Changes Abound

Well, we have a new president -- new in MANY respects. What a relief!

And I've cleared enough space in my office that I can now dance around (used to be like those rumored places where the old folks have trails between piles of stuff).

And I've made a major breakthrough in my programming -- my task of the last 2-1/2 months finally came together today! Schwing!

Feeling good, and now going to bed.

My Guide for Future Posts

A set of writing advice have come to me attention that for all this future posts would conform to:

How to improv you’re wrighting:

1. Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.


2. Just between you and I case is important.


3. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.


4. Watch out for irregular verbs which have crope into our language.


5. Don’t use no double negatives.


6. A writer mustn’t shift your point of view.


7. When dangling, don’t use participles.


8. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.


9. Don’t write a run-on sentence you have to punctuate it.


10. About sentence fragments.


11. In a letter themes reports articles and stuff like that we use commas to keep a string of items apart.


12. Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary.


13. Its very important that you use apostrophe’s right.


14. Don’t abbrev.


15. Check to see if you have any words out.


16. As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong.


17. Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.


18. It is important to never ever under any circumstances split an infinitive.


19. Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague.


20. The active voice is preferred.


21. Use of the passive voice is to be avoided.


22. Eschew obfuscation.


23. Never us a long word when a diminutive one will do.

Been too busy and not terribly motivated lately. As can well be seen, I haven't added anything to this blog for quite a while.

Here's the outcome of the NewEgg Sceptre monitor deal. NewEgg, after many emails and finally a direct contact through the real-time messaging, gave me two RMAs for the monitors. Then, in subsequent emails, they gave me a refund because they had no more of those monitors in stock. This was probably the best of all worlds, because I was not terribly impressed with the quality control of Sceptre.

In the next day or so, Office Depot put Acer monitors -- 22" widescreen LCD panels -- for sale, for the same price as those Sceptre's (after rebate; means extra sales tax but no shipping).

Ran a burn in on the new Acer monitors and they performed flawlessly.

System is all set up and working wonderfully (after some trial and tribulation getting Firefox installed.



Now have a Shuttle to reconfigure for somebody as yet unspecified.

Parking Hell & Dart Goodness

Drove down to Fremont, yesterday, for the annual Summer Solstice Parade (which I have STILL not seen), on the promise of a place to park in a co-worker's driveway -- turned out the driveway was not only too short for my vehicle, but so many other vehicles were parked so close that there was no way to even turn into the driveway. Turned right around and came back home. Phooey! What a waste of time and gas!

This evening, went down to the weekly Sunday tournament (blind-draw doubles 501) at Cooper's Alehouse, and though teamed up with the most anti-social of all the people that usually show up for these tournaments, still managed to pull off second place -- not huge: $15 each (entry fee was $5, so cleared $10, which, if nothing else, diminished the bar tab). Also managed a Ton-34 in one game, and several Ton's throughout the evening.

Now to bed -- work tomorrow, so must rest well.

Sneaking Suspicion

Is it just me or is there something really odd about those email responses from NewEgg?

I've concluded that one or both of two things are at the root of their oddness:

1. The responder is using a boilerplate response and is cutting and pasting phrases and/or whole sentences from some sort of customer service management tool.


2. The native language of the responder is not English.

On another front, the women leave for Europe, tomorrow morning, early. It'll be just me and the animals. It's going to be weird -- again. Sigh.

Just How Long IS This Saga?

And this reply from NewEgg's customer service at 9:22pm this evening:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for writing back to us.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We have forwarded your pictures to our related department. Once they determined if we will need to file a claim or issue an RMA for a replacement for you, we will keep you updated of it via your login email address as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

If you still need assistance, please feel free to email me directly and I will be happy to assist you.

Thank you,

(representative's name)

Still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Saga of the Sceptres (NewEgg Return)

So, Monday, June 16, at about 5:30pm, I followed the prescribed procedure for returning defective/damaged LCD panels to NewEgg by completing their customer service form on their website, in which, including the required customer account and merchandise identification, I conveyed the following:

Both monitors received are defective. Need RMA for return replacement.

To which I immediately received an email aknowledgment of receipt.

In the wee hours (just after 2am) on June 17, I received the following reply:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Newegg.

In reviewing your account, we show that the item is non-refundable. However, it is still covered by our 30-day replacement warranty. In order for us to further assist you, please give us a detailed description about the problem of the items. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

If you still need assistance, please feel free to email me directly and I will be happy to assist you.

Thank you,

(representative's name)

At 8:20am (same day) I sent a reply:

One of the LCD panels has a quarter inch long streak of damaged pixels about two inches from the bottom left corner. This is the least defective of the two. The other LCD panel has four distict dead pixels, one red, one blue in the upper left, and one green, one blue in the lower right, but also has two areas where the panel appears to have been crushed, as the pixels are "dimmed" in a half ellipse area in two places, approximately 1 inch wide by 1/2 inch high, one on the top edge and one on the bottom edge.

These LCD panels are for a photo-editing system as a gift for a 40-year member of the Seattle Photographic Society who turns 80 on July 14th, and those defects make the monitors unacceptable for photo-editing.

Please advise as to the next step.

Thank you,

At about 9:30pm, same day, received this reply:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for writing back to us.

According to the description in your email, the items seem to be damaged through shipping. If items are damaged through shipping, we will need to file a claim.

In order for us to further assist you, please check if the packages has been damaged or opened through shipping. If so, please give us a detailed description about the damage to the packages. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

If you still need assistance, please feel free to email me directly and I will be happy to assist you.

Thank you,

(representative's name)

At 9:45pm, same day, I sent the following reply:

I do not see any damage to the shipping containers. I also have no idea how to tell if the packages were opened before I opened them (obviously, I had to open them, of course, in order to be able to tell that they were damaged/defective).

I just need RMA numbers so I can return them, or a refusal so I can lodge a complaint with my credit card company and have the charges reversed.

At 10:40pm, June 17 (same day) I received this reply:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for writing back to us.

We have checked this issue with our related department. We will need you to send a picture of the damaged monitors. The picture should show the problem of the items. We will then be able to decide if we should file a claim or issue an RMA for you.

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

If you still need assistance, please feel free to email me directly and I will be
happy to assist you.

Thank you,

(representative's name)

So, this morning, I had to unpack the monitors again, after having carefully repacked them for return, reassemble them, take multiple photographs (25) -- requiring zooming to show individual failed pixels, repack the monitors for return, prepare the photographs (used 14 of the original 25) for upload to an FTP site as the size of the photos and quantity far exceed the bandwidth limitations on my mail server, and upload them (CLICK HERE) -- in all, about two hours out of my day.

This is my latest reply, at ~11:30 am, June 18:

So I have spent about two hours this morning complying with your request for photos. I had already repacked the monitors for shipping, so I had to unpack them and reassemble them before I could photograph the defects/damage.

I have 14 photographs, that many made necessary by the type of defects/damage, which required different lighting and/or background colors in order to photograph them at all. And were I to attempt to send them all by email, it would fail, as it would exceed, by far, the attachment size limitations of my mail server. So, in lieu of that, I have posted the photos on my photogallery.

You can see them in thumnail version here: http://tinyurl.com/5qfr5u

Clicking on any thumbnail will load a page with a 400x300 enlargement of the photo (though this is still a reduction from the original). By clicking on that 400x300 image, a new browser session will launch with the full 3264x2448 image contained therein (from which you can download by right-clicking, should you so desire).

I hope that's sufficient to proceed. You have thanked me for my patience and understanding with each reply, so far, but my patience and understanding is now at its limit. I hope we can proceed with no further delays.

Thank you,

(my sig line)

P.S. This exchange is now being publicly chronicled here: (url to this blog)

So now I am on standby, awaiting another reply.

Missed Yesterday

It was a nice Father's Day.

Earlier in the day, my daughter and I pursued one of our hobbies -- garage "sailing"; and came back with some cute stuff. She got a couple pairs of shoes for a buck apiece, and some other small trinkets. I found another clipboard (can't get enough of 'em), and clock for the basement bathroom, and some picture frames.

Paula prepared a delicious BBQ'd turkey-lamb-burger dinner (wth asparagus and M&M salad (look it up). My mother came to visit, as did Paula's father, so it was a two-in-one. Paula had printed out and framed a picture I took on our Copalis River camping trip, Memorial Day weekend, for her father. She got me a fleece vest -- nice "green" one from REI. And we had strawberry rhubarb pie for desert.

On a different note, completed the requirements for obtaining an RMA for returning the two monitors, but no word back, yet, from NewEgg (other than the automated email acknowledgement of receipt of the request).

And it is now almost midnight, so I'm going to wrap this up before it becomes tomorrow.

Project Complete, er, partway...

Got everything put together today, and she's a screamer, but BOTH monitors have to go back -- bad pixels. One of them, I might just live with if it were for me, but this system is intended for photo editing, and they are simply not acceptable for that.

I guess I'll get to find out first hand just how good NewEgg is about returned merchandise.

Beautiful & Bureaucracy Have Only 4 Letters in Common

So, after waiting the absolute fullest "estimated wait time," I spoke to the "customer service" respresentative, who couldn't answer my question. She then tried to connect me to a different department, and managed to disconnect the call, so I had to call back and wait again...for the full "estimated wait time".

This next customer service representative was quite curt, and really didn't seem to have too much interest in listening to my questions, and all but rushed to hang up on me.

But the verdict is, to the best guess I can make, is that besides the increase in tax from the main tax table, they disallowed one of my more major deductions. May have to to an amended return and include deductions I previously chose to omit, as figuring them out took more time than I felt like spending, such as office space in the home.

Anyway, I'm just so happy that I get to do my taxes again, and pay even more money. Joy!

The Music Lies

Presently on the phone, on hold, waiting to talk to an IRS "customer" service representative. Listening to the light happy strains of the Nutcracker Suite, which belies the reputation of the agency; should be something more like a funeral dirge.

But "customer" service representative? Seems to me that if I'm a customer, I ought to be always right, as well as free to take my business elsewhere. Could that be a euphemism? Say it ain't so!

At least this time, the "anticipated wait time" is only 10 to 15 minutes.

Stalled Out

No progress on the new project, today, other than that the two LCD panels arrived today.

Got derailed by a call from the repair shop -- they want $4960 for transmission repair. ARGH!

And got a notice from the IRS today that I owe more than I paid on my taxes. I got one of my numbers wrong, but they got theirs wrong, too. Have to track it down and get the scoop, but I'm always told, when I call, that the wait time is 15 to 20 minutes.

They say I owe another $1400 -- I did make an error, but my revised figures indicate I owe considerably less than they say -- another $300 or so.

Sigh! Just what I wanted to do -- my taxes all over again!

New Project

But for the two wide-screen LCD panels, got all the parts for a new computer, today. This is a surprise birthday present for "Grandpa".

It consists of the following:


All-black (no chrome or bubbling lights) Lian Aluminum case
(LIAN LI PC-A05B Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case)


ASUS motherboard
(ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard)


Nvidia video card
(XFX PVT84JYDF3 GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card)


450W power supply
(Antec earthwatts EA430 430W ATX12V v2.0 Power Supply)


3 Ghz Intel dual-core processor
(Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8400)


4 gigs of dual channel RAM
(Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model KVR667D2N5K2/4G)


Card reader
(SUPER TALENT INTAIN1MCR All-in-one Card Reader)


500 Gb hard drive
(Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive)


2 DVD RW drives
(PHILIPS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model SPD2413BM/17)


And, yet to come, two 20.1-inch wide-screen LDC monitors
(SCEPTRE X20WG-1080P Black 20.1" 5ms(GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor)


Got the motherboard and the power supply installed, but holding off on the rest, for the time being, as neighbor and I like to do this sort of thing, augmented by moderate (or slightly more) quantities of scotch.

Drat!

Not to be confused with "Dart!"

Still wrangling with the customization of this blog utility. Wanted to completely replace the header graphic with my own, but the interface insists on indenting my picture, so had to settle for a smaller one.

Guess I'll just have to investigate further. I fully intend to, at some point, completely change the look of the page, to suit my own taste.

In the beginning, there were barnacles...

I finally figured out why my keyboard has been rattling so much -- the left "leg" was sitting on top of one of the many cables with which my desk is strewn. So much for that...

I have fallen in love -- with Google SketchUp, a 3D CAD program that is, despite its ease of use and extreme capability, FREE!

Began using it Saturday, and within 3 hours, had designed a sliding medicine cabinet for my basement bathroom! (This was a particularly challenging project, as the cabinet must fit in the leftover space after the conversion from a full bath enclosure to a shower stall.)


Am now using it to create a corner shelf for the dart alley, where I work, for use by all the darters (including Zeeple -- see Zeeple's blog: The Dart Indoors).