I spent my last free Saturday before tax season going to a presentation by "Worldmark by Wyndham" - which is sort of a twist on the timeshare concept. But I'm not going to get into the details or my experience there, because that's not the point of this post. The point is that my wife signed us up to go to this because they offered a free three-day, two-night trip to either Las Vegas or Orlando. And they insisted there was no catch. Riiiiggght. . .
We selected the Orlando trip with the idea that we could use it as an opportunity to get to Florida and drive down to Boca Raton, where my wife grew up. We've been married almost 10 years, and I've never seen where she went to school or the house or any of her old stomping grounds. After we beat off all the sales pitches we left with our free voucher and read the fine print to discover the catch. It was essentially a one-day, two-night trip! They fly you out in the evening of day 1 and then fly you back the morning of day 3.
We were undaunted, and went ahead with Orlando plans. We sent in our three preferred dates, and wound up with the week of our 10th anniversary. So then we had to send in a $95 deposit for the taxes on the flight and the room. Okay, whatever. I can understand that they are trying to minimize their cost of our "free vacation."
Then we get a call from the travel agency the other night offering an upgrade. She emphasized the fact that we were going to get crappy flight times and that our hotel in Orlando would be maybe 45 minutes from Disney and possibly wouldn't even have a pool. But for an additional $378, we could convert it to an actual three-day trip and get a hotel right at the gate of Disney. She also offered to switch us to the Vegas trip for an additional $98 - we would get the better flight times, a nicer hotel on the Strip, tickets to a show, free shuttle from the airport, a day of free car rental, and $100 for gambling at some casino.
We debated this for a moment - the Orlando upgrade was pretty much out of the question. My wife is pregnant and wouldn't that just be the luck that something would happen and she wouldn't be able to go and we'd be out almost $500. So the question was if we really wanted to keep our crappy Orlando package: Spend a minimum of 10 hours on flights and spend the one vacation day driving 6-7 hours.
In the end, we decided to do the upgrade to Las Vegas. If we're going to go to the trouble of taking a vacation for our anniversary, we might as well spend some of the time doing stuff besides flying and driving. I don't exactly love Vegas - I've visited a couple of times and wasn't that impressed. In fact, I don't think it would crack my top 10 U.S. vacation destinations. But it should be fun to spend some time together without any kids for the first time in about 8 years. (Unless you're counting the one in utero - I guess we can't leave him.)
So our "free" vacation so far has cost $193. We're disappointed the Florida thing didn't work out, but hopefully we can do a better plan some other time.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Tough Choices
Becky Hammon - your typical brown-eyed All-American girl - is the point guard for the San Antonio Silver Stars of the WNBA. A native of Rapid City, South Dakota, she grew up dreaming of representing her country in the Olympics. However, USA Basketball apparently had little interest in having her on the 2008 team that will compete for the gold in Beijing. So she decided to go another route - accepting an offer from the Russian national team to represent their country in the Olympics. She became a naturalized Russian citizen and will be competing against her home country later this summer.Of course, she is being called a traitor and other unflattering names for this decision, although I've also heard plenty of others offering support. It's not as if she's a marginal player just hoping that she might get picked - she was first team All-WNBA last year and finished 2nd in league MVP voting. Yet Team USA didn't even have her on the list of potential invitees to the tryouts. She's 31 years old and this Olympics is probably her last chance to fulfill her dream.
Hammon has been faced with beating the odds before. She wasn't recruited heavily out of high school by major college programs, yet wound up becoming an All-American and leading Colorado State (not exactly a basketball powerhouse) to a 33-3 record her senior season. She was undrafted by the WNBA, but gradually carved out a successful professional career as one of the best players in the league. She has already accomplished a lot in her career despite having others doubt her abilities. And so it looks like she has to prove herself again this summer.
I don't think her decision was unpatriotic. After all, the Olympics is more about individuals these days. The Cold War has been over for two decades. Besides, what is patriotic? Is it taking steroids in order to win gold and then lying about it? Is it hiring someone to take a club to your top opponent's knee? Is it draping a flag over the Reebok logo on your warmup suit because Nike is the company that butters your bread?
A similar decision was made by Kirby Heyborne, the LDS actor. He gained popularity among Mormon audiences with his performances in "The Singles Ward", "The RM", "Sons of Provo", "Saints and Soldiers" and other films. I've often made fun of the fact that there doesn't seem to be an LDS-themed film that Kirby hasn't appeared in.
However, the writers' strike made things a little tight for everyone, and Kirby is currently appearing in a Miller Lite commercial. Of course there are Mormons out there who are "disappointed" that Kirby "sold out." I think that the only thing that would be more surprising than seeing Kirby in a beer ad would be if there weren't members of the church ready and willing to criticize him for it. He has commented on his decision and maintains he is a worthy church member and that the job opportunity was a blessing from God.
My position is that if he felt that he needed to do the commercial in order to provide for his family, then it's not anyone else's place to second guess him. I'm not saying I'd choose the same if I was in his situation or that I wouldn't - I don't know, because I've never had to try and make a living as an actor. I've seen the ad and it is a bit unsettling to see Brother Heyborne in the role. But he's playing a character. It's not as if he's all, "Hi, I'm Kirby Heyborne, and there's nothing I enjoy more after a hard day on the set than a cool, refreshing Miller Lite."
I'm certain that neither of these individuals took their decisions lightly. In a perfect world, we would be cheering for Becky wearing the red, white, and blue, and then when the game goes to commercial, we would see Kirby selling Sunny D. I know people are going to have differing opinions on whether what they chose to do is right or wrong. But I admire them for doing something unconventional in order to get what they want out of life.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Customer Bad Service
I needed to get a money order. I'd been putting it off, but Tuesday was going to be the day. And when my wife called to ask me to pick up a couple of things for dinner at the store on the way home, it was the perfect two-birds-with-one-stone situation. So I stopped at King Soopers, which is the first supermarket I came to on my way home.
Two guys are at the customer service counter with a stack of money. I approach as one of them disappears. The other guy is still there, counting the bills. I give him a few seconds to finish his task, but he just keeps on going. I start to get uncomfortable about being ignored and pretend to be interested in the sign telling about the tomato recall. But I can't really focus - the kid has done nothing to acknowledge my presence. He has to know I'm there - he's standing facing me, and I'm less than three feet away, directly in front of him. I keep waiting, trying to be patient. At least 45 seconds go by from the time I first walk up, maybe more. He's still counting and writing. I'm almost in disbelief - he hasn't looked up or said hello or the done the correct thing, which is to say, "Be right with you sir."
Finally, I give up and walk away. He finally says something to the back of me once I'm 10-15 feet from the service desk. But I'm not coming back now. I decide not to purchase the other requested grocery items from King Soopers because I'm too bugged. I suppose some people would have done the throat-clearing noise or said something to shake the boy from his money-counting stupor. But I didn't because I don't have to. It's not my job.
And I should know, because once upon a time, I was a customer service clerk. At my store, Harris Teeter, customer service was priority number one. If I had pulled a stunt like that and the customer had complained about it, at the very least my manager would have spoken to me about it and some sort of disciplinary measure wouldn't have been out of the question.
I didn't complain to a manager, because that's not how I roll. I'd rather vote with the almighty dollar. I'm not saying that I was the Great Master of Customer Service, because I wasn't. And I know Kroger Corp. doesn't care as much about service as HT. But come on - acknowleding the presence of the customer? That's Customer Service 101.
Two guys are at the customer service counter with a stack of money. I approach as one of them disappears. The other guy is still there, counting the bills. I give him a few seconds to finish his task, but he just keeps on going. I start to get uncomfortable about being ignored and pretend to be interested in the sign telling about the tomato recall. But I can't really focus - the kid has done nothing to acknowledge my presence. He has to know I'm there - he's standing facing me, and I'm less than three feet away, directly in front of him. I keep waiting, trying to be patient. At least 45 seconds go by from the time I first walk up, maybe more. He's still counting and writing. I'm almost in disbelief - he hasn't looked up or said hello or the done the correct thing, which is to say, "Be right with you sir."
Finally, I give up and walk away. He finally says something to the back of me once I'm 10-15 feet from the service desk. But I'm not coming back now. I decide not to purchase the other requested grocery items from King Soopers because I'm too bugged. I suppose some people would have done the throat-clearing noise or said something to shake the boy from his money-counting stupor. But I didn't because I don't have to. It's not my job.
And I should know, because once upon a time, I was a customer service clerk. At my store, Harris Teeter, customer service was priority number one. If I had pulled a stunt like that and the customer had complained about it, at the very least my manager would have spoken to me about it and some sort of disciplinary measure wouldn't have been out of the question.
I didn't complain to a manager, because that's not how I roll. I'd rather vote with the almighty dollar. I'm not saying that I was the Great Master of Customer Service, because I wasn't. And I know Kroger Corp. doesn't care as much about service as HT. But come on - acknowleding the presence of the customer? That's Customer Service 101.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Germophobes Beware
I picked up this book at the library: "The Five-Second Rule and Other Myths About Germs" by Anne E. Maczulak. I'm not here to do a review - it looked far too boring to read straight through. But it was interesting enough to flip through the pages and pick up a few random insights.
A lot of the material was familiar from when I had to take a course a few years back in order to get a food handler's permit - such as keeping food out of the 40 - 140 degree "danger zone" and cleaning your surface after working with raw meat or fish. On another page the author analyzed the fact that bacteria actually grows on a bar of soap, but the effect is minimized with proper hand-washing. Dr. Maczulak suggests the "Double Happy Birthday Method" for determining the proper length of hand-washing time. I was always told singing your ABC's is the way to go. I hope that I haven't been led astray.
Probably the grossest part I read was when she suggested that your clothes may actually come out of the laundry more germified than when you took them off because washing machines are full of bacteria. And then if you do stuff like wash dishrags and dishtowels in with underwear. . . you've got real trouble. That's right, fecal bacteria - potentially on your clean dishes. The effect of bacteria in such loads is minimized by washing with hot water, but a lot of Americans don't like to go that way because they're trying to minimize energy costs.
She mentioned another no-brainer - although hotel rooms appear clean, they are actually very filthy because cleaning staffs are too pressed for time to do any actual sanitizing. (But yet they have time to throw away the bar of soap that I could have used for another day and switch out my towel for a clean one even though they have a sign posted in the bathroom asking me to conserve resources by reusing towels.) There is a product you can get - a portable black light - that causes microbes to glow. However, the good doctor did warn that you may not want to see what's in your hotel room. This reminded me of the episode of "The Office" where they go to the trade show and Michael uses the black light in his hotel room. Dwight says, "It's either blood, urine, or semen." And Michael is all, "I sure hope it's urine."
My take on bacteria is to use precautions but don't make yourself crazy sanitizing every surface in the house. The author mentioned that a lot of the sanitizing products out there do in fact work, but the problem is that the germs and stuff just start coming back as soon as you're done cleaning. So I think getting germs is kind of like getting a sunburn - sometimes it just happens. Maybe you'll get skin cancer, but probably you don't have too much to worry about unless you're stripping off all your clothes and lying out in the sun without any sort of sunscreen from 10 am to 2 pm every day. Germs are just a part of life. Embrace them.
I'll leave with a couple more thoughts from the book: 1) The toilet seat doesn't have as many germs as you might think - there are other areas of the bathroom containing far more and 2) a dog's mouth is not cleaner than a human's - but the bacteria is different.
A lot of the material was familiar from when I had to take a course a few years back in order to get a food handler's permit - such as keeping food out of the 40 - 140 degree "danger zone" and cleaning your surface after working with raw meat or fish. On another page the author analyzed the fact that bacteria actually grows on a bar of soap, but the effect is minimized with proper hand-washing. Dr. Maczulak suggests the "Double Happy Birthday Method" for determining the proper length of hand-washing time. I was always told singing your ABC's is the way to go. I hope that I haven't been led astray.
Probably the grossest part I read was when she suggested that your clothes may actually come out of the laundry more germified than when you took them off because washing machines are full of bacteria. And then if you do stuff like wash dishrags and dishtowels in with underwear. . . you've got real trouble. That's right, fecal bacteria - potentially on your clean dishes. The effect of bacteria in such loads is minimized by washing with hot water, but a lot of Americans don't like to go that way because they're trying to minimize energy costs.
She mentioned another no-brainer - although hotel rooms appear clean, they are actually very filthy because cleaning staffs are too pressed for time to do any actual sanitizing. (But yet they have time to throw away the bar of soap that I could have used for another day and switch out my towel for a clean one even though they have a sign posted in the bathroom asking me to conserve resources by reusing towels.) There is a product you can get - a portable black light - that causes microbes to glow. However, the good doctor did warn that you may not want to see what's in your hotel room. This reminded me of the episode of "The Office" where they go to the trade show and Michael uses the black light in his hotel room. Dwight says, "It's either blood, urine, or semen." And Michael is all, "I sure hope it's urine."
My take on bacteria is to use precautions but don't make yourself crazy sanitizing every surface in the house. The author mentioned that a lot of the sanitizing products out there do in fact work, but the problem is that the germs and stuff just start coming back as soon as you're done cleaning. So I think getting germs is kind of like getting a sunburn - sometimes it just happens. Maybe you'll get skin cancer, but probably you don't have too much to worry about unless you're stripping off all your clothes and lying out in the sun without any sort of sunscreen from 10 am to 2 pm every day. Germs are just a part of life. Embrace them.
I'll leave with a couple more thoughts from the book: 1) The toilet seat doesn't have as many germs as you might think - there are other areas of the bathroom containing far more and 2) a dog's mouth is not cleaner than a human's - but the bacteria is different.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
I Finished Reading Something
I'm not much of a reader. I do enjoy reading, but it is very hard for me to find a book that I truly enjoy sitting down with. Today I finished the last few pages of a book that I have been working on since Memorial Day weekend: " '77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age", written by Terry Frei, a columnist for The Denver Post. It came out just before last Christmas, and I've wanted to get it since then, but my book budget is pretty much zero. I couldn't find a copy available in the nearby branches of the Denver or Aurora libraries. I was out at a client in Englewood the week before Memorial Day and happened to look online and find that it was available at the Bear Valley branch, which wasn't too far away, so I drove over after work and picked it up. But I guess you didn't necessarily want to know all that.
The book chronicles the 1977 Denver Broncos and how that team changed the city. Pre-1977, the Broncos had played 17 seasons without ever making the playoffs and only enjoying a handful of winning seasons. To the outside world, Denver was viewed as a "cow town" or just another midwestern outpost of little consequence to anyone living on the coasts. Or so I'm told. I was two years old during the 1977 NFL season.
Much of the book is devoted to brief biographies of many of the players from the 1977 team, including the stories of how they became Broncos. I thought it was interesting that most of them, when learning they had been drafted by Denver, either had the thought that they needed to find a map or that they were going to freeze to death. So that kind of reinforces the idea that the average U.S. citizen knew very little about Denver, Colorado in that era.
Of course, Frei goes through the events of the 1977 season. I was impressed that he kept descriptions of the game action brief - there was some real potential to get bogged down there. Throughout the book, he weaves in many significant non-Bronco news events that were happening at the same time the Broncos were making their historic run to the Super Bowl. Some were sports related - in 1977, the Denver Nuggets were transitioning from the old ABA to the NBA and Denver also had a new NHL franchise - the Colorado Rockies. Also during the latter stages of 1977, Marvin Davis reached an agreement with Charlie Finley to buy the Oakland A's and bring major league baseball to Denver, although in the end the deal fell through. What an exciting time it must have been to be a sports fan in Colorado!
As I said before, I was born in 1975, so I have no actual recollection of anything regarding the 1977 team. I first became a Bronco fan as a 9-year-old at the beginning of the Elway Era. That being said, I'm still a huge fan of the 1977 Denver Broncos. I've read the books and seen the highlight videos and I'm envious of anyone who was able to experience that team firsthand and see the Orange Crush defense at its absolute apex.
Probably my favorite story, which Frei does an excellent job retelling in the book, is about Craig Morton leading the Broncos to victory in the AFC championship game over the Oakland Raiders even though one of his legs was seriously messed up. He'd spent the entire week beforehand in the hospital, and the team did everything they could to keep that fact under wraps while the doctors tried, without much luck, to drain blood from the leg. So he shows up at the stadium and his teammates are astonished that he was going to play even though his leg was totally black and blue. So Red Miller has to tie his shoes for him, and he tells his teammates that if he doesn't get hit, they'll win the football game. Which they do, 20-17, to advance to the Super Bowl. He was an aging quarterback who hadn't really had a stellar career and had bounced from team to team, and that was the defining moment of his career. It's just so Hollywood - I can't believe no one has produced the Craig Morton Story for the big screen. The NFL probably wouldn't allow it anyways.
The final point that Frei makes in the book is that the season forever changed how the Denver fan views his teams. The success of the 1977 Broncos was so new, so fresh, so exciting. And things will never be like that again - there can only be one first time. I totally agree - and the Super Bowl championships of 1997 and 1998 only made it more so. For example, I really enjoyed the 2005 version of the Broncos, who went 13-3 and advanced to the AFC Championship game. But because they failed to break through for another Super Bowl victory, that team is already long forgotten. Jake Plummer, an MVP candidate in 2005, was run out of town a year later and regarded as a failure by fans and media alike. And Mike Shanahan, after coaching the team to mediocre finishes in 2006 & 2007, has many of the same folks calling for his firing.
It's kind of sad that any kind of success will go unappreciated by many in Colorado from here on out unless it results in a Lombardi Trophy, the Stanley Cup, or a World Series title. And that is why the 1977 Broncos are special - they were (and are) regarded as champions even though they didn't finish the year on top.
The book chronicles the 1977 Denver Broncos and how that team changed the city. Pre-1977, the Broncos had played 17 seasons without ever making the playoffs and only enjoying a handful of winning seasons. To the outside world, Denver was viewed as a "cow town" or just another midwestern outpost of little consequence to anyone living on the coasts. Or so I'm told. I was two years old during the 1977 NFL season.
Much of the book is devoted to brief biographies of many of the players from the 1977 team, including the stories of how they became Broncos. I thought it was interesting that most of them, when learning they had been drafted by Denver, either had the thought that they needed to find a map or that they were going to freeze to death. So that kind of reinforces the idea that the average U.S. citizen knew very little about Denver, Colorado in that era.
Of course, Frei goes through the events of the 1977 season. I was impressed that he kept descriptions of the game action brief - there was some real potential to get bogged down there. Throughout the book, he weaves in many significant non-Bronco news events that were happening at the same time the Broncos were making their historic run to the Super Bowl. Some were sports related - in 1977, the Denver Nuggets were transitioning from the old ABA to the NBA and Denver also had a new NHL franchise - the Colorado Rockies. Also during the latter stages of 1977, Marvin Davis reached an agreement with Charlie Finley to buy the Oakland A's and bring major league baseball to Denver, although in the end the deal fell through. What an exciting time it must have been to be a sports fan in Colorado!
As I said before, I was born in 1975, so I have no actual recollection of anything regarding the 1977 team. I first became a Bronco fan as a 9-year-old at the beginning of the Elway Era. That being said, I'm still a huge fan of the 1977 Denver Broncos. I've read the books and seen the highlight videos and I'm envious of anyone who was able to experience that team firsthand and see the Orange Crush defense at its absolute apex.
Probably my favorite story, which Frei does an excellent job retelling in the book, is about Craig Morton leading the Broncos to victory in the AFC championship game over the Oakland Raiders even though one of his legs was seriously messed up. He'd spent the entire week beforehand in the hospital, and the team did everything they could to keep that fact under wraps while the doctors tried, without much luck, to drain blood from the leg. So he shows up at the stadium and his teammates are astonished that he was going to play even though his leg was totally black and blue. So Red Miller has to tie his shoes for him, and he tells his teammates that if he doesn't get hit, they'll win the football game. Which they do, 20-17, to advance to the Super Bowl. He was an aging quarterback who hadn't really had a stellar career and had bounced from team to team, and that was the defining moment of his career. It's just so Hollywood - I can't believe no one has produced the Craig Morton Story for the big screen. The NFL probably wouldn't allow it anyways.
The final point that Frei makes in the book is that the season forever changed how the Denver fan views his teams. The success of the 1977 Broncos was so new, so fresh, so exciting. And things will never be like that again - there can only be one first time. I totally agree - and the Super Bowl championships of 1997 and 1998 only made it more so. For example, I really enjoyed the 2005 version of the Broncos, who went 13-3 and advanced to the AFC Championship game. But because they failed to break through for another Super Bowl victory, that team is already long forgotten. Jake Plummer, an MVP candidate in 2005, was run out of town a year later and regarded as a failure by fans and media alike. And Mike Shanahan, after coaching the team to mediocre finishes in 2006 & 2007, has many of the same folks calling for his firing.
It's kind of sad that any kind of success will go unappreciated by many in Colorado from here on out unless it results in a Lombardi Trophy, the Stanley Cup, or a World Series title. And that is why the 1977 Broncos are special - they were (and are) regarded as champions even though they didn't finish the year on top.
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