Rants
Pet Peek could solve Southern Hills fence problem
Nov 21st
I’d need at least 100 – two for each pup, installed every 10 feet. Heck, if we install enough of them the neighbors won’t be able to see the massive fence!
Hat tip to Mark. Source: http://www.petpeek.info/
Welcome to Southern Hills in Fairport, NY
Nov 18th
November 14, 2008
Mr. & Mrs. Blevins
6 Brackley Circle
Fairport, NY 14450
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Blevins,
In the 20 years since our community, Southern Hills, was developed, we have enjoyed a proud tradition of family oriented community, full of friendly neighbors, and with lots of children and pets enjoying each others company while respectful of each others properties. It is with this proud tradition in mind, that we, your neighbors, are so disappointed with your choice to install such a massive fence.
As you may have noticed, Southern Hills is largely void of fences. The ample yards and the beautiful rolling landscape create a lovely “park-like” setting that has come to identify Southern Hills. Any fences that have been installed are typically small and/or close-set to the house. Usually as small yards for pet safety. Of course, many others have chosen to use invisible fences for pet safety. The stark contrast created by your fence, however, creates a disruption to the Southern Hills identity. Especially a stockade fence, which creates isolation, and gives the impression that you don’t wish to be part of our community. This fence divides our once-beautiful open area in the dozens of back yards bordered by Cannock Drive, Kirkby Trail, Brackley Circle, Chenin Run and Chardonnay Drive.
Neighbors spoke with you as you were considering installing your fence, and shared the community view on fences. Still others felt strongly enough to create and sign a petition, which we have attached to this letter. [Download the .pdf file of the letter and petition.] In the spirit of maintaining the proud tradition of Southern Hills, we respectfully request that you remove this fence. If you are unwilling to consider this, please at least landscape around the fence to soften its stark appearance.
We hope you will view this note and petition in the manner it was intended, as candid and honest feedback from neighbors who care deeply about their community. Most of all, we are hopeful you will act on this feedback.
Sincerely,
Your Neighbors
cc: Jim Smith, Perinton Town Supervisor
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Southern Hills Petition
FREEDOM KNOWS NO FENCES
We, the undersigned neighbors of Southern Hills, hereby protest the installation of a stockade style fence at 6 Brackley Circle. The Southern Hills neighborhood has a proud 20+ year tradition, built upon respect of each other, our families and our properties. Throughout these years, the Southern Hills neighbors have enjoyed the bonds of community, while free of the bonds brought by fences or boundaries. Each of our neighborhood members has taken great pride in their properties, attentive to details of lawn and garden, yet open for all to enjoy.
The undersigned neighbors of Southern Hills, respectfully request the immediate removal of this fence.
Shopped in person, buying online
Jul 9th
Yesterday, Tracy and I bought a new house in Fairport, NY. Over the past two years while we have been living up here, we’ve been saving money in case we needed to do upgrades to the house before we moved, rather than after we got settled in to the new place.
After the closing we drove over to Henrietta, NY with our checkbook in-hand and visited Lowes, Home Depot, Sears and Best Buy to buy a refrigerator, double oven and microwave. (We could have been talked into a cook-top stove too).
We spent at least four hours shopping.
Tracy had a folder with fliers, brochures and printouts from the computer of all of the items she had picked out. We walked the aisles and rows of appliances comparing items and cross-checking with all of Tracy’s paperwork, finding the things she wanted to buy.
We moved from store to store comparing sales offers and prices throughout the late afternoon and into the evening.
We ended up not making a purchase but not really because we didn’t find everything…
Not one store associate or salesperson offered any help. None of them said, “Hello”, and believe me, after that long in several stores, we saw at least ten employees in those sections doing “something”, though I’m not sure it was “work”. We weren’t the only shoppers in the sections either and only at Best Buy did I see one of them getting assistance.
At Sears, where I believe the sales associates are on commission, three of them were sitting on the washing machines across from where we were browsing!
When we got home, we went online to do more comparison with the data we picked up during our trip and we’re now ordering online and having everything shipped directly to the house.
North Sails One Design will probably hate me for this
May 4th
With the exception of a few oddball spinnakers here and there, for the most part, I’ve always raced with North Sails. There wasn’t even a second of hesitation when asked if I wanted North to build the sails for our two new boats when I ordered them last Fall.
I’ll be sailing with these four North Sails that you see in these photos for quite a while too, mainly because I just spent a lot of hard-earned money on everything and can’t afford to just “try” another brand. So, because I’m going to be using them, I should get to rant a little…
(That’s where the headline about North One Design hating me comes in because it must suck to be a merchant these days and forget your customer may be one of more than a million bloggers today!)
Preface: This is mostly about one vendor but I have other rants building up about Layline (mast track mounts for my GPS – backordered, oh yeah, and the GPS), IntensitySails.com (emergency paddle – backordered), Team One Newport (Gill dinghy pants – backordered), the Sailing Anarchy Store (shirt – status unknown), and West Marine ( batteries – not sure either) all of which have orders somewhere between me hitting the online “Submit” button and my front door.
This post is getting long already, so let me get to the point…
When I order a NEW main sail, I expect to get an unused, dirt-free, brand new main sail and NOT a sail that LOOKS new but has the old numbers “158″ peeled off leaving dirty glue shaped like a “158″ on the sail! This particular main requires a “162″ and those shapes don’t cover all of the glue spots. Too boot, I used existing lines drawn in ink to lay on the new numbers and apparently, the old sail had smaller numbers, so now I have to remove both sides and re-adjust! What a pain.
Furthermore… it shouldn’t be up to me to force fit “custom made” 2.4 Meter cockpit covers from your one-design shop onto my boats and leaving me to file down the clips to make them fit!
Test these things for 2 minutes and look at your orders before you ship them from your lofts in Sri Lanka.
The extra service will make your customers will think you are great because everything works and is exactly what they ordered, rather than leaving them to imagine that the “company” is trying to just shave a buck!
The sails did come in two really nice sail bags!
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UPDATE: To be more balanced and fair with North Sails about this rant, I should add another detail.
When we saw the covers didn’t fit, we were contacted by a North representative. He offered to ship new buckles for the covers. I didn’t want to think about finding someone to cut off the old ones and sew on new clips so I didn’t reply to the email right away. (We don’t sew.)
The next evening, Tracy mixed and matched three of the six straps and got one cover on the boat. I replies back to the guy and said to hang tight and the next time we were at the boats, we worked on the six remaining clips until they all snapped. I replied back that “it was all good”, thanked him for the offer, but declined the replacement buckles.
That was last week. Today was the first day we unpacked the second main sail and saw the ink marks and glue residue.
UPDATE 5/14/08: The Layline order showed up yesterday.
Special forces
Oct 17th
I watched an episode of “The Unit” last night on CBS.
The first story line involved three members of the Army’s secret Rangers unit going into a foreign country to rescue workers at an American embassy that was under fire.
Bullets were hitting the building and breaking out the newspaper-covered windows as the group was exiting to a waiting bus.
The ambassador and some of the workers were not following orders and were very resistant to leaving.
One of “the unit” members was hit by a bullet in the arm in the first scene because of a delay by the ambassador.
After several other embassy workers were killed because they weren’t listening to the instruction of the experts there to help them escape, my wife said, “I couldn’t do a job like that where the people I was helping didn’t want to be saved”.
I responded, “It is all in a day’s work.”
Oppressively hot
May 22nd
We finally got packed up and moved out of AL last week. This pic was shot from the front porch at my in-law’s house one day when we weren’t packing. 98 degrees!!