So what’s the deal?  I haven’t written much of anything in a while.  Am I lazy?  Well come to think of it, I guess I am a little lazy, but that’s not why I’ve been away.  I’ve just had an extraordinarily busy July.  From camping on the 4th of July to a family reunion in Oregon the next week, a weekend in upstate New York the next, and camping again last weekend, I’ve been doing a bunch of stuff on top of my job and working on the businesses my wife and I are starting.  So, now I just need a little time to catch up.

I had just started to get on a roll with posting the stupid punchlines for Last Comic Standing.  Since I am on the west coast where the show is broadcast 3 hours later than it is on the east coast, I had to pay for the jokes and their punchlines through text messages in order to post them here on time.  A couple weeks ago, I sent one of these text messages and instead of the usual overpriced punchline, I got this: “NBC LCS Punchline is no longer active.  Reply MORE for a joke a day for $2.99/month.”  I couldn’t believe it.  My evil plan worked.  By posting the punchlines for free here, I managed to take away all the would be paying customers, convincing them to get the punchlines here instead.

How about Dairy Queen?  I posted earlier about my frustration with their debit card policies.  I have since visited a different local Dairy Queen with very different results.  Not only do they not have a cardboard sign informing me of a ridiculous fee for credit cards, the total on the receipt matched the total they told me at the drive thru.  Speaking of these stupid fees, I can understand preferring cash over credit or debit card because of the cost of processing.  But charging the customer extra for using a card rather than cash is bad business practice.  Rather than charging 50 cents to accept debit, Dairy Queen needs to factor in that cost when pricing their products.  It may seem like a great idea to pass on the cost to the consumer but imposing fees drives away business.  If I see a fee for making a purchase, I will be much less likely to return.  If that cost has to be passed on to me, raise the price of your products instead.  If my $10 order changes to a $12 order because the prices go up, I will return and just pay more.  If it goes up because I pay with debit, I will make every reasonable effort to avoid returning (until my wife gets a craving).  I always feel like I am being scammed when I am charged fees.  Enough about my rant.  I was just going to say that the other DQ is way better.  There are no extra fees.  The best part is that their entire staff seemed competent.  I receive much faster and much better service at the Juanita DQ than the Bothell DQ.  In fact, the Juanita DQ is the only one I have ever had fast service.

Over the next several days, I will be posting about some huge changes that are underway in my family.  There are some experiences that I have had that are very personal that I ordinarily wouldn’t make public.  They will be written for me so I can have a place to look back and remember the events leading to these changes.  If you feel like reading along, it’s actually a rather fascinating story.  The beginning will probably be posted later today.

I spent all week out of town so I haven’t written any new posts.  Ok, so I only spent a day out of town, the rest of the week I couldn’t put my iPhone down.  So when I got in line for the iPhone, I first thought I’d buy a whole bunch to sell.  By the time it was my turn in line, I decided to just get two phones.  The phones sat in my house while I contemplated either putting them on ebay, getting new lines, or just returning them.  Since I just renewed my T-Mobile contract for 2 more years, I decided to be sensible about it.  I went to my local wireless retailer to sign up for a new family plan with AT&T.  I got 2 more phones for just a penny plus a $50 mail in rebate.  Since I already have phones, I get to ebay the new ones for around $200 each (we listed them tonight). 

So is the iPhone worth it?  Ok, the phone is so worth it, I actually jump up and down out of excitement when I realize I need to make a phone call.  The phone is actually underhyped if that is possible.  After using the iPhone, I go back to my Windows Mobile based smart phone and just get frustrated.  The iPhone is so easy to use, my 3 year old has already figured out how to play her favorite YouTube videos and then bookmark them for later.

I called my brother right after signing up for AT&T and asked if he was happy with his service since he switched to Cingular.  He asked why so I told him that I got an iPhone.  He laughed so loud my wife could hear him from the other side of the car.  He said he hoped I was embarrassed.  For what?  The iPhone is my greatest impulse purchase I have ever made.  Apparently getting an iPhone on day 1 is “geeky” or something.  Ok I register domain names as a hobby and when I have free time I like to play Sudoku.  I could go on and on but I don’t think that the iPhone adds to my geekiness.

This week we had our lawn mowed for the first time in over 6 months.  I kinda figured we were overdue after receiving a subtle hint in a text message telling me that Weed-B-Gone was my friend.  After the lawn was mowed, I realized that my lawn now has the rare combination of being both short and green at the same time.

Since our mower is toast, we had to borrow a mower.  When I picked it up, the first thing I noticed was that it has a 6 horse power engine.  Maybe I thought about it too hard, but I haven’t been able to figure out how the power of a horse translates into the cutting power of a garden tool.  How can I even compare 6 horses’ ability to cut my lawn vs. the lawn mower?  Given the choice, I would always choose the lawn mower.  I think the horses would make a bigger mess and would take longer to mow.  Comparing horses to lawn mowers and cars to describe strength is just over my head.