tomsepper.net

A couple weeks ago, we went to San Diego on a half vacation / half business trip. A huge thanks to Ben & Joel for agreeing to let my family come along!

Knowing that we’d be driving to San Diego and Orlando this year, we took my Trailblazer in to have the AC fixed as well as have 100,000 mile maintenance performed. As that work was being completed, the mechanics discovered something wrong with the front axle as well. All in all, we spent about $1700 getting my car ready.. and that’s on top of the $800 we spent on new tires back in May.

All goes well on the San Diego trip of course.. right? Of course not.

Halfway through the first day of travel, both Monica and I start thinking the air just isn’t being pushed out strong enough. It’s cool enough, but the pressure just isn’t there like it should be. Once we get to our destination for the first day, I call the local Chevy dealership to see if they can get it in. Nope, they can’t — not until 5 days from then. Well that obviously won’t work, so I call a dealership in San Diego and they said they’d be able to look at it if we have the car to them first thing in the morning. The only problem is that we’re 12 hours away from San Diego still, so we decide to let the girls swim, eat some dinner, and then pull an all-nighter.

Along the way, we start hearing a sound like something’s hitting the car. At first I thought it might be the antenna coming loose, but that wasn’t it. I look down at the front passenger side tire and notice a plastic part of the wheel well had come loose and was coming in contact with the tire. Plastic + Rubber ≠ Good. So I try to put the plastic part back to where it won’t hit the tire anymore, but it still does. So we pull over again at a gas station. I bought a bungee cord and rigged the plastic part to the front bumper so that it wouldn’t hit the tire anymore. In that process, Monica starts looking at the front bumper and we realize that it’s not completely affixed to the car!

Needless to say, the last few hours to San Diego were a bit nerve wracking. As we’re driving, Monica and I decide that we’re just not trusting of the car anymore and that we don’t want to put any more money in a car with 111,000+ miles on it. The mechanic we had do the 100k maintenance found something else wrong.. what if this dealership found something too? We just decide to cut our losses. I drove the car to a few local dealerships and found one to buy it. We rented a car for the drive back home. A HUGE thanks to my dad for spending so much time locating the title to the car for us. We really did know where it was.. too bad it was the third place we knew where it was..

Selling my Trailblazer was bittersweet for a couple reasons. It was the first vehicle Monica and I bought together. While minor in the end, it’s still a little sad!

More importantly, both Katie Lynn and Karyn were brought home from the hospitals in my Trailblazer.

Katie Lynn:

Karyn:

A car is just a car, but I’m definitely going to miss my Trailblazer. That being said, I’m very excited about my new vehicle! More info on that coming soon..

Three and a half years ago, Monica and I purchased Katie Lynn’s crib set from Babies R Us. We thought we were being smart by purchasing the crib that would grow with her.. from a crib to a toddler bed to a full size bed. We special ordered the full mattress rails and conversion kit at that time.

Flash forward to about three weeks ago. We bought new mattresses for everyone in the house: a new queen set for Monica and me, a full set for Katie Lynn, and a twin set for Karyn’s upcoming transition this summer. The mattresses were being delivered on a late Saturday afternoon, so Monica and I begin to covert Katie Lynn’s toddler bed into the full size configuration. And of course, there’s a problem. The rails don’t seem to look like the ones in the instructions, and there aren’t enough screws to actually assemble the rails to the headboard and footboard.

Great.. now what? At that point, we believed the situation was one of two possibilities:

1. We received the wrong rail conversion kit.
2. We received the right set but some of the parts were missing.

I decided to call the store where we originally purchased the rails to see what, if anything, they could do. In the end, they offered to special order another set of rails for us and they would simply swap them out.

That’s incredible given the fact that we had purchased the rails 3.5 years earlier. There was absolutely no hesitation on their side. Even more surprising was that they still had our order in their system, so they knew exactly what we ordered and what stock/part number they needed to special order.

In the end, we did actually receive the correct rails but there were some screws missing. Once we got the new set the bed assembled like a charm.

It’s refreshing that a company would do this for a customer. To the team at the Plano, TX Babies R Us — thank you. Customer service done right.

Okay, this may come as a shock to some of you (likely not), but I’m a huge grammar freak. Adults should be able to remember the basics from elementary school. With that in mind, Mr. Sepper’s class is now in session.

Apostrophes

For example: if referring to more than one book, you would write books not book’s. In hosting, when referring to more than one IP addresses, you would write IPs and not IP’s.

there / their / they’re

• “There” should be used when referring to a place either directly or indirectly.
• “Their” should be used when possession is involved.
• “They’re” should be used in place of “they are”.

For example: They’re all over there by the tables with their iPads.

your / you’re

• “Your” indicates possession.
• “You’re” is a contraction for “you are”.

Example: You’re holding your iPhone.
NOT: Your holding an iPhone.

too / to / two

• “Two” obviously is the number 2.
• “Too” means both “additionally” and “excessively”.
• “To” is used as an infinitive,  a preposition, or an anaphor.

Examples:
I like OS X too!
Where should I send this laptop to?

I could go on, but I think that’s enough for this rant.

There’s the bell.. class dismissed.

Hmm, what is Comodo doing to get blocked by mod_security on my server?

We went to Souper Salad last night for dinner; it’s a great buffet-style salad and soup restaurant. However, the restaurants seem to be operated very inefficiently in my opinion.

The way to explain my opinion is to walk you through the dining experience.

1. After entering the restaurant, you’re greeted by a cashier where you purchase your meal.
2. After paying, you proceed to the buffet line. The salad and “fixings” are first.
3. The next line contains the hot items: soups, potatoes, breads, etc.
4. The third and final line contains the dessert and fruit items.
5. Once you have your food, you proceed to to find a booth or table.
6. A “server” will eventually come to your table to check your receipt for what drinks were ordered. He/she will then bring you your drinks.
7. Throughout your meal, your server might come by to ask if refills are needed — if you’re lucky. They will come by and impolitely reach through the middle of your table to get dirty plates and trays.
8. At the end of your meal, you feel compelled to leave a tip since technically you had someone waiting on you.

The inefficiency lies with two facets: staffing and drinks.

Here’s a summary of how many employees are working at a given time during a mealtime “rush”: 1 cashier, 1-2 “prep” folks keeping the buffet line stocked, 4-5 servers, 1-2 dishwashers/cleaners (I would assume), 1 manager. Total of 11.

Caveat: I’ve not worked at Souper Salad, so the above counts are based solely on my patronage experience and observations.

With Souper Salad being a buffet-style restaurant, there’s absolutely no reason to have servers. Install the fountain drink dispenser on the buffet line and there’s immediate cost savings. Yes, I feel bad saying that given the current economy as that means folks would be without jobs. But from a pure business standpoint, it’s wasted money.

That would leave 6 staff members on a given shift and should be plenty to handle a shift.

</rant>

So we’re about to head to bed Friday night after preparing for the neighborhood garage sale. I head into my office to shut down my laptop when I smell something. Wanting to make sure it was or wasn’t just me, I asked Monica to take a whiff. Sure enough, she smelled it as well — a burning smell. After leaving the room, we come back in to try to see if we can pinpoint the origin. We agree that the smell’s coming from a certain corner.

Long story short..

After unplugging everything to make sure it wasn’t a monitor, tv, or something overheating, we look at the outlet. Sure enough, the damn thing is melting. We’re worried about electrical fire possibilities, so we cut power to my office from the breaker box.

Electrician comes out this afternoon to take look. Turns out a wire simply was loose — and had slowly gotten that way over time. The electrician said that more than likely this would not have caused a fire. So that’s a relief.

Pictures of the outlet:

Need. A term we all use constantly.

For me though, it took on a whole new meaning this past weekend while walking on the March for Babies. All along the five mile route, there were these placards containing memorials for those lost and praise for those healed.

Now, I’m a sensitive guy. I have absolutely no problem admitting that. But those placards got to me and really got me thinking.

Team Katie Bug raised $420 for the March of Dimes as a result of some very generous, giving individuals.

Let’s dissect that on a large scale in a broad sense.

How often do you find yourself saying.. “I really need a new car.”? How often do you (okay, me..) find yourself saying.. “I really need a new laptop.”?

I’m as guilty as the next person here.. and I’ve realized that those are not needs; they’re wants.

The babies NEED to survive. Prematurity and birth defects are serious problems, and I’ll venture a guess that it has either affected you personally or someone close to you. It’s a problem that deserves attention.

Next time you’re considering dropping $20,000 on that kitchen remodel; $7000 on hardwood floors; $2800 on the plasma TV.. I implore you..

Consider the babies that NEED your generosity. You never know when “those babies” might just be your own child, grandchild, nephew, niece, cousin..

Monica filled this out but didn’t tag me, but I thought it was interesting so I figured I’d do it anyways.

8 TV Shows I Watch
1. The Big Bang Theory
2. Lost
3. 24
4. Big Brother
5. CSI: Las Vegas
6. CSI: New York
7. Heroes
8. American Idol

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Boston Market
2. Chili’s
3. Texas Roadhouse
4. Braums
5. Jason’s Deli
6. Scotty P’s
7. Whataburger
8. Benaglios

8 Things That Happened Today
1. Clean Wrigley’s Ears
2. Site5
3. Ate lunch with my beautiful wife
4. Watched a new TV show during lunch
5. Woke up at 2:45am because my sick daughter was hungry
6. Updated iPhoto with latest pictures from cameras
7. Took out the recycling
8. Played a round of Tiger Woods golf on the Wii

8 Things I Look Forward To
1. Christmastime with family
2. Having more kids
3. Cotton Bowl
4. Katie Lynn walking
5. Our next trip to Lubbock
6. Ripping out our downstairs carpet
7. Redoing the kitchen
8. Going to the Bears vs Cowboys game in 2009

8 Things I Wish For
1. Continued happiness
2. Endless supply of money
3. World peace and to live together accepting our differences
4. Everyone would be in the Christmas cheer year-round
5. The good Lord to continue guiding me and watching over my family
6. A Chicago Cubs World Series win
7. Katie Lynn to start walking
8. Wrigley to get better