Connecting With Your Customers

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Coming East

We used to shop at a store called Restoration Hardware.  Contrary to its name, it is not a hardware store in the customary sense of the term.  For those of you in the United States, you will remember when it was fun to poke around that store, with its fun little gadgets and toys.  Restoration Hardware also had beautiful furniture and lamps.  In fact, we still have quite a few lamps we purchased from them.  Though most of the couches were too deep for our small frames, we used to drool over their bedroom sets with their gorgeous dressers whose drawers were lined with fragrant cedar.  We could see those sets in our bedroom and thought one day we might try to save up for one, pricey as they were.

Then last year or the year before, Restoration Hardware made a drastic change in their merchandise.  Gone were those cute little gadgets and toys, except during Christmas.  The furniture no longer was something we envisioned in our home.  The pieces were massive and seemed more appropriate for a scene in Indiana Jones or a stop on the Orient Express.  The bright and cheery interior had been whisked away, and something dark and cave-like had replaced it.  We stopped going there, and other people we talked to who used to frequent that store stopped going as well, for the same reasons.  A few months ago,  the only Restoration Hardware store in south Hampton Roads closed.

Friday, when I went to get the mail, I found two Restoration Hardware catalogues crammed into our mailbox.  They were huge and slick.  How many trees, we wondered, had been destroyed in the making?  As costly and as impressive as those catalogues are, they would never induce me to even visit Restoration again.  If anything, they remind me of why I stopped going in the first place.  They no longer sell anything I would ever want to buy or could afford.  They stopped catering to the ordinary middle class customer.

Never would this work in my home. Page after page in the catalogue had similar furniture.

On the other hand, I went to Stein Mart Saturday and bought a pair of pantyhose and a leather travel case for my medications.

When I got home and reached into my shopping bag, I found a note from Jay Stein himself, thanking me for shopping in his store.

Now this made me feel valued!

Big fancy catalogues and massive furniture don’t impress me.  It’s the little things that count, like remembering who your customers are.  Thank you, Jay Stein.

Posted in Just Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Unusual

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Coming East

Barnacles are unusual little creatures.

Unusual toadstool

Posted in Just Blogging, pictures | Tagged , , , , , | 26 Comments

How to Lose Weight Without Really Trying

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Coming East

Women are rarely satisfied with their looks.  Show me one who is, and I’d like to set that kindergartener straight.  Some of us change our hairdos as often as the political candidates change their minds.  We fret about our weight or our wrinkles and spend a fortune on anti-wrinkle creams and cosmetics over the course of a year.

Many men, on the other hand, can look in the mirror, gut hanging over their belt, and pronounce themselves quite studly.  Their hairstyle has changed little since college, unless their hair has disappeared.   I have seen anti-wrinkle creams for men in the stores, but I’ve never see men grabbing them off the shelves.  What a happy way to live!

Though my weight has changed little over the last twenty years, where it has settled has.  No matter how many sit-ups, crunches, or planks I perform, nothing will dislodge the accumulated layers of fat (oh, how I hate that word!) that insist on taking up residence around my middle.  I refuse to go on a diet for two reasons:  1.  Diets never work for long.  If you go on a diet, there will always come a time when you go off it.  2. I enjoy eating.  It is one of my greatest pleasures.  If that sounds shallow, so be it. I  remain unapologetic.  Besides, I make healthy choices nearly all the time and have managed to stay away from Five Guys for a month now.

I’ve decided on two tactics, the result of intensive research on how to reduce belly fat.  The first is to take more long walks.  Pick up any health magazine and you will see headlines such as  “Walk Your Way to a Flat Belly.”  The other piece of research that interests me is the study showing that sleep helps you lose weight.  People who get adequate sleep actually metabolize their food more efficiently, leading to weight loss.  So I will be incorporating these two tactics into my exercise routine to lose this gut.  I’ll let you know how it works.  Excuse me now.  I need to nap.

Posted in Just Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

I Need These New Glasses

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Coming East

I am one of those people who has to wear glasses from the moment I get out of bed in the morning until the moment I get back in bed at night. Though my prescription doesn’t change drastically every year, I usually get new glasses every spring because I get so tired of wearing the same ones day after day after day. This year, however, I’m thinking of holding out until Google’s new glasses are available. They are reportedly coming out with glasses that contain face recognition software that will be able to tell you who you are looking at and give you some details about them.

Can you imagine how useful this will be to those of us who have trouble remembering names and faces? Instead of overloading my fading memory with a lot of names I can’t recall and fearing an embarrassing encounter when I am in social situations, I can save my memory cells for other tasks, like trying to keep straight who cheated on whose wife last week or what scumbag is blackmailing which outstanding citizen of Salem in Days of Our Lives. No longer will I dread meeting my husband’s boss and blanking out on his name when he calls me by mine. When “How’s it going, Dude?” won’t cut it, I just have to slip on my Google Glasses and wait for the correct name to be whispered into my ear.

These new glasses also will have GPS capabilities and Google Street View, so I don’t actually have to go anywhere. I can designate a place and be taken there virtually. In fact, you and I could have virtual dates. We can decide on a restaurant or little cafe and both “meet” there without leaving the comfort of our homes. I’d rather not do that, though, because then I couldn’t use my face recognition software. We have to actually meet in the flesh for that to work. But the virtual date is an option if getting off your duff and making an effort is too taxing.

Anyway, I wanted to keep you informed of the upcoming Google gadgetry in case you have trouble remembering names like I do. I might even wear the glasses to bed in case I meet someone in my dreams.

Posted in Just Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Contrast

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Coming East

Contrast between my young niece's animated style and old Ben's subdued demeanor. I always knew my niece was an angel, but I just noticed her wings.

Contrast between the dullness of the brush and this colorful Chincoteague pony.

The brightness of these leaves against the incredible blueness of the sky presents an amazing contrast.

Posted in Just Blogging, pictures | Tagged , , , , , | 26 Comments

Another Victim of the Digital Age

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Coming East

I’m ashamed of it now, but when I was in fifth grade I was a proud child, proud of how rich I thought  my family was. No, we weren’t as rich as the families up on “The Hill,” but we had something that the other families in our little beach neighborhood didn’t have, so  it felt like we were rich.  We had a spanking new set of the World Book Encyclopedia. I had completely forgotten about it until I read yesterday that the Encyclopaedia Britannica was closing the book on printing any more volumes, and new editions will only be online.

Before we had our own set of the reference books, we had to use the ones at the library to do our reports. The three encyclopedias that the library had were World Book, Funk and Wagnalls, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.. I don’t remember anything about Funk and Wagnalls, but I do remember that I didn’t like Britannica because the print seemed too small, the layout was confusing, and the words were too hard to understand. The World Book was like the Disney version. When the salesman came to our door selling those coveted volumes and my parents decided to get our own set, I was beside myself. After the books were ordered, I came home from school every day and asked if they had arrived. At last the boxes came and my brother and I sat for hours perusing the beautiful pages with the gold edges, for my parents had ordered the deluxe version. The pictures were amazing, especially the one of the human body with its colored overlays showing all the muscles and skeletal system.

Every year a new volume came with updates on news and discoveries that had occurred since our set had been published. As I got older, I began to realize the limitations of my beloved books, for it was impossible for them to keep up with the fast pace of new developments. The world was changing too quickly. Of course Al Gore hadn’t invented the Internet yet, and we didn’t have home computers, so to do our reports in high school and college we had to research journals which were printed monthly. But they could never duplicate the excitement of those beautiful blue volumes that arrived at our door.

Posted in Just Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 47 Comments

Outsourcing Our Memory

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Coming East

The March 12 edition of Time magazine has an article on ten ideas that are changing our lives. One idea has to do with the amount of information we take in on any given day. According to the article, “Each day, the average American spends about 12 hours consuming information, taking in more than 100,000 words that total 34 gigabytes of data.” Whew! One point of the article is that we can only cram so much information into our heads before it begins to leak out, and more and more we are relying on the Internet to “store” our memory. All we have to remember is where we put the information or where we can find it when we need to retrieve it again. Because of this, the article continues, we aren’t even trying to remember because we don’t have to. Our “memory” is stored, not in our heads, but somewhere in cyberspace.

I am so glad to hear that because my memory is like a sieve and has been for a long time. I don’t think I can possibly remember One. More. Thing. At least not any new thing. My problem is more complicated, though. I can’t remember old things either. Is there a place online that I can store memories before they become too old, like in five minutes, so I can retrieve them when I need to? Just think how much easier life would become:

Hubby: “Honey, where did you put that check I asked you to deposit?”
Me: “Darned if I know. Why don’t you check the Internet?”

Posted in Just Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , | 22 Comments

A Mexican Feast

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Coming East

If you read my post last week about the cooking app that lets me eat out every day, you might get the impression that I don’t like to cook.  That’s not the case.  I love to cook.  In fact, I used to do it for a living before I became a teacher.  What I don’t like is the day-to-day chore of trying to come up with ideas to feed two people.  But give me an opportunity to put together something special for an occasion, I’m all in.  This weekend provided such an opportunity when my niece and her husband came for a visit.

My sweet nephew loves his Auntie Susie’s cooking, especially if I make a Mexican meal.  Nearly thirty years in San Antonio provided me with a lot of experience in that arena.  Friday was my trip to the grocery store to gather my supplies, and on Saturday morning I began my preparations.  After all day of me chopping, sautéing, simmering and baking (and using every pot and pan in my kitchen), we sat down to a wonderful meal of carne guisada (the recipe follows), Spanish rice, borracho beans, and guacamole salad.  Looking at the contented faces of my niece and nephew, I’d say the meal was a success.

Here is the recipe for the Carne Guisada:

1 1/2 pounds beef tips (use a chuck roast, remove all visible fat) cut in bite-size pieces
3 Tablespoons white or whole wheat flour
2 Tablespoons olive or canola oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 fresh jalpeno or Serrano peppers, remove seeds and ribs, mince
1 1/2 cups low-sodium beef stock
1 Tablespoon low-sodium tomato paste
2 teaspoons cumin seeds, toasted and ground (may use ground comino)
1/2 teaspoon ancho chili powder

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
  2. Dust the meat cubes with flour and brown in oil in ovenproof Dutch oven
  3. Add the remaining ingredients and bring the guisada to a simmer on the stove
  4. Cover the pot and place in the oven.  Stir the pot every 30 minutes, adding small amount of stock if needed.  The dish should be thick, without much liquid when done.
  5. Bake for about 2 1/2 hours, until meat is falling apart tender.

Note:  This is the “Gringo” version, mild for my non-Texan niece and nephew.  If you are serving this to people who do not like their food too spicy, the recipe is perfect as is.  If, however, you are like we are, you might want to spice this up with an added bit of chipotle chile with a little bit of the adobo sauce it is packed in.  Just remember a little goes a long way.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Hope you try this! 

Posted in Just Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , | 29 Comments

Sometimes It’s Better To Be Late

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Coming East

When I was growing up, my mother would say to me, “You’re always late except to dinner.” I corrected my errant ways, and now I’m almost always early.  I never thought that would be a problem, but sometimes it seems that way.  For instance, after thirteen years of driving my big blue station wagon around, I finally bought myself a new car.  A month after I bought it, the next model came out with a jack for an iPod or other mp3 player.  Since my car doesn’t have one, whenever we take that twelve-hour drive up to Boston, I have to take a stack of CD’s to play on my single-disk CD player.  How old-fashioned.

When we moved here we bought a new TV and blue-ray DVD player.  Less than a month later, the new blue-ray players had streaming capabilities.  Ours doesn’t.  And the Bose speakers we bought?  The next model had an adjustable bass.  Ours doesn’t.  You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?  Yep, my new iPad, the one I got as a Christmas present, the one I’ve been lusting after since the ipad was first introduced, is being upstaged by the third generation iPad just being launched.  Ah, technology.  Gotta love it.  Gotta hate it.

Posted in Just Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , | 40 Comments

Love That App Store!

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Coming East

My iPad screen is populated with three pages of apps, and more are sure to come as I discover others that sound so cool (neat? rad? hot? Sorry, but I’m not familiar with the latest word that designates something as really good.  Someone with teenagers, please help me out here).  One I added recently was the “My Clock” app that has several different clock faces, can be used as an alarm clock to wake you up with either a conventional alarm clock sound or music from your iTunes library, and tells you the temperature, windspeed and moon phase on the clock face.  It was free, but for 99 cents I got the upgrade which gave me a sleep timer so we can listen to music while we go to sleep.  Tres cool!

I have several other apps that are interesting.  One is called “What’s for Dinner?”  You input your favorite recipes and then program the app to spit out a dinner suggestion for every day of the week so you don’t have to wrestle with what’s for dinner every night.  I’ve programmed it with the following dinner suggestions:  Pizza delivery, How about hot dogs at Five Guys?, Pick up Chinese on the Way Home, and Hubby Takes You Out to Dinner Tonight.  I’m still working on the other three nights.  I might actually have to cook one night.

Another great app reminds you to turn the dishwasher on before you go to bed.  It was created for those of us who have those ancient, extremely loud dishwashers that can’t be programmed to turn on at a specific time so you can wake up to clean dishes.  You set this app with a specific time to send you an audio reminder to turn on the dishwasher.  We didn’t have clean dishes this morning.  Forgot to set the reminder.  I should have gotten the 99-cent app instead of the free one.  It turns on the dishwasher for you.

Finally, I love my car app that helps you decide what car you should buy when the time comes for you to replace your old car.  You put in everything you’re looking for, set a price, and then hit “send.”  Your specifications are all sent to Gay Car Boys and he (they?) will find the perfect car for you.  The only drawback is that you will have to go to Australia to pick it up.  Fine with me.  I have an app for cheap airline tickets.  Wonder how I’ll get the car back…?

Posted in Just Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , | 22 Comments