Author: hsoi

Customer Service improving?

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I’ve noticed that lately a lot of people are talking about good customer service experiences.

That we’re surprised to get good customer service? That’s a shame. We shouldn’t be surprised when service is good — it’s supposed to be good. That we’re surprised when service is good is testimony that customer service has generally been a horrible, painful experience.

But I wonder. With the state of the economy, that consumers are cutting back, that businesses don’t want to lose any customers and would still like to gain customers… gosh, amazing how that free market motivates improvement. Customer service is one of those key areas that either make someone loyal for life or swear to never use the product/service again. Of course, when the provider of the goods/services is the government, ever notice that on whole it’s not the best end result? What motivation do they have to improve? it’s not like their revenue will go down… no, if they lose customers they’ll just raise taxes. *sigh*

I can only hope that once times are no longer so lean that customer service won’t go back into the toilet. When times are good, still be good. When times are tough, be better.

PM9 kB!

/ hsoi

Over at TFB, there’s a story of a Kahr PM9 kaboom.

Recently I posted videos of Tom Givens extolling the PM9. Is this kB! any slight on the PM9? I don’t think so. In fact, I think it’s a sight that things have improved!

You see, when I was choosing my carry gun the Kahr’s were getting serious consideration. But I had read about all sorts of problems with them, and how when sending back for customer service the service was hit or miss. It was enough to turn me off to the little guns. However reading this latest story? The kB! wasn’t Kahr’s fault, yet they repaired/replaced everything and even took care of all the shipping costs. A fast turnaround to boot.

I wrote that should I get back in the market for a small semi-auto, the Kahr’s were going to get serious consideration again. Reading about this experience only strengthens that.

BTW, the ammo that went boom was from Georgia Arms. I’ve got a couple cans of GA’s “Canned Heat” in .223 and have yet to have a problem. However, this is not the first story of GA ammo having problems.

Austin Plane Crash

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I live in Austin, Texas.

Today, someone flew a small plane into a building on the north side of town.

Details are still coming together. But at this point it seems that a man was greatly troubled, many problems with the IRS (amongst other things). He burned down his own house (apparently while wife and daughter were still inside). Then flew a single engine plane into a building that held IRS offices. All in all, a very sad situation in every way for everyone involved.

I do hope everything gets sorted out and things resolved as best they can at this point.

I also hope that knee-jerk reactions don’t happen as result of this. This was a lone incident of “crazy” and folks, you can’t stop crazy. Actually I’d say this is more “sad”, but the point remains that this was an isolated incident. I don’t want to see my city get all tied up in this, calling for increased security measures, or changing FAA rules, or whatever. That’s not going to stop anything and will only serve to further degrade the lives of the citizenry… which in a way, is what this guy was rallying against. You’d only be feeding the beast by doing such things.

I hope cool heads prevail.

AlegrĂ­a

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Cirque du Soleil’s AlegrĂ­a came to Austin for a 5 night run at the Cedar Park Center.

Last night I took the family to see opening night.

I’ve seen many Cirque shows on TV; Bravo or A&E, I forget which would play the shows and many times run marathons. Wife and I always enjoyed watching them. Of the shows, AlegrĂ­a was always a favorite. So that it came to town and we could see it live? Awesome.

The kids have never been to any sort of circus, or experienced anything quite like this. We played some promo videos we found online. Daughter of course was excited about it. Youngest wasn’t too sure but did think it’d be neat. Oldest? He made up his mind that he was going to hate it, of course. 🙂  In the weeks since the ticket purchase and leading up to last night, everyone’s respective sentiments towards the show only strengthened. I just encouraged Oldest to go in with an open mind and let it be what it will be; even if he ends up not liking it, he’ll have the experience. I was taken to many events as a child that didn’t appeal to me at the onset and afterwards I knew I’d never do again. However I know my life is a bit richer for the experience. Besides, I’d remind him of all the times he knew he’d hate something and ended up liking it in the end.

And so we went. We decided to have dinner out, and since it was Ash Wednesday seafood was on the menu. I found this little place in Cedar Park called CR Surf & Turf (Yelp listing). Seemed to be decently reviewed and sure enough, the place lived up to the review. It’s a little place, but business was steady and the place was generally 75-90% full the entire time we were there. Service wasn’t horrible, but wasn’t great (e.g. no one ever refilled Wife’s water, or even came by after the food was delivered to ask how things were). Still, the folks were friendly and if you needed anything it was easy enough to ask. The place isn’t too fancy either, but who cares. What’s important is the food and my my my my my…. it was good. We started with a fried calamari. We expected it to be like everyone else does it: little bits of squid, battered and deep fried to a brown, served up in a mound on a plate with cocktail sauce. It was far from that. A light golden batter, meaty cuts of squid, and a fantastic addition of sautĂ©ed onions and other things including some sliced fresh jalapeno (sorry, I can’t remember it all). But my my it was delicious, and so different from the norm. Just fantastic. Everyone had their different plates of food and it was all done very well. The fish was delicious, cooked just right. Even scallops, which are so easy to screw up, were done right. Anything fried (e.g. Oldest had a plate of fried stuff) was a very light batter, crunchy, and didn’t feel heavy. I had grilled asparagus as a side, and it was cooked just right… nothing overdone or underdone. And everything came to our table hot… like freshly cooked hot. Just awesome. I’m telling you folks… this was some really good stuff. If the place wasn’t so far of a drive away I think it’d be a regular place for us. Highly recommended. But anyway…. this isn’t a food blog, but the place was so good I had to give them some credit.

So we get to the Cedar Park Center, find our seats. I always try to get good seats for things and this was no exception. Section 122, row C. It gave us a great view of the entire stage, and comfortable viewing as well (no craning your neck to see everything). One thing I’ll repeat about the Cedar Park Center is the place is tiny and the seats are cramped, but there really aren’t any “bad seats”… even the cheap nosebleeds aren’t going to be terrible. I’d say the only “bad seats” would be the ones directly to the left and right of the stage, since you’d be obscured at times (e.g. the large net at the end for the Aerial High Bar performance).

What can I say about the show other than it was well-executed. I’ve seen the show numerous times on TV, but seeing it live was wonderful. The talent, the skill, the ability of the performers is amazing to watch. The kids were certainly wow’d by a lot of things. Of course, I think for them the best part was watching the clowns. I can’t say I blame them… the clown act was updated a bit and was hilarious, especially the use of some running gags. I know Oldest liked the Fire-Knife Dance too.

Speaking of Oldest… at intermission he comes up to me:

“Dad… I’m going to have to eat my words.” And he gives a slight smile.

Yeah I know, Son. I heard you laughing. I saw you hold your breath during some of those death-defying feats. I saw your attention totally captured. It’s all good. 🙂

Catching up

/ hsoi

Work has been good, or at least interesting, the past week. All this new programming stuff that I’m working on has really inspired me and I’ve just been head-down in that. I haven’t read any blogs or news sites in almost a week. I’ve also been a bit lax in replying to some emails. Of course, blogging hasn’t been as heavy as usual either. I know. Bad bad. But work tends to be a higher priority, given web browsing doesn’t pay the bills.

Going to work on getting caught up today.

Videos: the snub, the anti-snub

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On December 3-4, 2005 at the American Police Hall of Fame in Titusville, Florida, a one-time event called “The Snubby Summit” was held. It was an event all about the snub nose revolver. The presenters there were a veritable who’s who in the snub world, such as Massad Ayoob, Jim Cirillo, Ed Lovette, Andy Stanford, Michael de Bethencourt, Claude Werner, Tom Givens. Others were there too, like SouthNarc and Paul Gomez.

Sounds like it was a heck of an event. Wish I could have been there.

But in place of being there, I discovered videos from the event are available online!

I’m still working my way through all the videos, but if you watch nothing else you must watch parts 6 and 7 — the Tom Givens segment. Tom comes into a snub conference and talks about how after 30+ years he gave up the snub in favor of a Kahr. While that in and of itself is a compelling talk, it’s all the other things that Tom talks about that are well worth your time to watch.

It doesn’t matter what you carry: a semi-auto, a snub, a pointed stick. Take the 20 minutes and watch Tom’s segments. There’s fantastic insight there.

While you’re at the POSA website, they’ve got lots of other interesting videos as well.

A thought, on Gandhi and guns

/ hsoi

A few days ago I wrote a brief entry about the shooter at University of Alabama, Huntsville. While the entry itself wasn’t much, it’s generated quite a comment thread.

In writing one reply I was thinking about how great icons of pacifism, like the Dalai Lama, aren’t against guns. In the “Seattle Times” on May 15, 2001 The Dalai Lama was quoted as saying:

If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.

Even Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t against guns. He understood they had a place. While I was Googling around to find some quotes, I ran across this page. A gentleman named “Peter C” wrote this:

Up until approximately 1978, I described myself as a Gandhi-an pacifist. As we were leaving an emergency doctor appointment with my doddering old half-blind father, I on one arm and my mother on the other at 11 pm that night, a man larger than any of us came bellowing in our direction — “what is this!? A wedding coming down the street!!” He was obviously… something… drunk? Anyway, I had exactly two emotions at that moment. The first was apprehension. The next was a full-fledged and absolute willingness to die in the protection of my parents. I did not care for my own life _or_his_. Right or wrong, up or down, left or right, green or yellow… I was in that moment pledged to kill or be killed. As it turns out, whether he sensed my resolve, or had a moment of clarity I don’t know, but he nearly instantaneously ceased in his bellowing and harrassment [sic] and went on.

Personally, I have reviewed my personal “peace policies” and frankly, I have a much different view today than at that time. The Indians have had done to them as bad as anything Adolph Hitler is credited in doing to those unfortunate enough to occupy his internment camps. For full documentation of British barbarities, I recommend reading Mike Davis’ “Late Victorian Holocausts” for the full telling. Could guns have prevented these barbarities? I do not know. I know that above the meditation place of the Dalai Lama is a gun. Like most things, the solutions are never one thing. Certainly violence is an act that must be considered in its practical context I believe.

But “evil” seems to be a matter of the human heart, and not born of an implement per se. The implements change, but the heart of evil changes little. Change the heart and you change the implements. I pray that we learn to change our hearts by deep meditation and thus the implements that cause suffering will therefore change to implements that create peace. Meanwhile, let’s stop being so idealistic in our focus upon the implements instead of the deeper causes of unnecessary violence.

It’s the last paragraph that is most relevant.

People want to ban guns because they believe in doing so violence will go away. Sometimes they choose their words to say “gun violence” will go away. Sure, I’ll grant that if there are no guns there would be no gun violence. I mean, we don’t have any Star Trek phasers and consequently we don’t have any phaser violence. Trouble is, while “violence” may be eliminated, “violence” is not. No gun? Fine, they’ll use a knife. Look at the UK. Ban knives? They’ll use sticks. Ban sticks, they’ll use their bare hands. What are you going to do then? Cut off our hands? then we’ll use our feet. Are we then going to cut off our feet? Because once we do that yeah… that might actually finally inhibit things. I know it sounds like a ridiculous extreme, but that is the path it takes. You can ban all the objects you want, but it doesn’t change what’s in the heart of a person. If some person is intent on causing pain and suffering, violence and destruction, they are going to do that even if the only thing they can use is their bare hands.

So yes, let’s stop focusing on the implements and instead start focusing on the deeper causes of unnecessary violence.

Modern Programming

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Ye old blog has been quiet because I’ve been occupied the past few days with a fun little project.

You see, every so often Apple releases a new OS version. In this new OS version there’s always all kinds of cool technologies and goodies that makes easier the lives of us software developers. I remember when Apple released Core Data in Mac OS X 10.4 (gory technical documentation here) and what a boon that was for object graph management and being able to work with more complex data structures and files right out of the box instead of having to invent your own management system. Quite a boon. However, we (me and my team) were unable to take advantage of it when it first came out. I’m a commercial software developer and we’re driven by the market… especially what OS version our potential customers are likely to use. Thus if the new technology is only available in some particular OS version we have to wait until that’s our minimum supported OS version. That could take us a couple releases or years before that happens. Thus, we’re always way behind on adopting cutting edge technology.

I totally understand this situation from a market and sales perspective. But as a geek it always pains me because I don’t get to play with the new goodies. 🙂  By the time I get to play with them, I’m way behind the curve. In a sense that’s good because kinks get worked out, maybe Apple has updated the toolbox and filled in the holes. But it’s just not exciting to the geek in me.

Right now I’m working on implementing a new interface for the application I work on. We’re going to have to support Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), and that was really paining me because we’re wanting to modernize the look and feel of the app, but so long as we’re tied to 10.4 that really hampers things. Eventually we were able to come up with a strategy to give the 10.4 users one look and feel, but for users of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and beyond? They’re going to get something really new and snazzy. The cool part is I get to work with some modern technologies, like Core Animation and Core Image. I know that doesn’t mean much to you non-Mac-programmer types. Just know that a lot of the slick stuff about the Mac OS X graphical user interface comes from these. No, I don’t want to get all eye candy just for the sake of eye candy: form must follow function. But it will allow for a much more modern interface and I don’t have to wait another year or two before I can do it.

I’ve been reading documentation, experimenting in a test bed, and working to come up with a good prototype. It’s just been exciting and I haven’t had this much fun programming in a long time. I’m a kid in a candy store! So I’ve just been head-down in it. I’d love to show you what I’ve been doing but I can’t. Sorry. If you want a vague idea, if you’re a Mac user just invoke Front Row. It won’t be exactly like that, but all that behavior and effect? Core Animation, Core Image, Quartz Compositioning, all make that go.

Giving Obama credit where he’s due

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Over at The Daily Kos there’s an article about President Obama and how he conducts his day:

…last month, when Mr. Obama convened Congressional Democratic leaders at the White House for a marathon negotiating session, another priority intervened.

His 11-year-old daughter, Malia, had a band recital.

Thus did the president of the United States ditch his own health care talks — temporarily, at least — to slip off to Sidwell Friends School for a few hours to listen to Malia play the flute. When the recital was over, he returned to the White House, and everybody went back to work.

I think that’s most commendable of him. He refuses to miss things important to his children. Because while to you and me he’s Mr. President, to Malia he’s Dad.

The article continues:

…He knocks off work at 6 p.m. each evening to have dinner with his family, and has given his schedulers strict instructions that, if he must have night-time activities, they are to take place after 8 p.m. That includes matters of war; in November, as the commander in chief wrestled with sending more troops to Afghanistan, he called an 8 p.m. meeting of his national security team, in deference to his role as father in chief.

He has dinner with his family each night, and then no doubt some time to help his children with schoolwork or just read them a bedtime story and tuck them into bed and kiss them goodnight. Good Daddy.

Of course, some people have a problem with this:

“People elect you not to be a good family man, they elect you to fix their problems, and that’s the cold-hearted reality of it,” said John Feehery, a Republican political strategist. “And all those folks on the Hill, they’ve left all their families at home; they don’t have the luxury of skipping back home in the middle of the meeting to catch their daughter’s recital.”…

John Feehery… go fuck yourself. No we didn’t elect him to be a good family man, but for all the talk of how the President should a good role model why are you and others giving him grief for trying to be a good husband and father? Barack Obama is obviously a man unwilling to sacrifice his family, and let me tell you his job is one that could easily destroy his family. He holds his family in high regard and wants to be there for his wife and children. All those folks on the Hill that left their families at home? They have the choice as to where to spend their time, and they’re choosing to not spend it with their family. That’s their problem and their mistake to make. That’s their loss that they’ll never get back.

You see… this hits home for me, very personally. What I’m about to say some people will probably wish I didn’t air so publicly, but it’s the way things were and you can’t escape it. Better to learn and grow from the mistake so as to not repeat it.

My father has been involved in politics the majority of his life and almost the whole of mine. During my growing-up years my father was a member of the US House of Representatives. He was doing a job he wanted and loved. My father was good at it and one of the few politicians I consider a true public servant. Trouble was, the nature of the job coupled with my father’s passion for it left me mostly without a father while I grew up. Much of the year he had to be back in his home district to do work. When he was in town, many days he’d be up and out the door before I woke up and wouldn’t be home until after I had gone to bed. I didn’t get to see my Dad much while growing up. This isn’t to say he didn’t want to spend time with me or the rest of the family. We would make efforts to do things, for example, I’ll never forget those 3 weeks touring Europe when I was 16 years old; but usually they were big things like trips. While those were nice, it’s those little day to day things that end and add up to mattering more.

I recall being in grade school, probably 4th or 5th grade. It was a special week at school because parents were invited to come have lunch with their children at school. Each class or grade rotated as to the day for the parents to come, and my older sister’s day was the day before mine. I was sitting at the lunch table with my friends when my parents came over to the table. Obviously they had just finished having lunch with my older sister and were coming to say hello to me. When my friends caught sight of my Dad they erupted in hails of “Hi Mr. Daub!” “Hey, Mr. Daub!”… just a chorus of my friends acknowledging my Dad. It was such a proud moment for me, to see my friends regarding MY Dad in such esteem. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow when they’d have lunch with me. Earlier that week I had made placemats as part of the class project, and I was all ready to go.

Then tomorrow came. I got my lunch and sat at the table. I put one placemat to my left and one to my right. And I waited for Mom and Dad to arrive. And I waited. And I waited. Other parents were coming in and the chairs were filling up. I remember one Mother asking if the seat next to me was taken. It broke my heart to say “no” and let her take the seat instead of my parent. Lunch ended, and my parents never showed. I was devastated.

Dad was up on The Hill.

It may seem like a small thing, but it’s those little things that add up to a child. Then next thing you know, your child is an adult and living their own life. That whole “cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon” thing.

I used to hold it against my Dad for the fact he was never around when I was growing up. Of course I no longer do. As an adult with a job and family and responsibilities and so on, I know how it can be and understand. Nevertheless, we are ultimately the ones in control of how we spend our time and lives, and we must realize what is most important to us because time will march on and moments will pass that we’ll never get back. Malia doesn’t really care about health care talks, but she does care that her Dad was there to see and hear her play her flute. To her, that matters more than anything. Mr. Obama knows this, and he’s obviously unwilling to let his daughter down.

My father will never get back the lost time with me as a child. I will never get back the lost time with my father. It’s why when I became a father myself I decided to not repeat my father’s mistake. I swore I’d do all I could for my children, to be there, to teach them, to have experiences with them, and just enjoy life with them. Doesn’t matter if it’s some big fancy trip somewhere or just spending 2 hours at the auto-shop with Oldest waiting to get a flat tire patched up (which we did yesterday). It’s still precious time together. It’s one reason I chose to work from home, because it puts me around my wife and my children all day every day. I don’t get to miss a moment of my wife or kids, and I’m always around for them.

I may be critical of our President in many areas, but here I can only give him praise.

Mr. Obama, you’ve earned some high respect in my book. Even if you fail as a President, I sincerely hope you continue to be a success as a father.