My Brothers Tattoo that I designed

Been meaning to put this on here for a while now but kept forgetting about it. Here's a pic of my brothers tattoo which I designed for him. It costs him $500 to have this put on ( his outside right leg) it was a 5 hour job. Immortal Images Tattoo's rate is around $100 an hour which is better that just pricing a job. You seem to get better quality work when its a flat rate vs. price per job quote. He asked me to design this for him , told me about what he wanted and well the finished product is exactly what he had in mind he said. All of the tattoo means something, the Wheel and Wings are for when he was a motorcycle instructor with the Police department. The lightning bolt, and 1* represent his being on the Tactical force. The Diver Down symbol is there be cause he's on the Dive team with the Department. All of these things wrapped up in a nice Chevron Shield ( Police Badge ) Ordo Ab Chao = Out of Chaos comes Order and Non Ducor Duco = I am not lead, I Lead.

I was quite proud he asked me to design this for him. It made me feel good to know he had confidence in me to design something that would be a permanent part of him. It's kind of a little bond between he and I. I love him very much and would do anything in the world for him, he's really a great guy and an excellent Police Officer. He's my brother, and I thank God that he blessed me by allowing us to be brothers. The latin phrases I chose, because they say so much about Travis. travis, you are a special kind of person, The worlds a better place with you in it.

Muffin may be pregnant again

I found Muffin and Biscuit locked up today , we thought she was in heat but wasn't sure. SO this morning when I saw them locked up I knew then that we'll probably be expecting another round of puppies. I then did a Gestation calculation using this site http://www.schaferhund.com/pregnancy.htm

According to the calculations puppies should be here on Sept 21st 2006. Last time the calculator was dead on the money. Anyway with puppies coming along in late sept they should be ready just in time for Christmas. This will be the last round of Peek-a-Poo puppies, we've decided to get Muffin fixed after this one . It's not fair to her to keep having puppies, and we never wanted to start a puppy mill. Although the money from the puppies is pretty good, she means more to us than that.

Wal-Mart service part 2

Well its 4:49 pm on Wednesday July 19th 2006. I still haven't heard from (Robert Newby) District Manager over Tire and Lube services in this area. I have just gotten off the telephone with Kim again who told me that she did give the message to Mr. Newby yesterday and she doesn't know why he hasn't called me back. She then told me that she would try to get him on his cell phone directly after we hang up. So here it is as of now I'm still waiting. If I don't receive a call from him by this time tomorrow I will take another course. I will telephone Wal-Mart Inc. and try to speak with whomever is Mr. Newby's Supervisor.

The total bill for the new tires was $266.68 before sales tax. The damage at the lowest estimate is $222.00 , I can tell you this next time I wont try to save a few dollars by shopping at Wal-Mart for my tires. There are a lot of places around here to buy tires that are a little higher on the price but wont cost me over $200 extra dollars to repair their incompetence

UPDATE

Mr. Newby called me back around 5:15 pm or so. I explained the situation to him up to now. He told me that he would be in the Greer Store tomorrow and that he would watch the video himself personally, and call me back. I told him to call me and I would be more than happy to bring my Van back up there for him to see. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Walmart Service ( Or the lack thereof )

Here’s the story....

On July 13'th 2006 , I took my 2000 Chevy Astro in to Wal-Mart ( Store #2687 ) of Greer, SC to have a new set of tires put on the van. The paper work says that we checked in a at 12:25 pm which is probably 45 minutes after we really got there and is about how long it took them to find the tires and do the paperwork. After checking in and waiting a while they informed me that they couldn't put the tires that I had initially asked for on the van because of their policy. Why I wasn’t told this during the initial setup of the paperwork I do not know. However, we got it straightened out and I went with tires that were one size smaller 225/75/r15. All of this so far is just leading up to the main problem I’m having with Wal-Mart. When they finally finished the vans service and brought me the keys from where they had removed the van from the bay and parked it in the empty lot, I paid for the tires and was on my way.

Now the problem. I had my Dad with me so after leaving Wal-Mart I dropped him off at his home, which is maybe 10 minutes away. I then headed home to wash the bluing off the new tires. While doing so I notice a major gouge on the right rear body molding of the van.

Direct link to images of damage are here

http://madsciencerepair.com/images/gouge_van1.jpg

http://madsciencerepair.com/images/gouge_van2.jpg

I immediately called Wal-Mart and asked to speak with the Store Manager (Connie Holder) she told me that she would put someone to investigate the situation, said something about watching a video of the service, and have someone call me back. Well 1.5 hours later I still haven’t received a call from anyone on the matter. So I call back, it was then she tells me that I need to come back to the Tire shop and ask for a fellow named Tori, and file a claim. I called my Dad and told him they wanted us to come back and file a claim. And that they may need his statement as a witness. He agreed to go, and so we went. We got there, filled out the necessary paperwork, spoke with Tori about the process, he informed us that CMI ( Claims Management ) would probably contact me on Monday July 17th or so. He was right, a lady named Linda contacted me on Monday morning around 10 am or so.

Here's where it gets to be a problem. My conversation with “Linda " went south quick when she told me that they wouldn’t be able to pay put on this because I couldn't prove Wal-Mart did this. She told me that someone at the store had watched the video of the service and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I then reminded her that someone from the store drove my van into the bay as well as drove my van out after service. This person then parked my van in the empty lot. She informed me that unfortunately the Parking lot security camera wasn't working due to a Lightning storm a couple of days prior. I then said to her how convenient that was for them. She reiterated that she was sorry but she still couldn’t pay out on the claim due to no proof. I then asked her could she prove they didn’t do it and she said “NO". Well then she tried running me around in circles about how did I know it wasn’t there prior to service... I then told here my particular model van has black lug nut caps that cover the lug nuts. Prior to their working on it my Dad and I walked around my van and checked to make sure those black lug nut caps were there and make a note of how many if any were missing so that afterwards I would know some may have gotten left off. Due to the size of the gouge on my Van I would have noticed that right off while checking my lug nuts. I did not check the lug nuts after service was done until I was home washing the bluing off the tires.

After I spoke with Linda from CMI and she told me that they weren't going to fix it. I then called the Store Manager ( Connie Holder ) back and told her of my conversation and how it wasn't satisfactory to me. By this time I’m' getting pretty aggravated about the whole thing, and I then told here that I work with around 800 people on my job. I have an email account at my job as well as those 800 people I work with. I explained to here that I intended to write up an email (such as this blog entry) along with attached pictures of what had happened to my van and mail it out to those 800 people so that they are aware that if they buy tires and have them mounted at that store that if anything happens to their vehicle they can expect Wal-Mart to shirk responsibility. She then told me that she wanted to take care of me and that she does have the ability to handle small claims directly from the store. She told me to get a couple of estimates to the damage and bring them into her and she would see what she could do. I then went to my local Chevrolet dealer body shop, and got an estimate in the amount of $258 dollars. I also visited my local Ford dealership body shop and got an estimate in the amount of $222 dollars.

Today, July 18th, 2006 I took those estimates to the store and presented them to the Store Manager ( Connie Holder ), she then told me that she was sorry but wouldn't be able to help me. Her limit was $50 and that I would have to go back through the CMI to get that amount paid; she also said that since they had turned me down I was probably wasting my time. She did however give me the telephone number to CMI so that I may call and ask about this again.

I would like to say that I do not hold hard feelings toward Mrs. Holder, because she did at least try to help me up to her limit. However, I’m not at all finished with Wal-Mart or CMI at this point. I am presently trying to get the District Manager's ( Paul Beno ) email address so that I may add it to the recipients list of the "Wal-Mart dosen’t take responsibility for their screw ups " Email that I still intend to send out to those 800 people. I also intend to dedicate some of my personal business website bandwidth to exposing this bullcrap.

I have just gotten off the telephone with a lady named Kim , she is supposed to have the District Manager over the Tire service department call meto see if this can be straightened out. Hasn't called yet , will update as soon as more develops

Is this Me?

ISTP - "Engineer". Values freedom of action and following interests and impulses. Independent, concise in speech, master of tools. 5.4% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)