selena deckelmann

Haven’t read this in entirety yet..

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/070219fa_fact_mayer

A few years ago, Surnow received it as a gift from an Army regiment stationed in Iraq; the soldiers had shared a collection of “24” DVDs, he told me, until it was destroyed by an enemy bomb. “The military loves our show,” he said recently. Surnow is fifty-two, and has the gangly, coiled energy of an athlete; his hair is close-cropped, and he has a “soul patch”—a smidgen of beard beneath his lower lip. When he was young, he worked as a carpet salesman with his father. The trick to selling anything, he learned, is to carry yourself with confidence and get the customer to like you within the first five minutes. He’s got it down. “People in the Administration love the series, too,” he said. “It’s a patriotic show. They should love it.”

Technorati Tags: 24, newyorker

This is one person’s perspective on components of great customer service. I thought it was a nice perspective, and general enough – even though it’s focused on software.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html

1. Fix everything two ways
2. Suggest blowing out the dust
3. Make customers into fans
4. Take the blame
5. Memorize awkward phrases
6. Practice puppetry
7. Greed will get you nowhere
8. (Bonus!) Give customer service people a career path

http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/askpablo-exotic-bottled-water-002401.php

Technorati Tags: blog, food, sustainability

I spent most of yesterday walking around with Scott. We walked to the max and took it all the way to the Zoo. We stopped at PGE park, though for some bento. There is a trail, called the Wildwood, that goes from the Zoo down to the Japanese Garden. It was muddy, and there were quite a few people out. After an hour or so in the garden, we took a bus back down to the max, stopped off at the Bike Gallery, and then caught a movie at the Fox Tower. It was _letters from iwo jima_. I hadn’t heard much about it, other than it was the counterpart to _flags of our fathers_. Wow, it was really good.

Here’s what I wrote after listening to an NPR story about sleep deprivation and teens. Here’s what I wrote to NPR:

I waited to hear something about diet and exercise in Allison Aubrey’s story about teens and sleep. The message seemed to be that 2/3 of teens suffer from sleep problems, and to solve the problem parents need sleep specialists to tell them what to do. I had a hard time with the implication that a melatonin pill is easier and more effective than removing TVs and computers from bedrooms! C’mon! Parents need to help their kids make healthy choices that are sustainable. Part of that is putting limits on entertainment. Another part is showing their kids that exercise and diet are the keys to long term health and a good night’s sleep.

We’ll see if I’m famous tomorrow.

I’ve had a few ideas for writing:

* managing for technical people
* project managment
* gardening
* chicken tending

That probably adds up to:
* how to be a serial hobbiest

I don’t know. This is probably something that I actually know about. Maybe i’ll just mix myself a drink and enjoy my day off.

S. hates backtracking. Today, he told me his theory of “lolipopping”, as he sees it. This is a way to make long runs seem less repetative, you have a loop at the end.

* i just laugh at this now
* used to be argument provoking
* good change to be able to laugh and understand rather than get angry

I put together the recipe project today and finally put them into their chrome box. I wrote 5 or 6 of them out, and then realized that it would be a much nicer present if the authors of the recipes wrote them out themselves.

I brought in all my wedding photos yesterday for duplicates to be made. It was a nice feeling to finally have them done. This Friday I should be getting them back. I also thought that I should talk to Bosco more.

I read through a ton of blog entries by rms and wondered why I was so obsessive. I spent about 4 hours with chickens yesterday. It felt good.

I’m trying to get better at scrabble by playing online.

I’ve got my two-letter wordlist, and my wordfinder program at hand. Each game takes about half an hour – so four games later, i’m sitting here with the sun going down.

This post will be full of random things because I can’t seem to tell a consistent narrative today.

The project for a party did not work out as planned, so now I am just going to use what I cut out by hand. No letterpress. It was just a little disappointment, but probably it saved me a bunch of stress in trying to work out a trade.

I also partially cleaned up the leftover pear mess. Stupid fruit flies! I have some sourdough that is progressing nicely. I put in a call to a woman who might have chickens for us. I am very excited to get new chickens. Scott even accepted getting three.