Fiscal Year Resolutions

I love the start of fiscal years – it’s like a free Chance or Community Chest card to work on those resolutions you made on January 1st.

YAY! for second chances.

Miami

Alas, yet another post that I started back in July but never got around to completing it. So, for those of you with fancy blog readers such as Google Reader or Newsgator or RSS Bandit, you’ll know that I actually completed this post in December. For the rest of the world here’s a small glimse of the trip to Florida in July 2006.

01: 02: 03 04: 05: 06

On Wednesday April 4th, at two minutes and three seconds, after 1:00 A.M. in the morning the time and date will be 01: 02: 03  04: 05: 06, and no you can’t wait till Wednesday April 4th, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 P.M since that is technicially 13:00.

You may now return to your normal work.

The Clueless Manifesto

I’ve been meaning to blog about ‘The Clueless Manifesto‘ but have been putting it off for a while. If you haven’t read the article I highly recommend it, not only for more tips on creating passionate users but also because of the humility you’ll experience. In one of my marketing classes I had written a paper about how an educational institution could create passionate alumni by changing the way students were treated while they were at the instituion. My paper highlighted elements such as customer satisfaction and customer relationship manament as key foundations for a more passionate alumni body. However, after reading The Clueless Manifesto I think I missed one of the most important elements. How do you identify the most passionate alums while he or she is still a student? Can every single student become a passionate alum?

The Clueless Manifesto talks about creating passionate users by encouraging the people who see things differently, the same people who are not fond of established rules and yet because of their power to change, their presence cannot be ignored. Kathy Sierra says, ‘Do not underestimate the clueless ones’, yet can this same thinking be applied in an educational environment to create passionate alumni?

Spare Cable Modem?

Does anyone have a spare cable modem lying around that I could either borrow, buy or use indefinitely with no questions asked?

SpringHill Suites

One Destination. One goal. One Day. Okay, that wasn’t a good marketing pitch but nevertheless this past weekend as part of a BzzAgent promotion some friends and I decided to make use of a free night’s stay at the SpringHill Suites. I had to choose a location to stay at before the end of April, which isn’t very hard when you’re on a budget, but when you’re given a free night’s stay, the primary goal is to make sure you get the best deal. Being part of the Marriott group implied that there were umpteen SpringHill Suites locations to choose from too. Decisions!

Nevertheless, thanks to the nice week of weather and most of us having some kind of Spring break, we decided to head to Virginia Beach. The beach is about 6 hours away depending on who’s driving and since none of us had been to this particular beach we decided to make the trip down to Virginia Beach a semi road-trip. We left from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Gaithersburg, Maryland. After crashing at a friend’s house for the evening and spending most of the time eating (Indonesian Food, Cheesecake Factory, Whole Foods Markets) we finally reached Norfolk twenty-eight hours after leaving Philadelphia. I guess you could say we weren’t trying very hard to stick to the original plan.

The SpringHill Suites is designed with the goal of giving you space and comfort. To accent the room comforts, the interior designers definitely have used lights, pictures and vivid colors for furniture, upholstery and carpeting. Obviously, our primary purpose was to spend time at the beach so we didn’t really have much time to enjoy the comforts of the room. Nevertheless, the trip was so much more enjoyable because Marriott took time to design the perfect room. For example, the sleeping arrangements for five people in the room ended up being perfect because of all the extra space. Space that was left over after two queen beds, a pullout sofa, office table and chair, refrigerator, coffee maker, microwave, closets, sinks and other wooden furniture whose names I’ll simply refer to as tables. With five people sleeping on the beds and pullout sofa we still had plenty of extra space for our beach gear. Since Andrew brought his iBook we were hoping to be able to try out the Internet service but apparently there was some problem with a router that was affecting Internet access from down-town Norfolk. To complement the room, there was a nice pool – a bit shallow as Andrew found out with a bump on his head, but shallow or deep, we still used the pool for about a half hour. As for the  gym area, none of us even dared to stop by. Breakfast in the morning was free and consisted of waffles, coffee, various fruit and yogurt dishes, muffins, biscuits, sausage, eggs and tons of cereal.

In terms of feedback, some items that we would have changed in the room include the addition of an extra trashcan, sink and mirror to the restroom. I guess Marriott isn’t really expecting anyone to spend too much time in the bathroom.  Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a nice hotel to stay at, need space, comfort and free breakfast, I highly recommend any of the SpringHill Suites. As for the rest of the break, well we left wishing that we had a couple more free nights.

If you’re interested in becoming part of a word-of-mouth program consider joining BzzAgent – they have a well organized program and have great campaigns you can participate in. Plus, the free gifts are always nice.

Your Engine Valve is Burnt

“Your engine valve is burnt” are not the exact words you expect to hear when you drop off your car for regular maintenance. Then again, regular maintenance for me has always been one of those items that fell on the back burner. Anyways, while driving to the Messiah College basketball tournament this past weekend I noticed that my car started shaking a bit more than usual. In the past couple of years I’ve had a lot of work done on the car and even replaced parts with names such as Starter, Distributor, Battery, Constant Velocity (CV) Joints, Alternator, Tires and even had my entire Exhaust System replaced (I’ve intentionally capitalized the letters to stress the importance of such parts). Furthermore, the car has been broken into twice so any problems I have with the car I automatically associate with such incidents. So based on this history I convinced myself that if anything were to cause the car to shake so violently it would probably be the lack of oil, something that I repeatedly forget to fill, or some rodent that had decided to take refuge in the warmth of the engine. Alas, such false hope.

As of yesterday, my first car, the trusty 4 piston 1990 Honda Accord with 186,000 miles and counting is now running on 3 pistons all because of a burnt engine valve. Seeing that the value of my car had fallen drastically over the years, my friendly mechanic did not have to say much to convince me that it would be quite pointless to try and repair the car one more time. And with those words I will soon begin the horrifying experience of trying to find a replacement for a car that drove me to my first job, got me through graduate school, many internships, trips to the store and various cities and most of all an experience I would never trade.

Waiting …