Well my wife, son and dog just got back from our daily evening walk around the neighborhood and my adrenaline is still pumping.  It’s still pumping not because of our meandering walk, but more so for the run-in we had with a neighbor, and I use neighbor in the sense that this person lives in the neighborhood.

Here’s a little back-story to what lead to what occurred this evening.  Recently I decided I needed to loose weight, get more active and live a more healthy lifestyle.  The past few years have been wrought with the stress of a nightmare remodel and the happiness of our son Skyler born.  My lifestyle had changed with the times becoming sedentary and day-in-day-out hum-drum.  It was now time to change that.  I started a diet and increased my activity.  I now get up every morning at 5:30 and go for a 1 mile walk with our dog Luigi, I go for a short 10 minute walk at lunch when I can and another 1 mile walk with my wife, son and dog in the evening.

Mind you, when we moved to this neighborhood one of the best qualities that we loved about living here is the neighborhood.  All the neighbors wave and say hi to you if they are going for walks or playing with their kids in their front yards.  Skyler is part of the Ticatica Kids Club.  Ticatica is the name of our small street.  We know the neighborhood gossip lady, and are luckily on her good side.  We’ve been invited over to our neighbor’s houses for USC football games or the occasional cigar in the backyard.  Ole, one of the few remaining original owners in his late 80′s, lives at the end of the street.  He keeps an eye on the street for everyone walking down the street shirtless in San-a-belt baby blue cut off pants that are pulled up two inches above is belly button.  He speaks of stories of World War II and shoots the trespassing skunk that get too close to his backyard.  All in all it’s really a nice quite and safe place to live.

A couple of months ago our neighbor, Al, from across the street, warned us about a little chihuahua that chased him and his 3 year old grandson up the hill.  A few weeks ago we found that dog.  On my route there is a street called Kiska Drive.  On this street there live two dogs with short man syndrome.  The worse of the two is a stupid chihuahua.  We have been chased a few times by mindless dog, when one time, about a month ago, the dog chased Luigi and me with Skyler in the hiking backpack up the street when the owners saw this, piled into their car and raced up the hill to get him, all the while you could hear the father yell at his daughter and his daughter yelling at her father about the dog.  She jumped out of the car, swooped up the dog and returned to the car yelling, “It’s because he hates you too.  That’s why he runs away!”  No apologies to us, but it didn’t matter, I  just turned and kept going up the hill thinking to myself I don’t need to be a part of this.

This brings this story to about two weeks ago.  Evening walk, Skye, Skyler in the stroller, Luigi and me, we were walking up Kiska Drive.  The dogs were out.  I’ve had enough of this.  If the dog were to even get near kicking range of Skye, Skyler or Luigi, he was going to know it.  Normally I am a peaceful, animal loving person, but when an animal threatens my family it’s a different story.  I walked over to the front door the whole time with this ‘Rat’ dog snapping at me.  I rang the doorbell and the 9 year old daughter answered the already wide open door.  I firmly said how this was not the first time this has happened with their dogs barking and trying to attack my dog while we were walking on the street, the next time this happens I would call animal control.  She picked up the dogs and put them inside and closed the door.  Problem solved, so we thought.

This evening’s walk.  We turn the corner on Kiska Drive and low and behold the little rat dog was out and going after Luigi.  The rat dog’s mother was out and noticed this going on, she came over to grab the dog but the dog kept barking and charging Luigi.  I was pushing Skyler in the stroller, Skyler was watching from the safety of his stroller, Skye had Luigi on the leash and Luigi was trying to back away from being attacked by the psychopathic rat dog.  The owner finally grabed the dog, no apology, and headed back to take the dog in, as she did she stopped and turned around to say, “Are you the ones who yelled at my daughter and threatened to call animal control?!”

Mind you, we hadn’t even said anything to this lady so for her to assume this was a pretty big leap.  I told her, “I warned your daughter that this dog is always out and tries to attack us when she is out.”  Obvious enough since the rat dog just did it again.

At this point she through out a few swear words, told us to call animal control, cussed us out again and headed back inside.  This is where it got worse.  Her husband walks out of their backyard and starts yelling at me.

Snapshot picture at this momment: I’m pushing our two year old son up the hill in the middle of the street trying to cross it, Skye is walking Luigi on the sidewalk across the street and this gang banger husband in a wife-beater tanktop and tattoos is coming after me.

“Hey F**ker, you want to start something?!”  I think he repeated that a few times as I ignored him and kept walking up the hill.

“Hey little Sh**, I’m talking to you!” was another thing he said, (hey at least my diet’s working huh?)

I took a mental note: cell phone is in my left pocket, we are in public, if anything happens I can’t drop the leash to Skyler’s runner/stroller because we are on a hill.  I stopped and squared up.

I really don’t remember much that he said, I was trying to stay calm as he went off on being mister macho, ape man.  He was basically pissed off at me for telling his 9 year old daughter to keep their dogs inside.  Apparently his 9 year old daughter embellished the story of what happened saying that I yelled at her and threatened her and scared her.  I refreshed his memory of the time they drove up the hill to pick up their dog from chasing us and he began to calm down, realizing he was in the wrong.  Skye stepped to help ease the pressure of the conflict.  I apologized if I scared his daughter and also stated that his dogs scare my 2 year old son so I am just protecting my family.

He finally backed down, hopefully realizing the whole story.  I offered my hand and he shook it, turned around and he walked home.

It is surprising to me how people can get so angry at something so small that the first thing they want to do is go beat someone up.  This was the closest I’ve been to getting my ass kicked since I was bullied in 7th grade by a red-neck 8th grader.

When we got home, there was a part of me that wished I pulled a Bruce Lee meets Chuck Noris on this looser but what good would that have done.  Skye tells me we did the right thing, and I know we did.  It makes me think how lucky I am.  I have a family who loves me and a family I’d do anything for.  This poor looser guy yells at his daughter, probably beats up his wife and his dogs don’t even like him.  I feel sorry for that a-hole.

Note to self: Kiska Drive is now off the route.  I need to expand my loop to 1.5 miles anyway.  Kiska Drive Rat Dog Man is a still an A-hole.

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There has always been that marketing/sales quote. “If a customer receives good service he’ll tell 1 other person, customer received bad service he’ll tell 10 others.” I’m out to change that in this post.

This week I was pleasantly surprised. I feel, especially with today’s economy, customer service is a differentiating factor I have come to place more weight upon. If I am going to spend my hard-worked money for a product or service there are a few things I expect: knowledge of the product or service that is being provided, mutual respect and a fair price. That being said, the first two criteria can influence the third. Earlier this week I took my H3 in for service. I took it in the Cerritos Pontiac, Buick, GMC, Hummer Service Center where I met Robert D. I was having a “Serv 4WD” in the DIC light up and then go away occasionally. I was due for an Oil Change so I thought I’ll take it in to get the 4WD serviced. I feel, had I taken it somewhere else, I would have had to pay for an oil change and a 4WD service and still not have solved the problem. It ended up being electrical and not a 4WD problem. Nice catch on Robert D’s part to diagnose the problem instead of treating just the symptom.

So here is my plug for Robert D. <plug> If you are in the Los Angeles/Orange County area and need to get your Hummer or any other GM vehicle serviced take it to the Cerritos Pontiac, Buick, GMC, Hummer Service Center, ask for Robo or his real name, and you won’t be disappointed. He knows what he is doing, doesn’t talk down to you when explaining some basic things and a pleasant cool guy.</plug>

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When I got home I saw the UPS truck drive down our street. Cool! 10 minutes later I saw the UPS leave our street. Awesome! I opened the front door to find… our door mat.

Dude.

I jumped on the computer, tracked the package on your website, it said it was delivered at our front door at 6:25pm. Maybe the 22 pound box is really small because I didn’t see it. I went outside and looked around the house to see if maybe you, Mr. UPS Driver Man, thought our front door was somewhere else. Nope. No package. I walked up the street to see if maybe there is another house with the same address of ours…Nope. Enter sarcasm where appropriate…

By the time I got home from my neighborhood walk, dinner time with the family, played with our son, put him to bed, it was already 8:57pm. I found the phone number to your UPS customer service. It was a talking computer! I needed to talk to a real person to tell them to be on the lookout for a rogue vacuum in a box, “one that doesn’t loose suction™.”

For anyone out there who needs to call UPS here is the trick:  the phone number to use: 1-800-PICK-UPS (742-5877)  that’s not really the trick but it still important, the kicker is that once you are connected and the computer lady is talking, Dial 0 (zero)  That will prompt Cyber-Chick to pass you over to a human.  You may need to say your tracking number or something but after just hit 0.  I figured this out right around 9:06pm last night.  Unfortunately, a recording came up and said they were closed.  Their call center closed at 12:00am…eastern time.  Hmm, subtract 3 hours for pacific time et voilá.  9:00pm.  That put me about 6 minutes over.  Classic.

So Mr. UPS Driver Man, this morning I called to try to get thing resolved.  UPS told me to contact the shipper to tell them to contact UPS to file a claim.  For your bad eye sight I now have to spend the time to contact the shipper, whom, by no fault of their own, has to submit paperwork to UPS for a claim. Meanwhile, the shipper won’t do anything until they receive a letter from me, hand signed and faxed to them so that they could sent that to UPS to get the ball rolling.  Wahoo!

I called my wife before I’d started the ball rolling to ask her if maybe our neighbor who lives at our alternate-universe-house had our package.  She told me that when she walked out the front door this morning it was magically there staring at her.

“Happy Early Birthday Dear, I got you something that sucks.  A really cool Vacuum.”

I’m just glad I didn’t have to write a strongly worded letter to UPS…

Mr. UPS Driver Man, on the other hand, maybe I’ll get you some glasses.  I’d ship them to you but I’m not sure if you’d get them…

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Really Mr. Carpet Man? Do you think I wanted the bedroom not finished for my enjoyment? Do you think I told the workers, “Eh? Just tear out that wall and rebuild it, oh yeah and take your time! That will piss off Mr. Carpet Man. My life will be fulfilled.”

Jackass.

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The Jobs.
The new ad campaign came out in the golf magazine, here is a picture of it.

The 2 new commercials have hit the golf channel in December and are airing 1000 times a month so if you have the Golf Channel you should be able to see it. We still don’t get the Golf Channel with our free cable so the only way I’ve been able to see it on the TV is on the DVD copy I have of them.

The company catalog came out after numerous press checks and a flu I just couldn’t shake. Here is a picture of that.

Shailen and his company Crystal Coding Concepts has been helping us out with the website. You can see his handiwork here:

http://www.winngrips.com/thegrips/newgrips.html [Edit]It’s not there any more

My last major project is the PGA Merchandise Tradeshow in Orlando. I’ve completed 12 new booth graphics and organized a press conference with all the other little things involved. It’s all been finalized so hopefully all I need to do is show up, push the buttons and make it work. We’ll see; that’s next week.

Skye finished out the end of the year like a trooper. Handel’s Messah was a success at LBCC. Skye just started back up last week at USC once again for this new semester after resting up for much needed rest. She just started up teaching at Long Beach City College today, so once again she is in full force with a long list of events happening throughout this semester.

From the Sports Page:
The Purple Flames finally went out in a flicker of glory.

The girls played their hearts out and played the best they could. We tied for 2nd place in the Section of South Orange County but because we were tied, the other 2nd place team who had more goals scored in their stats went on to regionals. Our season ended in mid December.

On a Sad Note:
We’ve had to say goodbye to a close member of our family. On December 5th, Marcus, our family dog was put to sleep. Marcus was given to me 12 years ago by some close friends of mine, Shelley Gomez and Beverly (Leonano) Debreczeni. They picked him out of the dog pound when my old dog Francois ran away in October of 1994. Beverly said he had my eyes. He was a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, and was one of the greatest souls I have ever met.

It seems he may have had a stroke in the days before because it was pretty much overnight he couldn’t do anything for himself anymore. The Doctor said his heart was weak and it was just a matter of time. He had a long, great life and I am truly honored that he was able to spend it with us. He was 2 years old when I got him. He was 14 years old when we said good-bye.

With an end, there is a new beginning:
After a couple of months of trying, Skye and I are Pregnant! Well, actually Skye’s pregnant, I just helped We were trying to time the delivery at the beginning of summer because it would be easier since Skye would be on summer break from Work/School. We almost got it, we are looking at a delivery date of July 30th. I really can’t explain how I feel. We are so excited and happy yet a little bit frightened. I really can’t wait! It made it really real for me last week when we went in for our 3 month ultrasound, to check the heartbeat. We thought we were just going to hear the heartbeat, but instead we saw these!

I’ll keep you up to date as thing progress.

Construction on the House.

The light at the end of the tunnel was just a gas leak that exploded!

I bet you thought we’d be done by now, huh? So did we. We are getting closer to the end of our project however, we have had some major snags with our contractor. A project that started in late August that should have been finished in 60 days, you’d think would be done in late October. We had another deadline of the December 24; that came and went. Well apparently in contractor terms a deadline means, “I’m sorry, we have no clue what we are doing.”  I guess we should have picked up the contractor’s dictionary before we hired them.

In early December at the house, I am so thankful for my Mom and Dad who helped me pack up a PODS that we have parked in our driveway, in an attempt to empty the house/garage so that our stuff 1. Doesn’t get stolen, 2. Doesn’t get broken, 3. Doesn’t get really, really screwed up because of the rats that have come to live in the garage. We are no longer living in our one bedroom and one bathroom scenario. We are actually living with Skye’s Mom right now.

It didn’t help that our house smelt of strange odors like wet old carpet, plaster, and dust. It didn’t help either that since Skye’s been pregnant her nose has become a super power onto itself. She can smell from miles away. I don’t mean she smells from miles away, I mean she can pick up a scent from like a town away. When some of these smells don’t agree with her that’s when the “morning” sickness kicks in. It shouldn’t be called Morning Sickness, it should be called, “Get that funky smell away from me” sickness. Because of the “GTFSAF” sickness, I’ve had to refrain from my BBQ Chicken or BBQ anything. It’s quite sad. I just hope our child will like BBQ. I digress.
Needless to say it wasn’t fun walking through the house holding your nose in fear of smelling something that would make you gag or worse. Since we’ve been at Lynn’s house, Skye has much fewer episodes of the GFTSAFM sickness, it really does help to be in a house that has a kitchen that we can cook in, and a bed that’s not so dusty and a consistent temperature. We are quite grateful to Lynn and Richard’s hospitality.

Our house is hopefully rounding the final bend. They are working on tile right now and painting soon, they still have a huge list left but it slowly moving forward. I won’t bore you with my frustration, all I can really say is that once this project is final, there may be a lawsuit in the works for a list of gross negligence. I have become a much more patient person because of this, however, my patience with these contractors is next to nothing at this point.
Here a picture of the the kitchen floor. The last one being the most recent. I’m still really quite bitter about the construction thing.

The last couple of months have gone by. I can’t say they’ve gone by fast, in fact I would say they have gone by eternally slowly. But what really matters right now is that our families and friends are healthy. I’m healthy, Skye’s healthy, and our Baby is healthy and happy.

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