Buyer Beware - ESPECIALLY at Filene's Basement!

Buyer Beware!

In 1997 my wife left the first major company she had worked (very hard) for and decided that she would buy herself a gift for her years of service. She had wondered into Filene's Basement in Washington Square (a place she loves to frequent). At this location their is a jewelery section and she happed to find a beautiful Tag Heuer ladies watch. It was priced at $1000. Figuring she was getting a "good deal" and not getting ripped off, she bought the watch.

Life was grand and she wore the watch with pride. Time moves forward and she had stopped wearing the watch (it also helped I got her a new watch for Christmas last year). This year we had decided to give the Tag to my sister as a gift. She got a new battery put in the watch and had it polished. It looked like new again. She wrapped it and got a beautiful card and wrote some very nice words to my sister and gave it to her for Christmas.

The watch was a bit small and my sister needed to add some links to it so it would fit properly. I have a great jeweler I often go to in Milford, MA (which happens to be near my sister) called Marshal's Jewelers. I told my sister to go there and she would be taken care of. Richard, who runs Marshall's, got the watch and informed my sister he had to send the watch to Tag as they don't provide links, you have to send them the whole watch and they would add them.

Richard called my sister to say that Tag had sent the watch back stating that it was a FAKE!

WOW - can you believe that? It really upset my wife. First she was upset and a bit embarrassed to have given my sister a fake watch, she was also upset because the watch she had so proudly spent a great deal of money on wasn't real. Not only that what can you do? I mean, I can write a blog about it and warn people you probably shouldn't buy a watch at Filene's Basement, but its not like you can go back there and ask for your money back can you? Perhaps we should call the news and have it show up on nightly TV.

Anyway, buyer beware - and always remember that invaluable lesson my grandfather taught me at an early age. He said, "If it seems to good to be true, it probably is." He also said, "You get what you pay for in life." He said a lot of other stuff too, but I'll just end it here!

The First Video Blogger

That is Right - Andy Rooney!

This year I have made more of a commitment to me. I am working out, dieting, focusing more on work and my interests and blogging. I also want to get into video blogging. This morning I was on the elliptical machine in the gym listening to my iPod. As you may know, I much prefer the spoken word over music so I have a lot of podcasts on my iPod. A few weeks ago I loaded up the free 60 minutes podcast. As I was nearing the end of my 45 minute workout, my 60 Minutes too was ending (aren't having no commercials GREAT!). And as with every 60 Minutes episode, it was time for Andy Rooney. Now, I have been listening to Andy Rooney since I was 10. Today however I looked at Andy in a new way. A trail blazer. I realized today that Andy was the first video blogger. I mean, by definition, giving some witty or pithy testimony about a topic to make you think is pretty close to the "definition" of blogging. (I know it can be much more, but hell, that is how I use the blogging platform.) That said, add video and you have video blogging. Think about what Andy does and "boom", there you have it, video blogging.

Way to go Andy! You are ahead of your time!

The Speed of Innovation - How Fast is Too Fast?

To Blog, Podcast or Vblog - That is the question...

Last night I went to bed thinking about a question I saw in Linked In the other day. "What do you feel about video resumes?" I started to think what my video resume would look like. I also thought about the video resume Reece Witherspoon sent in for her Harvard Law application.

I started to think about actually scripting my "video resume". Where I would shoot the scenes, what I would say, how long it should be, what things would the employer be looking for, creativity, directness, multiple talents, who knows really.

I keep hearing about all of this Web 2.0 mumbo jumbo too. Sites like, Facebook, Galery, Flicker, Blogger, YouTupe, Linked In, MySpace, Mynt, the list goes on. How much time do I really have to devote to these sites and investigate which one is better. How many of you get the latest Wired magazine and start bookmarking pages that reference web sites we can't live without? I know I do. At then when I finally have time to look at them, I have forgotten why I couldn't live without them.

Its funny, in the mid 90's people said that the internet would build social barriers for people where we would never meet, just talk to each other behind a computer screen. Then I see Bill Gates in an interview saying how the web has opened up our world of friends and who we can stay in touch with. I know my facebook page has 55 friends and Linked In I have over 500 connections, but what does it all mean?

At some point I think we all need to focus on "the person" and ask ourselves what do we really want / need? What do you want out of life. I ask myself this question. I now only stick with one "on line community", I use Linked In for work related activity, I love my iPod so I down load a lot of pod casts from Slash dot and the Discovery channel and that is about it. The rest of the time I think I need to work on being good at my job and time for my well being, like talking with people, getting some exercise and reading something other than this flat glowing screen.

Anyway, that is just my opinion. I don't see innovation slowing it's pace and at some point I am going have to be up on "all this new technology" because I am sure my kids will be and I don't want to have the FBI at my door telling me my kid just re-routed the space shuttle from his home computer (Dennis Miller reference). So, I will continue to read Wired to see where I may need to be looking next.

Please feel free to comment.

The Longest Sunday - New Years Day

The Longest Sunday - New Years Day

My wife and I were sitting on the couch yesterday, recovering and watching movies. I love to spend a day on the couch every once and a while. As the day drew closer to a close I started thinking about the fact that it was a New Year - 2008 and what was I going to do different. In a matter of about 13 seconds I figured I would probably end up doing nothing different and that seems like kind of a bummer.

I looked over at my wife and said, you know, New Years Day is like a Long Sunday. She said "What do you mean?" I proceeded to tell her, "you know, when your sitting at home after a nice weekend and you realize that it is time to go back to work tomorrow and it's Monday. Well, New Years Day is the "Sunday" before the Monday (workday) when you go to work and realize that you start all over again. New quotas, new goals etc...

As I sat down to write this, I started to think that it is too bad that I think this way. It should be more exciting. Clean slate, loose the weight, be healthy, attack work, be a better person all of these things. I turn 40 this year, I have everything else in my life in order to go ahead and make these things happen.

Sometimes I think its too bad I approach life like this. You know, Sunday being the day that is before you have to go back to work. I mean, Sunday is still a day off right? Take advantage of it. Maybe this year I will.