The World Is Smaller

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I needed a piece of camera gear for an upcoming trip. After checking around, I decided to order a ‘grey market’ version. Grey market means it isn’t intended for sale in the US. It’s not covered by a US warranty.

That’s the only difference–except price. I saved around 35%.

My purchase on EBay from a ‘store’ in Hong Kong was made early Friday afternoon in SoCal. Eight hours later it was out-the-door and on its way. FedEx has a daily non-stop 747 from Hong Kong to Memphis, which is how it probably travelled.

My package cleared customs in Memphis then took another flight to LAX. By early this morning it was on a truck in Irvine, delivered to my door before 10:30 AM.

The world is smaller than I thought. I’m impressed.

Finally FedEx

Judah and the Hot Wheels

I know a three year old in Milwaukee who won’t want to go to sleep tonight. He’ll want to play with his brand new Hot Wheels. Happy birthday Judah!

If you follow my blog you know this package took the long way to Judah’s house. It was tendered at FedEx in North Haven New Year’s Eve afternoon.

It didn’t leave North Haven until the 2nd. By the 3rd it was in Keasbey, NJ. It hit Chicago early enough on the 4th to be in Oak Creek, WI (just south of Milwaukee’s airport) and on a truck for delivery that same day!

This was great. It was the service I paid for.

Unfortunately all it got was a ride in a truck. On this Milwaukee day with clear skies for the entire 24 hour period, the package was returned to the depot because of:

Local weather delay – Delivery not attempted

The same thing happened the next day with the same lame excuse.

FedEx Home Delivery only operates Tuesday through Saturday. Monday was out too.

At age three Judah probably doesn’t mind the delay as much as I do. I’m told he’s ecstatic.

My niece Jessie texted,

He’s soooo excited. He kept saying, “Whoa! This is sooooo cool!”

The box says age 6 and up. Like all relatives our assumption is he’s bright beyond his years.

Hey FedEx, Now I’m Angry!

I wrote yesterday about the package destined for my great-nephew in Milwaukee. Fedex notified me of a “Delivery Exception.” The official explanation was

Local weather delay – Delivery not attempted

OK — no big deal. It was scheduled for delivery today. The birthday isn’t until Monday.

I checked this afternoon and… you won’t believe this…

Local weather delay – Delivery not attempted

I quickly called and spoke to an agent who put me on hold, then came back to say she’d spoken to the depot. There was no weather problem. The package would be delivered.

It wasn’t!

The birthday is Monday. No problem… except FedEx Home Delivery only operates Tuesday through Saturday. It’s now scheduled for a post-birthday Tuesday delivery.

I called FedEx again. No one working Saturday evening is able to help&#185.

The package will spend weekend and a little of next week in Oak Creek, WI. It will miss Judah’s birthday. I am upset.

No, I am livid!

Avoiding crap like this is why I went with FedEx in the first place. They’d better refund the shipping charges.

&#185 – Though he couldn’t help either, Victor in FedEx’s El Salvador call center was at least empathetic and concerned.

Hey Fedex, I’m a Meteorologist!

There’s a birthday gift heading to my great-nephew in Milwaukee via FedEx Ground.

Full stop. This is no a screed against FedEx. It’s normally very dependable. FedEx employees have been very kind to me. We’re good.

What they’re telling me tonight irks me a little. It’s called a “Delivery Exception.”

Local weather delay – Delivery not attempted

So, of course, I went and checked the weather. The package is going to Milwaukee. The depot in Oak Creek is just south of the Milwaukee Airport.

Skies were clear the entire day, all 24 hours. It was cold and breezy, but it’s Milwaukee in January. Duh!

It still arrives before his birthday, so it’s all good, but why use a lame excuse so easily checked?

The Frustration Of Package Tracking

Are you like me? When you get the number do you check it immediately? The response is always the same whether it’s UPS, FedEx or the Postal Service: We haven’t seen it yet.

I ordered a Roku Sunday night. Don’t worry what it is. It has to come from California. That’s the important part. There is a tracking number, which of course is where the problems arise!

Are you like me? When you get the number do you check it immediately? The response is always the same whether it’s UPS, FedEx or the Postal Service: We haven’t seen it yet.

Then the kabuki dance begins. I check two or three times a day. Why? no clue. This is like pressing the elevator button more than once. It doesn’t help.

Tonight I checked and got the classic tracking response. A step was listed as happening after something that had to have happened before!

Shipment Accepted, November 23, 2010, 5:52 pm, SAN JOSE, CA 95101
Processed through Sort Facility, November 22, 2010, 9:03 pm, SAN JOSE, CA 95101
Electronic Shipping Info Received, November 22, 2010

How could it be processed through the facility before it was accepted? I have no clue. It’s frustrating.

It will get here when it gets here and not a moment sooner… though shouldn’t my paying attention rush it along?

Google Reveals What “How To” Info We Want

Because of Google’s methods popularity and/or importance are finally accurately quantified. It seems so wrong to take emotional concepts like important and popular and make them the output of a series of mathematical equations, but that’s exactly what happens!

In 1999’s Bowfinger Steve Martin knew how importance was defined.

“See that FedEx truck? Every day it delivers important papers to people all over the world. And one day, it is going to stop here, and a man is going to walk up and casually toss a couple of FedExes on my desk. And at that moment, we – and by we, I mean me – will be important. “

The paradigm has shifted. Our new arbiter is Google&#185.

Because of Google’s methods popularity and/or importance are finally accurately quantified. It seems so wrong to take emotional concepts like important and popular and make them the output of a series of mathematical equations, but that’s exactly what happens!

google-on-how-to.jpgMy ‘aha’ moment came earlier this evening. I was trying to learn how to scoop data from an online database and massage it to produce a webpage. Actually what I wanted to do was unimportant because I only got as far as typing in “how to.”

Google was now working ahead of me, anticipating what I might type next. It unfurled a list of the most popular “how to” questions.

  • how to tie a tie.
  • how to kiss
  • how to get pregnant
  • how to lose weight fast
  • how to cook a turkey
  • how to solve a rubix cube
  • how to make a website
  • how to download youtube videos
  • how to write a resume
  • how to lose weight

I am surprised tying a tie has reached this level. Look a the competition it’s knocked off. Maybe I’m jaded because I tie one every day (Double Windsor knot), but I didn’t think there was this level of demand.

Considering “how to lose weight” appears in two different forms (normal and panicky) it probably belongs higher on the list.

Cooking a turkey and solving a rubix are both surprising entries, but just barely.

I’m not sure what’s more surprising–that there’s nothing truly weird or that the list is really so pedestrian.

Is this all we really want to know “how to” do? Can’t we get a little more creative?

&#185 – I know Google is the authority because if you enter “Geoff,” I’m the sixth result. On Bing I didn’t show up in the first six pages of results. Yahoo! doesn’t list me through ten pages.

The Car Moves To California

A move like this isn’t one master stroke, but a series of smaller events. If you do it right all the pieces come together at your destination. It has to be coordinated like a ballet.

Her upcoming move has become reality to Stef. All of a sudden everything she does has real consequences. There’s more than deciding which pair of jeans makes the cut.

Nine boxes are being tracked while being trucked to California via FedEx (Thank you secretive California friend to whose home these boxes are headed… and who just found out there are nine).

Later today Stef’s car leaves (to his house too). An auto carrier will save us the trouble of driving across the snows of January.

A move like this isn’t one master stroke, but a series of smaller events. If you do it right all the pieces come together at your destination. It has to be coordinated like a ballet.

This is so exciting and so scary.

Stef will be far away. There are family and friends she can lean on… just not us.

She is moving where there is opportunity for her, even with California’s economy currently on life support.

When I left my family in 1968 and moved to Florida I was only excited–no apprehension. I was a naif. Stef is much more worldly and mature than I was. She’ll do fine.

Filling Boxes For Stef’s Move

Stef is moving on January 6. Her belongings are heading out first. That’s why there’s a packing frenzy on this day before Christmas.

“I have enough plaid shirts–truly.” Those were Stef’s words as she pulled a single shirt from a packing box and handed it to Helaine. One shirt in this undertaking is the equivalent of “pissing in the ocean!&#185”

Stef is moving on January 6. Her belongings are heading out first. That’s why there’s a packing frenzy on this day before Christmas.

Thanks to the sage advice of a friend who’s “been there, done that” Stef’s stuff is going to California via FedEx Ground. Sorry USPS, you’ve been beaten on this job. FedEx is cheaper with superior tracking.

I vaguely remember my first move from home. I can guarantee you it had none of the organizational skill Helaine is lending to this move. I sort of threw things in my VW and headed out. I still had enough room left over to pick up a hitchhiker who then let me sleep on a dorm floor at Georgetown!

Stef will arrive in California with all her stuff, even her car, waiting for her. That’s a lot more than I could have handled.

She just walked by with a full load of handbags heading toward a box. I stared.

“I left a bunch of them upstairs,” she said.

I’m a guy. This is not my expertise. Still, I didn’t know a single person could have that many bags without also owning a store.

In Stef’s defense this has been her home for 20 years. You accrue over time. She especially accrues!

The boxes and car are being shipped to my secretive friend in the San Fernando Valley. Hopefully the timing is right for her possessions to get there not long before we do (and certainly not after).

Along with the physical baggage there’s emotional baggage attached to this trip. Even at college Stef was never more than an hour or two away. Now she will be fully a country away. That’s a big change for all of us.

This physical moving of freight is no big deal compared to the other.

&#185 – Update: I am told the shirt Stef is leaving is actually Helaine’s shirt, though she has never worn it!

The Times Tom Friedman Draws The Wrong Conclusions

It’s a race to the bottom. There will always be someone who has less and is willing to settle.

I read Tom Friedman’s op-ed “The Do-It-Yourself Society” in Sunday’s NY Times. His observations are correct. His conclusions are not. He sees, as I do, technology increasing productivity and competition. He misses what happens to the other two people when one person does the work of three!

No one looks upon FedEx, VOIP or the Internet in general as evil. Yet to many people they are. Technology has radically reduced the worth of many human endeavors!

Before technology shrunk the world we only competed against ourselves. We only competed with people looking for the same standard of living. No more. We’re now competing against people willing to live at a much lower standard than ours… which is still higher standard than their current one!

It’s a race to the bottom. There will always be someone who has less and is willing to settle.

Today it’s the Chinese. As their standard of living goes up and individual Chinese want more they’ll be undercut by someone else.

We have become a Walmartized world. We are driven by price and not much else.

Technology and advanced industrial processes have removed much of the advantage of craftsmanship. Until recently the best good were handmade. We now mass produce well made goods.

Our cars, our cellphones, our washing machines are better than ever while cheaper than ever. Our American labor has been priced out of the equation. If it’s made here, it’s made with fewer people. If it’s labor intensive it’s made where labor is cheap and plentiful and pliant.

I could easily do my weather job on three or four or more stations in three or four or more markets! I suspect some day I will. Technology removes the barriers.

I remember sitting in front of a TV in Bangor, Maine watching Jim Kosek doing the weather. He was in State College, PA working for AccuWeather. He was much better talent than what could normally be afforded in Bangor. Few watching knew he wasn’t local.

It’s already happened in radio. There are fewer local radio shows than ever. Many stations have no local programming or no programming produced by people who work solely for that one station.

What makes this awful is our society’s long standing tradition of valuing people based on the individual work they produce. We just don’t need as many people to produce what we need. From a goods and services standpoint we’d do just fine today with a significant portion of our society sitting on their collective hands.

Unfortunately, in our society if you’re unemployed or underemployed you are deprived!

Without jobs people have no purchasing power and no benefits. They can’t be the consumers that drive demand. And yet, in many cases, their lack of a job is the fault of our technological age and not themselves!

The Luddites were weavers, put out of work by the mechanical looms of the early industrial revolution. They protested by destroying the new mechanical looms as if destroying them would make them go way.

Recently I’ve had Luddite moments. Wouldn’t it be nice if the efficiencies driving people to the curb didn’t exist? My Luddite dreams are no more practical today than they were for the Luddites.

Our society and way of life is rapidly being dismantled. We can’t stop progress. It’s bigger than we are!

What we have to do is find a way to better distribute the gains of a world where the work of individual humans is less important. I don’t know how to do that, but I think about it constantly.

Until we rearrange things individuals have no choice but to try and be that one who does the work of three. None of us has a real choice. Slow down and you’ll be trampled.

When PCs Fail

That’s part of what’s happened today and it’s causing me to tear my hair out.

computer racks.jpgI’ve been working with computers most of my life. My first/only computer course was 1968. For the past 25+ years they have been an integral part of my work life.

Nowadays I wrangle around a dozen machines (see photo) at work which let me produce a forecast and feed it to a bunch of different (buzzword coming) platforms.

Mostly, I get it. I understand how computers work. That gives me a leg up. Often it’s necessary to think along with the programmer to affect a fix.

There are two things which always surprise me.

1) There’s always something that’s not working!

It might be hardware or software or even a bad piece of data which should be a temperature or cloud but ends up being interpreted as a command. The computer stops what its doing. There’s never a time when I can depend on everything!

Google is well known for designing its software specifically to understand hardware will always fail. Those Google guys are right.

2) Computers often continue to work when something’s wrong–though it turns out they’re really waiting to fail at a time less convenient to me!

That’s part of what’s happened today and it’s causing me to tear my hair out.

A hardware failure late last week took out a two hard drive RAID array (two disks which act as one to provide constant backup or, in this case, additional speed). This particular piece of equipment was down for a day while we waited for FedEx to deliver the replacement. No problem. Like Google we understand working around bad hardware.

Once we replaced the drives we had to repopulate them with data. In this case it was an accurate rendition of the Earth’s surface–really. That meant nearly 200 GB of data had to move across our network. It took hours.

By late last Thursday evening we were up and running perfectly. We’d made some accommodations for the new hardware. No sweat.

Saturday was rainy and heavily tested this new configuration which worked nearly perfectly.

It failed this morning!

Why?

Who knows.

What was different between Saturday and today? As far as I can tell nothing!

The point is the computer was working just fine though it obviously wasn’t. There was something still wrong that needed just the right moment… the right set of circumstances… to fail

For whatever reason I was always under the (false) assumption that you needed perfection within these complex system for things to work. Obviously not. And, of course, it makes you wonder what’s next… or if you really can ever fix all the problems.

I’ve still got over two hours of data transfer to go this second time. Time to think about what might be next.

I’m A Tracking Fool

My Tuesday ordered computer mostly arrived Wednesday. UPS now says the rest, shipped from California and originally coming Friday, will actually be here Thursday!

Can we talk about package tracking? This is just another version of crack cocaine, right?

When was the last time you ordered something and didn’t check at least once… or seven times? Personally I feel anything worth tracking is worth tracking constantly. UPS and FedEx need to install GPS readouts! I want street-by-street tracking.

My Tuesday ordered computer mostly arrived Wednesday. UPS now says the rest, shipped from California and originally coming Friday, will actually be here Thursday!

It first went from Baldwin Park, CA to Ontario, CA. My guess is that’s a truck route. Then air freight to Dallas, Orlando and Boston.

Hmmmm… sounds like Southwest routing. I’ll check for peanuts upon arrival.

Two hours after it arrived in Boston it moved out again to Windsor Locks. Next stop is probably North Haven then out for delivery.

There are no stores locally that sell the stuff I just bought. Mail order drove them out. Even with instant purchase gratification it’s tough to compete with the selection and convenience of online.

When Your Expiration Date Changes

I cut and pasted my E-ZPass account number from a statement they’d sent me to the log-in form. Rejected. No such account! How was I supposed to know I had to lop off all the leading zeros?

Foolishly, VISA has decided to extend my credit card another few years. Haven’t they read about the economy?

The practical result for Helaine and me is a stroll down Memory Lane trying to remember who has our old number and getting to them before they use it. We always miss someone.

Just a few weeks ago FedEx delivered a package for me then told me my card hadn’t gone through. Seldom used cards are a landmine.

Helaine started the process yesterday. I picked it up today with her assistance.

No two websites handle this process the same way! This is much more difficult than it should be. People, can’t we standardize?

I cut and pasted my E-ZPass account number from a statement they’d sent me to the log-in form. Rejected. No such account! How was I supposed to know I had to lop off all the leading zeros? What they print on my statement as my account number isn’t my account number–at least in this part of their website.

I had to log into AT&T twice. Why? Isn’t a cookie set the first time?

Other website procedures are just incredibly obtuse. There’s no clear path to change your billing information. Isn’t this one of the most repeated account holder website tasks? Wouldn’t they rather I didn’t call and bother a human?

I have multiple passwords in use. No, not every site has a discrete ‘only you’ password. Most a repeated a few times. Does anyone really have individual passwords for everything? Is there anyone, anywhere who can juggle that?

Some older passwords are all letters. Simpler times! Newer ones are cryptically sprinkled with numbers and illogically placed caPiTal letters.

What a royal pain-in-the-ass. Hopefully I won’t have to do this for another few years.

What’s In Your Wallet?

About six months ago, Helaine bought a new wallet for me. Today, after she asked for the fiftieth time, I switched over. Having a ‘fresh’ wallet doesn’t seem to be a guy thing, but I’m willing to play along.

Every wallet I’ve ever had has been a black fold over affair. Not this time. We’ve gone brown. No consultation. I’m guessing I’ll still match… though don’t green and brown clash?

Over time the old wallet fatter – a repository of stuff I didn’t want to throw away. I think that was as much of a problem as the shabby exterior. On the other hand, cows were upset it was still being referred to as leather.

I pulled everything from the old wallet and put it on the kitchen counter. I only carry one credit card, plus an ATM card I’ve never used.

From my mid-winter poker trip to Atlantic City were three casino cards. They are credit card like in their shape and appearance. You can no longer play in a poker tournament without one. I have no idea why I carried them. They’re now gone.

There were also a few business cards from people I met and exchanged cards with. Except for one, the others have been disposed.

Insurance card, AFTRA card, FedEx, Southwest, AAA – gotta keep those.

I have about ten of my own business cards I keep in my wallet. We have nice cards at work – meaning they’re thick. Ten takes up a lot of space.

I had one bandage in the side pocket. It’s a very small round one, still in its wrapper. The wrapper itself had a tear, meaning it’s no longer sterile. I have no idea why I was carrying that. Gone.

I’m not sure why, but I always carry a single dollar bill behind my drivers license. I always have. It is not money meant to be spent. If there’s a superstition with this habit, I’ve lost sight of it over the years.

It’s very possible this particular Series 1995 bill has been sat on daily for the last 12+ years.

The joke is, guys in their late teens and early twenties carry condoms in their wallets, which leave noticeable circular impressions in the leather. I’m in my fifties. I carry Splenda.

I don’t just have a new wallet. I now have a slimmer butt!

Which Commerical Was Best?

Here’s something I never thought I’d say: “It was a bad year for commercials.” It was. There were few to like in the Super Bowl (though the game itself was unusually entertaining).

I have two favorites – and one isn’t really a commercial. It was a very short CBS promo featuring David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey. If you blinked, it was gone.

It was totally nuance. You had to concentrate. Did you recognize Oprah? Did you think about their back story? Did you realize he was from Indianapolis, she lives in Chicago?

Unless you connected all these on a visceral level, it was gone before you could think about it.

My other favorite was more in your face… and animated. It was the Blockbuster commercial featuring a mouse portraying a mouse. It was clever and really well animated.

Unfortunately, when I went to type this blog entry, I wasn’t able to remember who paid for it!

Among my other favorites were the Budweiser faux dalmatian (including animated blink) and the T-Mobile spot with Dwayne Wade and Charles Barkley.

So, to summarize. It was a good year for the game and a bad year for what came in between the plays.

Here’s how aol.com visitors rated the first quarter (where the Blockbuster ad first ran).


Blockbuster: Mouse.............46%

Bud Light: Faceoff...............15%

Snickers: Mechanic.............11%

Doritos: Crash.....................9%

Bud Light: Wedding..............7%

Chevrolet: Singers...............5%

Sierra Mist: Combover.........3%

FedEx: Moon Office..............2%

Toyota: Tundra...................1%

Sierra Mist: Karate..............1%

Schick: Quattro...................0%

Salesgenie.com...................0%

Total Votes: 67,823

How would you like being the creative head for an ad agency that produced anything lower than Chevy? Must have been tough to come in to work this morning. Ouch!