Lock & Lock sucks

This is my bad experience with Lock & Lock. This is also why I will not be shopping with them again.

It started with a deal I found on Plum District for Lock & Lock. It was $23 for $50 worth of stuff at Lock & Lock. I bought it from plum district and didnt use it until a month later, I should say tried to use it. I picked out some stuff on their site and tried to use the coupon code and it wasn't accepted. Tried a few different times even making sure there were not extra spaces or anything.

I then did a little goggling and found a couple of people saying to make sure you were logged in the Lock & Lock first. I created an account and made sure I was logged in. Still didn't work.

Next I contacted Plum Districts support. I get a response from them saying they will contact our vendor for Lock & Lock.

Overall the responsiveness from Plum district is what I would expect.

Three days after contacting plum district I hear back from Lock & Lock. The email from them was bad on a few levels.
1. The email address. The email came from this email address *name*.locknlock@gmail.com. My first thought is this was not a real response. (I will include the email at the bottom)

2. In the email they said they checked the code and it works. I don't believe this because all of a sudden the code worked after this email even though I tried all the suggestions from them in their email.

3. They CC'd other people on the email. So now they exposed my email address and two other peoples email.  This tells me 2 things. They don't know what they are doing with customer service and other people are having the same problem.

Now that the code works I put a order in on their site.

The order process was normal for any site. I got an order confirmation and everything seemed fine.  In the email they sent me was a link to log into their account and check my status. After about a week of using this link and checking the status it never changed it always said processing. Finally I stopped using the link and went to the main site. This is where they had a warning saying they were backed up with orders and shipping later than normal. For the life of me I am not sure why they couldn't email me this or even have it on every page not just the front page.

I finally get an email from FedEx NOT Lock & Lock that my order has been shipped. According to the email the package is coming to
"Aaron Russell of ToddzShoppe" I have no idea what ToddzShoppe is and I never put anything like that into the Lock & Lock site.


The package doesn't end up getting delivered because of an incorrect address. So I call fedex and it turns out they Lock & Lock didn't put any apartment number on the shipping info so they couldn't deliver it. Luckily FedEx fixed that for me but it did delay the shipment one day.









Also the status on Lock & Lock site still says processing and its been weeks since my order.

Overall the products are good and what I expected and worth the cost. The hassle I went through with their site and customer service was not worth it and I will be not ordering from their site again.

Smart shuffle

Let me start off by telling how I listen to music on the go. I either make a playlist or copy all the music I might want to listen to onto my portable device. I then use shuffle and play all the music. Sometimes there's 40 songs sometimes 100.

This is the problem with shuffle on every device and piece of software I use, its truly random. I know that's how shuffle works but I feel it could work better. Now what happens to me all the time is ill hear some of the same songs on my way to work and on my way home. Then there will be other songs I hear hardly ever hear.

I wish shuffle would be smart, meaning keep track of what songs it plays and their play count. For example it could pick 2 songs to play next then compare the last time each one was played and their play count, then play the lesser played one. This way it would still be shuffle but you wouldn't get the same songs over and over.
Maybe I should submit this to some software vendors as improvements and hope they use it.

Tablet weirdness

Last night I decided to flash a new kernel on my Acer iconia tablet.
When it booted up the screen was flipped!!
Everything on the screen was backwards but it only looks backwards you sill had to touch the screen in the normal position.
I made a video of it so you can see how odd it was. I just thought it was pretty funny so I figured I would share.
Its fixed now in case you were wondering.

You tube video

Good ideas #1

I am going to start posting some of my ideas either for a new product or how to improve one.
This one is how to improve elevators. This might exist somewhere but I haven't seen it yet.
People love and hate elevators. There great for getting to floors without expending much energy. We also hate waiting for them and stopping at floors with no one at them, because someone presses the call button then decided to take the stairs.
Here are my two ideas to help with these problems.
There should b a cancel button. So if I go to take the elevator and decided not to for what ever reason I can hit this button and cancel the call request. So that way it doesn't stop at the floor for no reason. This would also be useful for when you it the wrong button like up instead of down or even in the elevator when you hit 1 instead of ground.

The next piece is have the elevator learn floor patterns. For example if at 3 -3:15 pm the 3rd floor calls the elevator the most have the elevator reset to that floor when idle instead of staying at whatever the last floor was. Yes this might take a little more energy but ultimately it would be worth it. 

I think this would improve everyone's experience on elevators 10 fold. Well at least it would for me. 

Aquarium/Whale Watch

For my wife's birthday I took her to the aquarium and a whale watch on Saturday.
We had gone to the aquarium months ago but they didn't have the penguin exhibit open. Which made us sad because we love penguins but this time it was open and full of penguins. We spent a lot of time watching the penguins and that is why there are a lot of pictures of them. (link below) There was a lady standing in the exhibit talking about penguins and the entire time there were penguins biting at her. It was really funny she was just standing there and they were biting at her wetsuit. It was so funny and I wish i got some pictures but i though it would of creepy to take pictures of her.

There were a lot of rude people there including parents who don't teach their children good manners. We were standing at one exhibit looking and there were a few other people there too so it was full. Normally what you should do is wait till someone moves on then you can move in close and see. Well we had a guy and his kid walk up behind the group of us, mind you he didn't wait just walked up and said excuse me in a really rude voice like we had somehow cut him off. I wanted to punch this guy in the face because he was a rude ass-hole. Also parents just don't pay attention to their kids and care what they do. We had kids cut us off and get in our way when we were trying to move. There really needs to be an application to have children because there are a lot of people who don't deserve them. The sad thing is that the parent doesn't loose out its really the children.

We also went whale watching. That was a lot of fun. There was a lot of rude people on the boat to and they are lucky I didn't throw them overboard. We did see some whales and was worth it.

Link to the photos I took.

Aquarium/Whale watch photos. 

Video my wife took.


Whale watch video

Tropical Storm Irene

This is my adventure today with Tropical Storm Irene.

First thing I noticed a tree branch about 3 feet long had fallen in my yard (amongst many others) but this was had fallen and stuck into the ground about 4 inches. This made the branch stick straight up in the air. I thought this was pretty cool.

Next a large tree branch had fallen in the parking lot of my apartment. Luckily our car was not hit but our neighbors car was. Here's a picture, theres wasn't a ton of damage but still must suck.

 
Our power went out around 11:30. This was expected from the last storms we had but still sucked. At 12 the rain stopped but was still windy. With the power being still out at 12:45 I decided to go out and find some food because I was hungry and didn't want to open the fridge. The roads were covered with tree debris. I saw some trees down and power lines hanging in the middle of the street. I was out for about 2 hours driving around down all these side roads and had no idea were I was going. The first 2 places I went for food had no power either. I finally find a place get some food for me and my wife then spend another 25 minutes driving home because of blocked roads. Here are some pictures of of the down tree that made my trip sooo long.

Just another downed tree. 

Earthquake day

I assume everyone has read about the earthquake that we felt in Boston maybe some of you felt it like me.
Well here is my experience of it and then some.

I'm sitting in my office and all of a sudden I feel the building move. At first I thought I was just nauseous  but quickly I realized it wasnt just me. I looked around the room and all 4 of us just looked at each other like did you feel that?

That's when we figured it what it was. I guess I was in denial because my first thought was to get out of the building instead if getting in a doorway because I assumed Simmons had hired a cheap contractor to remodel the building we were in and the building was coming down. Deep down though I knew it was an earthquake.

Next thing I did was grab my phone and started to go for the exit. There was a lot of people doing the same thing. I thought I could feel the earth/building moving when I was leaving and when I got outside. We were the only building that evacuated. We all waited outside for maybe 5 minutes and then started to head back in mainly because we all wanted the free food waiting for us at the BBQ. We didn't take the elevator just in case.
To finish off this crazy event we had a technology BBQ which turned out to be pretty fun. My team came in second in the trvia game. I wouldn't of been able to use the prize for first place because it was an apple app store gift card.

This was my first earthquake and looking back at when the building was moving I was a little scared. I'm glad it wasn't a big earthquake for my first one. Lets hope another one doesn't hit us anytime soon.

Feeling special on the train

Last night I was out late and caught the last train out of south station at 11:50. There was about a dozen people on the train so it was not busy. When we got to the Norfolk stop I was the only one to get off. It would seem the train stopped at Norfolk just for me. That made me feel special and that the mbta likes me. I know that's not true though and anyone who has ever rode the mbta would agree with me.

The mbta doesn't care about anything but money. They don't even try to be on time. The schedule says my normal train should arrive in Norfolk at 6:05 pm. Every night the train arrives in Norfolk between 6:10 and 6:15.

I really hate the mbta sometimes. At least I don't have to ride the orange and red line anymore because those have to be the worst. Especially the rude people who ride those lines.

What grinds my gears. Part 1

This is part 1 of a multi part series of things that grind my gears. I am a very laid-back person and things don't usually bother me.

I ride the commuter rail twice a day. They way the train cars are set up you have two cars connected to each other. Each car has a door and a second door that is connected to the other train car. Now I think common courtesy would dictate that if you get on the left door you go to the left car and right door for the right car. Most people do just that but then you have the people who for some reason don't like the look of the car they chose and decide to move to the other car. The main problem with this is people are still trying to board the train. So they just cut in front of you and cause the train to board slower. I find these people extremely rude and it bothers me every time I see it happen. This probably shouldn't bother me as much as it does because it's not that big a deal.

So basically don't be an asshole while boarding the train because that really grinds my gears.

First Post

First post on the new blog. Everyone has a blog so i figured i would start one.
I am going to post somewhat random stuff on here from day to day activities to things that grinds my gears.
Yes that was a family guy reference and yes I'm a big fan of Seth Macfarlane.
More posts to come

Towel only girl

I am the network administrator at an all women's college. This job includes maintenance of the network including students connecting to the internet.
Yesterday I made an appointment with a student to go to her room and check out why she was not getting a good wireless signal. So I get there and knock on her door and I hear someone say one minute. No problem I say and I wait about 30 seconds and then she opens the door. This is where it became interesting her roommate was just wearing a towel!!! 
I enter the room, kind of embarrassed and flustered because this totally took me by surprise. I'm not in there long and I get the info I need and leave. The entire time though I was nervous and awkward and I am pretty sure they could tell.
I guess this happens when you work at an all women's college. I'm happy my wife trusts me and doesn't get mad at me for stuff like this. I would NEVER cheat on her (not like these preppy women would want me anyway)  
So the moral of this story is working at a all women's college has some very interesting days and that I love my wife forever!!!

Train tech support

So this morning I am sitting on the commuter rail like I do everyday playing a game on my awesome android phone when the guy sitting next to me starts asking me questions on how to do stuff on his new Android phone.

I was happy to help though because every person who enjoys their android phone is one less potential apple customer. :)

So it looks like wherever I go I have to do tech support. What did I get myself into choosing this career?