The Yack Attack

Well..this morning Lisa started throwing up. Then when I took the three kids to church, Tanner started joining the fun. Natalie had it a week ago - I guess Sydney and I are the lucky ones.

Quote the Sydney

Daddy: Sydney - if I were an animal, what would I be?

Sydney: a cow.

Daddy: Sydney - if Mommy were an animal, what would she be?

Sydney: a pretty cow.

RC Willey: part 2

Thursday, December 27:

11:15AM: Corporate called back - said the couches have been found and delivery is scheduled for Monday morning. Secretly I wonder if they're just buying two more days to find them :)

If they don't come Monday, would you:
1. Cancel the order. Get your money back and never go back.
2. Wait another day. You've already waited two weeks.
3. Demand more than the piddling $50 off the couches and Get Gephart or report to the Better Business Bureau (thanks Dave for the suggestion).
4. Hide under a rock and die, knowing that your life will never be complete with these couches.

RC Willey - what are you doing?

Wow. I don't know what else to say? If you want the short version, we ordered custom couches, they setup a few delivery times after they came in, I missed half of a family party, and we still don't have couches, and they don't know where one of them are. Here's the sad long version:

Monday, December 17:

8PM: R.C. Willey leaves a message on our home phone that they received our custom couches from the manufacturer, and that we can come pick them up whenever we want.

Tuesday, December 18:

10AM We call R.C. Willey back to say we picked up the free dvd player but that the couches were to be delivered, as it said on their records. They realized they read their own ticket wrong, and setup delivery for Friday (21st).

Friday, December 21:

8AM: I called to see what time they were going to deliver, they said 7:30 - 10:30.

11AM: I asked why the driver hadn't called, they gave me his number and told me to call him (what's up with that?). I call the number they gave and left a message on the driver's phone. He never calls back (first promised callback that never happened)

2PM: I call R.C. Willey again, they think it's dumb the previous time I got the driver's number, say they'll look into and call me back within an hour. (second promised callback that never happened).

9PM: I call R.C. Willey again, they said the loaders didn't put the couches on the truck, as they read the ticket wrong (again), and that they'd scheduled delivery for tomorrow (Saturday the 22nd). She said they'd also have a manager call to apologize (third promised callback that never happened). I called back and left a message on the store manager's phone about my "unpleasantness".

Saturday, December 22:

8AM: I call to see what time they'll be delivered. They say delivery between 10-1. My family Christmas party is at 11:30, but I figure if the drivers call and say 10 or 10:30, we'll leave right after.

10AM: The drivers call and say they will deliver between 11 and 12.

12:45PM: I send Lisa and the kids, as I feel this might be a while.

12:45PM: I call R.C. Willey, asking what happened. They said they'll call the driver and call me back within 30 minutes (fourth promised callback that never happened).

1:45PM: I call R.C. Willey again, she said they were just looking for my phone number to call back, that the driver said they were in the middle of a delivery and would call them back but didn't for half an hour, then just finally did (note it's an hour later). R.C. Willey said that the driver didn't think he had my couches on the truck. I asked them where the couches were, they said they were in the process of looking, but think they're either on another truck, or still in the warehouse, and that they'd call me within two hours when they found them.

1:45PM: I call the store manager to leave another message, as I'm driving to make the last half of the family party.

4:00PM: Since we drove up separately, Lisa called me on my cell to say the store manager called to apologize, that they still couldn't find our couches and said we'd get a fair price on new couches if we came into the store to pick out new ones. Fair price?

Monday, December 24:

10:00AM: I called to see if they found my couches yet. Nope. They transferred me to the main warehouse to have them track them down. They said they didn't have them and they're transfer me to customer service, who could help me track them down. I interrupted that to say I just talked with them, but they said it'd be the warehouse customer service. I waited 25 minutes on hold to find out it was the same people. They said they'd call within two hours. (fifth promised callback that never happened).

Wednesday, December 26th:

10AM: I called to hope the warehouse had made progress. They said they found the love seat but couldn't find the other one. They said they'd have my original salesman drive the issue. They transferred me to him, I told him the story, he commiserated, and said he'd drive the issue, be the pointman, and call back within the hour to tell me what happened.

1PM: (three hours later) I called the salesman back, said he was just looking for my number (this seems to be a common line) and that he talked to the manager of the warehouse, not just the one over inventory, and they said they needed a day to look for it. I called back the manager of the Murray store and left another message.

Thursday, December 27th:

8:15-9:31AM: Called to check the status this morning. I was on hold for an hour and eighteen minutes. I talked to corporate customer service, who said they'd look into it and call me back in a few minutes.

I'll edit the post when new changes occur. Not that you want to read more...

Leisure time

What do you do on your leisure time? According the the U.S. Department of Labor's American Time Use Survey (ATUS), if you're 15 and over, this is the national average of leisure time on an average day (note that this includes all days of the week):

Watching TV: 2.6 hours
Socializing and communicating: 46 minutes
Reading: 22 minutes
Participating in sports, exercise, recreation: 17 minutes
Relaxing and thinking: 19 minutes
Playing games; using computer for leisure: 19 minutes
Other leisure activities: 29 minutes
Total leisure and sports time per day: 5.1 hours

More findings:
Employed adults ages 25 to 54 who live in households without children (under age 18) engaged in leisure and sports activities for 4.3 hours, about 53 more minutes per day than employed adults living with a child under age 6.

Yet using the same survey, most fathers with children under 18 at home said they spent 3-4 hours a day with the children.

On average...do you have 5.1 hours of leisure time?

Full article

Use New Media

Earlier this week at BYU-Hawaii, Elder M. Russell Ballard encouraged the students there to use "new media", more specifically blogs and responding to online news reports.

“We cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what the Church teaches".

Read the full article

Just a reminder about my LDS Quotes blog.

There's an RSS feed for the LDS Newsroom from the first link, including articles about how measles has dropped 91% from Africa, helped partially from funds donated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Happy Anniversary!!!

Well...as most of you know, when asked how old I am, I respond with how many years I've been married. This makes it easier than remind myself I'm starting to get old (27) and that it's fun to think about being 5.

Sure '5' isn't a big number, but it feels great. As many of you know from my past posts about acquiring telescopes and my astronomy blog, I'm really getting into astronomy. Well, this morning I unwrapped my anniversary present.

This is what the sky looked like in Salt Lake City the night we were married. It's really pretty. You can see the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Pleiades, etc. The fun thing is Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon are all aligned ;)

Thanks Bean - love you big time.

Sunday Fun

Today was quite busy but a great day. Normally our Sundays are really laid back after church, but I scheduled four home teaching appointments today. I've had little luck getting my companions to go with me, so two of the Elders Quorum Presidency helped and went to two each. Each of the four families are really nice and we always have fun catching up and talking about the gospel. Church was 11-2, and I had appointments at 2:45, 3:30, 4:15, and 5:00. When I got home, Sydney gave me a big hug and said "Daddy - I need some daddy-daughter time." It was really cute. So Tanner is in bed, and Sydney, Natalie, and I just finished watching the old-school Rudolph movie...twice. A good hour of chocolate popcorn and snuggles.

10 sentences of background

Last Thursday Lisa and I went to the Mandarin in Bountiful while Grandpa and Grandma Moore watched the kids. We are so grateful. It felt weird to have so much time where we weren't going anywhere, we didn't have the kids with us, and no electronic devices kept our attention. Something brought up the subject of one of my crazy, zany, or otherwise roll-your-eyes ideas. Don't get me wrong - it's not 1) good, 2) appealing, or definitely 3) intentionally funny. I don't know if it's tactlessness, short-term memory loss...hopefully in kind words you'll have an answer. It's hilarious to everyone but Lisa, except afterwards when she rolls her eyes and laughs because it's in the past and she can't do anything to prevent it again. One of them is that I always give ten sentences of background when no one really cares how we got there (like I've just done) and could have just skipped to the next paragraph. Let me give an example she likes to use:

So since I don't listen well or notice the needs or wants of my wife very well (there's a clue), when Christmas time, her birthday, our anniversary, etc. comes along, I ask her what she wants. She'll get that look like "here we go again", and then proceeds to remind me what is about to happen (or sometimes she plays along, like we haven't done this before). She reminds me that every time I ask, she gives me several good ideas, I decide it wasn't my idea and/or now it wouldn't be a surprise, and decide to get something else altogether (like is happening for Christmas).

I think Alzheimers is right around the corner...or was that last week? Anyway, we were talking about this over dinner, and I (mistakenly) asked her what other crazy things I do. She had so many available (not that she doesn't love me), but we left that restaurant laughing so hard we probably couldn't spell 'sober'. The sad thing is, this is the only one I remember.

What is the goal? Like I told Lisa to do over dinner - she needs to blog about the crazy things I do. I swear Lisa's mom has the best time listening on the other end of the phone as Lisa 'tells her a new one' or 'it happened again' (I just guessing...these aren't actual quotes). Send Lisa an email and request more. She's being kind not doing it, but if everyone gets a good laugh and it helps me remember not to be...ooo...I hope the word isn't "ditsy"..that we'll all have a good laugh.

The importance of examples

Yes. I know. Hero week has come and gone and we're at least 40+ weeks away. However...

Several things have led up to this blog entry. Lisa and I, on recommendation from a good friend, watched "The Ultimate Gift". I highly recommend it. Okay...maybe it doesn't directly apply (it's late...I'm already rambling).

Lately I've been learning a lot about telescopes, and more recently binoculars. I want a quick way for Sydney to enjoy the stars without having to wait 30 minutes for me to get all the scope stuff ready, eyepieces, etc. I go to a cool site called Cloudy Nights (www.cloudynights.com) to learn about all sorts of stuff. The realization comes later that the only time you're reading it is when there are cloudy nights, otherwise you'd be out under the telescope! Anyway there's a guy who knows all there is to know about binoculars, what there is to know, and why it's important. I learned a ton after doing a few posts on the message board and he was very helpful. At the bottom of each of his posts (the signature) it says "Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards."

One of my greatest rewards is being able to help my dad, on rare occasion. He has been through a lot with me, much less the "minor things" like installing sinks, calls about sprinklers, and such. It's such an honor to be able to help with computer problems, or anything I might know more about...yes...that does limit it to computers :)

There is something great to be said for those who always give. I'm sadly one who always looks for praise (like a dog, or a 3 year old) for doing something nice. Why I need verification it was good, or the pat-on-the-back, I hope I figure out soon so I stop. Anyway - here's my long entry for a short topic from EdZ: "Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards."

Doing telephone interviews about telephone interviews

Whether you're following the 2008 Presidential campaigns closely or not, you've got to love this article. Not only does the article say most people hung up on automated phone calls about the election, they were only slightly nicer to actual people on the other line doing the same thing.

How did they get this data: doing telephone interviews about telephone interviews.

Now if you want something really funny - read a great article about how one reporter does his polling. Let me just point out a few key phrases you'll see: nuns, those wearing hats, punks on skateboards.

Family Home Evening

It's on, it's off, it's postponed, it's missed. Family home evening is never what it was in my parent's home: consistent. We're working on it. Lisa is quite amazing. Scroll back to hero week and read the entry about her and we'll assume you think she better than sliced bread too and add to it with this entry. On Monday, Lisa brought home a gingerbread house kit, and we were all excited for FHE. Okay...so some of us (especially Tanner) couldn't keep our eyes off the treats, but as you can see - the candies made it on the house. But that's not the best part of Monday. It was Lisa's turn for the lesson. We sang songs like "when the family gets together" and "listen, listen", and had a wonderful lesson on baptism. Sydney's favorite cousin (on Lisa's side) is Mary. Mary is getting baptized on Saturday, and is anxious to see it. Sydney has seen a few, but I'm never sure how much of the explanation of why makes it through. Lisa used pictures from the Gospel Art Kit (the wonder pack of 600 photos (something like $15 at the distribution center), and we had a great time. This morning on the way to school Sydney said "Dad..when I turn eight, I'm going to be baptized." It was really cute. Okay...what you've been waiting for: pictures. Sorry - our camera stinks indoors. I turned on and off the flash, but they were all sorts of blurry.