Rants

Calling BS On Excessive Resort Fees

I have no problem with resort fees.  They’re pretty standard in most hotels that offer amenities these days.  So, it makes sense that a hotel with a giant water park would charge resort fees for your stay.  Still, after a recent booking, I still walked away mad.

I wasn’t upset that they charged for a resort fee.  But a couple of things in particular got to me.  So, I decided to call them out on it on social media.

Resort Fees At Our Favorite Water Park

We’ve stayed at a nearby water park for several years.  We love it.  The kids have a great time.  They run around all day and never get bored.  We join them and have fun playing with them and relaxing.

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I May Never Buy A GE Appliance Again

For years, I’ve followed the trials and tribulations of the front loading washing machine issues surrounding mold and mildew.  Why?  Because the GE  front loading washer that we have has been plagued with these issues since we bought it in 2007.

At the time, I thought it was great.  The community where we moved had some of the highest water rates in the area, so it was a HUGE win to save money on the water bill with the new type of machine that used significantly less water.

The honeymoon quickly wore off.

Moldy Gasket

When we first got our machine, we did what any sensible person would do and closed the door when it wasn’t in use.  Sound, reasonable, right?  Well, we quickly found out that was a bad idea when the rubber gasket around the door started getting covered in mildew.

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How Parents Can Teach Their Kids Not To Be Rapists When They Grow Up

I was out of the loop on a lot of news stories at the beginning of last week, so the first I heard of the frenzy regarding convicted Stanford rapist Brock Turner was a report where his father suggested that even the six month sentence, basically the minimum possible, was too harsh.

I read that story and went backwards, catching up on everything, and my opinion ended up seeming to match the majority, was that Turner got off way too lightly.  Way, WAY too lightly.

The Defense

mb-2016-06-newspapersThe father argued that his son shouldn’t be punished that harshly for an act that took 20 minutes, completely setting aside that the victim, while maybe unable to remember those 20 minutes, has to live now with what happened every single day for the rest of her life.  Yeah, even six years, which I think was the maximum sentence, is too light.

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How Many Ways Can One Repair Shop Break an iPad?

Every once in a while, my sister-in-law stays over at our house.  We live fairly close to her work, and if she has something else going around our part of town, she’ll sometimes crash in the guest bedroom.  A few weeks ago, she was staying over and came out of her room, upset.  She had dropped something on her screen and now had a cracked iPad.

It was still usable but definitely not something you want to live with long term.

Repairing A Cracked iPad

She looked around but was finding most screen replacements to cost in the neighborhood of $125-150.  Money has been a bit tight so she was holding out for a better deal.

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Vending Machines And Disproportionate Rage

I can actually tell you the approximate last time I bought something from the vending machine here at work.  It was in February 2014.

If that seems odd that I know that, read on.  It’s kind of a funny story.

Irregular Regular Buyer

I’m normally not a big buyer at any vending machine.  I’m a frugal guy and I know that vending machine products cost way too much money.  Generally, I’d use the vending machine to buy a snack, and so to make sure that buying from the machine didn’t turn into a regular habit, I usually keep a small stash of snacks in my desk drawer.  Cereal bars, granola bars, crackers, or other such things that satisfy most mid-afternoon cravings as they pop up.

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Amazon Must Limit Third Party Sellers

I had a pretty frustrating experience with Amazon recently.  By and large, I’m willing to forget about it for two specific reasons:

  • Amazon rocks more often than not.  They’ve built lots of goodwill points
  • It wasn’t technically Amazon’s fault

The Lost Fitbit Charger

It all started last November.  After we returned from our Disney World trip, I realized that I had left behind the charger for my Fitbit.  I have a Flex, and the charger is really quite simple.  It is about six inches long with one end holding a cradle for the Fitbit, and the other end a plug to a USB port.  It’s pretty small and I can see where it got overlooked during our packing.

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Why Donald Trump And Bernie Sanders Are Still Candidates

Seven months ago, I penned a post noting that I thought it was absolutely absurd that Donald Trump could actually be elected President.  While he still has a long way to go to be elected, he’s come a lot further than I had thought.  Seven months ago, I figured he’d be long gone by now, and predicted the Republican race would come down to…Jeb Bush and Scott Walker.

Oops.

I’ve done some digging on why I was so wrong about Trump.

Why Trump and Sanders Are In The Race

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are two politicians, that in many years past, would have not come anywhere near making it this far.  Trump is loud, brash, offensive, and really has not dictated much of a plan if he were actually President.  Bernie Sanders is as close to a socialist as you can be without actually calling yourself one.

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How Companies Active On Social Media Can Still Come Out Looking Bad

Social media is a great way to get in touch with companies, often to let them know that things aren’t meeting your level of satisfaction.  Many companies have realized that social media customer service is a concept they need to embrace. In fact, many organizations employ or outsource social media specialists.  Their  job is to build and maintain their customer service relationships through social media networks.

I’ve found that that social media customer responsiveness falls into three groups.  Originally, I had two groups:

  • Companies who are good at social media and customer service
  • Companies who are bad at it

But after a couple of recent interactions, I decided that there is now a definitive third option:

  • Companies who are just sort of trying

Here are two recent encounters that illustrate my point.

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This Woman Needs Some Christmas Spirit, Pronto!

It’s tradition for our family to go visit Santa at the mall once per year.  We all dress up in our nicer clothes that my wife picks out for all of us, and head over so that we can get pictures and such.  Last year, we switched malls, going from the most crowded mall in the area that charges you a minimum of $35 to get any pictures taken, instead choosing to go to a nearby outdoor mall where the pictures are free, lines a lot less, and we’ve had better experiences with Santa.

Early Arrival

The Santa experience we found is sort of a diamond in the rough, so to speak, but it still does get busy.  Santa comes for only a few hours per day, and on the day we had decided to go (Sunday), it was a relatively nice day and we knew that it would likely get busy.

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Organic Foods At Costco Are Being Shoved Down Our Throats

I’ve always been a pretty big fan of Costco.  I enjoy the value that we get with our membership, but I am really starting to get annoyed by how organic foods at Costco are being forced upon us.

First, let me start off by saying that I have no problem with organic, but where I have the problem is that I like to have a choice on whether or not I purchase a product, and Costco is often taking ‘choice’ out of the matter.

Adding Organic, Taking Away Non-Organic

See, what Costco has done over and over again is introduce an organic variety of product, but when doing so, they take away the non-organic option.  Here are just a few examples that we’ve noticed recently:

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