your own team will make better, safer choices about these labels.  Or at the very least, print the warnings much larger.

History will judge you.

Signed,

Dr. Scientist
Captain, HMS L’il Bronco

We pretty much lost it.  And then hit “send”.  And then were delighted when they wrote back a few days later.

They got the joke.

1. And this tweet, more specifically. [↩]
2. Well… My parents’ place. [↩]
3. Yes.  Alas: “were”.  They have since been acquired by the Shipyard Brewing Company which—while not bad—I never held in as high regard. [↩]
4. Though ’round my parents’ place we always just called it “Red Tide”. [↩]
5. The original email is long gone.  Like 10 years ago long gone. [↩]

In these pages…

…is this photo:

I’m pretty psyched about that.