Dodgers marketing

Guy just showed up at my office from the Dodgers... wanted to sell tickets for the last stretch of the season. He was a Dodger employee so he was legit.

Dodgers are also giving an incentive to send in a deposit for 2009 season tix by not having any price increase.

Is it marketing, the economy, or both?

I know, I know.. I should have told the guy once they start beating the Washington Generals...er...Nationals of the world maybe his job would be easier.

Seinfeld the Microsoft pitchman

Does anyone find it somewhat funny that Jerry Seinfeld signed on as a pitchman for Microsoft to do battle against Apple?

Didn't Jerry have an Apple Mac in his apartment for the entire run of his show? And wasn't that Mac updated every season with the newest model? From what I've read, Jerry had such a firm control over that show that he was involved with every minute detail. His love of Superman and racing is evident... he had the caped hero and a Skip Barber Racing School magnet on his fridge, so I have to assume he was a Mac user too.

I'd love to say "not that there's anything wrong with it" here, but I can't. Seems like a bit of a sellout.

What happens to Beijing?

One event I really enjoyed watching was the marathon, because it gave me a chance to see the city of Beijing. Most think of Beijing as being a bunch of old pagoda-style buildings, and Tiananmen Square with that big picture of Mao.

But, watching the marathon gave us a chance to see the new Beijing, with modern buildings and a cosmopolitan look.

But, once everyone is gone, will China "revert" to it's somewhat authoritarian state or did the Olympics make this country "turn the corner" into modern openness?

Comment on what you think...

Olympics gold medal winners

Why don't more U.S. gold medal winners sing the words to the Star Spangled Banner when they were on the podium? Do they not know them? Kobe Bryant was singing, but I think he was the only one on that team and I didn't notice many others from other sports.

I don't like that stuff. I think all future Olympians should be forced to learn the song in order to make the team, dammit.

Obama's choice

Is anyone interested in the election? Let's see what you're thinking. Take a look at the newest poll and vote. Add your comments too.

Scam credit card collection phone calls

I've been getting calls on my cell phone over the last few weeks from these phone numbers:


505-797-6333
904-954-3071

It's a recorded message that says they need to speak with you regarding your credit card account. They give you a toll-free number to call. I called that number, and while they said it's Citi Cards, I can tell that it's not. I then called the number on the back of my credit card and they had no record of needing to speak with me.

Take a look at what comes up when I searched for these phone numbers:


Just a word of caution to beware!

Home Warranties

In one word... suck. We've had one on and off (mostly on) since we've owned our home. In a nutshell, you pay the man about $450 a year (started out around $250) and, you supposedly are covered for just about everything in your house that could go wrong. There is a $55 deductible per service call. We've been with American Home Shield but there are others out there that work pretty much the same way. The whole thing is a big racket. They will always find a loophole and not cover you and pay the claim.

You don't want to read the details, but after two worthless visits from... ahem... "experts", they determined that our a/c system's compressor stopped working because of poor maintenance on our part. And this after the first guy told us that we didn't have a filter installed. Uh sir, the unit doesn't take a filter, but as they said in Airplane, "that's not important right now."

Long story short we brought out our own guy and he said those other two companies are full of shit and the item was properly maintained.

The end result is we had to buy a new a/c system and canceled the American Home Shield service. I figure we either broke even or came out slightly ahead on the years and years of premiums, but the whole thing did leave a bad taste in our mouths.

Funny end to the story. Less than a week after canceling, a fan in our refrigerator went. Another $250 down. Don't take me to Vegas with you anytime soon.

If anyone else has had an experience like this, comment on it.

The Olympics

Are you watching the Olympics? Can you care less?

Cast your vote

Baseball Trivia

If you know me then you're probably surprised I went this long without a baseball post. Well, the wait is over my friends.

Trivia Time:

What team will have 4 Future Hall of Famers in uniform but none of them will be inducted wearing that team's uniform?

(Jeopardy music playing)

Answer: The 2008 Dodgers.

With the recent re-acquisition of one of my favorite players ever, Greg Maddux, they now will have Manny Ramirez, Jeff Kent, and Joe Torre joining Maddux, all future Hall of Famers, but none will go in wearing Dodger Blue.

Speaks to what baseball has become, which is sad.

Using Smartphones

In Hawaii, I noticed a lot of people using smartphones, but not just as phones. They have really become information and entertainment devices. A few observations:

- While the buzz is all about the iPhone, Blackberry is still king. For the most part, the Treo seems to be pretty much dead. I saw maybe 2 all week.

I got a lot of great use out of my new iPhone and it was a great way to test some of it's features. GPS works great, even in Maui. I got 3G service pretty much all over the island. The Facebook app worked flawlessly and allowed for the immediate upload of pics. One of my favorite features is Google Reader. I'm a news junkie, and the interface is great.

A few wishes for the iPhone?

- Do email better. Blackberry still rules in the email world. With iPhone, there are no filters for spam, no custom signatures for different accounts, no new email "tones" that can be configured for each account, etc. I have 10 accounts in mine, so when new mail comes in, I need to see what email account it was received by. Sucks.

- Don't run everything in the background. Blackberry lets you run apps like GoogleTalk in the foreground, so you can use it along with the other features. The iPhone treats it like a website, so when you leave it and go do something else, your session ends.

- Allow ota syching of the Google Calendar with the iPhone. (I'm told this is coming, but it can't be too soon.)

A Week In Hawaii

I'm sure nobody is interested in the minute details of a week-long vacation in Hawaii, but here are some tips/observations that we picked up from friends, research, and along the way:

- Rent a larger car than you think you need. I reserved a midsize car and got a Toyota Camry . Turned out with all of the luggage and a stop to Costco that we sort of forgot about, it wasn't nearly big enough. Luckily they had a Nissan Murano. After the stop at Costco, we barely had enough room, so be careful. The next step up would have been too large and too expensive.

- Costco is 2 minutes from the Kahului Airport OGG. If you are going with a family, it's really an essential stop. Pick up stuff like water, chips, breakfast foods, plastic silverware, plates, and all of the stuff that are good to keep in the room. Apparently, this is no secret. The place was packed with mainlanders.

- Pick a hotel that is geared towards kids. That's the #1 reason we chose Grand Wailea. Yes, every hotel/resort there has a great pool and easy beach access, but the pool setup there is really something to be seen. The kids' eyes popped out of their heads when they saw that, and it certainly occupied their time (mine too) for a lot of the week.

- Bring cash. Are you saying "duh?" No, I mean bring currency. The place is an endless pit of tipping.

- Everything is expensive. Another "duh" one there. If you have any sort of budget, add 40% and then expect to spend more. It all starts with $8 smoothies at the Swim-up Grotto Bar and goes from there. But hey, you need to just suck some of it up. You're on vacation. The kids learned "bill it to the room" very quickly.

- Get a Casabella. It's sort of a poor-man's Cabana, but it's great because it's reserved for you. Otherwise, you have to battle with everyone else at 7am staking your spot for chairs. A real mess.

- Have an itinerary. We had the week planned out in advance, with days at the pool/beach mixed in with other activities, such as the Maui Ocean Center, a really cool Submarine Tour, and a fun Plantation Tour. Be sure to visit Lahaina ... the kids loved the Stupid Store.

Travelling and airlines for the most part... suck

I've always been a lover of all things transportation. As a small child living in a Philadelphia high-rise, I wanted to watch the bus driver do his thing. I love riding trains and subways, and of course, would gladly spend all day behind the wheel of just about any car. I'd love to take a long trip in either a big rig or a motorhome.

But... let me tell you about what airline travel has become. It sucks. Big time. Those of you that travel more than me surely know this but on an all-day journey from LAX to Maui, it really hit me. You really have to put so much thought into it all now .. from figuring out when to buy food because you need to buy it after you go through security and because they don't feed you on the plane anymore, to making sure the size of your liquid bottles are within regulations. How about $10 on board for a sandwich and a bag of chips. Yep, it's come to this. It's stressful. I even got busted for a pack of matches in my dopp kit. And no, I don't smoke. Who will be the first to correctly post on why I had them to begin with? As Thornton Mellon said, "I learned this in Europe."

The American auto industry

Is alive and well in Hawaii. Every rental here is a Ford, Chevy, or
Chrysler product. We have a Nissan Murano but more on that later.

Test from iphone

Test of blogpost from iphone while laying in bed waiting for emily to
wake up

Getting to LAX is not fun

As you know, it's not fun. Especially with families. Especially after 9/11. We had a 10am flight on a Friday, and left our house at 6:30. Any earlier and it would have really been pushing it. These days, you can never leave too soon.

This parking site sucks. They said I could get indoor parking at the Westin for $9.95/day, which beat Wally Park's deal, even with AAA. Not so. We got there and the posted price was $19.95. The worst part of the deal is the shuttle makes it's rounds every "20 minutes or so" according to the flunkie there. I'm sorry, but that doesn't cut it. Morale of the story is you're not always getting "a deal" and when you are traveling, especially with kids, it's sometimes better and less stressful to pay more to make things easier. Lesson learned and no harm there. So, off to Wally it was. Shuttles waiting, and the valet option makes it easy to transfer all of the bags from our van. I even arranged for a wash while we're away.

Next up... arriving at LAX and getting to the gate. I'm sure you can hardly wait. Feel free to comment so I know I'm not writing this for myself. :)

Hawaii

I'm on a trip to Hawaii with the family. We're staying at the Grand Wailea. A complete and hopefully pretty detailed report about this place when I get back. I'm a total hotel whore and I can be pretty brutal about service and expectations...

Why am I doing this?

Well.. it all started when I made the switch from Blackberry to iPhone. I started doing some moaning and complaining about why the iPhone doesn't do this or that, and when will they have this or that feature (more about my iPhone rants and raves later). My brother said "you should blog on this stuff." And then it was born.

This blog will be just what the title says ... random bits of info about whatever I feel like writing about. Some might be incredibly profound (yeah right) and some might be of the mundane variety (probably most of it). It's an experiment and an ever-evolving work-in-progress so if you continue to read it, post some comments and suggestions to give me some guidance and direction.

Happy Reading!