If a person put on an anti-gravity suit in St Louis, MO, where would they be 5 minutes later?

Thanks.

I had a procedure a few days ago to improve nasal breathing.

There was some pain, mostly just discomfort from a nasal splint stitched into my nose.  In any case, they prescribed vicodin to me.

I barely feel any different after taking a pill, but it wildly affects my dreams.

I don’t have serial killer, crazy dreams.  They just go off on insane tangents.  Here’s last nights episode.

Four of my fraternity brothers and I are riding on a flatbed train.  We are informed that we have 48 hours to build an oil rig, using the parts and equipment on the train.  After taking inventory of everything, we realize we have no torches for cutting and no welding tools.

One of the guys I was with jumps into a lake to swim back to his truck to get his acetylene torch. We decided to play checkers and wait for him to get back before we got started.

There Will Be Blood, Part 2?

I could probably stretch that storyline out two hours, if anyone in Hollywood is interested.

I tend to attract the worst service possible in a lot of situations.  I always thought it was ridiculously unfair, given the fact that I rarely, if ever, complain to a restaurant server or a Charter customer support person directly.

I realize that the employees in these situations are just people at a job.  I appreciate the role they fill.

But sometimes it gets so bad it seems like I’m on a hidden camera show.

When good customer service happens to me, it seems miraculous.  I tell everyone I know immediately.

Here is two fairly recent examples.

Tiffany.com

I got the last minute idea to buy an additional gift for my girlfriend.  It was the night of December 22nd, so I knew shopping online might be risky, if not out of the question.  I was looking for earrings.

Tiffany’s had guaranteed Christmas Eve delivery and my sister gave the thumbs up to the jewelry I had picked out.  I’m fairly clueless when it comes to buying most things that don’t fall under the electronics category, so I seek approval of those with some knowledge.

Hundred-fifty bucks. Buy now. Done.

I had already bought her a digital camera and a few other small things, but I wanted to step outside the realm of electronics and surprise her.

On Christmas eve, I was expecting to receive the package.  They sent an email instead.

Our apologies – Late holiday delivery

… As a gesture of our appreciation for your patience and patronage, we will be sending you a
Tiffany gift card valued at $100 …

That is amazing.  They guaranteed delivery and when they realized they couldn’t follow through, they warned me and threw me a bone.

Sure, the gift card is really 40% off of $250, but the perception and execution was a great marketing plan on their part.

They earned a happy customer who is willing to tell others and it essentially cost them nothing.  They messed up and were honest about it.  That twisted a major letdown into a huge positive for all involved.

Well played.

Lone Star Steakhouse

My girlfriend and I decided to go to Lone Star.  She is a fan of the place, I never really have cared for it much.

We order appetizers and steaks.

Hers medium.

Mine medium-rare.

The server delivered our meal and asked us to cut into them and ensure they were correctly prepared. Mine was well done, but I refuse to complain.  After he left, I asked my girlfriend, “Does this look medium-rare to you?”.

A few moments later, the manager of the store came over and asked us how things were.  I repeated my previous story, “Everythings good”. He replied, “well I understand that your steak wasn’t cooked according to your order”.  Apparently there is microphones in the booths.  That’s a scary possibility.  He offered to replace our meals, which I politely refused.

“Well your meal tonight is on us”.  Our $35 bill evaporated.  That was way more than I would have ever expected.  We both explained to the manager that we really appreciated the consideration.

As we were getting ready to leave the restaurant, another man showed up at our table.  He introduced himself as the general manager and he gave us a gift card for $35 off our next visit, as well.

I hope this above and beyond customer service is a growing trend that catches on everywhere.

Thanks Tiffany’s and Lone Star.

This is a reminder that if you successfully develop a customer, your cost is actually zero.

Update: My math sucks.  Day 58 apparently.  Move along.

There has been 60 days of content on simplemotives.com, 50 words or more each, human written.

It has been a lot of fun for me.

I’ve rediscovered an interest in writing.

I will update with a better summary of the 60 day challenge shortly, as well as information on what you can expect from bofe and this blog going forward.

Congrats to me.

Thanks for reading.

This theme is old as hell and crappy.

I do a bad job of organizing my posts into categories, which makes it even more useless.

Here’s some things I think I need:

A wider content area.

I currently have to crop images significantly to fit in the content block.  It is also a strange width for including videos.  The fixed width of the current site is a 2004 web style.

Mobile Theme

Since my recent growth in readership (I’ve triggered my Google Analytics alert of 20+ unique visitors 3 times now), I know people everywhere can’t get enough of my content.  Is there a mobile version of the admin interface?  Or a Windows Mobile app for posting/managing content?

Suggested by: @bofe.

More useful navigation.

My categories block is stupid.  I could probably do a better job of categorizing, though, now that I have a decent sample of content to group by.

Recent / Most popular posts block.

Currently, there is no cross promotion of other posts within any given post, unless I manually linked to one.  That’s a problem if I actually wanted to encourage people to read my blog, which I do.

About me page.

I do a poor job of organizing information about who I am.  I currently do that on purpose.  This blog is barely anonymous.

More dynamic meta content.

My blogroll is pretty sad.  I added those two links approx. two years ago.  Bofe quit his blog and Dave Hayes posts a monster blog post tri-annually.

This site needs a lot of work.

Illinois has banned composing, sending or receiving text messages while driving.

This headline on the subject made me laugh a little bit, though.

Some distractions now eliminated.

It’s like “Thank you .gov for taking these distractions off our hands!”.  The law is enacted, therefore 100% compliance ensues.

We didn’t like people getting murdered, so we made it illegal.  And Boom. Now nobody gets murdered anymore.

Handguns are illegal in Chicago.  So now no one in the city of Chicago gets shot by or even owns a handgun.

It’s a fact.

It’s that easy.

All we need is more and more laws to make the shitty state of Illinois, a Utopia.

The other part of this new law makes it illegal to talk on your cell phone in a school zone without a hands-free device.

How exactly are you supposed to end conversations that quickly without knowing where all the school zones are?

Are people with one arm banned from driving?  Because I never have two hands on the steering wheel when driving anyways, on the phone or not.

I can eat, change the radio stations, roll the windows up and down, mess with climate control, slide my seat forward and back, flip people off, pick my nose, drive with my knees, etc. But, I can’t be holding a connected cell phone while my car is near a school zone, where we’ve already been slowed down to 20mph anyways.

Does outlawing a cell phone in our hand really make us more cautious or aware?  I think there is a logical fallacy in there somewhere.

They could have just said, don’t run over little kids.

• Pizza (three times)
• Potato casserole (twice)
• Cheese cubes and deer sausage (I’m from the sticks)
• Candy
• Chocolate
• Beer
• 4 oz of Mountain Dew (because its gross and I poured out the rest)
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Lasagna
• Lotsa other shit that’s on the list of not good for you

I have zero will power.  I could be 900lb in a few months time if I were ever left unsupervised.

I was scared to death to get on the scale after that fiasco.

It’s been about 2-3 weeks since I weighed in last.

I lost 1lb.

World champion!

I like reading posts from other St Louis web people.

Some are really knowledgeable and straight forward like Erin Eschen.

Others are slightly shady seo people like Will Hanke.

They are all fun reads for me, regardless.

In any case, Will pointed out recent news about Google removing the Local search results for web design and seo firms for related searches.

He states:

No longer will 6 incompetent SEOs be listed alongside my name

This got me curious.

I searched Google for St Louis SEO.

Will ranks #1. Hm…

How competitive is this niche?

www.seostlouis.com and www.stlouis-seo.com both are listed on the first SERP page.

Why is that an interesting barometer for the competitiveness of the St Louis SEO niche?

They are both WordPress installations with no content.

If its really that wide open, I’m tempted to freelance.

Free money.

2010 is going to be a crazy year.

January is officially surgery month.

Septoplasty and wisdom teeth.

February, braces.

Sucks to be my insurance company.

Hopefully I get to play a World Series of Poker event in June/July in Vegas.  Last year I didn’t get to go because I started the new gig.

I plan on competing in some jiu jitsu tournaments for the first time.

I want to contribute to an open source project of some sort, preferably related to the php community.  We’ll see.

I have a few other surprises to be discussed at a later date.

It shall be a fun one.

Keep the haters away.

Rashad Evans  vs. Thiago Silva

I don’t really like watching Rashad fight.  His fights are typically very boring.  He always comes with a good game plan and his wrestling is typically better than anyone he faces.  He can uncoil and explode with powerful strikes, but he’d rather just outpoint his opponents.  I like finishers.  Evans isn’t aggressive enough to fit that mold.

Thiago Silva might bring out the interestingness in Rashad’s game.  Thiago is a finisher.  He is very aggressive with a brutal striking game.

I think Rashad is really well rounded and I know that the edge in wrestling is a big factor in all fights.  The better wrestling determines where the fight takes place.  Rashad will take him down often.

This is a good matchup, but Rashad will spend most of his energy tying up Thiago.  If it goes to a decision, Evans will be the victor. But,

Thiago Silva, Round 1, TKO Referee stoppage

Paul Daley vs. Dustin Hazelett

Hazelett is a cool dude with a very interesting submission game

Paul Daley is a machine with crazy power.

I’d love to see Dustin come out and flying armbar Daley in 8 seconds, but I think Daley is going to smother him.

Daley, Round 2 TKO (ground and pound)

Joe Lauzon vs. Sam Stout

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen J-Lo.

This is an awesome matchup. Sam Stout has tons of experience against tough guys.

Lauzon fights a suffocating style that I love to watch.

I’m a homer.

Lauzon by Decision

Jim Miller vs. Duane Ludwig

I remember Duane Bang Ludwig when he first got into mma.  He was a Muay Thai bad ass learning the mixed martial arts game from one of my favorites, Bas Rutten.  Ludwig was devastating people.  He seemed to fall off the map for a while.  Then, he won a decision over my favorite fighter, Yves Edwards.

Jim Miller is an unknown to me.  He wins most of his fights by submission.

I’ll bite.

Ludwig, KO, Round 2.

Junior dos Santos vs. Gilbert Yvel

Martin Kampmann vs. Jacob Volkmann

Dan Lauzon vs. Cole Miller

Mark Munoz vs. Ryan Jensen

Mike Pyle vs. Jake Ellenberger

John Gunderson vs. Rafaello Oliveira

Looks like a quality card.  I really want to see some of the undercard matchups, so hopefully all the main card fights end in the first round.