Newly Minted

My new book – Cast a Long Shadow II - has just been published. By the miracle of technology, it’s not only here in the US, but also published in Europe as well – how cool is that!!

The original cast a long shadow – which started life as one of my blogs, came out last year, and this new edition carries on with another 90 daily readings of reflection and – I hope - inspiration.

Here is a quote from a review that the first book received on Amazon:

I bought this book a couple of months ago; I believe the thoughts in this book about Willingness are worth the cost of the book…but one sentence under the area of Wisdom is worth more than the books weight in gold.

Here are the ways to get your own copy:

Direct from my e-store 

From Amazon.com

In England, Scotland and Wales from Amazon in the UK

In the rest of Europe, from either Amazon France or Amazon Germany

 The original “Cast A Long Shadow” is still available from my e-store, on Amazon, Amazon UK, France or Germany, and as an e-book

Weekend Yard Project

We had no particular plans this weekend – so as we were out and about we thought we’d stop at this nice nursery we know and look for idea for a shady corner of our front yard. We got talking to a saleslady, and she had some idea, and we had some of our own, and somehow or other we came away with a Japanese Maple,  3 Hydrangea  and 4 Hosta.

And since we had then, we had to plant them – here are the pictures to prove it!

Not as amusing as it first seemed

A while ago, my wife and I were up in our office talking about a possible purchase – actually it was something I wanted, and she was going to buy it for me. We had looked around and she remembered that QVC had a good price once, so we looked on-line and  I said yes, I’d like that one. My phone was with me, whilst her’s was downstairs, so I handed her my phone to order it.

The order process went OK, she placed the order and then handed me back the phone. Just as she did so, a text message came in form my bank, telling me that my credit card had been just been used in an on-line or phone transaction. I looked, and we both laughed, because her present to me had come from my credit card!

But the laughter lasted only about a minute, when we went back and thought about the transaction.

She was asked if she was Mrs Knight, what address it was to be shipped to, and if she wanted to use the credit card details on file. But thinking through the conversation again, at no point was she asked for identification for her, or her details. At no time was she asked to verify the credit card details, or if she had the right to use it. Our assumption is that, because the call came from Mr Knight’s phone number, and she said she was Mrs Knight, they accessed all my details, and the transaction went ahead.

I went on-line and deleted my card details from my account with QVC, but I see that they just automatically keep card details every time you use them, so I have to remember to delete it each time I buy from them.

You might say, does it really matter? Isn’t that an overreaction?

On that occasion, no, it didn’t matter – but what if someone has stolen my phone – could they have just ordered whatever they wanted, had it shipped to their address, and all I’d now about it was a debit to my Credit Card? And even in this case, if I hadn’t had text alerts from my bank, I would have been unaware of the use of my card, and so in danger of going over my credit limit.

I am still rattled by this, as you can tell – I will still use QVC – I did last night, but this morning I went into their site and removed my card details again.

Because next time it might not be something that we’d laugh about.

 

 

 

Sometimes I forget what language I’m speaking

We all know that British English and American English are different, but sometimes I forget which way the differences go.

Some things are simple to remember - an American “sidewalk” is a British “path” for example, and although I can still say path sometimes, I know that, to be understood, I need to correct myself to sidewalk.

But then there are things like the metal container that you get from a store that holds, for example, beans. It’s called a “can of beans” in one country, and a “tin of beans” in the other – but I can no longer keep in my head which is which.

I have the same problem with renting/hiring a car – I know that one country talks about hiring a car, and the other about renting it: one country has car rental companies, and the other car hire companies – but which is which?

The problem is compounded by the fact that American English is much more rule driven than British. If I went into a store in the UK and asked for either a can of beans or a tin of beans I would still be given the product I wanted. Here in the US it is my experience that you have to use the correct word, or no one will understand you.

And so I will carry on, watching for that bewildered look that tells me I have used the wrong word again, and just learn to live without beans.

Spring/Winter

This is my first experience living through a Missour Spring. People tell me that last year at this time it was 80 degrees (27 C) but yesterday we had snow. A lot of snow.

It started just before 9am, and was still snowing at 6pm, and we seem to have had about 8 and a half inches, judging by the yard stick I dug into the level snow.

Here are the pics I took from our main room window looking at the park over the course of the day, and some other random shots

This morning it’s still cloudy, but not snowing, and I wanted to get to the Hot Tub on the deck – well to do that I needed to clear the snow

St Patrick’s Day Parade

Some friends came over to stay on Saturday, and after an early lunch of corned beef and cabbage, we took the Metro to downtown St Louis to watch the parade. It was cold, but fun to watch the parade go by – I took a lot of pictures, and here is a link to some of them.

 

 

 

 

 

“I understand your question”

Once again, a bit of Corporate Usage just got me to the point where I need to vent about it.

I can see the decision-making process from the Corporate Head Office perspective>

“Our customers complain that we don’t understand what they want – they say they feel we are unresponsive, and that every time they ask a question, they got an incomplete answer.

What can we do about this? Well, we need to understand our customers questions and concerns more!

OK here’s what we’ll do: every time we get a question, we will TELL the customer that we understand it! Every time a customer comes to us with a concern, we will TELL them that we understand the concern!

There! I’ve solved that problem!”

Yesterday I sent my bank an email with a simple question – I wanted to know if my card was registered in one particular program that they offer. A question, actually, that I should have known, but have forgotten. Back came the reply, starting with the phrase I’ve come to expect “I understand your question”.

Well good … but hang on a second – it was just a simple question, that called for looking at your records, and answering yes or no – how would you misunderstand it? Indeed, I don’t really care if you understand it or not, just answer it.

My recent experience with the cable company was the same, every person I talked to told me that they “understood my concern”. Well, I pay for TV, and I wasn’t getting it – not too difficult to understand I would have thought.

But sometimes, I have a more complex question, something where understanding the question might be a required skill. It could be that my question is one thing, but coming from a different angle, it could be read as something else. This is where understanding is required, and then, to be told “I understand your question” but be confronted with an answer to something else just adds to the frustration, it does not talk lessen it.

Don’t get me wrong, the person doing the reply is not the person I am complaining about – they were told that they had to use this phrase, and so they did.

But what it speaks of is a corporate culture that says that they will do all they can to appear to be  responsive to customers, regardless of what we actually do.

No, it’s not the poorly paid person who replied that I am complaining about, but the highly paid person who, no doubt, got a big bonus for “solving” the problem