Scrumptious Word Morsels

Sure, I complain when products don’t meet my expectations or when I run into horrible customer service. I think there’s a certain level of quality and support that many companies are failing to meet these days. But for all my complaining, I’m also a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due, and that’s why I’m writing a positive review of Brita’s customer service.

I’ve been using various Brita water pitchers for the last four years or so. Aside from the initial $25-40 outlay for the cost of the pitcher, there are filters that need to be changed regularly—about $6 a pop if you get a good deal on them (I get mine from Costco or Amazon). I change my filter out religiously every three months, so Brita essentially has me hooked as a customer for life.

Just over three months ago, I bought a new pitcher that had been serving me well for my day-to-day water needs. When three months rolled around, I decided to change the filter, and I figured I’d wash the pitcher parts with soap and warm water—just in case. As I was cleaning the clear pitcher, the handle cracked off, leaving a sharp end on the pitcher and something that could be mistaken for a weapon on my counter. I mean, we’re talking a legitimate shiv that you could use to stab a man. It was sharp.

That same night, I contacted Brita customer support to see if they could help me out. According to their warranty, products are only covered if they’re within 90 days of the purchase date. I had actually purchased the pitcher more than four months ago, but I didn’t start using it until a few weeks later. (It was on sale, came with a free Nalgene, and was a good deal, so I couldn’t pass it up.)

I figured I was out of luck, but I explained my situation and the fact that I was a loyal customer, and then I sat back and hoped for the best. Two days later, I received an email response from Shelley Preston, a customer service rep. She said they were sending out a new pitcher to me at no cost, and that it would arrive in 7-10 business days. Two days later, I had the new pitcher at my house, but it was incompatible with my reservoir and lid. The model number was the same as my broken pitcher, but it was from an older, squarer design.

I emailed Shelley back and told her what had happened, but she simply apologized and said she’d send out the correct pitcher right away. Sure enough, the new one arrived today, and it fits perfectly. Brita is even sending me a prepaid postage label to return the incorrect pitcher they sent the first time.

It would have been easier for Brita to tell me that I was out of my warranty period and there was nothing they could do for me, but instead they went above and beyond to keep me as a satisfied customer. As if I wasn’t already a customer for life due to my recurring filter purchases, this pleasant customer service interaction sealed the deal for me.

It’s nice to see a company that’s willing to stand behind their products even when they’re not obligated to do so.

Alright, I’m going to try something here. [Drum roll, please.] There are lots of things I could write about, but let’s be honest—nobody really cares about those things. So let’s switch it up a bit. Comment on this post and let me know what you want me to write about. As far as topics go, it could be a subject I’m an expert on, or it could be something I know nothing about. It’s up to you.

Comments are open, obviously!

Some people hate how Buells look, but not me. My only stipulation is that I put 10,000 of my own miles on the odometer of my current bike before I go looking for something new. The practical benefit is that I’ll be able to get a 2008 or 2009 model for cheaper once the 2010s are out.

I guess there’s been a lack of updates lately, but only because I’ve been pretty busy. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t been doing other things online, though! If you follow me on Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, or one of the other social networking sites I belong to, you’ll notice that I’m still posting several status updates per day and replying to other people’s updates. (All my status updates get transferred to the sidebar of this site automagically, by the way.) I’m most active on Facebook, so add me as a friend if you haven’t already, but only if you actually know me in real life too—that’s my Facebook rule.

The last shipment of motorcycle parts should be here Monday, and then I’m going to fix little Vanessa up and change the way she looks for the better (plastic surgery for motorcycles, if you will). It involves swapping out the mirrors and headlight assembly and removing the fairings, but it’s a little hard to describe without pictures. Those will be coming soon, of course, and I realize I never posted any post-accident pictures of the bike, so I’ll roll those into the next update too.

Until next time, hit me up on Twitter, and then we can share 140-character updates with each other!

According to my status update from earlier today, there are only two kinds of motorcyclists: Those who have crashed, and those who are going to. (Personally, I think that saying is kind of stupid, because you can make impressive-sounding dichotomies out of anything. Need an example? There are only two kinds of people: Those have died, and those who are going to die. See?)

Anyway, this morning was apparently my day to crash, and crash is exactly what I did. I was coming down Campbell at about 5:45 a.m., and I was in the middle of the first left turn (the big one). I had started in the outside of the lane, as I should have, except that I ran into a small problem about halfway through the turn. The recent storms must have washed dirt and sand onto the road, and then cars went and pushed that stuff towards the inside and outside of the lane.

Well, my front tire ate up some sand, and then I don’t quite remember what happened next. Either the loss of traction flicked me, or else I tried to adjust and nudged the handlebars, but at any rate, I started heading off-road. Since the shoulder of Campbell is all dirt and tiny rocks right there, it was pretty much over for me at that point.

The bike slid out in front of me, and I followed shortly after it once it managed to shake me off (a low-side crash, as it’s known). After about 30-40 feet of sliding, bike and rider came to a stop in the dirt off to the side of the road. At that point, I did what any motorcyclist would do: I picked up the left turn signal, put it into my backpack, picked up the bike, and rode home.

The damage report is as follows:

• Decapitated left blinker
• Scraped left mirror
• Bent shift lever
• Torn-up left foot peg
• Cracked left fairing
• Scraped engine case
• Scraped left handlebar grip

All in all, there was relatively little damage to me because my protective gear did its job. Except for the dirt and dust, you can’t even tell my jacket was in a wreck. Gloves are a little scraped, but fine. Boots are scraped, but fine. Helmet is undamaged and didn’t get touched. Jeans have a couple holes in the left knee, but those are cheap to replace. I’m missing some skin off my left hip, so if you happen to come across it, I’d like that back.

I guess I’m just really thankful for the circumstances of the spill, and for the fact that I’m able to write about the whole ordeal just 14 hours later. I mean, there were no other cars on the road, I wasn’t seriously injured, the bike wasn’t seriously hurt (only about $300 hurt), and I was able to ride the thing home and park it just fine. So, thanks for watching out for me, Lord.

People have been asking me if I’m going to keep riding. I think you can tell from my tone in this post that I’m going to keep riding. I’m repairing the bike as soon as possible, and then I’m gonna ride it until the odometer stops turning. Stuff like this happens. It’s just a matter of whether you pick the bike up and keep going or whether you give up and refuse to learn from your mistakes. After all, there are only two kinds of motorcyclists…

I’ve got a cute picture for you below. It makes me hungry for dinner. How about you?

No, I’m not talking about that. Get your minds out of the gutter. Jeez!

I’m talking about the motorcycle, obviously. My dad and I were doing some routine maintenance last weekend (thanks again, Dad), and it dawned on me that my new mode of transportation is still without a proper name. The name needs to be feminine, of course, because all fast, sleek, dangerous things with motors have female names.

Off the top of my head, I was thinking Ruby, Autumn, and Vanessa. I don’t know why the top three names I came up with are stereotypical stripper names, but they are.

Got a better idea? Comments are open.

Tucson got pounded with what was arguably the best storm of the entire summer last night. We’re talking horizontal rain, winds that almost knocked my bike over, and flooding all over the place. Oh, and power outages. Lots and lots of power outages.

Power was out at my apartment last night from about 8:00 p.m. until sometime in the middle of the night. I stood on my balcony, which looks out southbound over the city, and literally watched rows of lights go out until all of Tucson was black. The only lights I could see were air traffic control towers and beacons at Davis-Monthan and the Tucson “International” Airport.

So, I woke up this morning, and the power was back on at my apartment. Cool. Fire up the UPSes, reboot the router, reboot the servers, reboot the Vonage adapter, and we’re back in business. I get in my car and start driving to work, only to get about one mile before hitting a wall of cars. We’re bumper-to-bumper and barely moving down a road that you can normally go 50-55 mph on.

Since we’re mostly stopped, I start posting tweets in an attempt to warn others who might be thinking about heading down the same road. I speculated about what the problem might be, and as it turns out, the traffic signals at River/Swan were completely. Only, instead of a cop directing traffic, the county had put up four stop signs around the intersection. Fantastic.

After watching several near-collisions, I came to the conclusion that people don’t know how to react to a 4-way stop at a major intersection. When I got past the blockage and a little closer to work, I realized traffic lights were out everywhere. “Hmm… I wonder if power is out at the office.” Sure enough, power was out at the office.

A few people had gotten to work ahead of me, and they were waiting around to see what would happen with the power situation. As you can imagine, it’s difficult for programmers to get work done when all the desktops, servers, and network connections are completely wiped out. So we did what any good employees would do given the circumstances: we played foosball for an hour.

That brings me to the present. I’m currently sitting in a Starbucks that happens to have power, recounting my morning in blog form for you, my loyal readers. It’s been about two hours since I left the office, though I’m supposed to get a call when we’re back online. I’m not particularly looking forward to that call, as it means a lot of babysitting servers and fscking* work for me.

* Just in case you were wondering, that’s not actually vulgar, though it might appear that way on the surface. Follow the link to find out what the fsck I’m talking about.

I knew the cost of motorcycling when I got into this whole mess, but I never knew the toll it would take on the innocent ones. On my way home tonight, a rather large and juicy bug had the misfortune of being put down by my enormous noggin. It was the first time I’ve ever killed anything with my head. If it’s any consolation, the little guy’s last efforts were not in vain: he scared the crap out of me when he hit my shield and exploded all over the plastic.

Make note of this for future reference: motorcycles have neither seat belts nor windshield wipers.

Sorry for the camera reflection in the photo. Even without a flash, it’s hard to take pictures of really shiny objects without becoming part of the picture yourself.

Since I’ve talked about it enough during the past three or four weeks, most of my loyal readers know that I recently purchased a motorcycle. That was almost two weeks ago. Well, this weekend, I finally started learning how to ride it. And it is fun. It’s more fun than I could have imagined, and it’s more fun than I’ve had in my car in a long time.

I’m gonna be honest and let you guys in on a little secret: I never learned how to drive a manual transmission car. Now, before you start throwing things at me, let me explain. When I started driving in about 2000, nobody I knew had a stick-shift car, so I learned on an auto. That was all well and good for about eight years, until I wanted to drive something with a clutch and a manual gearbox. In case you didn’t know, 99% of motorcycles have manual transmissions.

I had no idea how sensitive the friction zone of the clutch would be, but I think I’m starting to get the hang of it. I’m becoming more intuitive about feeling when it starts to grab and then slipping it some more and applying the appropriate amount of throttle to get going. And let me tell you, this thing gets going. With the Protege, I hit the gas and the car is like, “Yes, sir. I’ll make a note that you’d like to accelerate. How about we take another second to enjoy the scenery, though?” With the bike, it’s like, “I hear ya, buddy. Hold on to the grips, just in case this turns out to be a bad idea.”

With my geek buddy Jim from TFUG (Tucson Free Unix Group, i.e., Linux), we logged about 5-6 hours in a parking lot between yesterday and today. After I felt comfortable this afternoon, we hit the road on our respective bikes and I got my first taste of navigating through traffic. Thankfully, Sunday afternoon traffic is pretty light, and it made for a nice, easy ride. After twisting around the Foothills a bit (literally, roads at the base of the mountain), we went to La Encantada and came back when it turned out to be packed.

Oh yeah, at some point along the way, I made it up into fifth gear, and it was a blast. I’m really enjoying the whole “motorcycle” thing, and I’m happy I got a bike when I did. If I’m feeling up to it, I might try riding to work tomorrow. It’s a straight 4 miles through 3 traffic lights and a left turn, and traffic is pretty sparse when I get into the office before 8:30 or so.

Vroom!

Fresh-picked and hand-delivered from the skies to your computer monitor, here’s today’s sunset captured in glorious 1s and 0s for maximum enjoyment. Thanks, God.