Think Before You Upload!

 

I was reading about the apprehension of "the Alabama Tea Bagger" the guy who dangled his genitals over a passed out LSU fan in a New Orleans Krystal after the BCS Championship game in New Orleans. Honestly I am sort of torn about this whole thing......yes it was a stupid thing to do. Have I seen stupider things?....OOH YEA! I think the real question is, was anyone hurt? Was that passed out LSU guy damaged in some way? No not really. Brian Downing appears to be the one with most of the damage. He has lost his job, he's been clapped in irons and dragged into the dark depths of Orleans Parrish jail , he has been publicly humiliated before his friends , family and the world. Most likely he will be tried and convicted of sexual battery. Here is the statute from Louisiana describing the offense and the punishment http://www.babcockpartners.com/resources/statutes/louisiana-sexual-battery-law which contains words like "hard labor" and "for the rest of his natural life". Downing , if convicted , will serve some jail time and be permanently branded as a sex offender lumping him in with rapists and child molesters.  He will be electronically monitored forever and have to register where ever he goes.

When I read the legal parts I thought "OK that is what he did." but I also thought it might be a little harsh for a crime of stupidity that left no one hurt. You can't even make a case for the LSU guy being "psychically damaged or mentally scarred" HE WAS UNCONSCIOUS WHEN IT HAPPENED. Now did it disturb him when he saw the video on the web? Of course it did! "Oh my gosh , I got blasted and passed out in a Krystal and some Alabama guy dangled his business in my face!" Will the intoxicated LSU fan be OK? Aside from his other obvious self inflicted issues, yeah I think he'll survive.Will he have some problems stemming from his involvement in this? Yes I believe he will. Would you want to be "that guy"? What do you think being "that guy" on your resume will do for you? Nothing good I'm sure.

Hopefully, Downing will be shown some compassion and cooler heads will prevail. Hopefully the LSU fan will use this and turn his life around. Certainly the furor will fade when "the next big thing" hits the web.

So why is this a big deal? Because it went viral on YouTube! All this havoc is only possible because of technology. Handy video on your smart phone, the internet and video sharing have all come together to destroy one poor stupid SOB and make another one the laughing stock of the world.

The moral of the story here is: Remember the enormous power you hold in your hand when you pull out your smart phone.Think before you upload that video boys and girls.

What will 2012 bring us? Its really up to you!

“In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”

-Warren Buffett

 

 

There are people who are waiting for the stock market to come back or the results of the election.

They are waiting to see what somebody else is going to do!

I heard somebody the other day say,” I am waiting to see what the big boys do. Small business is driven by what big business does.”

What drives big business? Consumers and demand drive big business. Do big businesses “wait” to see what consumers are going to do? Of course not , they do things to create demand and drive business. Notice what I said “do things”.

A friend of mine was lamenting the sorry condition of sales at his company. His comment was . “Nobody is doing anything right now.” Once again , that “doing” word. So if somebody was doing something..business would be better…right?

We had lots of changes in 2011in technology and in the business climate. Most would say that the  business changes were not for the good. Companies that historically did business a certain way found that things just didn’t work the way they used to. Markets like housing changed forever….they will never be the same again.

There are three kinds of people:

Those who make it happen.

Those who watch what happens.

Those who wonder what happened.

Vast sweeping changes have ended civilizations and dynasties. They also create gigantic opportunities for the ones who can adapt and capitalize on them. Will you be one of the ones that embrace the changes and use them to create new opportunities or are you waiting?

Merry Christmas to ALL!

The main reason I am doing this post is to try out Windows Live writer so don’t expect much.

I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from my family to you!

Come On Honey...Let's Go For A Ride!!!!!

Have you ever uttered these words to your spouse or significant other? When you say it with a certain enthusiasm and a gleam in your eye, it really makes it sound like you are going on a fun and exciting trip.
Sometimes it means, "Honey I am going to quit my nice safe corporate job and jump out on my own. I will be risking everything we have built together and I will disrupt our whole family routine. You are OK with that right?" I've done this twice in 16 years of marriage. We are still married. I guess this means that we have a really good marriage right? Yes it does..it also means that I have a really great wife. This is the same woman that has and still does encourage me to buy a motorcycle. One of my buddies once told me, "You mean your wife WANTS you to buy a motorcycle and you don't have one yet!" The gigantic epiphany that I have gotten out of all this is simple....my wife wants me to be happy because she loves me that much. Now to some, this may seem like one of those DUH kind of statements but honestly do all of you guys have this kind of incontrovertible proof that your wife wants , above all else, for you to be happy and fulfilled? If you do , I hope you realize how lucky you are......if you don't.....god bless you.

Benjamin Franklin was right!

My favorite philosopher Ben Franklin once said " Blessed is he who expects nothing for he shall be continually surprised." My recent experience with an AT&T service issue at my house is a good example of this. Nothing accurately sums up my expectations for customer service from AT&T. I don't have an expectation of any at all. And like Ben, I am amazed and surprised at what I got.

The gas company has put a new line in on my road so that one of my neighbors can get service from them. While they were burying it , they also decided to modify the underground line that brings telephone and Internet to my house. They installed a 4 inch air gap where my line crosses the ditch they were working in. For those of you not familiar with an air gap, it is an absolutely fool proof method of stopping spam, Internet viruses, email, telephone calls , web pages and all forms of outside communication short of smoke signals, war drums and carrier pigeons. I called AT&T the day it happened which was a Tuesday and in normal AT&T fashion, they confirmed that there was trouble on the line (DUH) and that they would have my issue resolved by Monday at 8pm. Now a 7 day wait for restoral of my service would be intolerable but 6 days......thank you AT&T! Back in the day, when they gave you a long resolution time, Bellsouth would show up early but not AT&T, when they say 6 days they are true to their commitment.

Anyway, I caught the guys working for the gas company and informed them that they had severed my phone line. The crew supervisor informed me that all the telephone lines in my neighborhood were aerial and that wasn't possible. I confirmed to him that all the lines were aerial..EXCEPT MINE! I showed him the spot where the cut had occurred and his locator indeed confirmed that something metal was underground there. He dug down about 8 inches and there sat my line right above his brand new gas line.He apologized for my inconvenience and said he wished there was something he could do, which there wasn't of course. His efforts to speed up the phone company were as futile as mine, AT&T held fast to their commitment to be there Monday. As a side note, I am not done with Marshall County Gas yet. I channeled my inner phoneman and applied a temporary splice to restore service to my house and settled in to wait for AT&T.

Monday afternoon, as promised, the AT&T repairman arrived.There is something in the telephone company lexicon called referral. This is an extension of the famous "that's not my job" method of operation that encourages employees of public utilities to "refer" things like buried cables and billing problems to the "proper" department. Which causes the duration of your problem to be lengthened as much as possible. That is what I expected to happen. I fully expected my problem to be "referred" to engineering for replacement of my drop. Engineering is even more short staffed and overbooked than repair so I was prepared for Christmas and New Year without a repair. Surprisingly, that didn't happen! The young man who came to my house efficiently and professionally spliced my cable and even reburied it! As much as I would like to send a commendation to his supervisor and mention his name here, I won't. You see he told me that he really was supposed to refer my problem and that he was going over the time allotted to him to fix my issue. I won't name him or send a heartfelt and much deserved letter of thanks to AT&T because I am afraid I would get him fired! Whoo HOO! Go AT&T!

Welcome To The "We gotcha NOW" Network!

I recently changed sell phone providers. (Yes this is the first of many intentional misspellings). Here is my take on picking a wireless provider.They are all equally bad. You WILL have dropped calls, you WILL have phone issues ranging from bad equipment to dead end upgrade paths. No matter which one you pick there will be places where it  WON"T WORK. AND none of them will work worth a flip out in the boonies where I live. Over the years, I have tried everybody but Verizon. Why you ask have I not given Verizon a go? I have several friends who have used Verizon and from their experience, I have concluded that while it may work a little better for the most part they too have the same issues I described above. And since Verizon is unabashedly more expensive than everybody but AT&T, I really don't see the point. Also I have noticed that like AT&T, Verizon doesn't work AT ALL at my house. Which brings me to my major criteria for sell phone provider choice.....price. If everybody is equally bad, then you pick the one that gives you a better deal. I had been with T-Mobile for many years but as everyone has noticed, they have been gradually creeping up in price for years. I looked at Sprint and found I could reduce my bill by $50 dollars a month. My daughter wanted a new phone and so I switched. So far so much the same ole stuff but at 50 bucks a month less so I am good.

Interestingly enough, recently I had a major disruption of phone and Internet at my house caused by the air-gap created when the gas company decided to run their new line right through the underground cable that brings AT&T to my house. ( I am working now off a self installed temp service because AT&T has assured me that they will have my problem resolved no later than Monday at 5pm....the cable was cut the previous Tuesday by the way) Before installing the temp fix , I contemplated using the tether on my Android phone to get "a little Internet" little because as I previously mentioned, nobody works well at my house. I couldn't seem to make it work so I called tech support where I was told they "don't support" tethering. They were kind enough to offer their "mobile hot spot feature" which would turn my phone into a slow oversubscribed wifi hot spot that would support several devices at a crawl at my house for" just 29.99 a month". I naturally declined. I have since read posts all over the Internet about the terrible wrong that Sprint has perpetrated on all their customers by stopping free unlimited tethering. GIVE ME A BREAK! Here is my take on it, Sprint...I am OK with you trying to exploit a perceived revenue opportunity as long as you are OK with me... not buying it, waiting for someone to come up with a clever way to get around it (and they will) and making fun of you for doing it.  That's the American way! I was actually very amused as the Sprint tech support rep and I chuckled together about the "wonderful feature" and the 30 dollar price tag. Her reaction kind of leads me to believe that they aren't getting many takers? Like Mama used to say, "You might as well laugh" right? Did I have the impression that I would be able to do this when I signed up? Yes. Will I forgo thirty dollars of the fifty I am saving to have it? NO. Am I outraged because Sprint has disenfranchised me from my God given right to tether? Of course not. Will I go back to another carrier because of it? No of course I won't. This is a business transaction and all they owe me is a reasonable attempt to provide the base service I signed up for...period. Sell phone, Internet and cable TV are not like life liberty and the pursuit of happiness...they are not inalienable rights handed down to us by God. Just like my situation with my buried telephone cable....am I happy that AT&T will take 6 days to come look at my issue and tell me they will take another week to fix it...no I'm not but this is a business transaction so my other option is to take my business elsewhere or live with it... I am not going to be indignant and whine that they have violated my constitutional rights or something equally stupid. So Sprint......although you may think you've "got me now"....that will only happen if I let you.

The Big "Merger"

When I started doing this a few years ago, I titled it "Gary D's Take". I have some other blogs and sites that are related to businesses and things that are not entirely just me. This is just me and what I think.

As a T Mobile customer I have some concerms about the pending merger with AT&T. My main concerm is that I know those guys at AT&T pretty well. While the official story is that they plan to honor T Mobile's pricing and way of doing things (and they have to for a while) I know how they are and how they think.....they won't be able to keep from AT&Ting it up! It's just not in them!

For those of us who have invested in GSM technology ( I started with an HP IPAQ) its sad. I have been a happy T Mobile customer for years. They proved that you could keep your pricing reasonable , give excellent customer service and be sucessful. I just don't think any of that will last much longer. None of those things are part of the A companies business model. Now the Germans that run T Mobile are really really really smart guys so maybe they have some grand plan to come out on top when the dust settles. I hope so.

Meanwhile... I guess I will just watch and wait.