Candy For Idiots

You’re stupid. Very stupid. The End. P.S. I hope Conan goes to Fox and destroys you at 11:30.

Three and a half years ago, my life was stale. I was working, doing my thing, pumping out results as best I knew how, but life was stale. My personal life was OK. I had many friends and had something going on pretty much every night of the week. I was doing my hobbies which made me happy. I honestly had no idea whatsoever where my life was going to go or how I was going to get there. I had no vision for the future, other than to just try and make the next day better than the current one.

Then one day, I was approached by upper management and asked to pack up my life and move to a new town. Wow, all that I know and all that I will know is about to change… I agreed and moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue my career and do whatever I could to make it grow. It was really hard at first, though… All those friends I had were still my friends, but their lives sort of went on without me. The things that were happening “every night of the week” were still happening, but without me. A lot of my friends, I completely lost touch with and still haven’t had a chance to reconnect. My life was thrown through a loop and all that I had known turned into the loneliest hell I believe I had ever experienced.

On March 27, 2007 on a different blog, I wrote an article summing up my life and the course I was on at the time:

[...]I am a young person and I’m in a great position as far as my career goes. My life is one giant blank canvas, an empty page waiting to be written on, but what I’m painting and writing is in no way any type of legacy, at least not from a personal point of view. I don’t get to paint life with people, or write about personal experiences. I paint office spaces and write about living in hotels. When I’m old and look back on those paintings, I’m going to wonder why I didn’t paint people I know, or write about friends and family. What will I ask myself when I’m 80 years old, sitting in an old rocking chair on the porch of my house? Will I hate myself? Will I still be alone? Or will I have the love of my life (whomever she may be) bringing me a glass of lemonade as we sit on the porch together watching our grandchildren play in the yard?

All this just to say I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I can do about it. I don’t know that I really want to do anything about it at this point, but I know there is a void in my life and it’s not being filled with the things God intended to be there. If I’m not careful, I will eventually fill that empty space with something that’s not supposed to be there. I believe that we have designated spaces in our hearts for different things, like music, love, family, friends, etc. We can fill those spaces with good and righteous things, or we can fill them with decay which will eventually bleed over and rot out other areas of our hearts.

I’m not seeking any advice, and I’m not bitching in any way about my life. This is just one of many observations I’ve made this year as my life has been quiet, but in an extremely chaotic way. I am carefully examining this life I live and trying to figure out if I want to stay on my present course, or if I need to hang a right on the upcoming fork in the road. Again, I’m in a great position as far as my career goes, but will I sacrifice everything for a job? For a cushy bank account? Will I continue to fill those voids in my heart with material things, or will I finally fill the voids with things that really matter? Can I accomplish that on this present course? That’s the million dollar question.[...]

Very shortly after writing that blog post, the most miraculous thing in my entire life happened. This friend of mine became something much more than a friend. In almost exactly 4 months from writing the above, I was in the most serious and substantial relationship of my life and it lead to me marrying the most beautiful and loving woman in the world. One year and four months ago, the person to whom I didn’t even imagine could fill the void in my life became my wife and I am forever thankful to God and to her for making me so happy. And what’s more, my wife and I are currently expecting the birth of our son, someone I have the privilege of raising and shaping into a man better than myself. Wow.

I know this is a disgusting puff piece about my life and half of you guys are surely vomiting in trash cans right now, but I write this post for one simple point: no matter what you’re going through in life, no matter how desolate you think you are, and even when you think that all hope is lost, you might just get the surprise of your life when you least expect it. Whether you have financial issues, relationship issues, friendship issues or work issues, you never know what is just around the corner, so don’t give up.

Too many people these days do just give up. They think all hope is gone, the decisions they made have irriversably changed their lives and there is no hope. There’s always hope when you can find the right place to intrust your hope. It’s not in people, it’s not in politicians or the government, it’s not in friends or family. It’s in you and it’s in God. Give thanks for the things you’ve been blessed with, like living in the greatest country in the history of the world, and just put hope and faith in the real things that tomorrow will be brighter than today.

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

There’s a [sic] popular restaurant in my hometown of Chattanooga, TN that’s getting quite a bit of local press due to the way one of their “General Partners” handled an email complaint he received from a customer. I wanted to post the email string for your amusement.

From: J, Craig
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 1:08 PM
To: mail@boathousechattanooga.com
Subject: Restaurant Experience

To whom it may concern.

I wanted to inform you an incredibly unsatisfactorily experience I had with your restaurant.  On Saturday June 20, I attempted to take my father to the Boathouse for a Father’s Day dinner along with my wife, my 3 year old and my 1 month old daughter.   My Father was in from out of state and I wanted to bring him to a dinner he would enjoy as he loves seafood.  In order to make the experience enjoyable for everyone, we stopped at McDonalds prior to arriving at the restaurant in order to get my daughter some food that she would be willing to eat.   My daughter can be a particularly picky eater at times and we wanted to make sure that she would be happy and there would be something she would be willing to eat.

When I arrived at the restaurant, it was noticeably not crowded yet I had to wait for almost 10 minutes while the multiple hostesses tried to determine where I could be seated.   Keep in mind that it was probably close to 100 degrees out and that I have a one month old child.    I finally was brought to my seat after this wait and was in the process of being seated, when a female employee whom I might assume was the manager came over to me and informed me that would could not bring me daughters food into the restaurant as it was against the “Health Code” for such to be done.  I attempted to explain the situation to her and was basically put on deaf ears and repeatedly told that it was a health code issue and that my only choice was to leave and go elsewhere.  I was never offered any sort of other alternative.   So therefore despite the fact that I went out of my way to go to your restaurant, I had to then load 2 kids back into the car in the 100 degree heat and drive to another restaurant.

After this experience, I contacted the State of Tennessee to see if this was in fact a violation and received the following email back:

> 6/21/2009 7:17 PM >>>
Can you tell me if you are allowed by the health code to bring food into another restaurant. For example, can I bring in McDonalds prepared food into another restaurant if it is still packaged or is it a health Violation?

Thank You
Craig J

—–Original Message—–
From: Lori LeMaster <Lori.LeMaster@tn.gov>
To:
Sent: Thu, Jun 25, 2009 11:38 am
Subject: Re: Question

Mr. J,
It is not a violation of the food service establishment rules & regulations to bring food into a restaurant from another restaurant. However, some restaurants choose to implement their own policies restricting foods from other establishments.

Thank you,

Lori LeMaster
Environmental Health Program Manager
Tn Department of Health
General Environmental Health
425 5th Avenue North , 3rd floor
Nashville , TN 37247
(615) 741-8531
(615) 741-8510 fax

As you can, See what I was told by your Employee was completely incorrect that it was an issue with the “Health Code”  and may have only been a policy of your restaurant.  If this is the case, it should have been explained to me as such, and I would think that any reasonable person would be willing to work with a customer in this regard.  I had thought that the Boathouse and it partner restaurants were family friendly type establishments and would understand how difficult it can be at times to have children, but apparently, I misunderstood and it is your desire not to have customers with children.

Based on this treatment, I have elected not to continue to eat at any of your establishments and will be sure to also relay my experience to others, especially those with children.  I also wanted to make sure that you understood  that you have employees that are using the health code to enforce rules of your establishment that are not part of the health code.

I would appreciate this if this could be shared with the Owners/Manager in Charge or your establishment so he is aware of this experience and hopefully no future customers are treated as poorly as I was.

Have a pleasant Day.

Craig J

Here’s the response he got from Lawton Haygood (lawton@boathousechattanooga.com), General Partner at The Boathouse.

From: lawton Haygood [mailto:lawton@boathousechattanooga.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 1:34 PM
To: J, Craig
Subject: RE: Restaurant Experience

Mr. J,

You really should check with your Pediatrician, concerning a 3 year old having that much control over her nutritional program.

Lawton Haygood
General Partner
Boathouse

Craig’s Reponse:

From: J, Craig
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 1:41 PM
To: lawton Haygood
Subject: RE: Restaurant Experience

Wow, Thanks for the caring response.  I am in awe that someone who is the General Partner of a restaurant would be that smart assed to a customer.  My daughter is not in control of her nutritional program by any means, I was just trying to let her have a treat and have something that she wanted to eat that evening and in turn let us have a pleasant night out as a family.   I apologize that my family is that much of a burden to you and your company..   I thought it would be important to get some feedback from a customer’s experience, but apparently, it is not something that you care too much about.

And Lawton’s (lawton@boathousechattanooga.com) response:

From: lawton Haygood [mailto:lawton@boathousechattanooga.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 1:52 PM
To: J, Craig
Subject: RE: Restaurant Experience

You go to McDonalds to get a happy meal, then to a restaurant, then back in a hot car and go to another restaurant, but the 3 year old is not in charge? You need to really think about that.

And finally, Craig’s response:

From: J, Craig
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 1:57 PM
To: ‘ lawton Haygood’
Subject: RE: Restaurant Experience

Thanks for the parenting advice.  You are unbelievable and I will be sure to share this level of caring that you display with as much people as possible. I quickly drove through a drive through while my baby slept and got my daughter some food.  It is pretty rude of you to insinuate that I was a bad parent for doing this, but based on the consistent response you and your co-workers care to display, I can see that it is more of a practice.  I wish that I was as perfect a parent as you must have been.  Perhaps if I only checked with you, prior to coming to the restaurant, I could have been better.

My Apologies.

This morning, after wide-spread circulation of this email chain occurred, Craig received this apology email from Lawton Haygood (lawton@boathousechattanooga.com):

From: lawton Haygood [mailto:lawton@boathousechattanooga.com]
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 8:55 AM
To: Williams, Melinda I
Subject: RE: Customers Not Valued at Boathouse, Canyon Grill or Sugar’s BBQ

Mr. J,

I want to apologize for my recent comments to you.

Let me first explain why I was upset with you and possibly you might partially see what surrounded my very poor thinking and insensitive statement. The staff took a few minutes to seat you and I know that upset you which I did not understand. Since your infant was in a car seat, the manager wanted to be certain you were seated at a table with seats safe and secure for the car seat and the 3 year old. Additionally, I felt like you should have respected our right to establish our policy on bringing foods from another restaurant, whatever our reasons were and at least called and asked. It was my understanding that the manager tried to explain there were reasons for the policy beyond the health code. I got upset that you continued your arguments four days later and made disparaging remarks about my managers, who I believed had made their best effort to provide menu recommendations for your child. They handle that sort of request several times each day. It appeared you would not settle for anything less than the McDonalds food you brought for your child. In my state of irritation with you and in moment of personal weakness, I made a very insulting comment which reflected on your parenting. I did not mean for it to come out that way but it did. I had no right to make any assumptions about how you perform your duties as a parent and for that unfortunate response, I sincerely apologize.

You are correct on the Tennessee health code and I am sure it irritated you to find what she had told you, about the code, was incorrect regarding the McDonalds food. However, I do not believe the manager would tell you something if she did not believe it to be true. She, like me and most senior managers in the country, have had the understanding it was a code violation in all states. Most states, including Georgia, have restrictions on all food products brought from unlicensed purveyors. The reason being, if there is a health issue at a restaurant, they want to be able to trace back all the possible sources of the illness.

Most independent restaurants have a policy against bringing food from other restaurants , which go well beyond the health code issue. For example, we cannot tell one customer his is food is ok to bring and the next is not. Hopefully, you will appreciate the possible discrimination problems that could be involved. Certainly, within reason, we work with people who have special needs… serious dietary problems and with infant’s baby food, to name a few. But, we believe we must continue our policy on restricting foods from other restaurants.

It bothers me a great deal that I let this happen and how it insulted you, regardless of my opinion at the time. Obviously, I should have given a more generous response to begin with instead of my very insulting remark. I have no defense for what I said to you, but would like to say, this is not my normal reaction to a customer complaint. I treasure my customers and work hard as I can to please them. Hopefully, our products reflect that attitude. I hope somehow you and your family will find it in your heart to forgive me for my terribly insulting comment.

Sincerely,

Lawton Haygood

What’s going to be the funniest thing about this whole thing is when The Boathouse files Chapter 11 because the entire city chooses not to dine at this establishment and Lawton’s rapid-fire emails gets him sued by his partners. I can’t wait to read that story.

And would you like to tether your iPhone to your computer to enable internet access through your wireless connection? Don’t wait for AT&T to get around to enabling this for us, just click here.

I read the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover book and really enjoyed it. No doubt about it, if you follow his plan, you’re going to attain financial success and security, no mater what you make per year!

The thing is, “wealth” is a relative term. Someone might retire with $150,000 in the bank and consider himself wealthy by the means in which he lives. To others, he would be dirt poor.

Since this book isn’t about semantics and actually contains a blue print on how to become rich, here is a brief outline of the total money makeover.

Step 1. Save a $1,000 emergency fund to only be touched for real emergencies. (Car breaks down, hospital visit you can’t pay for out of pocket, etc)

Step 2. Organize all debt from smallest to largest.

Step 3. Pay the minimum monthly payment on all accounts except the smallest and pay as much as possible until it’s paid off.

Step 4. Take the “as much as possible” money and apply it towards the next largest debt on the list and continue these steps until all debt is paid off. This is called the “debt snowball”.

Step 5. Using the “as much as possible” money, start growing the emergency fund to an amount that will support your family for up to 6-months (3-months if you’re single).

Step 6. Once emergency fund has matured, stop saving to it and start saving your “as much as possible” money to your house fund.

Step 7. Once you have a down payment on your house (around 15%), start investing 15% of your household income into a Roth IRA and other pre-tax retirement plans (only contribute to a 401k as much as your company will match).

Step 8. Pay off mortgage in 15 years.

Seriously, based on my family’s income, by the time we retire, we’ll have over $8,000,000 in the bank according to this plan. Probably more, but that’s my quick simple math at work.

The hardest part of this plan is the necessity of having to live like no one else so that one day you can live like no one else! What that means is, no more partying, reduce your shopping to nothing, don’t go to restaurants, etc, etc, etc.

Especially in these first few steps, you really need to lay low and not try to “keep up with the Joneses.” What that means is, just because your friends, family and neighbors have cool new flat-screen TV’s doesn’t mean you have to go into debt just to have one too!

It’s hard to have to reduce the restaurants, sporting events, etc. But if you do, and if you make your money work for you, you’re going to be a millionaire! The thing is, you aren’t going to remember the night you drove past Denny’s and had spaghetti at home instead! But you’ll certainly be enjoying the new Viper you just paid CASH FOR!

Read the book. It’s great!

Ever wonder what makes your credit world go round? What you can do to improve or maximize your FICO score? Want to refinance your mortgage and want the prime rates? Here’s some things I’ve learned over the past few months in my quest to shape my credit score into something Warren Buffet would be amazed at! I wanted to jot some of the finer points in case this helps anyone.

Utilization and payment history are the most weighing factors when you pull your credit scores. If you have multiple credit cards, pay all of them off to $0 and keep one of your credit cards with a 1-9% balance. That’s the perfect FICO formula and the quickest way to see an IMMEDIATE credit score boost.

Late pays within the past two years have the most negative affect and you’ll have to answer for them if you apply for a mortgage. Utilization can be 100% one month and tanking your score and 9% the next month and you’ll see an INCREDIBLE score bump. Something most people don’t know. Pay down your CC’s!!

Collections, no matter how old (within 7-years), as long as they aren’t paid, they will keep you from getting a mortgage. Pay off collections. Pay the original creditor if possible. If the debt has been sold, work it out with the collection agency to delete the listing on your report as a deal for you paying in full and promptly. Some won’t play ball but a lot of them will.

DON’T DISPUTE OLD TRADELINES even if there’s negative info!!! After 2 years, those late’s hurt you less and less and if you dispute and the account ends up being deleted, that HURTS your average age of account, which lowers your score. Age of credit also plays a big part of your credit score. If a tradeline is 10 years old and you have one 30-day late 4 years ago, the worst thing you can do is dispute it.

Best option would be contacting the creditor and asking them to make a goodwill adjustment and remove the negative mark. Sell them a sob story about losing your job or whatnot and ask them to make a consideration. Tell them what is being reported isn’t an accurate representation of your actual credit worthiness. Some of the big players won’t budge but some will. It’s worth trying and even if they say no the first time, keep trying! Use websites like planetfeedback.com to petition CEO’s and Presidents to make these goodwill adjustments.

Last but not least, PAY YOUR BILLS! And on time! Best way to have a good credit score!

Fortunately, these aren’t all scenarios I had to deal with, but they’re common among people all across the country who don’t exactly know how their scores are formulated. I happen to know a whole lot more than what I’ve written here so if you have any questions or need any advise, feel free to ask!

So I’ve been able to delve pretty deep into the iPhone after having the thing for over a month now and there are some real great pro’s and con’s to the device. To preface, this is one of the most amazing devices I’ve ever held in my hand, but it’s glitz and glamor are somewhat dimmed by the restrictions of the device.

First though, let’s talk about the good… The iPhone is an aesthetically beautiful piece of equipment. It’s sleek, compact, comfortable and still useful. It’s a bit slippery so a case of some sort is pretty much a must. Plus, I felt it necessary to protect the metal from scratches…

Not only is the iPhone aesthetically beautiful, but the interface is a dream. Seriously, someone could have only come up with this interface in a dream. Tripping on shrooms and lollipops made this interface. But it’s useful, functional and beautiful! The touch-flow, pinching and expanding, accelerometers; just everything is darn-near perfect!

Safari is the best feature of this phone. Having a fully-functional web browser on a mobile device is a dream come true. I’m not talking about some watered down version of Internet Explorer, or some buggy huge Opera application,  but a small, compact, fast, multi-window/browser/tab/whatever CSS rendering web browser. It is freaking amazing! Safari alone is worth the iPhone price tag, which is a lot cheaper, by the way, than Windows Mobile phones that still use crap-browsers, as I like to call them.

Now, the bad… Look, I’ve always been an Apple guy. Always been a Mac user. I love the company and the products they put out are always genius and ahead of the curve, including the iPhone. But I had been on a Windows Mobile device for the past two years and really fell in love with it. In fact, the only thing I hated about my old phone was that the hardware was two years old and slow! I didn’t need the MP3 player feature so I never had a real use for an expansion card above 1 GIG, but at least it was expandable, unlike the iPhone. I loved being able to sync my Outlook email without having to have the email pushed to my device; something the iPhone doesn’t do. I loved the openness of Windows Mobile devices and that you could crawl through the bowels of the OS to tweak sounds, hack registry settings, or whatever! It was a much more workable OS.

The iPhone is on complete lock-down. Apple not only handcuffed early users of the iPhone for two years with pre-loaded apps, but the only programs that you can put on there now have to be acquired through an Apple venue and Apple has to pre-approve them! WTF? So, unlike my Windows Mobile device which allowed me to use my unlimited data line by tethering my phone to my laptop and surfing the internet, I get functionality such as “iBeer” which simulates, you guessed it, drinking beer. Rrrrright… Now, there are other options, don’t get me wrong. You can “Jail-Break” (appropriately named, I might add) your iPhone which will allow you to install applications independently written and not Apple approved. That community is very large and active and have some really amazing stuff out there. They’re taking the iPhone in places that Apple really needs to go. You know, like the ability to copy & paste. Yeah, I don’t know why Apple fell asleep behind the wheel on that one…

I hate the mail application. It doesn’t give you a lot of options with the email, and it doesn’t give you any search functionality whatsoever. It pretty much sucks. There’s no MMS. Yeah, I know. Anytime I get a picture message, AT&T shoots me a text with a username and password which is IMPOSSIBLE to remember to retrieve whatever message was sent to me. If it happens to be a video, no dice! It really sucks. The calendar is awesome, but once Outlook items are downloaded to the phone, they stay there unless deleted from the phone. So the conference call on Thursday that the meeting organizer canceled and deleted from my calendar didn’t sync to my iPhone, so I’m the only loser listening to the wonderful Teleconference music for 10 minutes while driving down the road.

The camera is a joke. I know that cell phone cameras always suck but they really could have put a little more effort into installing a camera worth a damn. I’m just sayin’!

Last but not least, AT&T. What was Apple thinking? EDGE? 3G? Dude, Verizon is way better.

All in all, I really do love this phone, but I’m probably what you would consider to be a power phone user and need a lot out of my phone that Apple has hindered for no good reason. That’s Apple’s culture and I purchased that culture when I bought this phone but it doesn’t mean it has to make sense to me.

To sum up; I’d like to see Apple open the device up so that applications don’t have to be scrubbed through the App Store before they can be installed. I’d like to see a turn-by-turn GPS solution. I’d like MMS messaging. I’d like Copy & Paste and a more advanced email client. I love the beauty and simplicity of the device, and it has an absolutely gorgeous screen. The battery life is very adequate and the profile of the phone is very fitting. Web browsing is a dream and I love having my music, movies, TV shows and books with me on the go.

Whereas I don’t regret converting to the iPhone, I do find it disheartening to feel the need to be one of those people who carries two phones around. What Apple has given us on this phone for the most part is the best that anyone has to offer, but what they’re keeping from us is pretty significant as well. On a scale of 1-5, I give the iPhone an all-around 3.4.

In only a week, a week where we saw BO reverse a ban on tax-payer funded international family planning and the closing of the only US prison designed to house terrorists, The Messiah’s approval rating has dropped 15 percentage points. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1127427/After-week-office-Barack-Obamas-approval-rating-plunges-shocking-15-points.html

I can take pictures of ole Jack, exploit him, upload his picture and post a blog about it all right here from my iPhone.