It's Just a Little Felony

For 34 years, Susan LeFevre lived a lie. According to a Foxnews.com AP report, LeFevre walked away from prison after only serving one year of her 10 to 20 year prison sentence. That's the felony. She was tracked down recently, living under an assumed name in San Diego county. The quote from her husband explains a lot about how the victim mentality is so prevalent in our society. "Our family is threatened to be destroyed by something that happened to her as a 19-year-old teenager 34 years ago in Michigan." It "happened to her"? Not only did she commit a crime, it was serious enough to warrant a 10 to 20 year sentence! On top of that, she didn't serve her time! Sadly, her husband (Alan Walsh) and their children will suffer significant consequences of her choices - to commit crimes and try to hide that from her spouse. It makes you wonder how they got married without Mr. Walsh having a conversation with her parents.

Tulowitzki Pulls Up Lame

In a demoralizing turn of events, the Colorado Rockies lost ROY candidate Troy Tulowitzki to a groin injury. He'll be out for an unspecified amount of time. In a strange twist of fate, the Rockies actually won the game 3-2 over the Giants because of Tulo's replacement. 2nd baseman Clint Barmes moved to Shortstop for Tulo. 3rd baseman Garret Atkins moved to 2nd base and backup catcher Chris Ianetta moved to 3rd. 15 minutes later, Ianetta hits a homerun in his first at bat and later hit a double and scored the winning run on a balk! Could this be the beginning of a turnaround for the Rocks? And while I'm on the subject of sports - don't forget to vote for your Rockies All-Stars! Go to MLB.com to vote! Go Rocks!

Ethanol - The Bad and the Ugly

While I don't know a ton about Ethanol (except that they stick it in my gas during the winter and it drives the price up as they change the mix at the refinery), I've read a couple of good blog pieces on this. One at boundless.org and one at cameronmoore.com.

What'll You Have?

When you go to In-N-Out for lunch what do you order? When I was younger I always ordered a Double-Double Animal Style, Fries and a Dr Pepper. Now I just get a Cheeseburger Animal Style, Crispy Fries and a Dr Pepper. How about you?

The Future is Now

Yesterday I had the priviledge of teaching our church's College Sunday School class. What a great group of kids. They were fun, but respectful. Justin took on a leadership role with this substitute in the room. And they played along well with my jokes (which is sometimes hard to do because sometimes I'm just not funny). Yet, when I asked serious questions, they replied with thoughtful responses. I'm really proud of those kids. And I thank them for the opportunity to minister to them. They certainly ministered to me.

Harder Than It Seems

Putting in sprinklers is tough. People these days are using Poly pipe, which flexes a little and allows you to run a more direct route with your water lines. It's great if you're putting your sprinklers in when it's 90 outside. The plastic is softer and you can put the connectors in easily. However, when it's 60 in the shade, the plastic is rock solid. Someday they'll come up with a way to fix that. In the meantime, I'll be doing as much as I can during my lunch hour.

Cheez-It Stix

I'm sitting here with a box of Cheez-It Stix. I've just seen them recently and picked some up when they went on sale at King Soopers. What made Sunshine want to produce such a product? Has the market for regular, square Cheez-It's dried up? Are they doing it just to have something new out there? It looks to me like they just cut the square in half and put the ends together. Maybe it's for the children.

The Downfall of American Business, Part 2

The Followup:

Delta decided not to call me (not surprised). I did get an email first thing in the morning that first addressed my issue, then suddenly transformed into a form letter. Very disappointing.

So I took another shot. I called Delta again on Friday at lunchtime. This time I got a lady who spoke English quite well, with a touch of an accent. I asked where she was located. Cincinatti! Excellent! Her accent was from London, so I was comforted by the fact that she was raised on English, albeit the King's English. I explained my difficulty in getting anywhere online, trying to book my tickets and she explained that two of my vouchers were from cancelled flights (a snow day in Atlanta in January) and that those would have to be booked over the phone, but the price of our other tickets would be cheaper if we booked them online! She then proceeded to wait on the phone for 10 to 15 minutes while I booked my kids tickets! When I was done she booked my wife's ticket and my ticket, being sure to place us in the same or adjoining rows with our kids!

The downfall of American Business is when the company makes wholesale decisions without regard to how their constituents feel. But what will save them is the individual efforts of extrordinary employees who go beyond the call of duty because it's the right thing to do!

The Downfall of American Business

When does American business fail? Some of it may be their inability to compete with foreign markets. It may be their reliance on the goodwill of the American consumer. Tonight, it was their inability to deliver quality customer service.

Last July my family and I were voluntarily bumped from a Delta Airlines flight in Denver. It was the mystical confluence of a full flight, temperatures that exceeded 95 degrees and a runway elevation nearly a mile high! Delta had a fly a plane with empty seats to be within safe flight margins. They were offering a credit worth $400.00 each (there's six of us) and a later flight. We jumped at the chance! Then we moved! One of the rules is that you have to use the the vouchers within 1 year.

We're talking about going to Disneyland in October, so I called Delta tonight to find out if the one year rule was to the time of booking or the time of the actual flight. It seemed like a simple question, worthy of 2 or 3 minutes of my time. I couldn't have been more wrong. I'm not sure where the gentleman I spoke with was physically located, but he was definitely from India. I explained the situation and asked my question. Not bad. 3 minutes gone. He asks for a reservation code. I look around, wondering why my question required a reservation code. I finally found one and gave it to him. He puts me on hold. A few minutes later he comes back on (the wait doesn't bother me - I'm watching the Avs). He explains to me that the code I gave him was from a voucher that had been used on a flight that got cancelled in January and was good until the following January. That's great, but it doesn't answer my question. I explain that I have a total of six of these vouchers with various amounts of money on them. So he asks for a different code and I give it to him. More Avs action. He comes back on and says I have 400 dollars of credit on that one. Yeah, I know! What I want to know is, can I book the ticket now for travel in October, which is after the one year mark? Hold. He comes back. He asks for a credit card number! Are you kidding? I just need to know if I can do this! I ask to talk to his supervisor. He wants to know why. Why? Because you don't understand English and I'm asking a simple question! Ok, he says. Hold. The Avs have just scored two goals in the 3rd period at Minnesota! I don't really care. Someone picks up...please, please speak English as your first language...it's the same guy! He proceeds to tell me that what I want to do is fine. Excuse me? You just spent the last 26 minutes trying to figure out what I wanted and when I want to talk to your supervisor you suddenly understand the questions I've been asking? I'm not an idiot! I'm furious!

I decide to go online to log my complaint. But I need to have my SkyMiles number. Don't have it. I need to call the special number for SkyMiles members to get it. I can do this. It's specifically for their frequent flyers. The young lady that answers the phone did a good job, although it was obvious English was not her first language. I file my complaint and ask that a representative call me between 9 and noon MDT tomorrow. We'll see how that goes.

NAB 2008

Today, Lynette and I got back from Las Vegas! We had a great time. This was the 4th time I've attended NAB, but the first time I took my spouse. What a difference. Mom stayed in Colorado with the kids while we got some time away. Oh yeah, I worked as well. Heard from some very successful New Media guys and was able to glean some very good info that I can use at Focus on the Family. I hope to use some of this info on The Boundless Show, one of the podcasts I produce at Focus. You can find it at iTunes and www.boundless.org. I'll post pictures later.

What's the Deal With Dentists?

It's Friday morning and our youngest has a cavity. We knew this a week and a half ago, and had an appointment for her on this past Tuesday. Unfortunately, she got sick Monday night and we had to cancel. The next appointment available was next Thursday. Yesterday she started complaining about her tooth hurting and she ended up not eating much dinner. She'll starve before next Thursday, so we decided to call the dentist today to get her in as an emergency. They're closed. So we called their partner's office. They're closed too. So we called our old dentist. They're closed too! Hello! The rest of us work 5 or 6 days a week, and dental issues don't just happen Monday through Thursday!

Makes me want to grind my teeth.

The National League Champions!

Tomorrow's the big day! Home opener for the Colorado Rockies! They get to raise their much deserved National League Pennant and remind everyone that in 2007, they were the best in the National League.

Sadly, they were not recognized by the national media or Rawlings for their efforts. Not one of their talented starters was awarded a Gold Glove, even though they set the MLB record for fielding percentage! Tulo did not receive the Rookie of the Year award, even though he contributed greatly to a winning team. Matt Holliday did not receive the MVP award even though he was at the top of the league in most offensive categories. And no coach of the year for Hurdle!

I guess the revenge will come in July when Hurdle names replacements for the injured All-Stars!