My Life Blog

In advance of my trip to San Antonio for my Grandmother’s funeral, I decided to finally get my car in for service. I am the worst procastinator where car service is concerned.

So today I took my car to Park Place Motorcars - Bedford to handle regular service, a rough idle condition, a running light outage, and a state inspection. I figured this would go like clockwork.

However, in my initial discussion with the Service Advisor, he mentioned that the running light bulb would cost $15 to $28. I was stunned. I had recently replaced the bulb on the other side for under $5 and it took me mere minutes — I did it out in the parking lot of the NAPA store. So when I balked at the price, I was told that Mercedes has premium parts and that a skilled, trained technician would be doing the work and that the cost was justified. I retorted that NAPA’s parts are probably pretty good and that I WAS NOT a trained technician and yet had successfully completed the fix in mere minutes. So as such, I decided on principle to scratch that off their list. I don’t like giving away my money.

On the way to work, I calmed down and noted that I was in a free loan car — a new CLK 240. So I thought maybe I could have paid for the bulb and all would have washed out. A few years ago, loan cars weren’t the norm.

At about 2pm, I hadn’t heard from the dealership, so I decided I better call them. I was needing to ensure that the service would be complete today just in case I had to go to San Antonio tomorrow. At that time, I was given a $909 estimate for my repairs. It seems that the rough idle condition was diagnosed as a spark plug and an engine/transmission mount problem. The mounts part of that sounded suspicious, so I had them cut that out. That reduced the quote to around $250 or so.

So around 4pm, I received a call stating my car was ready. To my surprise, the bill was $500+!! In reviewing the detail, it turns out that the scheduled service represented half of that. So the Service Advisor was quoting me the extra amount required to fix the rough idle. I hadn’t understood that previously. It made me wonder if they did that on purpose.

As I reviewed the details, I also noted that the rough idle was fixed by replacing the spark plugs at a parts cost of about $39. The labor was $236! I was astounded by that. Maybe I have unrealistic expectations, but I really thought that was quite out of balance. When I questioned the Service Advisor, he mentioned that it took a lot of time to hook the car up to a laptop to run the diagnostics. And also, the car had to be jacked up high. I really thought automation would save us time and money. For all I know, the technician hooked up my car, initiated the test, and then went off on a smoke break. And jacking the car up is a push of a button, I think.

And just to cap the story off, the state inspection was not done because their state inspection machine was out and wouldn’t be fixed until Monday.

So in the end, I know why loan cars are made available for us. While there is no direct charge, we’re definitely paying for them.

For what its worth, my car is out of warranty and I plan never to return to the dealership. I am thinking there are plenty of smaller shops which can provide quality, affordable service.

So I wonder if I’m playing the victim here or if I really did just get screwed…

They met at a small-town dance, I believe. He was from across town and they were both as young as they could be. I’m not sure what it was, perhaps her blue eyes or perhaps her good heart, but something drew him to her.

And it kept bringing him to her. Though from across town, he’d find a way to go see her. Whether hitching a ride with a friend or later using his own car, he’d venture across town to see this one of a kind woman. And eventually, they were as close as they could be, for they later were married.

That might not sound like much, but these were the 30s and times were tough. The Depression was fresh in everyone’s mind and no one was really doing particularly well. But somehow through all the financial struggles and challenges otherwise, they found their own riches…they found each other. And they stayed together from the day they married.

In 1940, Linda (my mother) was born. At that time, Hitler was on the move in Europe and it was an unsure time all across the world. Being a true patriot, he shipped out overseas to join the cause for freedom. He was often gone for months at a time. But she kept things together; supporting Linda and awaiting his return.

After one particularly long tour, she wrote personally to the CO appealing for her husband to be stationed somewhere where the family could go with him. For that loving indiscretion, he was rewarded with an assignment to the Aleutian Islands — by himself. For those unfamiliar with those islands, they are quite inhospitable. He used to say, “there was a pretty girl behind every tree, trouble was, there weren’t any trees.” And so it went until the war was settled and a little bit beyond.

After the war, they had many good years and Linda had two children: David and me. They loved and cared for their grandchildren — spoiled them too. She would make Snickerdoodle cookies and pack them in coffee cans with labels for each of us. She would teach us about plants; gardening was a passion of hers. Her husband even built her a greenhouse to support her passion.

She wasn’t much of a driver, though. One day in the early 70s, he complained of chest pains and it was decided that he needed to get to the hospital. So they packed into the car with me in the back seat. But as she caromed off curbs and ran lights, apparently the fear of dying of a heart attack was less immediate than dying from a car accident. And so he drove himself to the hospital.

But all was well thereafter and life continued happily for another 15 years or so. The grandchildren were growing up; I was going to college.

Then he started showing signs of Alzheimer’s. At first, the signs were minimal, but soon he was doing odd things, and eventually needed additional help. But she was there every step of the way — daily by his side. It was uncommon devotion, in my opinion. And this devotion continued for another many years before he finally succumbed to the disease.

But she was a strong woman — she didn’t just give up after her husband of 50+ years passed away. She had a busier life than many people. And so it went until she herself had a stroke which robbed her of her short-term memory. She improved briefly, but eventually plateaued into a state where she could not care for herself or recognize those who were around her. Effectively, her life was ending just as her husband’s had ended years before. And yet, somehow she lived far longer than most thought she would.

But today at 5am, with her caretaker Evelyn by her side getting her a glass of water, she coughed one last time and then peacefully quit breathing. And now the two are together once again.

Her name was Pansy — she was named after a flower. She never liked that name and she definitely didn’t like it when we named her Granny Panny one weekend when we were making fun of her. But she knew it was an affectionate name and she knew how much we loved her.

Though I haven’t read the book “Five People You Meet In Heaven” and I’m not completely sure the premise, I’d like to think she was one of the five most influential and cherished people in my life.

May she rest in peace…

I’m so addicted to "Lost" right now and they are killing me with their break from new episodes!  This is now the third week in a row of repeats.  If "Lost" were a drug, I’d be in a fetal position in the corner of a room, sweating, and rocking like a baby.  I’m in full withdrawal now and awaiting my next fix…

I’m reading a book called Fanstatic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever by Ray Kurzweil who always has interesting views of the future.  I had previously enjoyed his book The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, so I thought I’d give this one a try.

The basic premise is that if you do all the things to take care of yourself now, you can live long enough to take advantage of life-extending advances in bio-tech, and then you can live long enough to take advantage of additional life-extending advances made possible through nano technology.  In short, you have to cross three bridges: 1) survive now through diet, exercise, and proactive health diagnostics and follow-on prevention, 2) bio-tech, and 3) nano-tech.

The premise is intriguing and I don’t doubt that we’re on the verge of increasing our life expectancy as a human race.  It seems we glided along with a low life expectancy and then medicine raised it.  Now we are trying to kill ourselves with our poorly managed lifestyles.  And eventually, it seems we’ll be able to insulate ourselves from our lack of discipline.

So how long does Kurzweil predict we might live with all of this help?  I was astounded by his estimate of 5000 years!  And that is really the point of this post.  I run my life based upon an 80-90 year life expectancy.  However, I’m 40 now and in pretty good health, so with the amazing advances in technology, what should my life expectancy really be?  I doubt its 5000 years, but it might be 100-110.

So this leads me to the question: if my life expectancy is materially different than what the accepted norm is, what should I be doing now to account for that?  What absolutes in my life must now be questioned?

I told Suzanne that if I live 5000 years, I’ll probably have to leave her for another after 1000 years or so.  I mean come on, shouldn’t we redefine commitment at that point?! 

But seriously, what about savings?  Social Security is already projected to fail within mere years.  Imagine several thousand years of retirement!  But then, I’m going to guess that if we live that long, we will be capable of working much later in life.  But can you imagine going to work to the same place for hundreds of years? 

And that leads me to the next point.  I think a lot of people do what they do for a living because they think they received one opportunity to play their hand.  They got their education then they started earning money and now their lifestyle prevents them from reverting back in order to start over.  But if you knew you were going to live thousands of years, you might take 20 years and work out a better more rewarding existence.  Something to think about.

And lastly, for you procrastinators out there, I’m glad I was able to make your day!

On the morning radio show I listen to (The Ticket), they had a segment the other day called "You might be an ass if…" where they pointed out and discussed behavioral traits shared by the asses of the world.  I related to every segment and since I just had an encounter with an ass, I’d like to add a few of my own.

So I’m driving through the covered work parking lot today searching for a spot.  There are some subtle dangers in this process — its dark and that reduces visibility and people park far away in hopes that they’ll reduce the risk of a ding in their door, so that creates gaps in the available slots.

So as I navigate down the lane, I have to stand my car on its nose to avoid a car that is crossing through a gap in the parking slots.  He appeared suddenly since he emerged from one of those gaps.  And I might add his rate of speed was inappropriate for a parking lot much less the way he was trying to use it.

I will admit that has been a pet peeve of mine for years.  Just last week, I had two separate near-incidents at the Kroger parking lot.  These people didn’t even bother to stop and seemed oblivious to what they were doing.  This bothered me even more.

So back to the work parking lot.  This guy parks two lanes away and as we exchange looks, he says he’s sorry.  But I couldn’t help giving him a scolding.  He bore the brunt of everyone who has ever wronged me in a parking lot and I’m quite sure he didn’t know what to think.  I hope I don’t ever have to work with or for him as that will be awkward.

So alas, I do think its cool and creative to color outside the lines, but not in this case.  But for what its worth, since I scolded this guy, the bitterness has subsided and the next person will probably just get a look instead.

Now onto my next scenario.  For years I’ve been amazed at bathroom behavior in the workplace.  I have more than one funny story to tell about it, but I’m going to just detail what happened yesterday at work.

But first, some context.  Our bathrooms have two urinals and two stalls.  And yes, sometimes you need to do some "business" even at work.  I know most people are too cool to admit that, but I’m not.

My usual procedure is to check the cleanliness of the stall before completely committing to it.  And about 50% of the time, I’m moving on!  A large percentage of those instances is due to some ass disrespectfully peeing on the seat!  So I’ve always wondered who these animals are that I work with.  And I’ve been wanting to ensnare them somehow.

So yesterday as I’m doing my business, I see black tennis shoes enter the stall and not doing the customary 180 degree turn indicative of the usual business conducted in the stall.  Having not detected a "full house", I’m now on alert.  I think its bizarre for men to avoid a perfectly good urinal for a stall — there’s just no reasonable explanation for that (in my humble opinion).  So as I trained my wolfen ears toward the subject, I did not detect the clatter of a lid being raised.  So I’m led to wonder if one of the animals is peeing next door. 

He flushed the commode and I could hear water running in the lavatory area of the bathroom.  So I rush my business and hurry to stand up in the stall so that I can peer through the crack in the door to at least see who it is.  I do so successfully just before he leaves.  So at this point, I have positive identification.

Next, my challenge was to perform an inspection of the neighboring stall without looking too weird.  No one was in the bathroom, so I was able to do it easily.  Had anyone walked in, my investigation probably would have been scuttled.  To my delight (why am I delighted by this?), I confirmed my suspicion — the toilet glistened an unsavory yellow.  At least his kidneys are working well.

So now my dilemma, I know who he is and I know where he sits.  For the record, he’s not in my group, but sits in our proximity.  So how do I handle this?  Is this an HR issue — disrespect in the workplace?  Or shall I use the not-so-subtle approach of leaving an anonymous note pleading with him to have some manners?   Whatever the case, he’s an ass.

And by the way, this is the same guy who almost hit me in the parking lot! 

Nah, just kidding. 

This is a silly topic to devote a post to.

In my work (software), we do a lot of testing.  Well, some of us do.  So in having that testing mindset, I’ve noticed that I look at the world sometimes with an eye toward the testing thought process.

I have this pair of brown shoes that had shoes laces that wore out.  So on a visit to Kroger (sorry, Kroger, I’m sure this isn’t your fault), I cruised the shoe lace offerings and picked out the only set of laces that would match my shoes.  I basically had one choice, so that’s the one I went with.

Once I got the laces on my shoes, I noticed that I had to re-tie them several times during the day.  At first, I thought it had to do with the newness of the laces.  But that’s clearly not the case since I’ve had these laces on for several months and my experience is always the same. 

So now I’m wondering how the lace manufacturer tested these laces.  If they followed any process at all, they surely would have received feedback detailing similar experiences.  I’m astounded by how bad these show laces are.  How can you screw up something so simple?

And for the smart-asses out there, yes, I do know how to tie my shoes!  But as I write that, I note that I’m not tying my shoes, I’m tying my shoe laces. 

Steve Jobs — can you help me?

Since posting pictures and video here from our trip in Kauai (back in September), this weblog has drawn at least three inquiries for the Kuraoka House in Kauai. In each case, I’ve conducted email dialog beyond this weblog that I believe have led to bookings for the house.

In fact, if you type “Kuraoka House” into Google, this weblog will come up fourth on the list — two higher than the property management company’s listing for the Kuraoka Cottage.

Now if I could only get my portion of the referral fee.

Seriously, it does seem interesting to me how the world has changed. Google makes it so easy to get to information that it has become an important tool in the due diligence process. So maybe Google deserves the referral fee moreso than I do.

For what its worth, Suzanne and I purposefully arranged our Kauai plans so that we could stay there once again. Yes, it really is that fantastic!

And if you’ve stumbled across this weblog entry looking for Kuraoka House information, feel free to comment or email otherwise. I’ll gladly answer any questions you may have.

As Suzanne and I were preparing to leave for Kauai last September, I thought to set up the “Lost” pilot for Tivo. I did so mainly because I had heard that many of the scenes were filmed in Kauai. While that turned out mostly to be false, the show is unbelievably well done.

The premise centers around a group of airline passengers who survive a plane crash and find themselves on a deserted tropical island. But apparently, this isn’t just any island. It has a certain magical quality about it. And though it appears to be deserted, it is clearly not. While the core members of the Lost crew have encountered a survivor of a boat wreck and one other unsavory character, its the source of the magic that and who or what might be behind it that is a source of intrigue.

But even the crew themselves provide intrigue. Somehow their lives are interwoven and as we watch the show, these entanglements are slowly revealed. The show does a marvelous job of mixing in well done flashbacks with current events on the island.

In almost every case recently, when the show is over, I cannot wait to find out what happens next.

I’m sure there will be a Lost season one DVD and if you haven’t watched the show so far, I’d suggest purchasing it and working through the episodes. Its great fun discussing weekly what will happen next and what subtleties we caught in the current episode. Its also fun considering who of the crew you’d prefer to be Lost with. And over and above the show, if you could choose a crew, who would you prefer to be Lost with?

I know anyone who stumbles across this post will be stunned and amazed. After donating 4+ months of fees to Typepad with not a single post, here I am with my biggest post ever.

After 10+ years of being divorced, I’ve found someone that I want to spend the rest of my life with. Suffice it to say that I took my sweet time trying to find “the one”, but I think I’ve finally done so.

Suzanne and I met last May through Match.com. I initiated the relationship by sending her an email while I was visiting Finland. To be my delight, she replied at length to my initial email. And I must say that that was a major turn-on to me. I love it when a woman takes the time and has the ability to express herself. To me, that’s a sign of good communication skills and a sincerity about the process of finding someone.

So through my week-long visit, we exchanged many emails — one night we exchanged several while I sat in my hotel room. Heck, I paid the 10 euros connection fee just for the privilege of being connected so as to receive her emails. And as the intrigue progressed, I finally asked her to leave me a voice mail message so that I could hear her voice. Though it was a strange request, she did so and I can say that I first heard her voice as I was in the Helsinki airport.

I could go on, but you probably want to know how I made the proposal. So I’ll get to the good stuff.

First, at our age (me 40, she 38), there’s less surprise in such things. We’re both established in life and so we talked readily about getting married. So my proposal was no surprise. However, the way that I did it was.

Alas, I didn’t want to be one of those slugs that proposed poorly. I didn’t want to drop to one knee at Chili’s or even at nice club. I wanted it to be memorable and intimate. And I wanted that part to be a suprise. So she basically knew when it would happen, just not how. And further, she knew when I acquired the ring and suffered as I put the details together.

So finally, Saturday April 2nd came around and it was a perfect day. It was probably 72 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I couldn’t have asked for a better day. Suzanne arrived at my house — yes, I made her drive to my house for her proposal! But it made sense, since we were only going to Las Colinas. She lives 23 miles away from me, so logistics overrode romance in this one regard.

As we set out for our destination, she still didn’t know what we were doing. I had earlier in the week told her that it would be an outside event, so dress comfortably. During the week, her and her friends had many guesses as to what I was up to, but none guessed it right. I threw ample red herrings out — even suggested that she wear her hair so that it would look good after having worn a helmet. Needless to say, I had great fun with this to the bitter end.

Eventually we got to the Omni Hotel where we were to meet a Gondola and a Gondolier. If you aren’t familiar with such terms, just imagine the boats that taxi people through Venice. Unfortunately, our Gondola was motorized, but still very fun.

In the first portion of the cruise, we enjoyed a catered meal from Trevi’s (Italian food). We had non-alcoholic champaigne, salad, and dessert to go with our entrees. The Gondolier intermittently sang Italian love songs and some contemporary songs while we steered through the narrow portions of the canal. Suzanne and I really enjoyed the meal and eventually settled under a blanket and started enjoying the rest of the cruise.

As we did so, the Gondolier mentioned to us that he needed to get a bottle of water, so he was going to hold the boat in place. As it turns out this is when he slyly through a message in a bottle into the canal. As he maneuvered the boat away, we circled back around and could see the bottle bobbing in the distance. He pointed the bottle out and said how he hated to see litter in such a pretty canal. So he asked if I would retrieve it. So he maneuvered us to the bottle and I fetched it out of the water. As I pulled it from the water, it was obvious that it was a bottle carrying a message.

I gave the bottle to Suzanne and she opened it and read my prepared words. I had felt like the way we met was a message in a bottle of sorts. A message that traveled a long way across a pond. And since we plan to get married on a beach in Kauai, it seemed even more appropriate to factor in water into the proposal.

After she read my message, I fell to one knee, said a few words, and though she was shedding tears, I got the idea that the answer was “yes”. She accepted my ring and loved its hand-engraved setting.

After the cruise, we spent the new few hours at the Nana Grille Bar which is at the top of the Wyndham Hotel. This is a bar that we went to early on in our courting where we shared a lot about ourselves. It seemed an appropriate place to return to. We closed the night in a nice suite in the Wyndham Hotel as well.

We didn’t go overboard with too many pictures, but you can see a handful here.