So today I was picking up some Christmas presents and one thing I needed was a movie. Do you know how hard it is to find 1 particular movie. The first place I was at was BestBuy. Oddly they had the biggest movie selection of the three stores I went to. I spent a good while searching through the comedy section to come up empty handed at least with movies I was. So after I couldn’t find the movie I decided to go across the street to Walmart. Surely Walmart would have it.. So I thought.. Walmart had a terrible selection and it was quite small. I spent some time searching then hopped on the handy dandy iPhone to see if it was in stock. Acording to their website its only available online so I was out of luck again. After being 0 for 2 I decided to try Meijers. For those of you who don’t know what it is, think of it as a smaller version of Walmart. This store had even less movies than Walmart and I didn’t have good cell phone reception so I left after spending only a few minutes looking. In the end I bought movie on Amazon.

I have ranted several times on the local grocery store and its horrible categorization. This is why I hate traditional stores and have been working on building the ultimate eCommerce solution which I am expecting to be out later this year.

So Sears has impressed me this holiday season. How so Jeff? Well they are doing this thing for the deployed troops and their families. Whne you register you family gets a gift card and Sears splits up donated money across them. I was expecting the one my mom got to only get like $15 however I thought it was still very nice of them. When the card came it had $100 on it and they haven’t even dispersed the donated money yet. $100!!!!! Now to some that might not seem like a lot, however I find it a great gesture and thank Sears for that.

Then, today my mom received an email (from my dad I believe) with another gift card of $100 for military families to spend on Christmas stuff at a Sears store. Need decorations? No problem Sears to the rescue. During the holiday season there are many places taking donations and the one that effects my family and I the most are those that do donations to military families. While my family may not need this stuff, there are those that do, and it brings joy especially to the kids of those families.

To which I say thank you Sears and those who made any donations to give family members of deployed soldiers and the soldiers themselves a better christmas. Thank you.

In my mind I would much rather have someone be themself than be super professional. What I mean by that is, if I walk up to a business owner I don’t them to use big words to impress me. I want them to talk to me like they talk to their friends and family. You can still come off as professional while being more human like. If they “cuss” I don’t care, as to me that makes them seem a bit more human as long as they don’t go way overboard. If they don’t “cuss” it also doesn’t bother me as some people just don’t.

I know several business owners that will talk to me about what they offer and what a competitor offers. They tell me that they would be more then happy for me to buy from them but if I don’t its no big deal. This alone makes me feel good about dealing with the company. I have been up to SASS a few times and the way they have talked to me, I don’t mind driving the hour there to buy from them even though there is a competitor shop 20 minutes away. A marketing style newsletter I get, if they recommend something and use a referral link they tell me they will get a kick back on it. It seems both these companies care about potential clients trusting them.

Then there is DreamHost. These guys crack me up. If you haven’t checked out their blog I recommend you do so. Even when they had that huge screw up with their billing they were pretty funny with their blog posts.

Now, for what inspired this post. Simply a blog post over at the 37Signals blog.

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1351-1-who-the-fuck-designs-this-shit-and-2

“1. Who the fuck designs this shit? And 2. Gotta love the white remote.”

I have to agree with thim. That cd player is hideous. That post inspired me to write this post because on a company blog I would not expect the words “fuck” and “shit” from an employee of the company. To me, that being allowed on their blog, says they could be a fun group of people to work with. I am much more inclined to go with a company that seems to be fun or laid back compared to a company that seems upity. Hell the company I use as a web host has this up.

So, to all of you that own a company, there are people out there who want you to be yourself and be able to sit there and bull shit (talk about stuff) with them. Show that you are on a level with the person looking at buying your product. Yes you know more than I do about your product(s) but you don’t have to make sure that I know that.

I imagine at this point I am just rambling on about something. To that, farewell.

Day one was was alright. Today I had “Healthful Living” and “Algebra”. The healthful living class I was really suprised by how much I would like it. Though I think its because the teacher seems very realistic. There is written and physical labs which might be fun. Algebra not so much fun. First off I was quite upset that I got placed in this class even though in high school I got A’s in adv algebra and precalc. However taking 2 years off I guess I suck at math now. Though I am starting to pick it up again as I go along. The class itself is nothing but a lab so no lecture. With that comes work at your own pace to complete 8 chapters. So, it shouldn’t take me all semester to do it.

Tomorrow I have National Government, Public Speaking and Algebra (again). Though I really can’t wait until Monday night when I start my SCUBA diving class!

And by rollercoaster I mean life. The past few months I have hit my extreme highs and my extreme lows. What in the world could have have been so great and so bad for someone who sits at a computer all day and night. As you may recall I wasn’t around much. This was the extreme high. I had met a lady friend who I had fell deeply for. We spent a lot of time together having fun, swimming, everything. Then, it didn’t work out and that was the extreme low. Being the first person I had feelings for it was devestating for me </3. Hopefully I am not the only one so sad.

Although I am still sad about that and have moved back to my boring sit at a computer all day and night ways I am working on a new web project that has me extremely excited. If you look through my portfolio you will see I have done several things with HereNextYear Inc. Here I am again working on a really sweet project with them. This time its a membership system with some great tools for internet businesses. Working on this and what it will bring in the future has HereNextYear excited as well as myself.

Thats all for now! Oh yeah, the DNC starts next week. SWEET!!!!!!