Many of the ties that I have were gifts from students in the past. One of my favorite ties is a plain, dark tan colored one. I picked it out all by myself. I could even tell, all by myself, that it would go with a black shirt. It’s the one I’m wearing in my picture on my webpage.
I have taken my dress shirts to the cleaners for decades. It’s a $1.35 each. I can wash something just fine. I know how to use the iron; it just takes me so darn long to iron something that $1.35 per shirt seems like a very good trade.
At our home in Mukilteo there was a local cleaner to whom I took my shirts. I got to know the family that owned it and enjoyed brief visits with them each time I came in. When we built our new home it was too far to drive to the old cleaner so I tried a new one. The owner is pleasant and our clothes get clean. I say hello, she says hello back. I ask how she is doing. She says fine and asks how I’m doing. I say fine. I ask if she is enjoying the Olympics or the sunny weather or whatever. She smiles and doesn’t answer. She speaks very little English. The radio plays in Korean and she speaks on the phone in Korean.
Once during the summer when I was dropping off some shirts I had asked her a simple conversational question. She smiled and said, “I no understand much.” I said, “That’s okay; your English is a whole lot better than my Korean.” She pointed to her ear and said, “People talk, I nothing.” I asked her early on what her name is. She wrote said it and wrote it on a piece of paper for me. It’s Jae Sook.
It frustrates me to not be able to visit with people. Just even simple things. I even thought about going to a different cleaner just so we could understand each other. I always say hello when I come in, I call her by name, I say thank you and have a good day when I leave. And the clothes are always clean.
That tan tie that I picked out all by myself has been to the cleaners more times than all of my other ties put together. The darn thing is a magnet for me spilling stuff on it. I’m not sure if it’s my fault or the tie’s fault. This past Monday I dropped off my shirts. On Tuesday I wore my tan tie. I even thought when I put it on, DON’T spill anything on it. I was eating lunch at the office. And then it happened. I spilled milk on my cool tie. I thought I need to start wearing a bib or something when I have this tie on.
On the way home I thought I would drop off the tie. Rather than take it off and set it on the counter I decided to walk in, throw my hands up in frustration and just look at her. There was so much milk on the tie you could see the stain from across the street. I had a jacket on so the milk stained part of the tie wasn’t visible. I held my palms up for a bit and then just looked down at my jacket. I pulled the tie out and just looked at it. She laughed.
Laughing in Korean sounds just exactly like laughing in English. We communicated.
It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your cars carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally.
P
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Funky John's and Farting
During the 70’s there was a restaurant on Capitol Hill in Seattle called Funky John’s. They specialized in spicy barbecue. Their dishes had four levels of “zippiness” labeled with one through four stars. The menu explained *=hot, **=hot/hot, ***=hot/hot/hot, and ****=you can’t make it hot enough.
Katy and I were engaged in May of 1977. Early that summer we decided to try a dinner at Funky Johns. I had barbecued pork; I don’t remember what Katy had. I had hot/hot and Katy had hot. Hot/hot was too hot. Sometime during the dinner we started arguing about something. While my memory is good about a lot of things I don’t have the slightest idea what we argued about. I just remember that we were both still angry when we left the restaurant. It was one of those arguments that seemed to just sneak up on us for no apparent reason. Even at the time we both knew it was a little thing but there we were, arguing. Maybe the food was too spicy; I don’t know, either way, we had an argument over what was probably a “nothing” thing. I think it took a couple days to work through it.
Sometime later that summer we decided to go back to Funky John’s, partly to try the food and partly to go back and have a dinner there where we didn’t argue. As it turned out we argued about something again. I don’t have any idea what it was, but again, it was one of those things that just snuck up on us for no reason and in the end was something of little consequence. As a result, in our relationship some slang was born. A “Funky John day” or a “Funky John experience” is one where we end up arguing about something that we didn’t see coming and that we probably could have avoided pretty easily.
As the marriage has evolved we have learned to recognize potential Funky John days coming. Still, we can never avoid all of them. In 2008 we moved in a new home. It’s beautiful and we love it. Katy wanted to get some water color paintings for the upstairs hallway. Watch out, going shopping for paintings is a Funky John day waiting to happen. We went to La Conner to look in some galleries she had been in earlier in the year with her sisters. I enjoyed the breakfast we had before we started on our big adventure. We had been in the first shop maybe 5 minutes when I said maybe we could look through some of our own pictures of hikes and trips and enlarge some of them and put that on the walls.
Imagine yourself hearing a very loud buzzer. You know, the kind you would hear when you just gave a really dumb answer that disqualified you on a game show. I didn’t even hear the buzzer. However, in short order I realized I had just started us on the road to a major Funky John day. That was the only shop we went in that day and that was that.
I should add here very carefully that when we are having a Funky John day it is very frustrating to both of us. Sometimes, not usually, but sometimes, we can kid each other out of being angry about something. I should also add that once it starts if one person is angry and the other isn’t yet it can be a woefully big mistake to say something like, “Are we having a Funky John day?” Bad, bad, very bad.
We did finally work through our painting selection trials and tribulations and were able to go another day and pick out some water color pictures of flowers. Actually, they are very cool. I just didn’t know that is what I was looking for when we started out.
Early in the marriage we were doing some furniture shopping. I was sitting on a couch or a chair; I don’t remember which. The salesman had walked to a different part of the store. I do remember that while I was sitting there I expelled some rectal gas. (I farted.) It wasn’t so loud that you could hear it outside in the parking lot but Katy was standing nearby and she certainly heard it. While there is a first time for everything that certainly wasn’t the first time. She said my name, “Jim Pankiewicz”. You know, like you would when you’re scolding a kid. I just laughed. (What did she ever see in me?)
For Christmas this year we decided to get furniture for our living room. We kept it very simple on Christmas and said we would go shopping on President’s Day weekend to try and catch some sales.
Now furniture shopping is not like shopping for fishing tackle. I’m intelligent, I’m educated, but that doesn’t mean I’m very good at furniture shopping. As the years have passed I have gotten better at shopping for things like furniture with Katy. I can readily give an opinion about something when I’m asked. I can readily take it right back when I’m asked to also. In fact I don’t even need to be asked; just a simple look is enough for me to take back my opinion. I’m really good at sitting in something and saying if it’s comfortable or not. Yeah, I’m good at that. Mmmm…; I’m not so good at the matching colors thing. I can make a pick between three or four choices but when it comes to going through racks and racks and racks of different fabric choices I approach being a complete moron.
We went furniture shopping this weekend. We had been out for four hours, as in one, two, three, four. Yup, four hours. When we left home I said, “No Funky John day today. I won’t offer any wild opinions without asking first if it’s okay.” Actually, we can both laugh about that. I think I’m being good about going and looking through more fabric choices than I thought were possible and I think Katy is pretty darn good about getting things down to a few choices for us both to look at.
After we had been in one store for two hours we were sitting on a couch trying to decide if we thought it was comfortable. I heard Russell, our salesman, say, “I’m going to leave you two alone for awhile so you can fart.” I hadn’t been outside for two hours so I was thinking that’s dang decent of you Russell; thanks a lot. It turns out Russell actually said, “I’m going to leave you two alone for awhile so you can talk.” Oh well, too late. I’m not saying I talked and did the other thing too, but I’m not saying I didn’t either. At least it was quiet. That’s such a big improvement over those early years, don’t you think?
Later I said to Katy, “I sure appreciated it when Russell said, ‘I’m going to leave you two alone for awhile so you can fart.’” She just shook her head. I think she’s awful good to take me furniture shopping, heck she’s awful good to take me anywhere for that matter. I thought I was funny and laughed about it a few more times that day.
We had to go back again the next day to decide on fabric and we both really like what we picked out.
Here’s the deal. You know, sometimes it’s a pretty dang good day when you can do what you set out to do and it doesn’t turn out to be a Funky John day. Add a chuckle or two to the day and that’s kind of excellent.
It's the weekend. Please be good. Drive your cars carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally.
P
Katy and I were engaged in May of 1977. Early that summer we decided to try a dinner at Funky Johns. I had barbecued pork; I don’t remember what Katy had. I had hot/hot and Katy had hot. Hot/hot was too hot. Sometime during the dinner we started arguing about something. While my memory is good about a lot of things I don’t have the slightest idea what we argued about. I just remember that we were both still angry when we left the restaurant. It was one of those arguments that seemed to just sneak up on us for no apparent reason. Even at the time we both knew it was a little thing but there we were, arguing. Maybe the food was too spicy; I don’t know, either way, we had an argument over what was probably a “nothing” thing. I think it took a couple days to work through it.
Sometime later that summer we decided to go back to Funky John’s, partly to try the food and partly to go back and have a dinner there where we didn’t argue. As it turned out we argued about something again. I don’t have any idea what it was, but again, it was one of those things that just snuck up on us for no reason and in the end was something of little consequence. As a result, in our relationship some slang was born. A “Funky John day” or a “Funky John experience” is one where we end up arguing about something that we didn’t see coming and that we probably could have avoided pretty easily.
As the marriage has evolved we have learned to recognize potential Funky John days coming. Still, we can never avoid all of them. In 2008 we moved in a new home. It’s beautiful and we love it. Katy wanted to get some water color paintings for the upstairs hallway. Watch out, going shopping for paintings is a Funky John day waiting to happen. We went to La Conner to look in some galleries she had been in earlier in the year with her sisters. I enjoyed the breakfast we had before we started on our big adventure. We had been in the first shop maybe 5 minutes when I said maybe we could look through some of our own pictures of hikes and trips and enlarge some of them and put that on the walls.
Imagine yourself hearing a very loud buzzer. You know, the kind you would hear when you just gave a really dumb answer that disqualified you on a game show. I didn’t even hear the buzzer. However, in short order I realized I had just started us on the road to a major Funky John day. That was the only shop we went in that day and that was that.
I should add here very carefully that when we are having a Funky John day it is very frustrating to both of us. Sometimes, not usually, but sometimes, we can kid each other out of being angry about something. I should also add that once it starts if one person is angry and the other isn’t yet it can be a woefully big mistake to say something like, “Are we having a Funky John day?” Bad, bad, very bad.
We did finally work through our painting selection trials and tribulations and were able to go another day and pick out some water color pictures of flowers. Actually, they are very cool. I just didn’t know that is what I was looking for when we started out.
Early in the marriage we were doing some furniture shopping. I was sitting on a couch or a chair; I don’t remember which. The salesman had walked to a different part of the store. I do remember that while I was sitting there I expelled some rectal gas. (I farted.) It wasn’t so loud that you could hear it outside in the parking lot but Katy was standing nearby and she certainly heard it. While there is a first time for everything that certainly wasn’t the first time. She said my name, “Jim Pankiewicz”. You know, like you would when you’re scolding a kid. I just laughed. (What did she ever see in me?)
For Christmas this year we decided to get furniture for our living room. We kept it very simple on Christmas and said we would go shopping on President’s Day weekend to try and catch some sales.
Now furniture shopping is not like shopping for fishing tackle. I’m intelligent, I’m educated, but that doesn’t mean I’m very good at furniture shopping. As the years have passed I have gotten better at shopping for things like furniture with Katy. I can readily give an opinion about something when I’m asked. I can readily take it right back when I’m asked to also. In fact I don’t even need to be asked; just a simple look is enough for me to take back my opinion. I’m really good at sitting in something and saying if it’s comfortable or not. Yeah, I’m good at that. Mmmm…; I’m not so good at the matching colors thing. I can make a pick between three or four choices but when it comes to going through racks and racks and racks of different fabric choices I approach being a complete moron.
We went furniture shopping this weekend. We had been out for four hours, as in one, two, three, four. Yup, four hours. When we left home I said, “No Funky John day today. I won’t offer any wild opinions without asking first if it’s okay.” Actually, we can both laugh about that. I think I’m being good about going and looking through more fabric choices than I thought were possible and I think Katy is pretty darn good about getting things down to a few choices for us both to look at.
After we had been in one store for two hours we were sitting on a couch trying to decide if we thought it was comfortable. I heard Russell, our salesman, say, “I’m going to leave you two alone for awhile so you can fart.” I hadn’t been outside for two hours so I was thinking that’s dang decent of you Russell; thanks a lot. It turns out Russell actually said, “I’m going to leave you two alone for awhile so you can talk.” Oh well, too late. I’m not saying I talked and did the other thing too, but I’m not saying I didn’t either. At least it was quiet. That’s such a big improvement over those early years, don’t you think?
Later I said to Katy, “I sure appreciated it when Russell said, ‘I’m going to leave you two alone for awhile so you can fart.’” She just shook her head. I think she’s awful good to take me furniture shopping, heck she’s awful good to take me anywhere for that matter. I thought I was funny and laughed about it a few more times that day.
We had to go back again the next day to decide on fabric and we both really like what we picked out.
Here’s the deal. You know, sometimes it’s a pretty dang good day when you can do what you set out to do and it doesn’t turn out to be a Funky John day. Add a chuckle or two to the day and that’s kind of excellent.
It's the weekend. Please be good. Drive your cars carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally.
P
Friday, February 12, 2010
Dell customer punishment and YouTube
Over the past few weeks my computer has been working poorly. It’s only a few months old and the browser started freezing. First it was once or twice a day, then it was several times a day and finally it was freezing a few times every hour. I called Dell to get some “technical help” or “customer service”. There is a timer on the phone so I know I was on the phone with them for 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 37 seconds. Let’s call it two hours. Most of that time was spent holding. I spoke with 8 different people largely because I was erroneously transferred to the wrong person again and again. The last person with whom I spoke took control of the computer and confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the hardware; the problem was with the browser. As such, even my extended warranty didn’t cover software problems. I needed to pay for getting the problem fixed or had to call Microsoft where she warned me, “they would charge me at least 4 times as much.” Hmmm…
She installed an anti-malware program, ran it, and then asked for my credit card number. I touched the mouse and moved the cursor. Keep in mind this is my computer. She told me to not touch the mouse. She continued to explain that I owed her $129. I clicked okay to uninstall 357 ad bots. She didn’t like that. She told me she wanted my credit card number and I told her I wouldn’t give it to her. I explained, pretty darn calmly I thought, that I had been on hold for 2 hours and that I charge $250 an hour for consulting work and that she actually owed me money because they had wasted so much of my time. She kept insisting I had to pay and I told her I accepted PayPal for what Dell owed me. I told her I had been connected to customer punishment not customer service. I told her the bottom line was that I had received such bad service from Dell that I wasn’t going to pay anything and that I was going to hang up. I did.
After hanging up I did a Google search of “bad customer service from Dell.” I got over 2,340,000 hits in .61 seconds. I didn’t take the time to open all of them. I did open a few. One of them was a recording of an extremely unhappy customer swearing and complaining incessantly at a Dell representative. After my bad morning experience with Dell I found myself laughing pretty hard. I hadn’t said any of what that guy had said but certainly found myself thinking some of it.
Did I mention that the problem wasn’t fixed by uninstalling the ad bots? What finally did fix the problem was uninstalling the Google toolbar.
Early this week I had a dream that I had been videotaped holding for two hours and talking to all of the different people at Dell. Someone had put the video on YouTube. I was embarrassed. Okay, it was just a dream, and dreams are whacky a lot of the time. I was saying stuff in the video that I had thought but that hadn’t actually come out of my mouth.
I woke up thinking two things. First, I’m sure glad I hadn’t been taped. Second, what would my behavior be like if every time I got angry I was taped and the next day it was on YouTube? Maybe remembering that will help me keep my cool.
It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your cars carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally.
P
She installed an anti-malware program, ran it, and then asked for my credit card number. I touched the mouse and moved the cursor. Keep in mind this is my computer. She told me to not touch the mouse. She continued to explain that I owed her $129. I clicked okay to uninstall 357 ad bots. She didn’t like that. She told me she wanted my credit card number and I told her I wouldn’t give it to her. I explained, pretty darn calmly I thought, that I had been on hold for 2 hours and that I charge $250 an hour for consulting work and that she actually owed me money because they had wasted so much of my time. She kept insisting I had to pay and I told her I accepted PayPal for what Dell owed me. I told her I had been connected to customer punishment not customer service. I told her the bottom line was that I had received such bad service from Dell that I wasn’t going to pay anything and that I was going to hang up. I did.
After hanging up I did a Google search of “bad customer service from Dell.” I got over 2,340,000 hits in .61 seconds. I didn’t take the time to open all of them. I did open a few. One of them was a recording of an extremely unhappy customer swearing and complaining incessantly at a Dell representative. After my bad morning experience with Dell I found myself laughing pretty hard. I hadn’t said any of what that guy had said but certainly found myself thinking some of it.
Did I mention that the problem wasn’t fixed by uninstalling the ad bots? What finally did fix the problem was uninstalling the Google toolbar.
Early this week I had a dream that I had been videotaped holding for two hours and talking to all of the different people at Dell. Someone had put the video on YouTube. I was embarrassed. Okay, it was just a dream, and dreams are whacky a lot of the time. I was saying stuff in the video that I had thought but that hadn’t actually come out of my mouth.
I woke up thinking two things. First, I’m sure glad I hadn’t been taped. Second, what would my behavior be like if every time I got angry I was taped and the next day it was on YouTube? Maybe remembering that will help me keep my cool.
It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your cars carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally.
P
Friday, February 5, 2010
Turning it Around
Good morning,
My broker sent me this. They aren't my words but I sure do like them. It's less than two minutes long. Its clever and its a great message. Its a message I can sure use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA
It's the weekend. Please be good. Drive your carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally.
P
My broker sent me this. They aren't my words but I sure do like them. It's less than two minutes long. Its clever and its a great message. Its a message I can sure use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA
It's the weekend. Please be good. Drive your carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally.
P
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)