Chismville

Our blog does not accept videos very well, but I figured out a way to upload them on the photo gallery. In the near future, Joli and I will be posting 30 sec. to 1 min. video clips of all of us. Here are the few that are online for now, but please check back. These are test videos of the kids: View Here

One of the things we are currently working on with Mr. Joel is to say, “Thank you” after receiving an item or food. He is good at saying please but not the thank you word. My parents helped start this process when they had him over at their home overnight a week ago.

Well, we thought it was a good idea to have him be a grateful son, but we had no idea that the word “Thank You” would involved disobedience!

While eating our easter dinner at my parents yesterday, I had the honors of making sure Joel ate his food. He was totally distracted by the new Thomas the Train set my parents bought for him. They let him play with it only when he comes to visit. He did NOT want to eat and made sure I knew that. When I finished my meal, I sat down next to him and helped him finish his food. I would scrape up a spoon full of the food and say, “Lets take a couple more bites Joel.” Joel turned and looked at me with a very friendly face (not defiant) and said, “No Thank you!” What a polite young son I have! In an earlier blog, I wrote of a similiar experience that he tried to sell off his food to Mom, Chalice and then me. That did not work so well, so he is trying to be polite and say that he is very interested in food right now!

Today, Joli called me (not knowing my previous food experience with Joel) and told me about how she had told Joel that it was time to continue potty training. Joel responded, “No Thank you potty.”

Angie’s List was an Internet-based company that specialized in helping consumers find supposedly quality service professionals. They did it differently than the other web-based companies that started before them. Angie’s List was the first to charge a fee for consumers to post the companies they liked and did not like instead of charging contractors to advertise to get business. The concept seemed brilliant at first! It was a private club that kept contractors out! Ha! That was until they got a very large following of members and made tons of $$$. They then began contacting companies who got decent reviews to advertise on Angie’s List. It seemed to make sense, but what in reality it is not a good idea. Why? Because homeowners are SO different. One homeowner might write a great review about one company while another one hates the same company. The only reason companies can advertise on Angie’s List is so they can make more money. They bate the company with, “Hey Mr. Contractor, you just got a really nice review on Angie’s List…You should consider advertising with us to get more business!” Now that it is well known, there are tons and tons of service professionals per category which makes it a glorified yellow pages.

Our company was recently approached by another company that is trying something totally different than Angie’s List, ServiceMagic, Kudzu and many other online outfits. It is called To Fix It!” They started in Phoenix and are now marching to San Diego to test this market, after a successful three years in Arizona. To Fix It is spending the time to research high profile companies that desire to grow their businesses and be the best in service. They won’t allow a small company that does not want to grow. They want the best of the best. I am sure they are money motivated like all businesses, but they are quite a bit different than the rest of the crowd. Why? Because they were started by contractors, not a big marketing firm. Companies that get involved with To Fix It will have exclusive advertising rights for the areas they purchase (by zip code). When a consumer called 1 800 to fix it or goes to tofixit.com, types in their zip code to look for a plumber, electrician, painter, etc. they will receive one company to call. The norm has been for consumers to get three bids and pick the middle guy. To Fix It is trying to change that. They’ve done the research and made sure the companies remain #1 in service and quality.  One last thing that is great about To Fix It for the contractor is that all the advertising is pooled between companies. In other words, if there are 30 categories and 40-50 contractors signed up, their monthly fees are used to advertise To Fix It as a brand by tv, radio, direct mail and web searches. It is a cheaper way for companies to advertise and get more quality leads.

Oh…and even if To Fix it doesn’t really work to get great leads by phone or through the web, at least the companies can get quality leads from the companies signed up in the program. They can network and share ideas on how to grow their businesses.

Lord willing, we will be jumping into this company starting April 1st as one of two paint companies in San Diego. I’m really excited about this new opportunity. Their tag line is, “We recommend the best and toss the rest!” It helps keep our competition to a minimum.

Joli and I went on a date night last Friday, and I took her to a rather odd area of San Diego called “University Heights.” It has some good coffee shops and some neat old homes. However the culture is a little different than the two of us. There are a lot of new age people and gay couples, so we feel a little out of place! I wanted to take Joli to a coffee shop called Twiggs. I’ve never been there at night but I knew they had awesome coffee and great desserts.

Joli’s first impression (my second) was not very positive. The girl behind the counter was not very friendly. She asked what we wanted and we told her. My order was rather simple. Can you guess what that was? “Yes…umm…I would like a ahh medium size coffee with no cream, no sugar, just black please…Oh and can I have it in a mug instead of a paper cup?” Joli ordered a Mocha. I asked if she could have hers in a mug too. The barista began to make Joli’s drink in a cup when the cashier said rather rudely, “They want them in MUUGGS!” I thought to myself, “Is that a problem having my drink in a mug? Was it going to cost more? Oh no! Does that mean they would have to wash two mugs when we were done, and that was going to be too painful?” It just seemed that she was irritated with the fact that I asked for a mug. Why did I ask for a mug in the first place? I guess because I saw the used car lot packed full of of them right behind her with an invisible sign that would have read “Use Us! Keep us from getting dusty!”

Because I felt the lady did not like the fact that we ordered our coffee drinks in mugs instead of paper cups, I decided to tell her why. “Well, coffee tastes better in a mug!” I thought she would have agreed with me when she responded in a derogatory voice, “It actually makes the drinks Colder!” I said, “That’s why you HEAT the mugs up first!”

Can you believe that she seemed upset that we asked for coffee in mugs and thought it made them cold so why try it? She had no customer service in her blood. She probably never read, “How to win friends and influence people.” I will give her a little credit. Coffee gets cold faster in a cold mug. She’s right! I must admit! However, if I would have gone to Starbucks and asked, “Can I have my coffee in a mug?” Do you know what they would have said and done? “Absolutely, sir!” They would have then grabbed the mug, poured boiling water in the mug for a few seconds, dumped it out and poured my hot coffee into the heated mug. Why? So that the coffee would stay hotter longer. Coffee has a better taste in mugs. This is a fact! Ask any coffee snob. Besides, extremely hot coffee in a paper cup with a top on it has to have a hot coffee holder to keep me from burning my hands. Have you ever tried drinking hot coffee with a top on it without burning the top of your mouth? Impossible! So there are many health benefits to drinking coffee in a mug!

The customer service at Twiggs was terrible. The desserts were awesome. However, if we were ordering by phone and got our coffee delivered to our door step by an outsider, it might have been better. The girl behind the counter was friendly to some people that came through her doors that night but she did not give Twiggs a very good name.

As I reflected on my experience and gave Joli an update that evening, I basically told her that there is a reason Starbucks has done so well in America. Starbucks trains their employees to have good service. Their coffee is terrible but their service: perfect. It is extremely rare to go into a Starbucks and get an unfriendly barista or sales clerk who will challenge you and act as the Coffee Know It All. They are consistent and let their staff know what their core values are. A little coffee shop can be just as successful as Starbucks in an area of town if they were committed to training their staff and properly managing the results.

To sum it up, I don’t think Miss Coffee Know It All really knew that much about coffee.

I don’t typically listen to Rush much these days, but today was one of those days I was in the car a lot and listened to him! Man! I miss this guy! He is a crack up!

Here is the quote of the day. A man got on the radio today and was upset at Rush for dividing America. He told rush, “Rush! Do you listen to yourself after your show?” Rush responded very quickly, “Actually, Sir, I do. I love listening to myself!”

You had to hear it to start laughing. It was just so funny: “I love listening to myself!” I don’t think of it as being a big headed person. Just good humor!

“You should read to that little girl,” the man startled me by saying. I had just noticed the study room from which he had emerged. I hadn’t even realized there was such a room at the local library. It seemed curious to me that it was just next to the children’s book area. The man was looking at Chalice who sat demurely at the table in front of us, her big blue eyes blinked their long lashes. I had just taken Joel and Chalice to a toddler reading hour my neighbor had told me about and subsequently selected a stack of children’s books to replace the previous stack I’d returned. What an original sort of man to tell me to read to my daughter at the library–sort of like telling a man to dance with his wife whom he’d escorted to a dance room or telling a parent at Disney World they ought to take their child on one of the rides. I was getting ready to take the kids home for lunch, but was in no hurry as Joel had found a little kid computer and was enjoying the headset and buttons and Chalice was happy wandering about the play area. Being the tractable sycophantic type that I am, I proceeded to flip through one of the books I’d just selected with Chalice. Several moments later, the helpful stranger reappeared just as I was showing Chalice the final page and Chalice was wandering off to a new simple exploit. “You’ll have to be a WHOLE lot more interesting than that to hold her attention….definitely more interesting than that little girl she’s following….bla bla bla….” He continued his little lecture giving me no chance to respond as he looked me up and down. Did I have “ignoramus parent” printed on my forehead, or “please lecture me about how I should read to my baby and bring up my children.” It surprised me just how irritated I felt about his several words as I loaded the kids back in the car. I even thought of a number of responses I could have given him, if he’d had any interest in hearing anything from me. I could have inquired if he’d read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Maybe he was an author. I could suggest the title for his new hot seller “How to Allienate Acquaintances and Insult Strangers.”

The double nap has happened yet again! I’m enjoying the luxury of sitting in front of my computer. Armed with healthy and unhealthy snacks and library books, I successfully took both kids to my OB appointment this afternoon. Joel was traumatized by my blood-work, but very enamored with my Band-Aid and then with my stomach after hearing Baby’s heartbeat. Joel is growing up. We began potty-training in earnest last week and he is catching on well. I’ve settled into a less hawk-like mode of enforcing subsequent practice of going to the potty. I must admit to an extreme feeling of burn-out several days into the new adventure. I’m happy to say I’m once again enjoying life!

We enjoyed a delightful weekend with my cousin, Katie and Joel Poortenga and their two adorable little ones, Talia and Micah. We met at the San Diego Zoo and enjoyed a good tour of the animals for the better part of the day. Katie and Joel are such amazing adaptable parents. We successfully got all four kids tucked in bed and enjoyed a Dicken’s movie and good conversation until much later than we usually stay up. We utterly forgot about the time change until nearly too late. Our realtor called, wanting to show our house Sunday morning and I had nursery duty. Somehow we all managed to make it to church just a little late with a clean house and mostly contended stomachs. After church, we enjoyed a picnic at the park and more good conversation before Joel & Katie drove back to Redlands, California. It’s a blessing to have these loved ones closer to us!