Going Postal

I've been using Stamps.com for over a year. I started using it when I was working from home. I started selling CD's and DVD's on Amazon I've amassed over the last 20 years in the music biz for extra $$. The closest post offices are 3 miles or so and dealing with the lines to mail a few CD's was a real pain. As volume picked up on my sales I had to make more frequent trips and it became a pain.

So I opted to use Stamps.com even though there was a service fee of around $15 per month. (It's about the bottom line you know) The time, convenience and gas savings made it an easy decision. Plus I had this thermal label printer with a large supply of labels. It was just a "no brainer". Times change, I took a "real job" in an office and while the still just easy to print postage from home and drop the packages on the drive in I also drove past a post office (2 actually) on the way in each day. Well, I might as well save $15 a month and mail them from the post office. Not much of a line at 0830 anyway.

Plus, they have a kiosk in the post office which is just as easy. Except for shipping international the pricing is the same and I don't have to wait. That is until today. Of course when the post office opens they aren't ready to serve you. They have to put their cash drawers in place and log into their computers etc... Too much trouble to do that before you open the door. No profit, no motivation for customer service. It's not like they are in a rush to get to work like their customers might be at 0830.

Today I had three packages. One domestic, two International. So I give the nice lady the domestic first. I know it's 5 oz and will cost $1.56. I've only shipped about 600 of them in the last 18 months or so. She tells me that it's going to be $1.90. "Whoa" says I. It should be $1.56 for large flat envelope not over 3/4" thick.

"I'm sorry sir, but this has rigid contents like a CD, therefore it is classified as a parcel." Says the fine lady.

I politely explained that I have shipped hundreds and have never had a problem (not exactly true, I'll explain in a minute). She's not having any of it. She couldn't send it for $1.56 in "clear conscience". I swear, she said that.

I asked her for the "parcel" back and allowed her to process the two Int'l packages, paid and took the domestic package and ran it through the machine. Making sure to take it with me to drop at the box near my office, less she had a vindictive streak and decided to grab it from the bin to return to me for "insufficient postage".

Which leads me to my other post office story. Pre-Stamps.com days I would drop them in the chute inside the other post office. Invariably some rocket scientist postal nazi would take a big black marker and mark them "return to sender" for being short on postage. A real pain in the butt to add postage and cover up the marker so they wouldn't come back once more.

Postal Nazi was probably the same one that shipped Internationals back to me because the return address on the labels was just above the TO: address with the foreign country. Since then I made sure to draw lines through the return address.

The USPS runs roughly a $2 billion dollar deficit annually. I wonder why? Gov't Union employees that you can't fire. Democrats laugh at us for protesting Obamacare, Medicaid, Medicare and TSA etc.. Remember Tom Daschle's quote about creating TSA. "You can't professionalized until you Federalize".

Yep! I feel so much better knowing that our Federal Government will be taking over our healthcare system and making it cheaper and more efficient. Just like they have with all of the other agencies.

Yep! We're in good hands!

iPhone Troubles

Wow! I guess it's been a while since I've written anything. I'll try to catch up. My problems continue with my iPhone experience. First ATT's billing snafu which resulted in them locking the media on my phone. A bit of an ordeal to go through but ATT's support people were polite, and overly apologetic in resolving the issues.

Yesterday I went to update the firmware to 3.1 after the iTunes 9 update. Well, the update stalled apparently. Possibly because of overloaded Apple servers. iTunes didn't appear to lock up according to Windows. I walked away and came back 45 min later, still no install. I unplugged the phone from the computer. Closed iTunes. It would not restart however. I rebooted the phone and computer and tried again. Same problem. ATT Apple support suggested going to an Apple store for a clean install on the phone. That worked perfectly. I restored the data on the phone from a backup and was back in business in under an hour. A bit nerve racking when you think you've lost everything on a device you depend on so much.

As a side note. I never go to the mall. I was forced to, to get to the Apple store. While everyone appears to be trying to hang on to business the Apple Store was jammed and selling everything under the sun. I've never been a Mac guy. And I found it ironic that the only time I ever had to go into their store was to resolve a software problem. More stable and reliable than a PC? Unfortunately that hasn't been my experience with either the iPhone or iPod.

Open Carry advocates do more harm than good

The recent media coverage in AZ and elsewhere showing open carry advocates at political rallies is bothersome. In a perfect world I have no issue with those who opt to carry handguns openly. However, in the current environment doing so doesn't further the cause of acceptance. It makes average citizens nervous and nervous citizens usually results in phone calls to the police and unpleasantness usually follows.

As a pure media stunt it also fails. The media, in general aren't sympathetic to the cause. That being case how do these people think the media is going to portray them? We all know that answer. So what was the positive message?

Being right doesn't equal being smart. What's the wiser path? Openly carry firearm and cause a disturbance and lose one of the key tactical advantages you would have by carrying concealed? Or be the guy that nobody notices passing through the background minding his own business?

Photos from the Falcons Scrimmage

I had all access passes for the Atlanta Falcons training camp scrimmage game last night at Brookwood High School in Snellville, GA. Took a few pictures from the sidelines. Matt Ryan in action. Arthur Blank on the sidelines.

iPhone impressions

Having used my first generation Razr for the last 5 years I finally took the plunge for a Smart phone. This wasn't by choice mind you. Seems that every time I was eligible to upgrade my phone, something happened to the kid's phone or my wife. Usually the boy's lost theirs. Forcing me to "burn" my upgrade on a replacement. Such is life.... During that time I replaced the battery for the Razr at least twice.

So as a birthday gift to myself I finally was able to upgrade my phone without having to drop my pants in the AT&T store. I admit I only did some cursory research on the phones. I just wanted decent email ability and a decent sized screen. That left me drawing between an iPhone and a Blackberry. My gut told me to go with the Blackberry. I'm not a big fan of Apple, for several reasons not worth mentioning here. Screw it. I'll mention a couple. a) Their proprietary control over their products. And b) They are the darlings and status symbol of the bed wetting liberal elitists that I generally loath. Notice I don't use the word hate. I don't hate them. I know and am friends with many of them. I just chose to ignore that character flaw they share. I digress....

What I needed was to be sold a phone so I sucked it up and allowed my self to be guided by a kid who definitely gave me the pluses and minuses of both systems. And I opted for the iPhone.

After a week here are my thoughts.

Pros

• Nice big screen
• Easy to navigate.
• Easy to set up email, WiFi etc...
• Large selection of free applications (emphasis on Free)
• iPod compatible. Gives me the option of using either to do music or my favorite podcasts.

Negatives

• Well, it is an Apple product so it overpriced for what you get.
• Stuck having to use other overpriced Apple assessories etc..
• Battery life. (sorry this is a big one)
• Size (it's big and it's hard getting used to this brick in my pocket)
• Not enough work type applications.
• No MS Word, Excel editor (at least I haven't found one yet)
  

I like most of the apps I have and don't care much for the "time wasters" (ie games).

Free Apps I like

• Weather Channel
• Trapster (map program locates speed traps and cameras).
• ESPN Score Center
• Facebook (yeah I'm a bit addicted)
• Twitter (seems some people do that all day every day)
• Phone Flix (portable Netflix)
• NewsTap Lite (for my usenet newsgroups)
• WSJ (since my free subscription is about to expire this will get used)
• Mapquest
• Google Earth
• Urban Spoon (restaurant finder)

Email appears to be a weak point. I can't set up my work email which sucks. I have to forward to my personal. AT&T email is handled by yahoo which makes using this a pain. I'm still trying to figure out how I can make it all more seamless. I would like to be able to delete an email from any device and have it delete from all devices. Nothing is worse than having to do that over and over again across platforms. It's probably possible for most email systems. I just haven't figured it out yet.

I'm not a texting guy. I prefer speaking with humans and or email. I don't do the "chat" thing which is what texting is to me. I'm sure my battery will last longer when I stop picking it up all the time. New toy syndrome I guess.

First IDPA match in some time

Had a free Sunday that coincided with an IDPA match this past weekend. Which also was my 50th birthday. So I packed up my kit and shot the match. A surprisingly mild morning in July by Georgia standards. Must be that pesky global warming I keep hearing about.

I've really slacked off on shooting and even dry firing in 2009. No excuses, just the facts. And struggling some still with my ever changing aging eyesight issues too boot. The GADPA folks put on a good IDPA match this day. It's no secret that I've had philosophical differences with the match director and still do. But I will say that his matches, for the most part, have vastly improved in the respect to the "spirit" of IDPA. Stages designed to be realistic for defensive situations. They still overly rely on movers, and that's ok as long as they work. There's definitely been big strides in the right direction there as well. Kudos to them.

So, if you're in the Atlanta area on the fourth Sunday of most months. Make your way out to South River Gun Club for the GADPA IDPA match.