Farm Living

Yesterday, Deirdre and I spent a few hours on a local dairy farm.  One of Deirdre's former co-workers, Jessica, is married to a diary farmer, whom she affectionately refers to only as Dairy Man in her blog.  It was quite an event to spend some time at a functioning dairy farm in western Michigan.


First off, it is the size of things.  Everything seems larger than life.  Large barns, large cows, large equipment.

From 10 Mar 2012

Did I tell you that the cows are large?

From 10 Mar 2012

Everything runs on a schedule.  The cows are milked three times a day, every day of the year.  What was amazing to me was how the cows just seemed to know what to do.

From 10 Mar 2012

From 10 Mar 2012

From 10 Mar 2012

The trundle into the milking parlor and quietly take a position in the row of of milking machines.


When the milking is done (it takes about 10 minutes I am told), the cows trundle out of the parlor and the next set of cows enter for their turn at the milking machine.  Repeat.  Repeat.  And clean.  Every time the cows move, something is cleaned.


And can these cows eat.  Lots of hay and hominy and alfalfa.

From 10 Mar 2012

These cows are gentle creatures who at first back away from you as you approach them.  However, after a few minutes they sense that you are no danger to them and the seem to snuggle right up to you.

From 10 Mar 2012

Cow 1851 seemed to like the fact that I was there taking her picture.  


Thanks you, Jessica and Dairy Man for showing us a little bit of your world.  next time we visit, we all need to go to the Blind Squirrel.

From 10 Mar 2012

I have shoes older than some of my co-workers...

I am almost four years into my second career following twenty-two years of service in the Navy.  I started working for GE Aviation in April, 2008.  It has been quite an experience making the transition from the military to a civilian employer, and I have learned a lot.  


For the most part, I am older than the people who work for me.  I have a couple of employees who are my age, but most of my direct reports are younger than me.


Here was a conversation I had recently with a co-worker:


Me: I was so disappointed when my cobbler moved.
Co-worker: What?
Me: There was a a cobbler near my house and he moved to Byron Center (Byron Center is about 10 miles away from where he used to have his shop).  I have been going to him for almost 10 years to work on my shoes.
Co-worker: You have a cobbler?
Me: Yes.  I have had some of my shoes for over a decade.  
Co-worker: Really?  I don't think I have ever owned a pair of shoes more than a couple of years.
Me: I have a pair of shoes I have re-soled more times than I can remember.  The shoes I am wearing today I bought in 1978.  I wore them for my high school graduation ceremony.
Co-worker: I was born in 1980.


Then, it hit me.  I have shoes older than some of my co-workers.  


I must admit that I am a little funny about my shoes.  I keep them clean, I polish them about once a week.  More often when needed.  Which is why, I suppose, I have shoes I wear to work that are older than some of my co-workers.





The tassel loafers above have been part of my life since 1990.  I purchased them just before I started graduate school.  I have no idea how many times I have had them re-soled.


I picked these loafers up last weekend from my new cobbler.  He did a great job with my old friends:







I wore them to work today and one of my other co-workers asked me, "How often do you polish your shoes?"





I replied, "Once a week, maybe more if needed."


His shoes looked like they were last polished with a rock.


Yep.  I am kind of funny about my shoes.  I suppose that there are worse vices to have.

A lazy January Sunday...

As forecast, it is gently snowing here on the western plains of the Enchanted Mitten.  It is a few degrees below freezing, so the snow heavy and the flakes are large.  The prediction is 2-6 inches, though I can tell you that well more than 2 inches have already fallen.





Of course, Samson is loving every minute of this semi-blizzard.








The branches on this now dormant bush are outlined by the snow.





And who would not want to be outside throwing a frisbee for Samson?





Samson would spend all day outside if we let him.





It is very quiet and very white outside right now.  It is a perfect day to curl up in front of a fire and do as little as possible, which is precisely what I am going to do next...

Winter is here

On the western plains of the Enchanted Mitten we have enjoyed a very mild fall and winter.  We had a couple of dustings of snow on November and on Christmas Eve, but other than that, the white stuff has been conspicuously absent.  That changed on the evening of 12 January.  It rained for most of that day, then before nightfall, the rain turned to snow as the temperatures dropped.  It snowed through the night and well into Friday, 13 January.  By the time I went into work Friday morning, about 8 inches of snow had fallen.

By Saturday morning, it was time to take stock of things and, of course, take some pictures.  The image above is a bush that straddles the property line between out home and our neighbor's home to the east.


This is a view looking to the north, through our backyard.








This is an image of our wood that was covered to protect it from the elements.






With weather like this, we were bound to have a fire in the fireplace during the day, so I had to shovel a path to the wood...










This image shows how much snow had fallen.  It was well over half a foot.






Of course, what images of the snow in our backyard would be complete without a few happy snaps of Samson.








I think that he would live outside all winter if we let him.










Of course, Deirdre had to get out there, too, and snap a few images.  Look for her pictures here.





I will get a few more images later today.  The snow is really beautiful right now.

White Christmas Eve

The weather forecast was for the temps to be in the high 30s or low 40s on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Well, last night, we had about and inch of snow fall. I wanted to capture a few images because if it does get warmer later today, we will be seeing green once again. Here are a few images of our back yard:

Those paw prints belong to Samson the Dog.

Samson is oblivious to the cold and the snow.

He is chasing a squirrel in this image:

Merry Christmas!

Splitting wood is good for the soul

We have three fireplaces in our home. One of them was converted to a gas log a couple of years ago. The one in the basement, we were told to never use by a chimney inspector. Our third fireplace is in a place we call the "Back Room." It is where we spend the majority of our time and we burn a lot of wood in it. We were seriously contemplating changing that fireplace to gas as well after this year.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

And then we had a limb fall in our backyard. I broke out my chainsaw and using a coworker's maul, I split the limb. I split close to a face cord of wood from that limb, so we will have wood for the 2012-2013 fall and winter.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

We also have seven oak trees. Large, old growth oak trees. We had them trimmed about 5 years ago and they needed to be trimmed again. I asked the tree trimmer to leave any limbs larger than 6 inches in diameter behind so I could split it and burn it. I had no idea that there would be so much wood.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

I started splitting the wood on Saturday morning. I split wood for about an hour and a half, and I still had a lot of wood to split.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

I was out there again for about an hour this morning splitting more wood. I still have split about 60% of the wood. I will get at it again over the Thanksgiving weekend.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

Splitting wood is what Deirdre calls "hot dirty man-work." It is manual labor at its finest and you do get hot and dirty doing it. However, it is very fulfilling because after an hour or so of hard work, you have something to show for it. For me, it is very therapeutic. It is good for my soul.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

And it is also a good reason to have some quality outdoor time with Samson the Dog. He enjoyed supervising me as I split and stacked the wood.

From Wood 20 Nov 2011

Yep, splitting wood is good for one's soul.

Are you talking to me?

For some reason, unknown to me, people think I know stuff. Frequently, I have had perfect strangers ask me for advice, directions, the time of day. I just don't get understand it. Sometimes I know the answer to their questions, but sometime I don't.

Blog

29 October, 2011, was like any other Saturday for me and Deirdre. We enjoyed a semi-lazy morning. After some brekkie and outside time with Samson, we headed out to pick up a few things for dinner and Halloween. We were feeling a little spicy, so Chicken Curry was on Saturday night's dinner menu. The recipe can be found here.

We went to our new favorite place to shop, Horrock's in Kentwood. Horrock's has a great selection of fresh vegetables and fruit, and is just a great place to shop. I picked up the ingredients we needed for our Saturday and Sunday dinner. We also purchased a couple of pumpkins for Halloween (Images of our pumpkins to follow, soon). We went back home and decided to walk to Ramona's Table for lunch.

It was a warm, sunny fall day and the walk did both of us good. It also helps that Ramona's Table has great sandwiches and soups. We enjoyed our lunch and over the course of the meal, I remembered that we did not pick up crackers when we stopped at Horrock's. Not a problem, as D&W was across the street from Ramona's. I crossed Wealthy Street and headed towards D&W...

As I was approaching the entrance to D&W, a woman was walking out of the entrance. She locked her eyes on me and said, "Excuse me. Do you know where I can get pumpkins? D&W is out."

I politely said to this person, "Do you know where Horrock's is located? They have pumpkins. We just picked up two pumpkins that were on sale for $4.99."

She said to me, "Yes, I know where Horrock's is located. Thanks!"

At least this time I knew the answer to her question. But it does make me wonder why are you talking to me?

Art Prize 2011

I am sometimes asked by people, "So why did you end up in Grand Rapids?" Truth be told, of all that places I was stationed and lived when I was in the Navy, Grand Rapids was my favorite place to live. GR, as it is known by the locals, is the second largest city in Michigan and it boasts all kinds of cool things to do. It is a medium sized city with a big city feel. Art Prize is an excellent example of what makes GR a cool place to live.

In 2009, Rick DeVos (grandson of the founder of Amway Richard DeVos) thought that it would be a good idea to create Art Prize, a public art competition where any artist can enter, so long as they find a venue is Grand Rapids that is willing to display their art. Yesterday, Deirdre and I took to the streets of downtown Grand Rapids to take in some art. We were not disappointed.

The following images are bears carved out off wood that are in the fountain pool at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.

From Art Prize 2011

From Art Prize 2011

From Art Prize 2011

From Art Prize 2011

From Art Prize 2011

These are some images of art that reminded me of my home state:

From Art Prize 2011

From Art Prize 2011

We are heading downtown again today to check out a few more venues.

Comcast called me. Oh, the power of social media

Today, beyond a shadow of a doubt, showed how connected we are. For readers of my blog read yesterday, I had what a difficult day with Comcast. I had what one might call an epic fail day with Comcast. So, I did what any blogger and social media person would do. I blogged and tweeted about my experience with the "account executive" from Collections at Comcast.

This morning around 0815 Judy from the local Comcast office called me. Judy called me yesterday morning, as you might recall, because of a tweet I sent to @comcastcares. Judy was very apologetic and humble, and she said that she had no idea how things got so bad with Comcast, but that she wanted to learn from it and to make things right. Judy offered to give us free HBO for the next six months, effective immediately. I thanked her for the kind offer and I accepted it.

Judy then asked me if the account executive last night ever asked me to pay my bill to make it current. I told Judy, "No, the account executive never even asked me if I wanted to pay my bill." Judy asked me to logon to the Comcast website and make a payment. She also assured me that there would be no late charges or reports to a credit company about my lake of payment because Comcast did not bill my credit card in September.

Late in the morning, my cell phone rang again. It was a 215 area code. Philadelphia area. Corporate HQ for Comcast is located there. The call went like this:

Me: Hello

Person on the other end: Hello, is this Paul Kratch-o-will?

Me: This is Paul

Kip: Hi, I'm Kip Wetzel from Comcast...

The call went well from there. Kip told me that @comcastcares (Bill) works for him and because of the nature of my problem, he wanted to call me directly. We spoke for about 10 minutes and Kip repeated what Judy had said to me earlier on the morning. Kip also told me that Comcast was nothing without its customers and that they needed to do better. He said to me that they were going to learn from my experience and locate the account executive who was so unhelpful last night. Kip told me that I should have received a call from Comcast last night and that he was investigating what went wrong. He said that Comcast needed to do better. I appreciated his candor. The call ended well. Kip told me that I could call him directly in the future and I told him I would, if needed.

In a perfect world, people like the account executive I dealt with last night should have the ability to answer my questions and fix my problems. I hope that by my use of social media that I can help Comcast identify and fix their customer service problems.

In a matter of hours, using my blog and Twitter, I was able to reach out to a leader at Comcast and tell them about my issue. Kip was able to contact me and tell me that they are working to be better. Aside from working with some of the Comcast "account executives" on the phone, we have been very happy with the service Comcast provides. I can't remember the last time we did lost cable TV, telephone or internet access. Hopefully, Comcast can improve the performance of the people on the other end of the phone when customers like me call.

Comcast and Charter are in a race to the bottom!

My Monday started out pretty well. I slept well, and got up at the customary 0545 to look after Samson our GSD. I let him out, then I fed the beast. While Deirdre was making coffee, I booted up both of our laptops and soon after I sat down for breakfast, I was greeted by an e-mail from Comcast. This is what is said:

from Comcast Customer Centralonline.communications@alerts.comcast.net reply-to online.communications@alerts.comcast.net to "pkratochwill@comcast.net" date Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 1:31 AM subject Your bill is ready Important mainly because of the words in the message.

hide details 1:31 AM (18 hours ago)

Dear Comcast Customer,

Your monthly bill is now available. Please sign in to Comcast Customer Central at https://customer.comcast.com/Secure/Home.aspx to view your bill and other important messages or notices regarding your Comcast services.

Bill Overview
Amount Due: $336.25
Payment Due Date: 10/15/2011

Account Information
Account Number: ****6201

Huh? My bill is normally ~$168 per month. I have our Comcast bill set up to be paid from a credit card as we travel a lot and we no longer receive a paper bill from Comcast. I get an e-mail from Comcast once a month telling me that our bill is due and will be paid by auto-payment.

I did not have time this morning to call Comcast, but I logged into my account to see that for some reason Comcast did not charge my credit card in August for the amount I owed. I tweeted to @comcastbill (a person with whom I have worked with in the past to resolve Comcast issues) that there was an issue with my recent statement. I waited to hear back from Bill Gerth (who is actually a good guy). I did not hear anything from him today. However, when I got home from work ~5:30PM, there was a message from Judy at Comcast at around 0945 this morning telling me that my credit card had expired, so my account was past due. Really? I have had this credit card for over 15 years, a lot longer than I have been a Comcast customer. I used this credit card this weekend to buy groceries. Judy also told me in her call that she would "... e-mail you more information." I have yet to receive an e-mail from her.

Against my better judgment, I called Comcast a little after 6PM to sort this all out. After about 15 minutes of being on hold, I spoke with the first account specialist. He was able to confirm that my account was past due, but he did not know why. He then sent me to an "Account Executive" in Collections to solve my problem. I was on hold for another 10 minutes before someone from Collections was able to speak to me.

From Blogger

This Account Executive was clearly dropped often as a child. After asking me again to confirm my name, phone number, address and the last four digits of my Social Security number (all information that I had given to the first person I spoke to with Comcast), I had to tell him all over again that I had received an e-mail this morning that my account was past due. He put me on hold for a few minutes why he investigated this issue. After a few minutes, he came back on line and proudly said to me, "Sir, I have found out the problem. Your credit card has expired. That is why the payment was not made." Really?

I told this person that the credit card I used was not expired, that I had used it this past weekend. He then said to me, "Well, according to our records, it expired in August, 2011." I then asked him, "How was I to know that you needed me to update the expiration date on my credit card? I have had this card for over 15 years, and I will keep it until I die. How was I to know you thought the card was expired?"

His answer to me: "I do not know. We have no way to tell you anything."

Really? I said to him to repeat that sentence back to me. He repeated the words, "I do not know. We have no way to tell you anything."

Really? Comcast managed to send me an e-mail this morning to tell me that my account was past due, and Judy called me this morning to tell me that my credit card had expired... though it had not. Despite being a communications company, Comcast does not appear to know how to communicate with its customers.

I then asked this "account executive" to find someone who could explain this to me, as he was unable to to so. He put me on hold and a few minutes later told me that nobody was available just now, but someone would call me later. I gave him my phone number once again and I said to him, "You have done nothing to help me solve this problem. You have been no help what so ever to me." He replied. "I can only tell you what I know and I have no way to tell you anything."

My call with this account executive ended about 2 hours ago, and I have yet to hear from anybody. To add insult to injury, when I first called Comcast, I heard a cheery recorded voice say to me, "We are committed to giving you the best customer service possible. If you would like to have a customer service representative call you within 30 minutes after the end of your call, please press 1." I pressed 1, hoping to hear from somebody at Comcast at the end of my call. As I type this, I have yet to get a call from Comcast.

From Blogger

I have yet to understand how long 30 minutes is with Comcast...

To Bill Gerther's credit, he did reach out to me via Twitter. I sent him a few tweets and he said that he would look into this for me. We'll see what Tuesday brings. Until then, Comcast is in a race with Charter for the worst customer service for a communications company. I will let you know how this all sorts out.