Customer service, the lost art!

Been a long time since I posted...oh well.

Let me tell you something special.....

I don't need to tell you guys how bad most of these companies are with customer service, you guys know! And I am not talking about just the fast food joints. At least you expect it in the fast food joints.

I'm talking about both small and large companies.
I'm sure most, if not all, of you have delt with your cable provider, cell phone carrier, large retailer, etc, etc and can relate to how horrible their service is.

I want to take a second and recognize INCREDIBLE customer service.

Most of you have probably never heard of ECMtuning. In fact if you don't drive a 1990-1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, or Plymouth Laser, there's a good chance you have no idea who I'm talking about.

ECMtuning (http://www.ecmtuning.com/), provides ECU (automotive computer services) to the vehicles listed above. They started around 1997 and have been kicking butt in the DSM community since. Basically, they provide users with the ability to modify their Ecu's and enable the user to change performance parameters of their cars.

It's incredible what they have acomplished with such an old ECU architecture.

I recently had an issue and needed their help:

On Christmas Eve I mistakenly burned out my ECU. I contacted Thomas Dorris of ECMtuning around 1am for his assistance and promptly went to bed. When I woke up, I checked my email and found that he had responded back at 2:40 AM. AM...AM...This guy must not sleep. He provided me with some additional things to check.

I proceeded with the additional checks and reported back to him. He responded by 8am!
Throughout the day Thomas and I conversed about 10 times ON CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

In the end, I did fry my ecu and had to send it to him for repair, not once was Thomas rude, short, or bothered. Time after time, he responded and did everything he could to help me.

I am not saying all companies need to have people available at 2 and 3am, but all companies SHOULD have people that care as much as Thomas does. He truly cares about customer service and does everything he can to help.

Here's to you Thomas! Thanks again for your stellar support!!!

Chicago Bulls 2011 playoff series vs the Heat

What is wrong with Tom Thibodeau?

How many times do you have to fail before you realize that the pick and roll doesn't work against the heat?

Why does a pick and roll traditionally work? Because the person who sets the pick must also be an offensive threat!

So what happens when the person who sets the pick is not a legitimate offensive threat? 

Both defenders with follow the legitimate threat (point guard in this case) around the pick. So essentially by running a pick and roll with a person who isn't a threat simply introduces a double team to your point guard.

That's right, you have now helped the defense double team your guard. DUH!!!

How come I can see this, the announcers can see this, yet an NBA coach can't fathom why the pick and roll isn't working? Seriously?

Derrick Rose is arguably the fastest guard in the league. No one can guard him by themselves. NO ONE. Not even the much hyped Lebron James. I have nothing against Lebron James, I think he's a great player, but I am sick and tired of folks saying he can do anything and guard anybody. Have you all lost your minds?

"Hey, but see how he stopped rose in the 4th qtr of game 4?"

Are you serious? My 14yr old son could of stopped Rose in the 4th qtr! Why, because he was exhausted!

He has been running against double and triple teams all series long. Try that shit in the 1st qtr and watch the beloved James break an ankle trying to "guard" Rose, won't happen, because they know better than to assign James to guard Rose so early on in the game.

Obviously, Derrick needs some help to spread the floor. In game one, Deng was hitting his outside shots which helped spread the floor and created another legitimate threat that had to be guarded. What happened to that shooting? I watched the Bulls miss shot after uncontested shot. They need a real shooting guard that can pose a consistent threat.

"But Boozer is a threat!"

Man please, if your game plan is to "unleash" Boozer, your going to lose! He cannot put up enough points to win the game, no one player can! I'll ask you dear reader, if your defending the pick and roll, do you fall off on Boozer or stay with Rose? I thought so! So what if Boozer gets 26 points....Bulls lose.

Now, in the scenario above, substitute Boozer for any of the other Bulls players and you see why the pick and roll doesn't really work here.

Thibodeau, you have the fastest guard in the NBA, known for attacking the rim and finishing! Why not exploit that?

I think some isolation plays early in the game would allow Derrick to get going. Why not try that first instead of last (when he's tired)?

In the end, I am not sure there is an easy fix for Chicago without some personnel changes. They need more threats!

I know one thing though, the pick and roll is NOT WORKING TOM!

Grammar

Why is it important? Well it is and it isn't.

While I have never claimed to be "good" at grammar, I have acquired enough skills to be successful in a professional environment. I am not talking about writing grammar, but more importantly spoken grammar.

I live in the heart of the south and have a true story for you.

I recently attended a function for middle school children. This function was 3.5 hours long and consisted of dinner, awards, praise, and somewhat of a sermon.

The overall message to the young kids was positive and the ceremony was entertaining. However, one thing stood out as an incredible dis-service to the children.

Wanna guess what?

I sat there, watched and listened to each speaker step up to the podium and give their speech which of course was riddled with horrible grammar mistakes. Horrible! How horrible?

"Stars do what it take"

"You must preservere" (not persevere)

"Athl a lete" (not Athlete) <--two syllables

These are only three examples of the hundreds that were spewed across the ears of the young children. Who were these speakers you ask? The speakers were teachers, coaches, a reverend, and the school principal. Yes, I said principal.

Why do I care?

Well....I felt extremely saddened. In attendance were young teens and even younger siblings being pelted by mistake after mistake by the very people that are supposed to teach them and be role models for them.

While the assault was being made, most parents were applauding the speaker and further emphasising the bad habits. I just felt like these are kids who are never going to know that this language is completely unacceptable in life, yet alone in a formal ceremony.

I have no delusions that kids should practice perfect grammar and speech when hanging around each other. However, kids should have the ability to "turn on" or "turn off" their proper grammar on demand or when the situation is warranted. Here is a whole group of kids (probably the entire school) who will grow up without this ability and think it is perfectly acceptable to speak in this fashion.

Ohhh, the deep south, you gotta love it.

Oh, and by the way, I've lived all over the world in my life as a military child. I can say with great certainty that this particular issue is most prevalent in the southeast united states.

How sad.

PS, I don't care if my blog has grammar mistakes, if your offended by it, make sure you read my first post. Then jump off a building.

Sleep....Who needs it?

Apparently I do. I just found out that I have OSA "Obstructive Sleep Apnea".

If you wanna read up on it, more than you ever cared to learn about it can be found here:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/obstructive-sleep-apnea/DS00968

Basically, it means you stop breathing several times PER HOUR. In my case somewhere around 15-25 times. Some have it really bad, like 120+ PER HOUR. It's amazing the human body can survive this.

For the past year I have been waking up with moderately severe headaches about 1-3 days a week. My doctor thought I was low on Iron and so I started taking iron supplements. This brought my iron levels back into the normal range but did not resolve the morning headaches.

So after my Sleep study (so much fun btw) I found that my O2 saturation levels were dropping to 81%....Well, that my friends causes a nice little whoop ass of a headache.

So, if you bothered to click on the OSA information that I made so easy for you to find, you will probably see that there are several treatments available. The least aggressive/invasive treatment is to start CPAP treatments (nope, your gonna have to google that yourselves) to resolve the OSA.

I have just started this process and while fairly confident at first, my first 3 nights have been anything but successful.

Stay tuned, I will document my journey into the land of the day walkers.

I leave you with a nice graphic:

First Blog Post

Well what do you know. I always considered myself a private person and never even thought twice about creating a blog. Why would I? Who's gonna read it? Why should they read it? Who cares about my thoughts?

Then it hit me. I do.

If for nothing else but to remind me of what I was thinking at the time I did whatever it was that turned out to be stupid and insenitive, funny, and /or  assanine. You see if peope wanna read my posts and have a laugh, cry, get angry, so be it.

I'm not going to spend my days trying to figure out what to write about and I am not going to even try correcting spelling or grammar. Take it as it is, or don't. It's my blog, for me and anyone that is just as dsyfunctional enough to read it.

Thanks for reading, or not, and hooray.... I made my first post. :)