Kids say the darnedest things
Mom: “No naps today. We have to pick up the older kids at school very soon!” Four-year-old: “I am just dying for a nap. I will have to take a very short one or I can’t go to pickup nicely at all.”
Author Archives: jik
Exporting Outlook 2007 address book to Thunderbird
I keep my primary address book in Outlook, but I wanted to export it to Thunderbird so that when I’m using Thunderbird at home, I have easy access to all the email addresses I’ve stored in Outlook. It’s easy to import from Outlook to Thunderbird on Windows, since Thunderbird will happily allow you to do… Read More »
Taking the “service” out of “service station”
For the past week or two, we’ve been having a problem with a slow leak in one of our tires. Well, at least, it was a slow leak until this weekend, when it turned into a fast leak, and we’re going to have to get it fixed tomorrow. In the meantime, we’ve stopped at a… Read More »
Kudos to Shaw’s
Apparently it’s a good week for customer service. Following up on my compliment to CVS, I also want to single out the Shaw’s at 1065 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. Here’s the letter I sent them through their Web site: Greetings, I want to commend the performance of the cashier, [name elided], who rang up my… Read More »
CVS hits it out of the park
We go through a lot of Pampers diapers, so we buy them in large-count packs to save money. At CVS, we always buy the larger “Jumbo” size. At least, we did until recently, when the Jumbo packs suddenly disappeared from the shelves, leaving only the smaller “Mega” size, whose per-diaper cost is 11% higher. After… Read More »
Citizens Bank screws the pooch on weekend “upgrade”
Citizens Bank “upgraded” their online banking site over the past two weekends. This morning, when I attempted to log in, here’s what I experienced: 30 seconds to load the initial login page 72 seconds to load the identity verification page (i.e., “you’re using a computer without one of our cookies already in its browser cache,… Read More »
Now Google Maps is right, but MBTA Trip Planner is still wrong
I was delighted to discover a few days ago that the problem with the MBTA’s on-line route data that I’ve been trying to get the T to fix for over six years and almost got arrested over is now fixed in Google Maps. Alas, it’s still wrong in the MBTA’s own Trip Planner. Go figure.
The saga of too-stubborn-to-pay-for-cable guy
Digital television is great. With DTV, we get a vibrant, crystal-clear picture, transmitted in a format that can be easily captured and manipulated by computers and recorded without any loss of quality. We also get more channels in the same RF spectrum, which means more free, over-the-air content. That is, we get all that if… Read More »
Welcome to the Connecticut Science Center. Now go away!
(I just sent this letter to Matt Fleury, the president and CEO of the Connecticut Science Center.) Mr. Fleury, On Friday, August 21, my family and I were “stranded” in Hartford for the weekend. We are observant Jews, and therefore riding in cars is forbidden to us during the Sabbath, from Friday evening through Saturday… Read More »
Awesome experience at the Hartford, CT Marriott
August 27, 2009 [name elided] Hotel Manager Hartford Marriott Downtown Dear Mr. [name elided], I am writing to compliment your hotel and its staff for a wonderful recent stay by my family.