Bernd & Jodi

It has been a few days but we had our first snow last week! It snowed for most of the day. It had a hard time accumulating on the pavement, but around the middle of the day I went out and cleaned off my car and there was probably 6-8 inches of snow on it! The pictures below were taken in the morning, so we had a few more inches throughout the day. The snow was mostly all gone the next day but we should be getting some more this week.

The day after I posted about our bad experience at Furniture Warehouse on Road Redwood I submitted a comment on their website about our experience and provided a link to my blog post. Based on the poor customer service we had received I had no expectations of hearing back but thought I would say something just in case someone at the company actually cared about what had happened. Even if they couldn’t do anything to resolve our situation, hopefully they could prevent another customer from having to go through the same thing. I am still surprised we never heard anything from our sales person about cancelling our order. Out of all of the people that should care I would think she would - even if only for her commission.

To my amazement, later that day I received an email back from the Vice President apologizing for our “extemely poor dealings” at his company. He said he would talk to every individual I had talked to and get back to me. He thanked me for taking the time to let him know of this “awful incident” and said he would try and “earn [our] business back”.

I felt pretty good about this, I didn’t know what he could really do but at least it seemed like our business finally mattered to someone.

A few days went by and the same person emailed and said he had talked with everyone involved and listed their names and again apologized for the “miscommunication”. He then explained that it wasn’t their fault the table wasn’t available when it was promised. He said their system estimates an arrival date based on previous time frames for that item and they weren’t aware that our table was back ordered until after I had cancelled my order.

All of my hope in finding someone that could resolve the situation and prevent it from happening to other customers faded.

I guess it is possible that when we placed our order the sales person wasn’t aware that there weren’t enough tables on the truck that was headed to the warehouse to fulfil our order and the others ahead of it. However, why did the status on my order change from one day to the next? The day before it was promised I was told it had been delayed a month, but the day it was promised they told me it was in the process of being unloaded at the warehouse. Do they really not know what is on the truck until after it is unloaded? Why did the story completely change from one day to the next?

Whatever the real reason is that we didn’t get the table on the day we had been promised we still had issues with customer service. When I found out the order was delayed a month and I wanted to know why and I was not allowed to talk to anyone except my sales person, and she wouldn’t be available for 2 days. That is not acceptable, I should have been able to find out what was going on right then. It was also easier for the company to refund the order instead of trying to resolve the problem. I didn’t actually find out what was going on until after I cancelled the order, there should have been some attempt to get answers and keep my business.

In his email, the Vice President said they “try hard to stand out from the normal furniture stores … and back it up with exceptional service. It looks as though we failed in your case and I apologize.” He then told me I would receive a $50 credit towards anything in the store “if you do choose to come back”. Was this his attempt to “earn [our] business back”?

It didn’t appear that he thought his people had done anything wrong, which I didn’t feel was the case. If he really cared to earn our business back he would have done something to help me feel confident the same situation wouldn’t happen again, but instead he did the same thing the sales manager at the store did - make excuses. He did throw in a little money this time, but $50 doesn’t go very far at a furniture store. No way is that enough to get me to risk going through the same situation again.

I emailed him back and basically told him thanks for looking in to things and thanks for the $50 gesture, but I wouldn’t be using it. I told him I would prefer to take my business somewhere else where I could actually receive service from people that cared about my business even if I spend more, and if I did go back to his store I would still be buying from the same sales people who work for the same sales manager.

I am so glad that we found Action Wood Furniture a few months ago, it is by far the best furniture store I have been to. They follow up on what they say they are going to do, don’t pressure me and provide excellent customer service. They may cost a little more and may not keep items in stock like the big stores, but at least they care about their customers and give a straight answer. I would gladly pay a little extra and wait a little longer to know that I am being treated fairly.

Needless to say, we won’t be going back to Furniture Warehouse.

I’ve never really liked to shop for furniture. The stores are almost always littered with sales people that just are annoying. RC Willey is the worst I have ever been to. Once while I was there I told a sales person I was just looking, he said he would just be right over there in case we needed something. He stood literally 10 feet away playing with some stress ball and watched us. It reminds me of Dwight when he worked at Staples on The Office.

We recently decided to find ourselves a new kitchen table and replace the small, cheap one I purchased a few years ago. We looked around at several stores and finally found the one we wanted at Action Wood, which is the same place we bought our bed. The table we found is made by the same company and is in the same product line as our bed. They weren’t able to get ahold of the supplier for the table while we were in the store but they called us a couple of days later and gave us the price and said it would take about a month or so since the chairs were out of stock.

Before we had heard details from Action Wood we decided to go check out Furniture Warehouse by our grocery store just to see if they happened to have anything that we liked. We hadn’t looked there yet, we usually try and avoid them because of their annoying commercials. However, it was much more likely to see us in a Furniture Warehouse store than an RC Willey!

They happened to have the table we wanted on their display floor so we were able to see it in person. This was nice because it helped us be even more confident in our decision. We noted the price and started to leave when one of the sales people caught up to us. He was a nice guy but when he found out I do web development he said he needed to hire me and started telling me about his business idea. I wasn’t interested, I told him to give LogoWorks a call.

After we got details from Action Wood we decided to go back to Furniture Warehouse to see if they would be any faster, we already knew they were cheaper. This time a different sales person found us. She was nice but kept talking about how great it was we were making this purchase and how young we are. That was weird. She didn’t have to do anything to sell us the table, we were sitting at it when she found us and we told her we wanted to buy it. She went and checked out the availability and came back and told us it is a popular table but they happened to have one on order that would be here in a week or so that we could have. With the lower price and much faster time to get it we decided to become Furniture Warehouse customers, everything went downhill from there.

A week after our purchase I called to check the status of the table and they said it would be here on October 1. A couple of days later someone from Furniture Warehouse called me and informed me that our table was on back order, I guess her information said we hadn’t been told - which is strange since the order was over a week old. She also had different first names for us, but I didn’t really think too much of that since my name is commonly messed up. I didn’t verify the last name she had.

Another week goes by and I called back in the evening on September 30 to see if we were going to get our table the next day, now I was told our order wasn’t scheduled to be in until the end of October. She said I would have to talk to my sales person to find out why, but she wouldn’t be in for 2 days, and there was no one else I could talk to.

On October 1 I went in to the store and was told that our table was at the warehouse and the truck it was on was being unloaded at that moment. I was told the warehouse would give me a call that afternoon so we could come and pick it up.

The day went by, no call. About 4pm I called the warehouse and found out that sure enough, they did have a table like ours delivered, but it was for someone that had been waiting for 6 weeks. The person I talked to at the warehouse was the most helpful of anyone I had talked to so far.

Furious, I went back to the store and said I wanted to cancel my order and get a refund. The sales manager was called over and I explained the situation to him. He investigated and found out that there were 6 people waiting for this table and we were 3rd in line. He said if we waited it would probably be another couple of weeks, ya right! I said I was done, I just wanted to cancel the order and I wouldn’t be back, so he just wrote a note on the order and handed it to the customer service person to process it and walked away. Before I left I noticed that his note said “Customer can’t wait”! That was not the reason I had cancelled it, but whatever.

I was shocked he didn’t even try to keep my business. He didn’t attempt to resolve the issue at all, just gave me the idea that he didn’t really care nor did he care if I didn’t come back. This is not the kind of company I want to deal with!

I couldn’t believe all the confusion there was with when our table was going to be there. We were either lied to by our sales person or she was unable to get accurate information about the table. From all the times I talked to people trying to find out the status, only 1 was able to look up my order correctly, that was the person that said it would be available at the end of October.

Immediately after getting my order cancelled at Furniture Warehouse I went over to Action Wood and purchased the table. We spent a little more, but we sure feel better about it! They are very good to work with, remember who we are, follow through on what they say, and they aren’t Furniture Warehouse or RC Willey!

So what can we learn from this story? Don’t shop at Furniture Warehouse.

I have noticed that there are a lot of statements that are made on the media and in political ads that make the candidates sound worse than they really are. These statements are usually true, just misrepresented.

Lately a lot of these statements and ads have been from Obama. Obama use to complain about McCain’s ads and said that campaign ads should talk about why people should vote for a candidate, not why they shouldn’t vote for the other candidate. What happened to that? It seems like all of Obama’s ads recently have been telling people why not to vote for McCain. Obama seems like he has really gone on the defensive since the conventions and isn’t very good at it.

One of the ones I have heard repeatedly is that McCain has voted with Bush 90% of the time. CNN brought this statement up while interviewing Giuliani after his speech at the RNC and he just laughed and said that everyone has records like that, it isn’t unusual.

I decided to do a little research and found all sorts of information about voting records. During the current congress, which first convened on January 4, 2007, John McCain voted 88.3% of the time with the majority of the Republican Party. Out of the 100 senators, 64 of them had higher percentages of voting with their parties including Joe Biden and Barack Obama with 96.6% and 96.0% respectively. A quick run through previous congresses shows similar percentages. This shows that McCain goes against the majority of his party quite often, especially compared to Obama and Biden.

I was not able to find statistics of Bush’s votes in comparison to McCain, Obama and Biden, but I did find this article which is rather interesting.

When Obama was in the Illinois senate he voted “present” about 130 times during his 8 years. You can debate on what that really means but to me it means there were 130 times he could not make a decision. In his RNC speech, Giuliani said, “As mayor of New York City, I never got a chance to vote ‘present.’ And you know, when you’re president of the United States, you can’t just vote ‘present.’ You must make decisions.”

Obama’s latest ad that talks about how Palin changed her mind about the “bridge to nowhere” is interesting. I’m not quite sure what he’s trying to say but to me it shows that she’s willing to change her mind on an issue after she has learned more about it instead of just sticking with her original idea to avoid being called a flip-flopper.

Obama also likes to attack the economic slowdown since Bush has been in office. This Wall Street Journal article shows that we have a good economic record in comparison to the global economy and that the economy has even grown in the last 8 years. I have also heard that a lot of the economic progress that was made while Clinton was president was as a result of George H. W. Bush’s changes.

Obama likes to blame Bush for a lot of the problems we are in now. Why does Bush get all of the blame? We have 3 branches for a reason. We keep hearing how low Bush’s approval rating is but Congress’s approval rating is even lower. I suppose it wouldn’t help either candidate to bring up approval ratings of Congress since Obama, Biden, and McCain are currently in Congress.

According to a current Gallup poll Bush currently has a 33% approval rating, up from 28%. 71% of Republicans, 25% of independents, and 7% of Democrats approve of Bush. I’m surprised that the difference between Republicans and Democrats approval of Bush is 64%! I wonder how informed people really are or how much they are just following their party. That article also compares current ratings to previous president ratings; Bush is on the low end but not sharply.

According to a Gallup poll from May approval of Congress is at the lowest it has ever been in the 34 years since Gallup started asking Americans to rate Congress. They have an approval rating of 18% with 20% of Republicans and 16% of Democrats approving. According to Rasmussen Reports, Congress has an approval rating of 9%, also the lowest since they have been recording approval ratings of Congress.

Here is some interesting information about pre- and post-convention polls for McCain and Obama.

Here is an interesting video talking about how true Obama’s acceptance speech was.

The Democratic and Republican National Conventions both wrapped up the past couple of weeks and we managed to see most of the big name speeches. I am a registered Republican and agree much more with the Republicans than the Democrats but I think all of the speakers that I saw did well at both conventions.

It seemed like both conventions agreed that we need to change things in Washington but as much as the Democrats try to portray McCain as “more of the same”, I think McCain will be more of a change and can bring more changes than Obama.

Obama just comes off to me that he is just a typical politician, like he just says what he needs to say to get the support of the people listening at that moment. He seems to want the presidency for the power and prestige it comes with and almost that he’s been “anointed” to be president.

McCain seems more genuine, like he is really saying what he believes. He seems tired of the “me first, country second” attitude and wants to put the people and the country first and that being president is another way for him to be a greater servant. I realize that he is probably not running for completely selfless reasons, just like any other politician, but he seems to genuinely support his theme of “Country First“.

Both conventions did a good job of introducing the candidates and giving overviews of the issues they plan to address while in office. It is ridiculous that Obama has been claiming the Republican Convention lacked content about the economy because I don’t recall the Democrats talking about the economy any more than the Republicans did. Besides, the conventions are meant to introduce the candidates, not go in to details about issues.

I learned a lot about the McCains. Cindy McCain has been involved in countless humanitarian efforts over the years. John McCain was in the military for longer than I realized, over 20 years. They also have 7 children and it sounds like John and Cindy have been very devoted to their family.

I liked that the Republicans added some reality to Obama’s plans. For example he wants to lower taxes for 95% of the working class but he wants to tax businesses more. Does he really think businesses are going to take a cut in their profits to pay more in taxes? Of course not! Fred Thompson said it well in his speech, “So, unless you buy something from a business, like groceries or clothes or gasoline - or unless you get a paycheck from a business, a big business or a small business, don’t worry, it’s not going to affect you!”

I think a lot of Obama’s plans will just increase the number of people in this country that will rely more on the government and do less for themselves. Having healthcare for every American is a great idea but can they really pull it off effectively? Just look at the welfare program, is that effective? There will be a lot of people that will do their part, pay their taxes and use the health system for things that are really needed, but there will be so many people that will just abuse the system and not pay for it. We’ll end up like so many other countries with similar health care systems where it is almost impossible to get good health care. Waiting lists to see a doctor are based off chance and can take months, the number of doctors and nurses will go down because their pay will drop, and so many more people will suddenly “need” health care.

I like McCain’s idea of privatizing social security and making it optional. I would rather take care of my own retirement than expect the government to manage it for me. I already don’t count on getting much from social security as it is and have been building up my own retirement savings. I know if they make it optional there will plenty of people that will stop contributing to their social security and they won’t contribute to something else to replace it and they’ll end up with nothing when they retire.

I think people just rely on the government too much though and need to take responsibility for themselves. This is one of the big reasons I like the Republicans over the Democrats. In general, the Democrats want the government to manage the people while the Republicans want the people to manage themselves.

After watching the RNC I can’t figure out why people would still vote for Obama. If anyone out there is an informed Obama supporter I would be interested in talking to you, I really don’t get why someone who is informed about both sides would vote for him. I do get why people who are uninformed like him, he has done a good job of building positive press, getting a lot of people registered to vote, and on the surface a lot of his plans sound great, but when you dig deeper there just seem to be a lot of side effects and holes. Everyone claims his speeches are well done, I think he is annoying to listen to though. He also just keeps changing what he says and stumbles over his words when he is put on the spot on interviews, although he just claims he was misunderstood, he never changed his mind.

I’d suggest to anyone that missed any of the speeches at the RNC to try and watch or read them. Videos of the big ones are available on RNC website and text for each is available at the following locations: Fred Thompson, Joe Lieberman, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, Cindy McCain, John McCain.

I was able to watch some of the rally in Ohio today for John McCain’s announcement of his Vice President pick, Sarah Palin. My favorite line from his introduction is “She stands up for what’s right and she doesn’t let anyone tell her to sit down.”

I think his pick was a surprise to everyone but based on my first impression of her I am impressed! She is a mother of 5 children, from one that recently joined the Army all the way to a child born in April of this year. She has a proven track record of standing up to corruption, cutting excess spending, and cutting taxes. She also said a few things in her speech that suggest she’s trying to attract Hillary supporters!

I found it interesting that the pick was not someone that was expected at all! McCain did a good job of keeping things under wraps and sure did surprise everyone. I was kind of glad that Mitt Romney wasn’t the pick for VP. I wasn’t too impressed with him when he ran and then it would be like an Obama / Biden situation where the Democrats could run ads showing the negative things that Romney had said about McCain similar to ads running showing negative comments Biden has made about Obama.

We will make history no matter which candidate is elected in to office; we’ll either have the first African-American president or the first female vice president (unless Ralph Nader wins it this time!). I of course support McCain and Palin, but history will be made either way.

We finally finished replacing all of the appliances in the kitchen! At first we replaced the stove, it was so gross we tried cleaning it but decided it wasn’t even worth it. Next was the dishwasher, it was noisy, didn’t clean very well and was also dirty. Soon after the dishwasher we found a sweet deal on a fridge and replaced the old white midget fridge with something that actually keeps food fresh without adding mysterious odors.

The last thing to replace was the microwave above the stove. The one we had worked alright but was dirty and it didn’t match since it was white and everything else was stainless steel. The bottom of the microwave was completed gunked up with grease and we’ve tried to clean it several times but never made much progress. While we were removing it our hands got disgusting! We replaced it with a Frigidaire PLMVZ169GC that we purchased from Best Buy. Now all the appliances are newer, nicer and contain only our dirt! The original ones were all so gross!

The sales person at Best Buy tried to get us to purchase the install service along with it for about $100 but Jodi and I decided we would be adventurous and do it ourselves. He tried to warn me that he installed one once and it took all weekend and 4 people. It ended up being pretty easy for us, the only reason we didn’t get it installed the same day we bought it was because we painted the wall after we took the old one down since the new one didn’t quite go down as low so we had to let that dry overnight.

Old microwave uninstalled	New microwave in packing material still	Microwave hole
Fresh paint, thanks Jodi!	Everything put back together

Jodi’s cousin, Lindsey, got married last week and we were lucky enough to be able to go. She and Aaron were married in the St. George temple. We had a great couple of days in St. George spending time with family and meeting Aaron’s family. We wish the two of them a happy eternity together!

Jodi and I celebrated our two year anniversary yesterday. Who would have thought that she would be able to stand me this long! I have loved being married to Jodi the past two years and look forward to an eternity together. She is the best!

We went to dinner at Ruth’s Chris last night to celebrate which is probably one of the best steak houses on the planet. After dinner we went and saw our friends Aimee and Marc and their new baby, Jackson, at Primary Children’s Hospital. Jackson was born a week ago and has a heart problem so they have had him in intensive care since his birth. We were glad to be able to see them and see that things are progressing well.

This is my new favorite album, I have always liked Coldplay but I really like this one. I have listened to it over and over the past few days. My favorite song is #6 “Yes”. I even purchased it legally, first album I have paid full price for in a long time. I kept thinking I should start getting legit with my music purchases but it was just so cheap to buy stuff from a Russian site that I have used for awhile. Recently they lost their deals or something with credit card companies so adding funds to my account was trickier so I decided to find a new source for tunes. I bought this album through Amazon.com and their system is easy to use, cheaper than a lot of other options, and sells plain old DRM-free MP3s. They also let you buy music with Pepsi Points and we all know I can rack up a few of those!