The Dobrindt Family

SMC Networks

I am on hold with SMC Networks, a company that makes computer equipment like routers for the home or office, wireless cards and switches. I have had an SMC wireless broadband router for about 3 years and it has never worked right. The one good thing about SMC is that they have a pretty good customer service policy and I can call their technical 1-800 number at all hours, which is good because I am usually having trouble after installing a new computer or printer at midnight when the stupid thing doesn?t work right. Plus their products have a lifetime warranty which I am in the middle of redeeming right now. My router stopped working when we came back from Minnesota on March 9th. I called and after spending a ridiculous amount of time on the phone with technical support-India, they determined that it was indeed broken. So they made me call back their US-based customer service with some special number to have a replacement shipped out. I chose option ?B? which was to give them my credit card number and they would ship a new one that day. This way I didn?t have to ship them my old one, wait until they received and processed it, and then wait until they shipped out a replacement, which, by the way, is not a direct replacement so I have to deal with learning how to set up and troubleshoot a new router because trust me, I am confident this one will not work well either. The option I went with was to have them ship me the unit and I had 30 days to ship my old one back or they would charge my credit card some crazy amount for this useless piece of crap. Well, I waited and waited and waited and this weekend realized it has not come and it?s coming up on three weeks. So I called this morning and this company only has customer support on Pacific time which didn?t help me so I called back at noon and had to wait and wait. When a human finally talked to me they said something about a FedEx tracking number and this person?s quick scan at FedEx.com showed the device was sitting at a FedEx facility in western mass due to an address screw up and then they put me on hold to find out from FedEx what the story was and as soon as they put me on hold they hung up on me, Alex you call-center bastard I know you did it on purpose why did you hang up on me all I want is my effing router so I can use more than one computer at a freakin TIME and I don?t have to keep my laptops tethered. So I waited thinking he would call me back because they have my number I have called so many times I know they recognize me by this number but he never called back. So I called them back and waited and waited and finally someone answered and guess who it was, yep, Alex. I didn?t know for sure if it was him so I started to explain that I was on hold and I said politely that we got disconnected, indicating no one was at fault, and he kind of half laughed and said that was him I was talking to and he said sorry for disconnecting me it was his fault. Good, he fessed up to it. So he said he has to do some more research to find out and I said good, call me back because the thing was sitting in a college town two hours away and I am not going to drive there to pick it up and he said he will look into that option and I said wait no I said I am NOT going to drive there and he said ok and I said so you will call me back and he said huh, so I repeated and I could tell he was not listening to me so I said call me back please and hung up and I wonder what will happen next.

2002 Kawasaki Vulcan Classic

If by chance you are interested in a motorcycle, let me know. My father in law is selling his Kawasaki. You can access it here

http://www.moveyourasana.com/David/pictures/Motorcyle/Vulcan-1-web.jpg

Holding a Door

I am never sure how long to wait to hold a door open for a stranger when entering a public place. This happens a lot in the parking garage of my office building. How far behind you is too far to hold the door. I think I hold it longer for older men because they might be a boss or an executive that I might run into again. I guess I wait longer for women too because that is the polite thing to do. If the person is wearing a Red Sox hat I shut the door as quickly as I can and hold it shut while they struggle to get it open.

Emergency Vehicles

Another thing that bugs me is when cars pull over on a highway for emergency vehicles to pass and other non-emergency vehicles use the middle of the wake to move really fast through traffic. Bastards.

Thought I'd share.

The Apprentice Tasks

Quick bone to pick with the Apprentice ?challenges?. First of all they resemble nothing that goes on in corporate America. At least not the version I live or hear about. Second, they are boring and rehashed, sad considering the show is only on its third pathetic series. The final thing is I wish they would have a challenge where they didn?t have to sell something. How about the other major business objective of ?reducing cost?? The show only tries to reward an increase in sales. You know how it goes, operational efficiency, reduced expenses, cut costs, blah blah blah. I would love it if the show dropped both teams into a situation and asked them to find a way to make a process more streamlined or to make something less expensive or to reduce some kind of cost.

Thought I'd share.

Survivor Challenges

For the past 9 Survivor series the challenges have, for the most part, been a recast of old challenges. This is particularly true this year, series 10, when most of the challenges have been as inventive as me cooking dinner. But last week they actually had two challenges that were unique and really good. The first challenge gave each team some building material and tools and they were told to build a bathroom with a shower and toilet. The winner had the ?Survivor? construction crew build them a kick-ass shelter. It was like watching Gilligan?s Island because both bathrooms were actually pretty good. And the reward was never done before. The second challenge was a Star Trek-esk battle on a platform that pitted one person from one team against one person from the other team. They each had a hard pillow with two handles and had to knock the other person off the platform without taking their hands off the pillow handles. It was kind of cool because it got pretty physical. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if the platform was perched 50 feet above an outcropping of rocks instead of 2 feet above chest-high water. But a boy can dream.

Top 3 Best Website

I was sitting with a few colleagues the other day. One was looking up information on a potential client and said

?I like it when a company says they are in the top something, like we are one of the top 3 most recognized brands, or we are one of the top 5 largest companies in the world. Just cut through the crap and say we are the 3rd most recognized brand or the 5th largest company in the world. If they were higher, they would say it.?

Excellent point I never thought of. By the way, I am one of the top 2 most liked parents in the Dobrindt household.

St. Patrick's Day

Today is St. Patrick's Day. Boston will be full of drunks wearing green Red Sox hats who start drinking at 7 in the morning. In other words, a typical Thursday.

American Idol - Two

I watch the show regularly now. Hate to admit it but I do. With my TiVo, it?s so easy to watch TV, especially idiot shows like American Idol. Two things that bug me.

- Paula Abdul makes no sense at all when she talks, and when she offers up something that is remotely intelligible, she says the same thing over and over. A good bet on one of her comments is ?You are beautiful and were yourself tonight. Great job? spoken like she is sitting in church. Randy makes some stupid comment that starts with Dude and ends with Dog, and the only one that comes close to being honest and insightful is Simon. As soon as Randy starts talking I look forward to Simon. It feels like someone giving you an empty plate at a barbeque to hold you over until the ribs are done.

- The singers are awful. I have said this before but it baffles me how anyone can think they are good. There are two girls on the current show who have nice voices but nothing that I would call an ?Idol?. As other than Kelly Clarkson, not a single winner has been better than mediocre. This year it looks to be shaping up the same. I think instead of letting the viewing audience vote for who wins, there should be a large panel of experts including voice coaches and music teachers from prestigious music schools, recording executives, former pop stars and trust me, Paula Abdul is NOT a former pop star, maybe former cheerleader, and a mix of fans. But I can appreciate their attempt to let the group of people who buy pop music decide who will win the competition, it just doesn?t seem to be working.

That?s another thing. The stupid music themes. It started last night with a 1960s theme that fell as flat as a racists joke in an NBA locker room.

Scrubs

I watched Scrubs last night that Patti TiVo-ed the night before. I actually don?t have a TiVo, it?s a DVR which is the same thing but offered by my cable company, has the same features as TiVo and is cheaper, but I like saying ?TiVo-ed?, it sounds so ?2000?. I also like using ?quotes? as you can ?tell?, I do ?it? a lot. Anyway, I watched Scrubs and every time I watch it I love it and think about how great of a show it is. It has a good blend of quirkiness, dry humor and sincere moments. Plus GREAT soundtrack and I like Zach Braff, he reminds me of myself, sort of. It could be a little less rapid-fire in the dialogue, something that comes across as unnatural and rehearsed (which it is), like Gilmore Girls, but it?s still better than a lot of other shows on TV. The strange thing is even though I enjoy the show, I usually don?t make a point to watch it. It just happened to be recorded and I just happened to have finished the 8th episode of Ask This Old House that was recorded over the weekend. Man, between AE and PBS that show is on like every other hour. Anyway, good show if you have time to watch it.