Love your dog, but not the poop?

Cathi and I saw this bench at a corner in Boise. Love it! The type of people to be too grossed out, or careless about picking it up, aren't probably the type to pay a dime to have someone else do it. I'd love to know how much that business is making.

A company success story - Treat your customers right and you'll get more business!

So this week I read about a good man who was badly injured in an accident. I've nearly had a similar life threatening accident happen to me and I know how fragile life can be! In sympathy for his situation I thought a small bouquet of flowers would be a nice gesture and brighten his day, and ordered some online. Oh boy was the company I chose a good move!

I went online and found ProFlowers. I did the order with the address that I got from anywho.com.

The next day when the delivery was supposed to take place, Cathi got a call from ProFlowers saying that the Order couldn't be delivered cause the address I gave didn't exist. What? So I did some more intense investigating. Found out a partial address from an Intelius report. I was still not sure of an East or West coordinate, so I ended up just giving in to traditional methods and called Joey Emig's house to get the address. I was hoping to exercise my PI skills. But I had already spent alot of extra time being an information gathering nerd.

I called ProFlowers back with the address to see if they could salvage the original order, but they refused to do that as they mentioned that the original delivery was probably not in a condition to be received, and said they would pay for another order as well as rush the delivery all at their expense. What! The wrong address wasn't their fault. I couldn't believe my ears.

So now they're probably losing money cause of me. The whole process went smooth and they were very kind. I'm definitely going back to ProFlowers should I ever need to deliver flowers again. That was a very refreshing experience considering a few of the last very crappy experiences I've had with customer satisfaction (I'm still pissed at you SquareTrade!)

Courage or stupidity

Last night at the stake youth activity, they had the youth do several activities such as:

1) Climbing a ladder that wasn't leaning against anything, just people at the base holding it vertical.
2) Climbing another ladder about 4-5 feet high and falling backwards to a row of friends with locked hands to catch.
3) Swinging a cement block that was tethered to basketball stand. It starts placed just below the persons face and then when it swings back, don't flinch.

Here's a picture of Jacob doing the cement block swing:
Well he must have been leaning backwards when he dropped it, cause he was brave, didn't flinch and it actually hit him in the chin. Not too bad. But it definitely did hit him. It didn't appear to hurt him.

There were a few others where it hit them in the chest. And there were some who totally flinched. This exercise was fun.

Afterwards they showed a clip of the Hoyt son and father who did an Ironman. It gave me inspiration for this weekend's 70.3. I'm excited and looking forward to it!

Jacob turns 12

This morning I took Jacob out for a birthday outing. We went to Walmart and got him a new outfit including a new watch, hat, sunglasses, shorts, shirt, shoes, socks, underwear. The works. He was very pleased. Then we went to Warren's for breakfast and he ordered a monster breakfast.

I hope I'm not spoiling him. He said Thank you several times. I have to treat that boy right, cause he's volunteered to be my support boater this year, including tonight at BL. Good thing I got him some biking gloves, otherwise he would get some serious blisters on his hands from rowing.

Happy Birthday Jacob, you're a good kid. And I'm excited to have you in Deacon's Quorum! You're very mature for your age and always so willing to help. I like how you're athletic and I can tell other boys your age like you and respect you. You represent the Gridley name very well. I love you.

I've lost my ring!

Yesterday while swimming out in the Bountiful Lake I lost my wedding ring. I'm sad about that. That water was so murky there was no way I would find it. Dang it!

I just hope that in a few hundred years a couple of hobbits who might find it while fishing there at Bountiful Lake, don't fight about it so viciously as these guys did.

America screwed up

Biggest loser - So last night the guy I voted for was NOT picked to go to the finals of biggest loser. Koli did win the "At home" challenge of losing the most weight. A whopping 53% of bodyweight.

Mike, who started at 525 pounds did lose 50.1% of his bodyweight was the biggest loser as far as the game goes.

It's too bad though that the game allows the real biggest loser to not win the grand prize. The game has turned into survivor where you can vote people off, but isn't the game about losing weight, not gameplay?

I mean, if the biggest loser didn't lose the most percentage of body weight, he ISN'T the biggest loser. Let him have the big check, whatever, cause the show isn't about the money. It's about losing the weight. Give Mike the $250, but the biggest loser title IS Koli's.

Not to take away from Mike or anyone else on the show. They still lost a ton of weight. Good job to everyone on the show. My favorite was O'Neil. That guy had some fire!

Chicken butt!

Last night I could help but laugh when I heard my little Oliver on his last day of being a two year old ask his older Brother Jacob, "Guess What?" Jacob said "What?", Oliver then yells in his cute little two year old voice, "Chicken butt!". Then everyone laughs out loud together.

This morning I got up and got all dressed to ride my bike in to work. I topped off my tires and was about ready to clip in when I could hear Oliver inside. He was awake and crying, "I want my Dad!". Jacob was trying to calm him by turning on Sesame Street. Cathi had already left for a run and Oli wanted some love by one of his parents. So I went back in and exclaimed, "Happy Birthday big boy?" He smiled and I hurried into my work clothes and we went to Warren's for pancakes.
He was so happy. He chose the booth to sit in and we had a wonderful breakfast together. He got syrup all over his arms and shirt, and the shoes I put on him were Sams so they kept falling off.

So after breakfast we washed up in the restroom and went over to Walmart and got him a new outfit including shoes. He picked out some cool shoes and a nice Ironman shirt and shorts combo. Then we stopped by the toy aisle and he picked out a pack of cars that he took home and played with. What a fantastic morning. He was very happy and said "Thanks Dad". What a joy to be a Dad to these cute kids!

Here's Grandma Low's traditional Happy Birthday singing.