Blog Archive for February 2008 - kennandamy.com

We are having a baby!

Amy and I are excited to announce we are having a baby. This has been a tiered release through the family chain of command so now we are opening it to the public. We are still unsure if we are excited or just scared out of our minds to have two kids running around. Come Sept. 20th, we'll find out.

You may have seen our widget sitting on our main blog page already, but if not here it is:

We don't know anything about baby as it's too early to tell if it's boy or girl, but as we find out you'll find out. Also we are not going to be choosing the name until baby is born. We find that part to be best kept as a secret until baby is here. We are open to suggestions either for or against a certain name. We are especially keen on family names, so if there is a name found deep in North genealogical records that you like, please let us know.

Labels: family

Dear Steve Jobs

In my many previous jobs I have had the position of technician in numerous fields. I have been a Pager Technician (Motorola Certified), a PC technician, an Alarm Technician for ADT, and worked as a Computer Support Representative for an organization that serviced Mac computers.

I recently purchased a MacBook (Sept 07) and it has truly been a great machine, I have my issues with it, but all in all it is a pleasure to use. On Monday 2-11-08 my wife turned it on and the screen gave her an ambiguous message. We looked online and discovered some possible fixes, none of which worked and decided it was time to have Apple Repair it. I hadn't yet purchased AppleCare, and I realize I still had a year warranty, but I figured now is as good a time as any to purchase the 3Year extension. I know I will keep the computer for at least that long, so why not.

I arrived at the Apple Store here in Austin, TX in The Domain and spoke with JC (Sales), and John (Technician) about my machine. I was told I needed to make an appointment to receive any service. This was upsetting as nowhere in the process of purchasing the machine, or purchasing AppleCare was I told I needed an appointment anywhere to get service on a machine. Now, I understand the methodology here, and it's actually quite intelligent, no lines in the stores, and one on one time with a technician. Great Idea, truly. However, I was not in need of any of these things and would like to simply drop off the machine fill out a form with the issue and leave. I was told that if I wanted to do that it would cost me $85. This was very upsetting, and admittedly I kind of got in the face of JC for even suggesting I pay MORE money for this repair. I have $1700+ into this machine already, $250 of which is for repair service. I apologize to JC (he's a nice guy). He handled the situation well, and is at the mercy of Store Policy. He may even agree with Store Policy, but some customers don't.

I simply ask that if a customer walks into a store and wants to allow you to provide him or her LESS service then that should be allowed. The Technician (John) was quite helpful and actually came to talk to me without an appointment. This was outside of his job role and did it out of the kindness of his heart. John, thank you.

Apple, I am very disappointed in how you handle this situation of a customer wanting to come in an drop off a machine that needs repair. I don't care about data backup, I don't care about software installation, just FIX it. Thanks

Sincerly

Kenn North
Cedar Park, TX
kenn@kennandamy.com

Labels: computer, random, rant

The MacBook is Dead!!

So after 6 blissful months of our beautiful MacBook it died yesterday. We will be holding a funeral at the Apple Store in Austin, TX. In lieu of flowers, please send "I told you so's" and other "I hate Mac" comments in the comments section below.

Seriously though we have loved our MacBook, but when Amy turned it on she was presented with a blinking file folder and immediately thought, "that can't be good."

Upon further investigation and serious effort on my part it was deemed dead and must be repaired. It has a 3 year warranty so all is well hardware wise, and although I have an admittedly overzealous backup strategy some files will be lost, but the loss is minimal. Amy is frustrated about the lack of computer on top of being 8 weeks pregnant. All will be well soon enough. The computer next, and Amy and the new one sometime in September. Kenn... well we'll see.

Labels: computer

You can't do that in Arkansas... Or can you?

So Amy and I were running some errands last Saturday and we saw something very interesting. It was a pickup truck with a temporary license from Arkansas.

Upon closer look we noticed the license plate didn't make much sense. The picture is bit small, all we had was a cell phone, but it's still pretty funny. And we had to follow this guy for several blocks before we finally got stuck behind him at a light long enough to get a picture.

So apparently in Arkansas February is abbreviated as FEBR, and there are 30 days in this special month. Who are you kidding???

Labels: random

I'm Sorry---What Month is this again???

Ladies and gentlemen, today is February 4th. I am sitting in my house, and the air conditioning is on. What's more--it is currently 8:40 PM and the air conditioning is on. It was quite warm today; can you tell? It got up to 80 degrees in our house. Am I supposed to be in the middle of winter? Cause for crying out loud, it does NOT feel like it. My sincerest apologies to anyone who had to shovel snow this past weekend. Texas is so weird.
But so is Arkansas. We'll explain that one once we get the pictures downloaded off my cell phone.

Labels: home, random