My mom and step-dad have owned a small restaurant for over 12 years. The original owner died in 1995, and his wife and daughters were not interested in keeping the business. So they sold it to my folks.

Since my step-dad died back in August, my mom has been keeping the business going on her own. Things have gotten complicated in the past few months. My brother, who’s been living in another state, has decided to come home and help her out, directly. He is unmarried, with no children, so he has the flexibility to pull up his stakes and go home for an indefinite period of time. I will be helping out, too, but with my ties to my current location, my help will be only indirect. He’ll be helping with his hands in the business, and I’ll be helping mostly with just ideas.

I went with my mom to a business attorney the other day, to get the restaurant name and logo trademarked (actually: wordmarked and servicemarked). She wants, (and my brother wants, and I support), to expand the business brand. The restaurant, though small, is a strong brand in my home town, and we all think we can leverage that brand recognition into something more.

This experience is going to be fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I took our mini van to Walmart for an oil change. The power steering fluid level was just below the minimum level mark, so I chose the service package that included checking and filling all fluids. I left the van with at the service bay, and went into the store to pick up some toys on our boys’ Christmas list.

Forty minutes later, I went back to the car service department and found that my van was ready for pick up. I paid for the service and the toys at the service desk, and headed out to my van. The receipt for the service had a list of all the items checked and serviced, and the power steering fluid showed as “checked.”

After loading the Christmas toys into the back of the van, I popped the hood and checked the power steering fluid level. Son of a . . . . The fluid was below the minimum level mark. They hadn’t filled it at all. I checked the receipt again, then walked back into the Walmart service department.

At the desk was the clerk and a technician, talking. From what I’ve seen in this department, the service desk clerk is some kind of manager type. I’ve seen them directing the technicians. I set my receipt on the desk and told the clerk/manager the situation. I wasn’t rude, or loud. I was calm and just straight to the point: whoever serviced my vehicle didn’t fill my power steering fluid.

The clerk/manager had the audacity to tell me, looking me right in the face, “Oh, they just check fluid levels, they don’t fill them.” I could see the sign listing the services on the wall right behind him, with the words, “We check and fill all fluids,” plainly visible right over his shoulder.

Before I could respond, the technician said, “Yeah, we fill fluids.” I appreciate him speaking up, but it was kind of a disappointment, too—I was looking forward to pointing out the clerk/manager’s “mistake.”

The clerk/manager told the technician to help me, and I got my power steering fluid container filled properly. Before leaving Walmart, I checked all the other fluids, too, just to make sure.

I’ve had other problems with the Walmart service department, (twice, “20 minutes” turned out to be two hours), so this was the third strike. The technicians have proven to be slack and/or lazy: they will completely ignore customers, even when I directly try to get their attention for a question, and they have proven now to not actually service a car like they are supposed to. And the clerk/managers are either ignorant of their services, or are willing to lie directly to a customer to cover for the slack technicians. I will never again take my vehicles to that store for any kind of car service.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I was in my hometown yesterday, visiting my mom, to help her with an aspect of the her business. She has a DSL connection to the Internet, and a wireless router on which I can use my laptop computer, but I still missed another blog post.

Her wireless network went down, and I spent over two hours trying to get it back up. I was on the phone to India twice for tech help. The first person I spoke with spoke English very well, but she was of no real help at all. Everything she told me to do, I had already done in my own attempts to get the network running, and finally she had me download (on the desktop computer, wired bypassing the router) some troubleshooting software that supposedly would help me get the network up.

Unfortunately, the software she had me download was basically just a setup program. It walked me through all the steps of plugging everything in (which I already knew how to do, and had already done multiple times before calling for tech help), and then failed to finish because it told me my wireless router was not reaching the Internet. No duh! I cussed and screamed in frustration.

Fortunately, when I called the tech help back, I got a different person, but this guy had a very thick Indian accent. He did end up helping me get everything up again. Basically, he just had me change the IP address for the router.

Once I could, at last, get on the Internet with my laptop, I started writing my November 27 blog post. But when I saved the post, it disappeared. I don’t know what happened, or how, or why, but instead of having this page like you see, here, I got just a blank, white page with only the number 1 showing as text. Nothing I did restored or found the lost information, so I gave up and went to bed.

The next morning, I got up early enough to rewrite the blog post. I wrote it all again, and saved it. I opened it from my desktop to make sure it didn’t pull the erasing trick again, and all looked good. But when I uploaded it to the server, it was lost again—just a blank, white page with the number 1. I checked the file on my desktop, and sure enough, it was also just a blank, white page with the number 1. I cussed and cussed and cussed. What the hell was happening?

So, that’s why there was no post for November 27. I got the laptop primarily so I can post when away from home, and it has served that purpose well in the past few months that I’ve had it and been away from home. But then this week, I’ve twice been unable to post while away from home.

Anyway, I apologize for missing two days this week. Maybe I need to set up some kind of automated system that will post for me at the appropriate time. All I’d need to do is have the post written and ready, and the system would upload for me. But then again, if I had that kind of programming skill, I’d have a better Web site—using a real blogging program instead of this crappy, basic HTML layout.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

We spent the weekend with my dad and his wife. They live in a very nice, new development neighborhood, with big, new, modern homes . . . out in the real, honest-to-goodness, country. And I mean the country. From my old hometown, the drive to their home is 20 minutes through rural farm lands — flat as the eye can see.

They live so far out, their only Internet access is dial-up. This is my reason for missing yesterday’s post. I was essentially off the Internet grid for about 36 hours. I got on the ‘net for about 10 minutes Saturday, but it takes so long to load pages through the phone lines, I gave up.

Anyway, we had a good time, but I missed a post.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com