The Hummingbird

On the walk up to Mt. Lowe, we saw a woodpecker, but only got a picture of him (it was back at the car that Paul exclaims, we could have gotten a video of that!) Well, today we went to the Huntington Library and I saw two hummingbirds! I got both of them on film, but this is the better clip:



More pictures to come after I finish writing my paper...

A Laura moment

In a preemtive strike, I am uploading this video before Paul does.



This is Paul's first try at video taping and what does he catch? Laura tripping over nothing on the path (or so it seems, there really was a bamboo root or stick or something there.)

6am, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 8pm, 9pm, 11pm

This is what is going on at our house at those times of the day:



This is Woton wanting to be fed. He is trying to lead us to the food containers and then his food dish. His meowing will bring all the other cats to the feeding area, and he is relentless. He might have just been fed, but he stills wants to be fed again, especially if you just got home... you don't know when he was fed last, so you just might fall for the trick. Our cat is food fixated!

Arroyo Secco Bike Ride

I needed to take a break from all the paper writing, exam studying, presentation preparations that I have been buried under for weeks. This past weekend we took a hike up to Mt. Lowe (2800 ft elevation gain, 2.7 miles) and today I decided to bike down the creek bed by Paul's work.

I turned around about half a mile past here because my thighs were burning! I think it might have had something to do with that hike from this past weekend....

Hey mom, see the helmet? Safety first!

Woton attacks the scratcher

I am trying this video posting for the first time... I am told Youtube is the way to go. SO I opened an account, I waited all day for my video to upload, and now I am going to try to post it to my blog:



As uninteresting as this is, I am terribly excited that my camera has a crappy small video function! Whoot! And, it is REALLY hard to catch an animal doing something funny. As soon as I turn on the video, they stop!

Here Woton is trying to lead us to the kitchen to be fed:

More on JC Penny

And the saga continues...

It is now April 23rd, and I am still looking at a purple couch. AND they charged me for it! Not only did they leave the couch at our place but they have demanded that we be available at their convenience to pick it up.

So Paul wrote the VP of customer relations at JC Penny and our credit card. THIS got some attention...

________________________________________________________________________________

To: Customer Service

We are writing in reference to two charges that we are disputing that were made for JC Penny for the same item – a couch

Sale Date Post Date Merchant Amount
1/7/07 1/7/07 JCPENNY STORE $177.82
4/9/07 4/9/07 JCPENNY STORE $670.06

The short version of the story is that on January 7, 2007, Laura ordered a couch from a JC Penny Store in Arizona that was to be delivered in 6-8 weeks time to our residence in Pasadena, California. Over 12 weeks later on April 7, 2007, a couch was delivered but it was not the one which we ordered. JC Penny was notified the same day that this occurred. Over two weeks have now passed and JC Penny has failed to properly cancel our order, refund our money, and to retrieve their property.

By our account, we have spent over 12 hours of time on the phone along with additional time researching the problem ourselves. We have taken every reasonable measure to help JC Penny solve the problem with our order. Soon after the order was placed in January 7, 2007, JP Penny customer service was unable even to find a record of our order. It was impossible for them to credit out Citibank Mastercard for the charge as they had no record of the order.

It took several weeks before JC Penny customer service returned our initial calls to finally be told that that they had found the record of our order. However, we were informed this time that it would not take 6-8 weeks as initially promised, but up to 10 weeks. Again, we tried to cancel the order but we’re told that we would lose the $177.82 deposit if we did so.

After 12 weeks passed and repeated attempts by us to have someone return our calls and to give us a specific delivery date, we were contacted to schedule a delivery for April 7, 2007. Finally, 13 weeks after the order was initially placed, the couch was delivered. Unfortunately, Laura was unable to be present at the time of delivery. Instead, Paul was home for the delivery. It was only a few hours later after Laura returned home that we became aware that the couch that was delivered was NOT the one that we had ordered. JC Penny customer service was called immediately and informed of this problem. We were assured at that time that someone would contact us on Monday (the delivery occurred on a Saturday) and our account would be not be charged for the rest of the purchase.

The following week we were contacted and told that the couch that we ordered could not be found and would have to be re-ordered. Again, we insisted that our order be cancelled. We were finally told that our charge would be credited back to our Citibank Mastercard. We were also told that we would be contacted immediately by someone from the warehouse to schedule a pick-up of the improperly delivered merchandise.

Two weeks have now passed. Instead of crediting our account as promised, JC Penny charged our account for the total purchase price of the couch on April 9, 2007, two days after they had been informed that the incorrect couch had been delivered. Furthermore, JC Penny has refused to pick up their merchandise during a time which has been convenient for us. They waited two weeks before even contacting us to schedule the pick-up and insisted that the only days that were available were Saturday afternoons.

We have been charged for merchandise that we never received and have since cancelled the order. We would like JC Penny to credit our account immediately. We have spent over 18 hours on the phone over the span of three months trying to resolve this issue with JC Penny Customer Service.

We have also been made responsible for JC Penny property for an unreasonable amount of time. We now consider their property to be abandoned and it is clear that they have no interest in retrieving it. They have been given 48 more hours to retrieve the property (for a total of two weeks time) or it will be removed from our residence and picked up for disposal.


Sincerely,

Woton's anger management

My cat has lots of problems. First, he got too fat (25 lbs). Since the vet he was seeing thought that he could get down to 13 lbs (he was about 18lbs at 8 months, so he will never be 13lbs again), we took him to an internal medical specialist. Yes, you heard me right, my cat has a specialized doctor and my gosh she is EXPENSIVE!

Then, he has this plastic chewing problem. He is addicted. We cannot leave Gatorade six pack holders around- he will eat them, not just chew on them... he eats the plastic! Same with items such as hair gel bottles, tide bottles, cable cord, speaker wires, and such. Hi, my name is Woton, and I am an addict.


And now he needs anger management classes!

This resulted from the fact that Woton wakes me up at 6 am every morning by jumping on my stomach, followed by incessant meowing, and an occasional motivating bite. I do not like to encourage this kind of behavior, so I get up (which re-enforces his behavior) and throw him into a locked room... the bathroom. There is no carpet in there for him to tear up, no glass for him to break, and no flowers for him to eat, but there is the toilet paper roll. He did all that damage with his teeth, by the way.

Guitar hero

First Paul tries it at a friend's house and falls in love with the game (so of course we order it on the day of release for the Xbox).

Then he gets his wife to play.

Then Laura's CGU study group comes over and Michelle tells us she is having a family GH playoff on Easter, so Ina wants to learn how to play.

Then Paul's family comes over to look at the house and we have three new addicts: Kari, Jayle, and Jiana!

Business for the birds

Not that I did not care before, but now that I am in business school, I have a heightened awareness when the inefficiencies of a business cut into the value of the product I think I am purchasing. Take for example JC Penny Home store- this is a great looking store with many options for couches, furniture, and bed/bath accessories. I thought I was lucky to find such a place while visiting my sister in Phoenix, Arizona. Little did I know...

I was specifically looking for a couch to replace my couch I have had since the beginning of college. The sales lady who ended up “helping” us obviously did not want to be working on that Saturday January 7th (the day before my birthday) so I practically had to beg her to help me find a sleeper sofa. She proceeds to tell me that there are only three sleeper sofa models in the store and takes me to them. She promptly walks away after showing me these sofas... one would think maybe she is not into high pressure sales and is being polite, but you would be giving her the benefit of the doubt since she did not return; I had to go chase her down. On top of which, Chris and Jeff spotted 2-3 more sofas that were actually sleeper sectionals! Does this woman know how to do her job?

Anyway, I finally pick a sofa and she tells me they don't have that one in the showroom to sell me; they have to order it and it will take 6-8 weeks. I assumed that would be the case, since who really keeps an inventory of sofas? There is too much variability in the colors and choices to keep a stock of sofas in the back. Anyway, she neglected to mention that it was a special order and there was no refund. So I put down my 20% deposit, I choose a color (after agonizing over this decision, I go with what I have right now- light blue) and we leave.


Back in California, 7 weeks later, I start to wonder why no one has called me. In week 8, I start to call JC Penny customer service. No one can find my order. I think this is probably why the sofa is taking so long. I call the store directly and they find my order (I write down the order number so this problem can be avoided next time). They tell me "special orders" take 8-10 weeks (this is the first time I hear about the long 8-10 week wait) then they assure me the delivery of my couch should be on time. At week 10 I call customer service again and finally reach someone willing to actually figure out what is going on. She calls the Peoria, AZ store and talks to someone in furniture. The sales rep calls me back on my cell and leaves a message that they have a date the couch should be leaving the third party manufacturer. The following week I call up to cancel the order. They are now 3 weeks over the time I was told it would arrive, and a week over the updated schedule. I speak with a customer sales representative at the store and he argues with me that I would never have been told 6-8 weeks for delivery. This guy should take a refresher in sales (so should my sales lady...)- the customer is ALWAYS right. Even if I was wrong, arguing with my memory will only worsen my impression of the business. As Drucker says, there are no irrational customers, only businesses who do not understand their customer's needs. This sales guy cannot help me since he makes no decisions on money matters and the manager is not in today (is this good business practice either? shouldn't there always be someone who can deal with elevated issues?)

I am so pissed off, I leave the whole thing alone for a week. I receive a call in week 13 that my sofa is ready for delivery. In week 14, I call to deliver the couch. I have given up and want to either get my money back or have a damn couch. Either way, I have learned an important lesson- JC Penny service sucks and I will never shop with them again. I call the number for deliveries and after 5 minutes on hold I hang up. I decide to call JC Penny corporate (this is the ONLY number where I do not wait on the phone for LONG periods of time) and tell them that I am not paying for a couch that is 6 weeks late and from a business that cannot provide customer service. The woman there writes everything down and tells me the manager from the warehouse will call me back that day. The manager calls the following morning and says she can schedule a delivery for me. I tell her the issue is not scheduling, it is their service and that my couch is so unbelievably late that I owe them nothing- cancel my order or make it worth my while to take delivery of this couch (oh and by the way, JC Penny is on my black list). She offers to drop the price 15% and I take the offer in order to NOT deal with this anymore. We schedule a delivery for Saturday the 7th of April (this is 16 weeks after ordering the couch). Paul takes delivery and when I come home, this is what I see:

Did I mention I ordered a blue couch?