DeColores - Heaven Board #12

 "Spreading the light that illuminates
The divine grace from the great ideal.
      

Today is my day four of the Greater Cincinnati Walk to Emmaus (Men's Walk #100).  If you have ever pondered God's Grace, wondered about the power of prayer, and yearned to feel closer to God's LOVE, then the Emmaus Walk is whispering to you now.  If instead, you are thinking - No not really, like me for 15-17 years after seeing Susan when she first experienced her Women's walk and wanted to share this experience with me then .... it's not your time and maybe these are not your questions. 

For you, it may be a different question about GOD's mysteries that are turning in your mind, or burning in your heart, or churning in your purpose in life.  When that time comes, it will be right for you.  After all it is all GOD's time and you living on his time.

We are given free will in every aspect of our lives but one - TIME.  For me the Emmaus Walk was a glimpse of GOD's time (and is now Heaven Board #12).  Actually I now believe there is no time in Heaven.  When I gave up my watch and phone (begrudgingly) at 7pm on Thursday, time stopped.  Today on Day 4 it has started again. 

Heaven can't wait!  - DeColores!

  

Heroes Fall - The Wise Recall

P.N. sent me a November 1978 Harpers article "Too Rich for Heroes" by Henry Fairlie as a follow-up to our Wednesday  after Tennis Inkling discussions over a beer. It was in response to my question about who he considers wise, and my belief that our country needs a common purpose (similar to the race to the moon) to combat our divisive incivility.

"If we no longer have any heroes, it may not be because no one is fit to be a hero, but because we are not fit to recognize one" states Fairlie.

So, I wondered what is the difference between a wise person and a hero?   Both are discussed as virtues by the ancient philosophers.  Both are dependent on character and principles. 

Steven Hall in his book "Wisdom" describes eight "Neural" pillars of Wisdom - Emotional Regulation; Knowing What's Important; Moral Reasoning; Compassion; Humility; Altruism; Patience; Dealing with Uncertainty.

Fairlie talks about traits in Heroism as Courage, Valor, Excellence, Generosity, Forbearance, and  Daring.

Seemingly the common treads are Generosity/Altruism and Forbearance/Patience.  Yet when I ask the questions - Who is a wise person you look up to?  and Who is your hero?  the responses are usually different (normally I say to exclude family members who invariably are answers to both -  My father, mother, grandparents etc.). 

Also Hero answers vary across different domains - sports, academic, religion, business, politics, artists, military etc. and possibly connected to event/outcome. Heroism inspires in ways of action and motivates in risk taking ways.  In fact, too often we hold Heroes up to the standard of perfection.

Wisdom answers seem to gravitate more in the compassion, humility, and passive domains (probably due to the connection with older age and experience).  Conversely wisdom yields no need of perfection - just an outcome of overall virtuous well living and lessons of life in words. 

So Heroes fall  and the Wise recall.

Pet Cost Benefits

Several days ago T.M. mentioned that they "put down" one of their two cherished pets - a dog.  Those of us who have the joy of the close companionship of pets (or any type) and have experienced their loss can empathize when someone announces their loss.  In fact, T.M. shared his history of pets and the good memories of them growing up with his children.

Mom and Dad never allowed pets (that is -  in the house) when we were growing up.  Coming from farm backgrounds animals (and pets) we always outside and served various purposes beyond just being a companion.  However, they did allow us to "adopt" a stray cat once or twice.  Fast forward and now Vana, D'Lane and I have had various pets in our families -  personally I can inventory over 18 in my last 60 years (current inventory is 2 dogs and 2 cats).

I've maintained that having pets will extend your life (and all pet owners agree).  But is this claim really true?  An interesting article on this subject "Can Pets Help You Live Longer" concludes: "Besides being good companions and adding joy to many people’s lives, pets may provide some health benefits."

My view is that 60% of U.S. Households  (165 million) must believe that the benefits of owning pets exceeds any costs - financial, emotional and physical.

 

Pathetic Customer Service Wanna Be

Today at lunch I heard a classic Customer Service story from a friend (privacy was requested) that reminded me of my own favorite POOR Customer Service Story.  Here are two classics in one blog.

WARNING:

The content of this story is politically charged (especially in today's incivility) and contains graphical language that may offend you (depending on your political bias).  Read forward at your own risk.

Story #1  -   A supporter of President Donald Trump recently called Nordstrom (yes Nordstrom the infamous icon of superb Customer Service) to voice her objection about the recent news of their discontinuing of Ivanka Trump merchandise.

[Note some history here: During the election there was a call to boycott Nordstrom back in October with a balanced Nordstrom's response "Nordstrom responds to viral letter"]. Back to the story ---  

After waiting 15 minutes on hold, she then told the Nordstrom Customer Service Representative that she would be forced [because of Nordstrom's politically pressured actions] to cancel her Nordstrom's credit card. 

[Here's the punchline Customer service response]

"That's PATHETIC, Sorry to see you go."

Story #2  -   Years ago, I was continuously flying every week during my years at Accenture.  Going back and forth to Canada, I had decided to fly both Delta and Canadian Air.  I had been a Platinum card holder of Delta for 5-6 continuous years when during the heavy years of flying to Canada, I had missed by a few segments reaching Platinum status. I decided to send an email to Delta Customer Service requesting consideration for an exception and to renew my Platinum status.   The return email subject was titled:

"Platinum Wanna Be"

Here are two stories of how exemplary customer service that drives intense customer loyalty can be lost in a single word!  And they both demonstrate how these stories are etched into the memory of individuals and spread virally to the detriment of the company.

Pathetic Customer Service Representative Wanna Be

Organized Chaos

I usually pride myself on my organizational skills combined with my technical prowess.  But I get humbled every time I try to do something that appears to be simple -  like send a video from my phone to someone, or download it to my PC.  Now, I must admit, I complicate things by having non-integrated solutions (vs the ease by which Apple users spout their iphones, Macs, and icloud).  Instead, I have a Nexus 5 Google Phone (Project Fi) interfacing with a Window's 10 Touchscreen Laptop.

Attempting to be frugal in data usage, I have tried to configure my phone to avoid cellular data uploads and/or sends without the Wifi network.  Even this month I seemed to inadvertently consumed close to 1/2 Gig with an innocent sharing of one 3 minute video taken from my phone (an SVP Cincinnati Fast Pitch coaching session).

Then getting back to my office - I tried to understand where all the automatic backups for my phone were stored - Google Drive and/or Microsoft One Drive.   Then I innocently tried to connect my Nexus 5 phone via USB to the PC hoping I could just copy and/or transfer any files from the phone to the PC.  That ended in a 2 hour troubleshooting with no result.

Also I wanted to figure out when I delete a photo or video from my phone (to conserve space) - does it disappear in the cloud?   I have so many backups of pictures the redundancy in multiple external drives would cause you to go crazy.  Like the photo drawer at home, I've said someday I will try to organize all this stuff.

The real answer is what happened today.  Just do whatever the minimum it takes for the task at hand (e.g. send the video) and defer all that organization stuff for another day.  The definition of organized chaos.

http://michelleandresart.com/2013/06/the-urge-to-purge/

Wisdom in Red

It's hard not to reflect on politics the day after the "Peaceful Transition of Power" Presidential Inaugural day.  Just after watching Frontline's documentary "Divided States of America" this started chapter two of potentially another eight years of divisive politics. I pray that President Donald Trump and the two parties can find ways to compromise.

The Inaugural speech was short (which is good) and what quote most resonated with me was:

" It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American flag."

Somehow the word "red blood of patriots" was a dramatic way of showing that we are all the same and we should focus on being freedom fanatics for the rest of the world to see. While we need (and should) constantly focus on improving our Nation (and it's problems), I believe protectionism is a form of isolationism. I believe our purpose collectively as a Nation is not about our selves - but setting the example of what freedom can do for it's people to the rest of the non-free World.

It's not about Nationalism - it is about Worldism - maybe that is misspelled - it's about Wisdom.

Invisible Monthly Costs

The start of 2017 has been busy - too busy too blog.  But on a rainy, chilly, and dreary Saturday - why not start the first blog of 2017 whining. 

In an effort to clean things up (the classic get organized resolution), I decided to eliminate monthly costs of subscriptions or memberships that I have not been actively using. Or evaluate the year-to-date use to determine if it is worth the cost.

It is so easy to establish a monthly charge to a credit card (or direct debit to checking) and forget about the "forever charge".  Or even prepay a plan that automatically renews at the higher non discounted rate.

Examples include Sirius Radio, Netflix DVD, Netflix Streaming,  FiOptics extra boxes, magazine subscriptions, Amazon Prime, gym or dining memberships, computer stuff (Carbonite, Office 365, Cloud Data plans), AAA membership, On Star, Verizon extra data plans (e.g. tablet access), FiOptics internet speed, Charitable monthly giving,  even loan payments.

The frugal hint for the day is to set up a calendar reminder when plans expire (or renew) so that you can avoid this hidden inflation.  

So ...... here is my long story (and now gripe) about reviewing my FiOptics plan with Cincinnati Bell.

It all started with a lucky technical glitch when my DVR box stopped working and would not complete the boot cycle.  After calling tech support a technician was assigned to come out.  But given my relentless desire to troubleshoot, I decided to unplug everything and use my second DVR box (which was working) to systematically determine if the problem was my network configuration or one of my own complicated hardware integration switches.

The short answer to that solution was..... the adapter plug for the DVR box was defective.  WOW - go figure.  Now I understand why they ask you to directly plug the DVR box into your home outlet (vs an extension cord). 

Now for the gripe.   The above story provided the incentive to return my second DVR box (which we never use) to get the $15/mth off of my FiOptics monthly billing.  But the "need for speed" caused me to add $10/mth on to the plan to increase my data speed from 30 MBS to 50 MBS.  Sounds good right?

NOT!   I have been monitoring my download speed for the past two days only to discover my speeds are ranging from 5MBS to 37MBS with most of the time at about 10MBS.   THIS IS RIDICULOUS.  The general public is paying at least $29.99/mth (that's only if you are getting the promotional discount) for a download speed that they have no clue if they are getting and no ability to monitor the provider for proper quality control and value confirmation.

SO..... as Bob Edwards would say "What are you going to do about it"?   Stay tuned.