Picture from here

I can say that so far as I know, my wife agrees with me in this election on my reasons for non-voting.  However no matter how we discuss the elections there is no real way to know what the other person is truly thinking.   In the 2004 election we debated and discussed the election to death and thought that we both knew who the other wanted in the election.

In that November we were watching the election results and talking about our candidate, but as the results came in one of us was happy the other upset.  What??????  How can this be?  We were watching OUR CANDIDATE.  The candidate we had BOTH been behind the previous months.   The election didn’t go the way at least one of us wanted.   Miscommunication?  Maybe.   Unless you have a lawn sign out though that your spouse put up and you agree with, don’t take it for granted, it’s all in the wordings and in between the lines.  Sometimes you miss the forest for the trees.

Original From Parent Phobia: Planting Trees

You would think that on a blog named parent phobia, that when I start a blog post off with the title “Planting Trees” that I’m going to be speaking in the metaphorical sense. Well, your half right.

Today I slept in late and did my normal computing activities. I knew I had to wake up early tomorrow so I proceeded to mow my lawn. On a side note if you turn your mower upside down and it doesn’t start, you need to replace your air filter. I’m not a normal out in the yard kind of guy. I’m a in the artificial light sit at the computer kind of guy, much to the chagrin to my “I love the outdoors” wife. But I stayed outside I finished the yard and proceeded to weed.

As I was weeding I noticed that there was some saplings growing here and there. Now they weren’t in a spot where I wanted them to stay, but I didn’t need to outright kill them. I spent hours (I said I don’t take the best care of my lawn) taking out saplings from here or there and replacing them in along the edge of my properties. The varieties were Oak and some such tree I can’t identify. Xie came outside and helped with about half of the planting. Quite a few of the Oak saplings came from my gutters, we will go back to the fact I don’t care.

All said and done almost 40 saplings were planted, with another 10 – 20 to go tomorrow (more if I find another stash. Not all the saplings could be saved, some were mangled trying to remove them. It wasn’t in the cards for those trees. Currently on the property we had 16 trees – so now we have a total of 56, with of course more coming. This means less grass for me to mow in the long term.

Now for the metaphorical part of the discussion. Being a parent is a lot like plantings trees. You will push ideas down to your child and hope some of them take root. I know all the trees I planted won’t survived, but it cost me nothing other then a day of planting. Exposure to ideas, even those you don’t agree with is important. Your child needs to understand your views as much as they need to arrive at their own conclusions. You shouldn’t expect your child to be a clone of yourself, nor should you even want that.

This of course is just a the metaphor that I came up while I was working. Take it for what it is, but it still was alot of physical labor..

Original From Parent Phobia: Planting Trees

Picture taken from here

Last night I we had our community band practice moved to a church for the night.  Ironically it was the church of the girl I lived with before I was with my wife (over a decade ago).  I wish I could tell you that we broke up over a mutual disagreement where we went our own separate ways but it didn’t work out like that.   Since at one point of time she was once a huge point of my life I thought I would document her, at that point the facts will be recorded and I’ll put the past behind me.

When I was a freshmen in high school I met Kim the night of the High School Homecoming dance (back in 1990 – cripes this memory is of legal age).  I had friends in marching band (this was the year before I started playing trumpet at all) and I was hanging out with them some girl was just wandering around a circle of people crying on the shoulders of those around her.  I was one of those people, this girl was Kim.   She had just been dumped by some guy and the marching band members were taking the pity circle approach.  She started crying on me and I didn’t know who the hell she was.   Eventually she moved on to the next person.  A few weeks later she started dating my best friend, fortunately I didn’t go out with them to do anything so I saw very little of her the rest of the school year.  She popped up occasionally but for the most part she was a non issue.

Picture of me and my best friend that brought Kim into my life – bastard.

The next summer I got conned into joining marching band (ironically I didn’t play an instrument at the time) and I was there around the time my friend dumped Kim (who graduated the previous year) so he could have a shot at chasing after another girl.   Kim hung around the marching band practices like graduated seniors with nothing better to do occasionally do.  One day it was raining and I asked her for a ride home – curse her.   This started to be a regular thing, she was still upset with my friend leaving her so she would talk to me about him, and other things.   After a couple months of becoming good friends we started dating.   On a cool fall day down the road from house at her friend’s house I had my first kiss sitting on the hood of her 1991 powder blue Topaz.

I started sneaking out a lot at night to see her, I think this was the start of my 4 hours a night sleeping routine.   I had sneaking out of my house down to the science.   Sometimes I wonder which was greater, the nights I did sneak out or the nights I didn’t.   My parents were not too ecstatic with their 15 year old son dating an 18 year old.   I’ll also be kind enough to leave out details and allow you to read between the lines when it comes to intimate details.

This was also the year I started writing.  I started with poetry and found I had a knack for it.  I did the silly love letters and so did she.   I think I still have a few of them.  Almost all of my poetry is already is already on this blog but I’m sure there are some journal pages (folks that was analog blogging) I’ve left out.   I’m sure reading them today would sound very Emo-ish.  If I can find them and read through my chicken scratch hand writing I’ll put them up.

The summer that followed we spent most of our time with one another, we went to movies, to Cedar Point, and other related activities.  One thing I can remember sticking out in my mind was when we left Cedar Point because the weather was picking up.  As we were driving back there was a Tornado siting in our town.  We watched the skies carefully and made it back to her parent’s house.   We found out later that a tornado did touch down about 2 miles from us.  It was very crazy and stupid to be driving out in that.

We dated for 9-10 months and the following year in marching band I took my friends lead and dumped her.  I started dating another girl Mari.   About 3 months later that relationship didn’t work out and I left Mari.   We’ll discuss more on Mari another day.   At this point Kim was going with Nate, some guy ahead of me in school.

Mari from back when I dated her.

Well Kim and I started talking again since we had always been good friends.  On December 31st, 1992 I was having a New Years Eve party at my house (with a fair amount of people as I recall) and I get a phone call from Kim.   She wasn’t going to stop by because some of the people there didn’t like her, which was fine.  She was at her friend’s house at another party just a couple streets over.  What ever was going through her mind, because though we had been talking again off an on, she wanted me to stop over and talk for a few minutes.   So like a good friend (fool) I wander over to talk to her.   What I don’t remember if she told me was that her boyfriend Nate was there.

We were talking (and sitting on that damn Topaz again) and someone started yelling inside the house.  Out of this house busts this big guy.  All he said was “Nate wanted me to mess you up.” and I got punched in the face.  Since I was on the edge of the car he caught me in a spin and knocked me down a few feet from where I was standing. This was the second time in my life I have been punched (in a true fight and haven’t been punched since).  I think he may have gotten in a couple more shots, it’s been so long ago it’s a blur.  This guy’s girlfriend and Kim dragged him off an pulled him back into the house, Kim apologized and I wandered back home.

When I got there I was fuming, I grabbed a baseball bat from my bedroom and started back towards the front door.  Luckily from a police record stand point I was talked down by the people at my party.   Granted half the guys wanted to go over there and start something, but the girls at the party and some of the other guys cooled down the situation.  I never went over.   Since that night was one of the few times I have been punched it’s etched into my brain.

Things calmed down and Kim and I continued talking.  A few months later things didn’t work out between her and Nate and they broke up.   We dated a little bit for a few weeks, but just kind of maintained a friendship point of view.  After that we went our separate ways for awhile.   In spring of 1994 my girlfriend at the time dumped me right before prom (today we have different takes on how this went down).  Shortly after that (somehow I don’t remember) Kim and I started talking again.   Talking lead to dating.    This was the road that it always was with Kim.   Being friends and trying to keep it platonic always lead to something more.

We dated through the summer and she even went to my Mother’s wedding.  My step-father and I never really saw eye to eye, he came into the house trying to be an alpha male.  It wasn’t happening though.  We never got along though for time periods we could fake it and even be civil to one another.   Why is this relevant?  Well right after the wedding took place ( I played trumpet so I was part of the service) I guess my step father made a lot of derogatory remarks to her about her and about me.  Then and there I didn’t know this.  She told me as we were driving back to my mother’s house for a wedding reception.

I was fuming.  I arrived to the house just a couple minutes before my mother and my new step father.  I happily started a screaming match on the front lawn.  Luckily Kim was house sitting at her sister’s place for a couple of weeks I went inside and grabbed a couple changes of clothes and left for a few weeks, never even calling.  Sometime during this time frame being an young fool I asked Kim to marry me and she said yes.  I was just a couple weeks past eighteen and I was engaged.

I came home and stayed for a couple weeks before I was to leave for college.   The big day arrived and I was supposed to use my mother’s mini van to haul all my stuff an hour south to school.  Originally my mother was going to drive me down to school and Kim and my friend Tim were supposed to come and help move stuff.  My mother said she would go but my step father also had to come.   I didn’t want him there and asked if we could just take the van and Kim would bring it back afterward.  Well this escalated into a screaming match that rivaled the wedding reception just a month or so earlier.

I hadn’t been on speaking terms really with my father at this point, and there was a lot of animosity between my mother and him.  My step-father helped fuel this by mocking me and saying my father should take me down (I literally had to be at the school the next day for college marching band camp).  Time was dragging on and the fighting escalated, I ended up kicking the mini van in the front passenger side fender and leaving a huge dent that stayed there for a few years until my step father pounded it out.   For a little FYI the mini van was already packed and filled with all my stuff.    Even if I had compromised and capitulated and had him go there literally was no room for a fifth person in that van.  My mother had enough at this point and handed us the keys.

I think I cried the whole way down to college this was the second time my mother chose my step father over her child in what was an important day in his life.   We made it to school and I settled in.  We were going to do the long distance relationship.  There was a phone on campus where i used to make collect calls to her (or I had a huge roll of quarters sometimes).   When I called collect I used a fake name so her parents wouldn’t know it was me and think it was a wrong number if she didn’t answer the phone.   She came down and visited once (which looking back for a 40 minute drive really is pathetic – that’s less then one way in my daily commute).   After three of four weeks I had enough and broke it off with her.  I started dating someone at college and I called it a day.

Christmas break rolled around and I was kind of in between girlfriends at the time (another post for another time) and Kim and I managed to get back together.   We spent most the month with each other and when it came time to go back to school, I took a side trip to see my grandfather who was in the hospital.   We drove down to the Dayton area about 4 hours away and stayed at my my grandfather’s house since no one else was there.   That night Kim went to bed and I stayed up and wrote a letter to my grandmother.  The next day we headed to the hospital but stopped at my grandmother’s grave and I left the note for her there.   We went and visited my grandfather who had suffered and stroke and lost 60% of his body mass.  She was there for me and I appreciated it.

School rolled around and I reconciled with my girlfriend from the previous semester.  Now for some reason this should have been a straight break up with Kim moment.   I held off for a couple days and Kim came down to visit.   The situation was not a surprise to my college girlfriend, she knew what was happening.    I took Kim to the local mall and we walked and talked, but my college girlfriend stalked us and was obvious about following us. After getting back to the car Kim asked what it all was about, I explained and broke up with her.  She dropped me off at my dorm room and I thought then that she left.   I went up and spent time with my college girlfriend, while this was happening Kim proceeded to make out with my roommate’s best friend.  That’s the kind of rebound girl she was.

At this point you would think that the Kim college years era was over, well not quite.   I get a phone that she is pregnant and needs to talk.   I arrange it that I come home that weekend to talk to her.  Problem was college girlfriend insisted on going and I had not told her about the pregnancy.  I manage to get up north and slip away for a little bit to talk to Kim.   This leads me back home and my college girlfriend is upset.  She tells me she is pregnant (I had not told her Kim was pregnant yet).  So I’m 18 years old and I find out in less then seven days that I have two girls pregnant.  To add to the top of the tower here, college girlfriend and I break up.

A few weeks later I’m dating someone else and I find out both college girlfriend and Kim have miscarriages within a week of each other.  I don’t tell anyone and did not tell either one of them, so it’s coincidence that they both told me, and today I think they were both lying to me over the incident.   Around this time period my grandfather died and I was dealing with that also.   College progressed mostly Kim until summer rolled around.  I was not going back to school the following year, so two weeks after moving back I moved out of my mothers house and moved in with Kim who had taken over her sisters apartment.

Kim managed to get me a job at the local Speedway, which at the time was about the size of two of the cubicles I have at work now.   I enjoyed working there, I enjoyed the night shift.   One day however I got in a disagreement with the manager and just up and quit.  After that my high school friend that originally dated Kim secured me a job at a local marina.   I did that for a year paying the bills until I secured my first computer job.   All through this Kim and I stayed together.   One day a girl saw us at a restaurant and told me (a year or so later) that she felt so bad for me she wished there was something she could do for me.   I used to go out and hang out with friends until early morning hours and around this time I finally got my drivers license (I was twenty).

One night Kim went out and didn’t come home, she stayed at a friends house – a single male friends house – after a night of drinking.  from all accounts nothing happened, I don’t happen to believe that.  The reason I didn’t believe it was that my high school friend kept saying she came on to him when I wasn’t around.  I believe him, not her.  Things were getting worse and worse over the next year, I would go out more and she would do her own thing.  She criticized my friends, or say they were too young. or into the wrong things.   Though we did manage to go camping twice while we lived together.

The first time we drove to somewhere in the backwoods of Pennsylvania with her parents.  Her parents treated me even worse then she did, so for the week we were there I hated it the whole time.   It’s hard to get me to go camping as it is now (ask Xie) let alone with people I don’t really like.   The second time we went camping I took a friend with me, in the middle of the trip Kim went storming off and said she was taking off and going home leaving use 300 miles away from home with no way back.  While she was so confident and storming off to her car I told her to “Screw off, ” I then laughed at her and told her I had her keys which she asked me to hold.   My friend and I left her at the camp and went off hiking.   Things reconciled and at this point we are at July 1997.

At this point I was hanging out in a different crowd with people with which I’m still friends with some of them until this day.  There was a girl who caught my eye and I was interested in.  My friend from the camping trip and were talking and I asked him if this girl would be interested in me if I was single.   He said she probably would be (he had no clue).  This is a Tuesday night.  I went over and talked to my mother and asked her if I could move my stuff back home.  I then showed up at the apartment with at least 10 people with 3-4 vehicles and I told Kim I was moving out and the group then paraded through the apartment and had me moved out in about 20 minutes.   I told Kim I would come back and we could talk about it after I got everything unloaded.

I went back and spent the night at the apartment (nothing happened) and we talked most the night.   She borrowed 100.00 from me so she could pay rent.   The next day I asked the girl I was interested in out on a date.   Kim called me on Thursday night to see if I wanted to do something on Friday.  I told her I had a date.   The next morning there was books and items strewn across my mothers lawn.   Things that I had forgotten to take with me.   The date went off without a hitch and the girl told me that a year or so earlier she had seen me at the restaurant broken and wished she could have helped me.   This girl was Xie and I married her.

You would think this is where it ends, but there is an addendum.   Xie had recently broken up with her boyfriend.  For some reason it was in her boyfriend’s head  and Kim’s head that we mutually dumped both of them to be together.  It was a matter of circumstance, but to them they felt the logical thing was to date each other.   Xie and I laughed and let them be on there way.  Kim degenerated more and more, she slept around a lot, somehow everyone thought I wanted to here and know about the stories so they filtered in.  After trying to make me jealous didn’t work she dated a couple people and then one day a couple years later I get a note on the windshield of my car outside the apartment Xie and I had.   It said she missed me and really jsut wanted to be friends.   Well we’ve seen how being friends worked out in the past, I never called her.

I did have to deal with her for a few years at the High School Alumni Band every year, but I guess while I was in Oregon she got in a big huff with someone and said she was never coming back.   Yay me!  That was a treat to hear when I came back.  Other news that passed through the grape vine while I was in Oregon was that she worked as a lunch lady for a little bit, my sisters told me they saw her working at the school.  She was married, but the marriage only lasted a few months.   Now it seems that I hear that she is single and can’t find anyone that wants to settle down with her (I don’t blame them).

The last year we were together she was working for my father, and still worked for him a little ways after the break up.   She borrowed 100.00 dollars from him and never paid it back.   So she owes him and I each 100.00 dollars, it’s definitely worth eating the loss to have to not deal with her again.

The last couple years she has been at the sidelines with Tim who helped me move to college all those years ago (as friends they always have been) during the Vermilion Woolybear Festival while the whole band is on the float.  She kept her head down, pulled a hood over her head and wore sunglasses, but it was her.   I think she was hiding from teh band in general then just me since Tim looked shocked my first year back from Oregon seeing me on the float so I’m sure she had no idea I was up there before hand.

I started this off by saying I had practice in her old church.  While on break I wandered around a little bit and saw a K Pearce in the member mail box area with a pamphlet in it.  I then found a board that had pictures of all the members and who they were.  There was her picture.  She looks a good 10 years old then she she should and who knows if the picture is recent.  I thought for a minute to put my initials in an art style she would recognize as knowing where they came from on the pamphlet in her mail box.   I thought about putting my email address, or just typing in “Google Creeva”.  I then realized I might find it funny or humorous at that moment, but it wasn’t worth it.   The humor did not out weigh the pain of maybe actually having to hear from her or deal with her in any way.

If you know her and see her, you can happily tell her about this.   I’m happily married and in January it will be my tenth wedding anniversary.   I’ve managed to sum up most the highlights in the relationship in a few paragraphs.  If she wants to meet in public and talk about them I’ll be happy to…….as long as she has the 200.00 she owes me and my father.  I’ll give her time to finish a coffee at the very least.   I’d even bring the coffee, all conditional on the back debt being paid.   Otherwise I just look at the life she has, where she has gone, and what she has brought upon herself.  Do you know what I do when I do that?  I laugh.

One thing I’ve been working on for awhile is and Internet Deadman’s Switch.  With all of my crossposting and media re-usage activities in the grand scheme this should be fairly trivial.   I am sure however that some things will slip me up.   We’ll start in this section of identifying the goals I wish to acomplish and work through some of the stages in part two.

What do I mean by Deadman’s Switch?

A deadman’s switch is something that is triggered normally to keep you alive.   A quick example is the pressure plate on a riding lawn mower.   The pressure plate must have weight on it or the lawn more will not start and if the weight is removed the lawn mower will shut off.  So essentially one action cause another action to occur when certain variables are met.   My trigger would be my death.  If I didn’t verify if I was alive after a certain period of time to a program/website/etc.  the a serious of scripts and actions would trigger leaving behind all the information I wish to impart on those behind me.

Why do I want a Deadman’s Switch?

This idea started in my head about 7-8 years.   There used to be a website that had you check in once a month and if you didn’t log in it will send off emails to the ones you care about (or the ones you don’t).   This gives you the final word and allows you to send of those things that might be important.   I can leave my wife information about all my accounts and password, any relevant information that she may need and won’t be able to gather up, parting words to friends and families.   I would also thanks to my current setup be able to post to all my social networks and make an announcement of my death.   This I find intriguing and I’ll at least go through all the steps of implementing this (whether I actually use it and maintain it will remain to be seen).

What would I send?

I’ve broken down what I would want to send into four sections:

• My wife – I can deliver my final message, copies of important documents, access to all of my accounts and any other relevant information she needs
• My family – I would send each family member a personal message from the beyond – I also would send them a follow up to do with my wife in case something happened to her at the same time, that way there would still be someone i could trust that would have access to the information they may need to clean up my estate.
• Friends – I would send each of my “high level” friends an individual message – if somehow my whole family is taken out in one full attack – I don’t think I’m passing any of my personal information off to them.
• Public Internet at Large – this is broken into a few more sections, but essentially I’ll be leaving a video, audio postings, status updates to my social networks (“I’m dead thanks for all the fish”)), and a few final blog postings.

The trick to all of this is of course is reliant on a few things.   The first and foremost being that I can send email after I’m dead.   It also can not be reliant on my home PC (if a housefire hits or a tornado takes me out I don’t want my home to be the weakest link).   Finally whatever script I use must be able to pull from an FTP site (for the audio and video).    Once those can be accompished I’m fairly sure I can get everything else done.

When would I send it?

This is the other conundrum isn’t it?  How do you net tell everyone you have passed on while you are still alive (that could be embarrassing).    You need to pick a time period that seems suitable to you (every 12 hours is not suitable).  I’m thinking either every two weeks or every month I would have to login and verify that yes I am still alive and kicking.  The only problem this would really cause is if I’m kidnapped or held hostage.   The chances of those being so minimal that it is unlikely so I won’t really take those into account.   So to be safe I’ll set it for somewhere between 14 and 31 days.

Another thing I would like to do is configure it to be staggered.  That way I’ll be able to send a message to my wife warning her about the upcoming announcement of what is going to occur before it actually does.  Then to family, then to friends, and finally to the Internet as a whole.   This would keep it from being one big whirlwind hitting everyone at once like a ton of bricks.   I don’t want someone completely freaked out when they see a new youtube movie of my me uploaded.    So a staggered release would be the best scenario (if it’s possible).

How am I going to do this?

You’ll just have to wait for part 2.

I know I’m on a lawn kick (if you didn’t get it from my last post) but I was thinking today at what a waste it truly is to mow the lawn.   It wastes fuel.  It destroys plants that may be beautiful and grow free.  It releases green house gases into the atomsphere.   As good neighbors however, we are expected to maintain a level of lawn care. However with gasoline approaching four dollars a gallon is this still wise.  Isn’t there better things we can do with our time and our money.  What must change in our social norms and order to come up with something else, a better way.

Yes I mowed the lawn earlier tonight so it was at the top of my head and wanted to share. I know deep down most of you don’t care.  However like everything else I write this is for my venting and I’m just hoping you enjoy the insight into myself.

My teenage years however gave me lots of time to get yelled at for cutting through lawns.   Once we destroyed a guy’s mailbox in retaliation for yelling at us one night.   It was beaten in to me.   Though I flaunted authority and didn’t care even going so far to save 15 steps I would cross someone’s lawn.  Now I’m an adult.  I am the authority.

I’m not one of the anal retentive people with immaculate lawns, far from it.   I take care of it as little as I need to, and I prefer it that way.   I’m sure my neighbors would love it it I was like my grandfather.   He’s one of the lawn hobbyist that mows his lawn more then once a week.   I would almost imagine if it was feasible he would take out scissors and trim it all by hand.   Though if he did it would be too long where he started and it would never end.    I think because of that I;ll never be that way.

But here I am protective of my space.  Space that I have intruded upon others for.  Maybe that makes me selfish.  Maybe that makes me a hypocrite.  Possibly though I am just a human being who wants to be left alone.   Whatever it is sometimes I don’t want to deal with it.  At least though I’ve come full circle and I bet half those people whose lawns I did cut across were just like me as a kid.

We thank you for your input regarding our email address being posted by Rascal. They are a wonderful organization and they do great things for the communities that they go to.

They offer low cost spay and neuter to areas where people have lost their jobs, homes, or had to take a reduced income and/or have a large population of un-spayed or neutered animals. In some of the southern counties in Ohio, they actually screen the people who use the rascal clinic for need, based on income. You can imagine how grateful these people are, who could not afford such a procedure with out the services rascals. The Ashland County Humane Society has not decided to take this approach and has allowed all who would like to use the clinic, to be able to do so.

I am responding to this blog as you forwarded it to us, i would assume for some response. Serious consideration regarding rather it should be responded to was given, but have decided to do so. There are things that would be helpful for the community to know.

I’m curious if they would have still responded if my post entitled “Ashland Humane Society’s Poor Service” wasn’t the the third hit in google when you search for the “Ashland Humane Society”. While I stated in my original letter that I was posting it on my blog an e-mail reply would have been fine, though I would have replied with this post just the same.

Lets address your above issues.

Yes, you did email us regarding an appointment. That email was sent on Fri Jan 25 @ 12:52 pm. This is LESS then 48 hours prior to the arrival of Rascals. We close out the schedule for each clinic, either when the clinic is full, or the Thurs or Fri prior to the arrival of the clinic. Rascal needs some type of surgery schedule prior to arrival, so they know how to stock the unit for that clinic. Usually, our clinics fill up first.

This particular clinic was closed out weeks prior to Fri, Jan 25, as it was FULL. This information was stated on our voice mail at our phone number. I am not sure how we could have conveyed that information to you since you only emailed us. We may have been able to respond to your email if emailed us earlier.

The time ahead was irrelevant since according to the Rascal unit site there was no stipulations on the amount of lead time that I would need to schedule the appointment nor did it even suggest I call ahead and verify. I just had the forethought since it was the morning of and didn’t know what time they arrived in the morning. If the Rascal Unit needs a certain amount of lead time it should state that on their web site where it states to schedule it.

The easiest method to respond to individuals who do not know any better would be to set up an auto-responder in your
e-mail stating the best option is to call ahead and verify if you need to make an appointment or need immediate assistance. This is how you would inform anyone via e-mail. Simple to the point and no one trying to get in contact with you would have proper expectations set.

I am sure this is still upsetting to you as your perfered communication is email, and you seem to be a very techy person having his blog and webpage. But, we are a Humane Society dedicated to the welfare of ANIMALS. So, we have animals to take care of, animals need medications, transported to vet care, spay and neuters scheduled, adoption visits arranged and handled, cages need cleaned, adoption websites need updated, injured animals need picked up, neglect and inhumanities called need fielded and investigated, community public relations, fund raising events, managing volunteers, and we could go on. So, our apoligizes, if we only get to check the email once a day or less. Animals come first.

E-mail is my preferred communication and I expect any business that offers this as a means of contact to take it seriously. I do not need immediate contact, though you felt a full two weeks to respond in any fashion is good customer service. If e-mail is too technical I’m sure postal mail would arrived in that same time frame. I neither asked nor requested a post on my blog, but since i did post it I felt it fair to include that I did in the e-mail. While you may say animals are your primary concern within the same time frame I have contacted other veterinary clinics on spay and neuter prices and have gotten a response with 24 hours. At least two of those were volunteer organizations, from your assumptions this must mean they care about pets less then you.

At the point my blog article was originally published you were unaware which person it was that e-mailed you, I would expect that any organization that offers e-mail as a form of communication to at least check it before they go home for the day. While you may state that pets are your first concern if I was contacting you about a potential adoption of of one your pets and had not received a response I could have moved on to the next place that would. If you honestly believe e-mail is separate from telephone calls wait until the current tweens are grown up and expect responses via text messaging. Maybe that will be the time frame you actually take it as an important business tool. It is a business tool to you, it allows for adoptions and communications with your customers. Not having a timely response may put off potential adopters and then an animal may have to put to sleep if it’s not rescued. Ironically checking your e-mail at the end of every day may save at least 1-2 animal lives a year, so I too think of the animals.

Your email started with ” I would like to make an appointment.” And, appointment IS need. Someone would have had to made contact with you to schedule your animals, get your animals names, give you a time to show up, and pre-operative surgery instructions. Your blog here starts that you called to CONFIRM your appointment, just by sending an email does NOT mean that an appointment has been set. It is just a means to contact the Humane Society, to let them know of your need/interest, so someone can get back in touch with you.

If you notice that e-mail that prompted you to respond was written to the Rascal Unit – I was kind enough to CC to let you know what was being said. It is as much your fault as it is their’s that the site said I could make an appointment via e-mail. This also begs the question – why would someone have needed to make personal contact? To Schedule – that was what the e-mail was for? Get my animals name’s? I could tell you there names were larry, curly, and moe but there real names may be profanity terms that I only use around my own house (they aren’t before you ask). The point is there is no ID or verification that I’m bringing you the pet I said was hence the name requirement is ridiculous especially since it is on the paperwork I would have to bring in. Give me a time to show up? This is as simple as replying to an e-mail. Pre-Operative instructions? I already received these from the Rascal Unit website, also I had all the paperwork filled out and ready to go. It seems I was more prepared for this then you were.

If it’s just a means to show interest you are beholden to contact your partner Rascal Unit and inform them to make the changes on their web site.

I am sure that you would not contact your personal medical surgeon via email to schedule a surgery. and if you did and recieved no response assume that things were going to go all as planned. How would you even know if they received the email? How would you know if they were or weren’t having email/computer problems. Wouldn’t you be concerned when you did not hear from them, if they even recieved your email. Would you know wonder if there was anything you needed to know or prepare for prior to your surgery? ‘Wouldn’t you want your appointment confirmed? Wouldn’t you want to personally hear from someone?

Are you going to compare the two? Really? We’ll start with the fact to get medical surgery you have to be referred to a surgeon from a general practioner. At this point what I did do was contact the general practitioner (Rascal Unit) went to their web site. They referred me to contact you – their contact method stated for you was to to calls OR e-mail to schedule an appointment. In real life though your GP would contact the surgeon and the surgeon would then contact you to make an appointment. Yes I have dealt with medical confirmations of my appointments via e-mail. I would also defy you to find me a doctor’s office that doesn’t reply or acknowledge their e-mail they receive. I know you don’t have to deal with insurance but they do and their e-mail addresses are regularly monitored. They know this is how they get paid. I’m sure a receptionist at the doctors office would reply in e-mail that the person would have to call for an appointment if e-mail was an issue.

Why would I personally want to hear form someone. I’m sorry you don’t think e-mail is personal. Wouldn’t taking the time to handwrite a note actually be more personal? Yet because I type it out instead of hand writing it (which in my case would have been far less legible) it becomes more impersonal then a phone call? I don’t need you to waste time calling me since your could have replied to the e-mail that you can’t take appointments liek that quicker then it takes you to walk from one end of the room to another to answer the phone. If you throw in that somehow you have someone sitting next to the phone – this person should have a computer alerting about incoming e-mail.

Further, many Humane Society are not open on weekends, others still have short hours on Saturday’s and office staff is not there. I am surprised that you were not concerned about this possible issue when you sent your email on Fri. afternoon.

Are you daft? I knew the Rascal Unit was going to be and knew from the website how long the procedure would take. The only thing I didn’t know was the start time. Why should I have worried about the hours?

Apparently, concerned came about the morning of the clinic Jan 27, 2008. That is when a phone call was placed by you. And, one of two volunteers for that day (sharing her own personal time) answered the phone, in the middle of checking in, half of the 59 people/pets scheduled for the clinic that day. She was trying to keep the check-in flow going, and answer peoples questions, give instructions, handle surgery paperwork, assist with animals, ect. things were a little chaotic. She personally apoligizes if she conveyed herself as rude to you, as that was not her intent. She also stated she did not elaborate or explain to you the procedure or discuss the email as she did not have the convience of time to do so. She stated she told you it must not have been checked as she knew how hard we work at getting back with everyone. She personally did not know who & when the last time the email had been checked. You even stated that services were offered for Feb 24, 2008. We schedule the clinic on a first to contact us basis, even if a message is left.

We did not ask or instruct rascal to place our email address on their website. And, we gave serious consideration over the last couple weeks to your input about having it removed. In the end we decided let it remain as in the 14 plus clinics we have done with rascal, this is the only incident. And, we apoligize to you, we are terribly sorry.

Once again – I was worried since I hadn’t heard back about the start time or arrival. I hadn’t even considered my e-mail would have been unseen or ignored. I stated the woman who answered the phone cut me off, which was fine. She didn’t do it rudely and I understand what she was going through. Since I couldn’t say she was or was not the one responsible for checking the e-mail I didn’t take it our on her. Her answer about how often you do check your e-mail made my original addressed to the Rascal Unit rather then you. The partnership you two have going on is what is at issue. If I remember correctly you are the ONLY one that states on the Rascal Unit web site that you accept appointments via e-mail. Other stops have e-mail addresses you can INQUIRE to. Yet under your listing it states I can make an APPOINTMENT with you at that e-mail address. This means Rascal Unit doesn’t have a standard block posting it puts with all of it’s partners, hence you or more specifically someone in your organization has put forth that expectation. You don’t have to remove your e-mail address you have to get the wording changed to set expectations properly.

One more note for the community and yourself to know. Your Ashland County Humane Society is only operated by volunteers, NO PAID EMPLOYEES.

These very same volunteers have regular paying jobs at 40 or more hours a week, some go to college in addition, involved in their church communities, some also volunteer for other non-profits, they have spouses, kids and some grandkids. They have regular busy lives such as yourselves and the hours they give to the humane society are hours taken away from the other parts of their lives. They do this for their love of animals and to provide service such as this for the community, to provide a better future for the animals, and to help and assist the people in the ,Ashland Community. The core group of daily volunteer’s is small as most do not have time or want to dedication such a large amount of their free time to keep this Humane Society operational on a day to day basis. We appreciate and are grateful for anyone who can, does or wants to help, no matter how big or small a gesture. Mr. Gueth yourself included, as you can see we could use help in the techy department, it take a “back burner” to the needs of the animal.

These volunteers are the very same people who are “providing poor service”, a little support and understanding is uplifting and greatly appreciated, it makes it worth the effort.

Ashland County Humane Society

Why does paid or un-paid make a difference. If I come over and mow half your lawn and then don’t charge your not going to be annoyed. I understand volunteering – I used to volunteer at for the Friend’s of Habourtown yearly for 3 years before my move to Oregon. Counting my commute I had a 55 hour work week and still volunteered 30-40 hours a week minimum for 5 months a year. My wife during this same time frame put in more hours then myself with the same organization. This being a decade ago – we still checked and responded to our e-mails daily. Some of us even checked them from our day jobs on break since it takes less then a minute to know if there is anything pressing.

Via the Internet today I can order pizza from at least 3 places in town (one of them I can or soon can text message in an order), I can order groceries and have them delivered next day. I can mange my bank account and order anything over the internet. I can order dog collars that have GPS tracking on my pets so I can get e-mail updates on where they are or track them in real time with a cell phone. The Internet really is where communication and business of all types is going.

After posting the original blog article my wife and I discussed starting a low cost service for non-profits to get suitably wired in the 21st century. You may say that this is to make a profit, but really it isn’t. The price we have been throwing around is less then 1 hours worth of computer repair at most places in your town, also it is to cover the prices for the other services we would be configuring for you – domain registration is not free. Essentially the cost has been driven down where the profit would be less then what I make in an hour during my day job. So I want to make clear that trying to work on that idea is not some get rich quick scheme. Though we may be able to work something out at cost for you.

I tell it like I see it and don’t hold back. In your letter you admit there is some PR shortcomings and wrong expectations set that I have pointed out more explicitly. I hold no personal anger to you that has lasted more then the 20 minutes that it took to write the original post/e-mail I sent out. I call it like I see it, because of this some people don’t like me. That’s fine. If you can look at this as straight talk and no personal animosity we may be able to work something out. The best thing I can say is that I’m enough of a straight shooter that I won’t lie to you since I have no reason, nor will I go behind your back since obviously I believe in the openness of the public forum.

I would say you can call me (I think I left my number in the original e-mail) I would suggest you write though. You see if your not on my contact list any phone calls to me go straight to voicemail. My voicemail is then e-mailed immediately after it’s left. So essentially in take the time to call me it’s still going to be handled on my side via e-mail. Oh and that service is free. If you were on my calling list though it would ring my work phone, my home phone (if it was plugged in), and my cell phone at the same time until I answered one of them.

P.S.

Same with faxes too (also free).

P.P.S

Soon I may be moving my postal mail over to a service that scans it in an e-mails it to me.

E-mail really is important to a business to get anything done in a faster fashion then the old ways.

UPDATE:

I forgot to add a couple things – I managed to respond within an hour and half of the comment being left since I was alerted to it via e-mail.   The second part is the first hit in google for “Ashland Humane Society” points to an adoption site.   To adopt a pet I have to e-mail someone outside of the Ashland Humane Organization to a personal e-mail address.  Granted that person probably works for the Ashland Humane Society, but all inquiries should be set to go through the address they use for business.   Finally the same site points to the Ashland Humane Society’s website  – www.ashlandhumane.com – the problem with that is they allowed their domain to expire and it was picked up by a spam blog on Jan 17th of this year.  This is another they need to update with their partners and fix within their organization.

I purchased Xie a Flickr account so maybe you start seeing her post some pictures over at her blog.

Looking very forward to National Novel Writing month again this year. Maybe this time around I will actually finish a novel instead of stopping after a chapter.

Alumni Band is coming up at the end of September. Time to pull out the old trumpet and get the chops into shape.