Today, my dad would’ve turned 67. It’s the first birthday we’ll celebrate without him. As the day goes by, the realization that he’s no longer with us really sets in. I know this day is going to be very rough for all of us, especially my mom. She’s experiencing a whole different level of sorrow than my brothers & I.
My youngest brother already sent me a text message this morning with a simple “I miss him” but simple as it may be, a text message on the phone, I know what he’s feeling on the other side of that line because I’m feeling the same way. I know my brother Rick is also down. I don’t need to ask him. I just know because he was taking care of my dad till his final days. Today is a tough day for him too.
Dad, we miss you so much but we know you’re better off now. A couple of things that I would’ve given you today:
A bottle of Jovan, your favorite cologne. As much as we tried to get you to switch to something cooler, you loved your Jovan:
Kisses and hugs from your 8 grandchildren (yep even the one that’s coming soon from Rick & Cindy):
Another day in North Carolina:
More time being harassed by your sons:
Enchilado de Langosta:
Most of all, I would’ve given you more time with Mom:
I hope you’re celebrating your butt off today, Dad. Without you, we wouldn’t be here and I appreciate you giving me life. Happy birthday.
I posted the other day about my disappointment in NewEgg.com for what I felt was a lack of genuine interest in my problem with the way my order was packaged. I felt that I was doing the right thing by contacting them to explain how my package arrived in the hopes that it could improve their service but ultimately, it felt like it fell on deaf ears. NewEgg is a pretty big company and I honestly didn’t expect much to happen from my post. It was a venting session mainly.
So yesterday, out of the blue, I get a phone call Mike Paulus, NewEgg’s Customer Service Operational Support Manager, as well as Kerrigan Hodnett, a director at NewEgg. Woah! Quite unexpected!
We talked for about 20 minutes during which both were very apologetic for the service I had received and the lack of attention to my concerns. What struck me was that they took the time to look me up in their database to get my contact info, read through my chat transcript with the rep (ensuring they had a complete picture) and actually called me to ensure that my concerns were addressed and to let me know that they valued me as a customer. I didn’t ask them to do it. I didn’t request to speak to a manager. They just did it!
This is really what customer service is about and I can’t remember the last time a company, especially the size of NewEgg, took the time to reach out to me about a problem. I’m still very much astonished by this but I’m very thankful that Mike & Kerrigan took the time to contact me. It really does speak volumes about the type of business that NewEgg is & how they care for their customers.
I let a lot of things slide mainly because I’ve been around enough to know some things are beyond your control. But today, the folks at NewEgg.com disappointed me. I’ve ordered plenty of PC gear from them and they’re generally very good. So when I saw the following, I was surprised to say the least:
The fact that the box was all messed up, while not a good situation, didn’t really concern me because NewEgg always does a great job of packing stuff to prevent damage. They also have very good customer service so if something got lost, I’m sure they would’ve replaced it.
What did bother me was the following:
That is just a terrible packing job and in my opinion is a sign of pure laziness. How the heck would anyone feel it’s okay to stick in a bunch of packing, lay the ordered product on the top of it and just close the box?! That’s a recipe for disaster. Having worked at UPS when I was younger, I know how packages are handled and that is NOT the best way to ensure something goes undamaged. Very disappointing.
When I spoke to a customer service rep about all of this, I have to say that I just got the feeling that it wasn’t a concern to them. She did offer me a $5 credit but really wasn’t interested in getting the pics that I took until I pressed her on it.
I just hope this isn’t a sign of things to come since it’s one of my favorite sites to purchase equipment from.
Update: I received a call from NewEgg the next day and they’ve totally redeemed themselves.
I've been writing about the jQuery JavaScript framework for some time and really trying to help the CF community understand the power of this very lightweight library. As the head of evangelism for the jQuery project, it's my job to ensure that the correct message gets out about jQuery and that I continuously find ways of helping jQuery developers get the information they need. Being very vested in ColdFusion, I want CF developers to know why I chose jQuery for my JS development and how they can benefit from its power. So when I see so many big names in the CF world getting tuned onto it, I know there's something special about jQuery.
A cool thing that's happened of late is that jQuery has started to find it's way into the toolboxes of CF developers with no prodding at all. Basically, they've heard how great jQuery is, took it for a test run and are now hooked, the most recent being Ray Camden & Dan Vega.
This is very exciting to me as it demonstrates jQuery's continued growth and acceptance in the development world. Everyday I find new sites that are leveraging jQuery to add amazing functionality for their users and seeing CF developers adding to that is truly awesome.
If you want to learn more about the jQuery project, here is a great list of resources that I've compiled:
jQuery Current Version: v1.2.6
jQuery Main Site:
http://jquery.com/
jQuery UI Effects & UI Library Main Site:
http://ui.jquery.com/
The compressed & uncompressed code:
http://code.google.com/p/jqueryjs/downloads/list
SVN Info:
http://code.google.com/p/jqueryjs/source
Plugins & UI Widgets/Controls:
http://plugins.jquery.com/
Documentation:
http://docs.jquery.com/Main_Page
http://remysharp.com/jquery-api/
http://jquery.bassistance.de/api-browser/
Mailing Lists- jQuery Support, community news:
http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-en
Project Blog:
http://jquery.com/blog/
Learning Resources:
http://docs.jquery.com/Tutorials
http://www.learningjquery.com/
http://15daysofjquery.com/
Sites Using jQuery:
http://docs.jquery.com/Sites_Using_jQuery
Twitter accounts for the latest jQuery and jQuery UI news:
http://twitter.com/jquery
http://twitter.com/jqueryui
The Ext team is happy to announce the release of version 2.0.1 of Ext JS. This is a maintenance release that fixes several issues with the 2.0 release. Some notable issues that have been addressed include:
- Fixed various overflow/scroll issues related to form fields and grid
- Workaround included for the Firefox 2.0/Mac overflow:auto invisible scrollbar bug
- Fixed several issues related to destroying form elements
- Multiple GridView and GroupingView fixes
- Various other minor bug fixes and documentation updates
For complete details on what's changed, please have a look at the 2.0.1 release notes. We encourage all Ext 2.0 users to upgrade to 2.0.1 at your earliest convenience.
Today, my dad would’ve turned 67. It’s the first birthday we’ll celebrate without him. As the day goes by, the realization that he’s no longer with us really sets in. I know this day is going to be very rough for all of us, especially my mom. She’s experiencing a whole different level of sorrow than my brothers & I. 
