Happy New Year!!

Well, 2007 only has a few hours left, and what a year it has been. Christy and I just got back from spending a week with her parents in Hot Springs Village. We had a nice visit with her family, and we took a day in Little Rock to take care of some exchanges. While we were there, we ate at the Saddle Creek Woofired Grill. If you ever find yourself in North Little Rock, I highly recommend it. While we are on restaurants, Christy and I stopped at the Islamorada Fish Company in Garland on our way home this evening. They have pretty good fish, and we both thought it would be worth going back someday.

That's it for 2007 from Philip's Corner. Stay tuned for more fun filled action in 2008!

Until next time...
PH

Vine Review: HP iPAQ 310 Travel Companion

Well, the verdict is in on the HP iPAQ 310 GPS. I'll leave the details of the review on Amazon, but let me just say, "Wow!" This is a really nice unit. Happy reading!

Until next time...
PH

December on the Vine

Today we take a quick look at what I'm evaluating this month for Amazon as a part of the Vine Program. First up is a book that I thought was quite relevant for an election year. It is a book that evaluates how things have unfolded over the last eight years of the Bush presidency. It is called Daydream Believers. I don't usually spend time on books that are not relevant to my job, but this one seemed interesting to me. I should be getting it sometime next week so look for the review to come in mid to late January.

The second item is the HP iPAQ 310 GPS. I've been using this for a few days now, and I'm in the process of putting together my review. It will probably be up on Amazon within the next week.

I will link to both reviews in a future post.

Until next time...
PH

Christmas Memories

I will be sending out (at some undetermined point in the future) a link to a slide show with all of our family Christmas photos. However I thought I'd give a preview today. Enjoy.

Let's start with Christmas Eve.

Here is a very intense look at a budding cello player.

At Brother Robert's house we do a (I'm told this is the official term) Chinese gift exchange.

Neil got us started off with a lot of enthusiasm.

However Zach wound up with Neil's prize before the night was over.

Moving on the Christmas day...

(A quick side note. For anyone who has experienced the regrettable Christmas morning hair immortalized in pictures forever, you'll notice my strategy for avoiding that below.)

The joy of a child on Christmas morning speaks for itself.

Christy gets a relaxing gift.

Beer and Cowboys - it doesn't get any better than this.

Kassie likes Christmas

Foosball is always a winner.

Until next time...
PH

Friday Photos

During my time off, I have gotten in the habit of throwing my camera bag in the trunk when I'm going out and about. Today I was in Colleyville, and I found a couple of interesting buildings in their "town center" and a neat house that was nearby. Enjoy!








Until next time...
PH

Holiday Movie Mini-guide

As many of us enter the end of the year downtime for Christmas vacation, you may take part in one of my favorite past times - going to the movies. I've got two for the kids and two for grown ups to consider if you haven't seen them already.

First up is a movie that has been out for a while, but it is a good family movie if you haven't already see it. It amazes me that it has taken this long for Jerry Seinfeld to lend his voice to animated movies, but Bee Movie is flat out a hit. His over-exaggerated delivery is perfect for animation. This movie is a treat because many of the jokes are there for the adults, but there's enough silliness for the kids too. Everybody wins.

My other suggestion for a family flick is Alvin and the Chipmunks. While there is some modernization that I could have done without, this is an instant classic. I actually had a Chipmunk's Christmas on a 33 LP - for the kids, that's a record. Jason Lee would not have been my first choice for Dave. I had a hard time getting past the thought of, "This is the guy who plays Earl on that bad TV show." While it may be equally weird to have a star from Law and Order SVU, I would like to have seen Christopher Meloni take a crack at the role of Dave. He would be able to deliver the "ALVIN!" line in a much more convincing manner. The movie is really well done. For adults it will be a trip down memory lane while kids will enjoy it too.

For a grown up outing let's start with another movie that's been out for a little while - Beowulf. It is visually amazing, and it is an epic story for those who like adventure/action movies. I do recall sitting in the movie and thinking a couple of times, "I don't remember the story going like this." It has been over 10 years since I have read it so I tried to cheat and do some internet research. It seems that this movie version deviates a good bit from the original story, but I'm not really a purist when it comes to movie watching. Peter Jackson took a lot of liberties with his Lord of the Rings trilogy, but that did not make them any less good as movies. In some cases, it probably helped as it is truly rare for a book to translate verbatim to the screen. Whether you've read Beowulf or not, you can still enjoy a very well done show.

Finally I have something for those who like a little more suspense in their movies. The latest offering from the Coen Brothers is No Country for Old Men. Don't expect The Big Lebowski or The Ladykillers. There's not much humor, but there is also a noticeable lack of foul language which has become typical of Joel and Ethan's movies. There is a fair amount of cold blooded killing, but not on the level of Pulp Fiction. Tommy Lee Jones is good in his role Sheriff Ed Tom Bell although his is not one of the primary characters. I won't give it away, but the ending will not be what you expect - whatever that may be. I enjoyed the movie while I wished for a different ending. Christy didn't like it as much.

A bonus recommendation based on the previews alone is Charlie Wilson's War. It looks like a good mix of comedy and a compelling story. It is not a comedy, but there are some good one liners.

So there you have it. I'd love to hear what you think if you've seen any of these movies or any recommendations of your own.

Until next time...
PH

Money for Nothing?

Yesterday, I promised to tell you how I got my camera without any out of pocket expense. Today, I'm going to give you the lowdown. First and foremost this is predicated on the idea that you payoff your credit card in full every month. If this is not the case for you, it is probably better to stop reading now and tune back in for the next edition of Philip's Corner.

For those still reading I offer reward/incentive credit. We use an American Express card for our primary purchases that is tied to Hilton HHonors. Now you may be thinking how does a hotel program translate into a camera? I certainly am glad that you asked me that.

Loyalty programs such as Hilton HHonors initially let you earn points/miles/credits/etc. that could only be used toward what the sponsoring company offered - in this case a night at a Hilton Brand hotel. However people like me who earn at a faster rate than I redeem build up quite a balance - many of you have over a million air miles for example. For the companies this is a bad thing as they have to treat outstanding points/miles/etc. as liability from a financial standpoint.

To help with this dilemma, companies began to form partnerships for redemption. It was through this feature that I converted 200,000 Hilton HHonors points into $400 in Best Buy gift cards. That was enough for the Canon SX100 IS, a camera bag, a 1 Gb memory card, rechargeable AA batteries, and the Corel Paint Shop Photo Pro X2. I also took advantage of the fact that Best Buy is (at least currently) doing price matching. So the Office Depot add saved me an additional $60 - enough to pay for the software when it was on sale last week.

You may already have something similar that you use in terms of a loyalty program sponsored credit card. If not I would encourage you to look into it. I would only choose the ones that don't have an annual fee. The things to consider are how useful the program is to you, and what redemption options does the program provide outside of the sponsoring company.

I'll leave you with a picture that I took at a park over by the Fort Worth Zoo this afternoon. I thought it was interesting.



Until next time...
PH

Tradition Meets Hobby

I've mentioned before that I am generally a late adopter of new technology. Two weeks ago I bought my first digital camera. After sitting through the Cowboys/Redskins game last month with nothing more than the camera on my phone, I decided it was time to get with the other 99% of the world. I will tell you in post later on how I accomplished this without spending any money.

I have to admit that I am still very much a novice when it comes to digital photography, but that is where the hobby part comes in. I will be getting a little help from my new friend Corel Paint Shop Pro Phone X2.

I've enjoyed photography for as long as I can remember. I can't remember my first camera, but I know that I had a Polaroid at an early age. Both my mother and her mother took lots of pictures so I've been around cameras my whole life.

Now let's mix in some tradition. We have had our Christmas decorations up for a few weeks now, and you may have seen pictures on Christy's blog. Here is one of my favorites from that shoot.


I took one with flash without the light on in the dining room, but I think this one turned out better.

Additionally we went for a drive to Interlochen on Saturday to see the Christmas lights. I remember doing this after going to the Christmas Eve service growing up in Texarkana. I'll leave you with one of the better shots that I snapped during our trek.


Until next time...
PH

Forth Worth Star Telegram - Preliminary Report Card

As I mentioned last week, I terminated my subscription to the Dallas Morning News due to poor service. I decided to try the Fort Worth Star Telegram in place of it, and they have been delivering to our house since Tuesday. So I thought it would be worth giving an early report on how they are doing.

First, delivery (over a limited period of time of course) is way better. The paper was there before I left for work (~5:45 a.m.) during the week, and it was there when I went to retrieve it between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. on the weekend. It may have been there earlier than that, but I wasn't up to notice. This was my biggest (and really only) complaint with the DMN so the Star Telegram is a winner.

That's not to say it is an equal. Visually it is the worst looking newspaper that I've seen from a large city. DMN definitely had this nailed. Another area where DMN was better is in content. Let's face it. I'm mostly interested in the Sports page - isn't this true for most guys? While they have pretty good columnists, the Star Telegram does not have Rick Gosselin. He's one of the best football minds around. They rest of the sports page has the essentials, but there's just not quite as much there. Finally, DMN would use larger fonts and different layouts for the box scores for local teams while the Star Telegram gives the same small, run of the mill box score that you would see for the Atlanta Hawks/Utah Jazz game.

Don't get me wrong. The Star Telegram is a good newspaper. I just think that the DMN is more in the excellent category. It doesn't matter how good their product is, though, if they can't reliably get it to me. At the end of the day that's why I'm a satisfied Star Telegram subscriber.

Until next time...
PH

A sad tale of customer service

On Sunday I severed my relationship with a local business after over 13 years. I had logged problems with this company's service through their automated phone line for a number of months. Seeing that this wasn't resulting in change, I tried to speak to a customer service representative about a month ago. The uninterested response should have told me all that I needed to know, but I stuck with it a while longer because I actually like this company's product a lot.

Well, the problems continued, and I decided that I had had enough. I called on Saturday, December 1 to cancel my service. On this day I found what seems to be the only employee who had an interest in customer service. He promised to have a manager review the problems that I had reported if I would not cancel my service. I agreed to give them a week to fix the problem, but I let him know that it should not take a call to cancel my service in order to get them to do something about the problems I had reported.

So the week comes and goes, and nothing changes. I called at breakfast Sunday to cut them loose for good. This time I got another uninterested customer service agent who simply did what I asked.

There I sat knowing that for the first time in over 13 years I would not longer be doing business with a company who had a really good product. Who is this company? It is none other than the Dallas Morning News. They have arguably one of the best newspapers in the country, but they were not able to consistently deliver it to me on Saturday and Sunday.

I think that this is a sign of the times with Belo, the parent company of the DMN. It baffles me that a company can have an automated phone unit for reporting problems that never signals for a review when a customer repeatedly reports that their paper has not been delivered. That's just bad business. I think that the problem of uninterested customer service representatives goes well beyond the Dallas Morning News. You could make the case that customer service is a lost art.

There are a few companies that do an outstanding job in this area, and they really stand out. Two examples that come readily to mind are Starbucks and Sport Clips. If you frequent Starbucks, you know what I'm talking about. Sport Clips may not be as well known. It is a sports themed place for guys to get a hair cut. Having used chains like Super Cuts for all of my adult life, I was used to places where the entire staff might turnover between hair cuts. However, I've been going to Sport Clips in Hurst for about a year and half now, and the majority of the staff that is there now was there in June of 2006. They keep a database of notes so that if you get a different stylist the next time, they know at least how you got your hair cut the last time.

So, it is possible to find good customer service. I'm not going to find out if the Fort Worth Star Telegram can do a better job than the Dallas Morning News. The paper was there when I left for work today so they're off to a good start. Saturday and Sunday will tell the tale though.

Until next time...
PH

Vine Review: Fired Up or Burned Out

I finished reading Fired Up or Burned Out over the weekend, and I have to admit that it is a book that I would buy if I hadn't gotten it as a part of Vine. While the ideas are simple, this book gives one of the distinguishing marks of a successful organization. Here's my detailed review. Enjoy!

Until next time...
PH

Song of the Day

You know it happens. You come across a song that, no matter how many times you listen to it, it seems like you need to hear it at least one more time. It's happened since we had our first record/tape/CD/MP3 (did I leave anyone out?). Then you usually hit the wall with the song, and you reach the point that you never want to hear it again. I haven't reached that point with my latest fix yet.

Since I mentioned childhood experience, it is appropriate that my current favorite song comes from an artist who made it big during my youth - Bruce Springsteen. Yes, there's been a lot of water under the bridge since Born in the USA and Dancing in the Dark, and no I haven't exactly been a lifelong fan of his. However his new CD Magic has some appealing songs on it, and chief among them for me is You'll Be Comin' Down. It's not what you would call an uplifting song, but it is very catchy. The thing I take away from this song is that success from a shallow basis won't last forever - "You'll be fine long as your pretty face holds out/Then it's gonna get pretty cold out".

So give it a listen, but know that you might not be able to stop with just one.

Until next time...
PH