On July 16, 2009, I received an email from Nikon, Inc., alerting me about a “service advisory” (aka, recall, see here) regarding my camera. Nikon requested that D5000 owners with particular serial numbers send their cameras in to get checked for a problem with the power switch not actually turning the camera on. I had not experienced any of these problems, so I was a bit hesitant to send my camera in for service basically due to the sheer annoyance of me having to be without a camera for an extended period of time (insert ominous music here). I finally decided that I [probably] wouldn’t need my camera for a decently long period of time (two weeks…Nikon shouldn’t need more time than that, right?), so I packed the thing up in a box, slapped my prepaid UPS label on it, and sent the D5000 to Connecticut. I should note that the only thing Nikon ever stated when referencing to the amount of time that it would take to get the camera fixed was: “Nikon will return serviced cameras to customers promptly, employing (whenever possible) transportation that limits transit time to two days.”

This is where you laugh and say “I know what’s going to happen next. Lepolt is going to need/want his camera before it’s fixed!” You and Murphy would be correct…almost as soon as I sent the camera in, I wanted to use it.

A little background: Seapine Software has purchased tickets to the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters Open for the past few years, and has graciously offered tickets to employees. I have graciously accepted said tickets, and have been able to see the likes of Roger Federer (Pics from 2007) smacking that little yellow ball around on a court in Mason, OH. I figured this year would be no different, so I put in my request for tickets. Again, Murphy’s interference: I wasn’t able to get tickets at the end of the tournament like I expected, but more toward the middle.

At this point I knew I was in trouble. My camera was in transit to Connecticut, I was in Cincinnati, and the tennis tournament was in a little over a week.

What do I do? I NEED my camera by Saturday! Let’s call Nikon. I’m sure by calling their 1-800 number I’ll be able to speak with someone that can tell me the whereabouts of my camera and when I can expect it to return. Right? RIGHT?!

<insert laughter>

This is where the fun begins…I called Nikon on Sunday evening and talked to Cynthia. I asked her where my camera was. She told me “it was out of her hands.” I asked how I was supposed to find my camera, and how I could get it back by Saturday. She had no idea. She did tell me that she would email the service facility, and she would email me their response by Tuesday.

It’s Tuesday. I’ve heard nothing from Cynthia. I’ll call back. This time I talked to a guy and had to explain the whole situation to him again. He told me right away that “it was out of his hands,” and “we (customer service) are not handling that.” I asked him if he knew where my camera was and he said, “it’s in Connecticut!” I calmly asked if he knew for certain that my camera was in Connecticut, or if someone else’s camera was in Connecticut. “Well, that’s where all the D5000 cameras are going.” I asked again where MY camera was. “Well, we don’t have access to that information.” I called BS and said there had to be someone there that knew what was going on. He put me on hold for five minutes…then hung up. Intentional? Probably. At least that’s the way I’ll spin it.

So I called back. This time I got to talk to Vinnie. I told Vinnie my sob story (for the third time) and mentioned how the previous support representative had just hung up on me, and how the first support representative had failed to follow through on her commitment. Vinnie really felt my pain. “It’s not funny,” he said. “I understand your inconvenience.” At this point I could pretty much recite Nikon’s whole script of how to deal with a frustrated/angry/jackass customer and knew that no one at 1-800-645-6678 would be able to do a damn thing for me. I told Vinnie that this whole situation was unacceptable, and that I was really starting to get angry due to lack of communication between Nikon and its customers, and Nikon between customer service and the repair facility. We spoke for about 25 minutes while I tried to get a loaner camera from Nikon and he read from the script which was full of “I’m sorry’s” and “I understand’s.” Probably to get me to shut up, he finally told me he was pretty sure (although he wouldn’t guarantee anything) that I would have my camera back in time. He was going to email yet ANOTHER department to see if I could get a loaner camera by Saturday. Again, he was “pretty sure” that I could get a loaner camera (but wouldn’t guarantee anything).

I’m not buying it for a second. No chance. Zero. I’m not getting my camera back or a loaner by Saturday. They’ll have to kick the thing out the door first thing Wednesday morning to have any chance of me getting it.

One interesting tidbit that I did manage to extract from Vinnie was that it could take five business days once they received the camera to generate a service order number, and they could work with me from there. Hmmmm. Five business days. This information would certainly have been useful BEFORE I sent the camera in! Stupid Nikon!!!

I realize that this whole situation is a little bit my fault…but when it really comes down to it, I feel like Nikon should have done a better job of everything! They obviously know how long it will take to repair a single camera, how many cameras they have sold, and how many cameras they could expect to receive at their repair facility. They could have provided me with a rough estimate of how long I should expect to be without my camera! All they told me was they would try to ship it back within two days wherever possible. That’s worthless to me. Unbelievable. I can send something in the mail and tell you that it will take 2-3 days to get there! The useful information is how long it will take them to fix once they have it…information they neglected to share. Oh well.

So, I guess we’ll just wait and see. Hopefully I have something to use come Saturday…Federer is in town.

Also, we have a friend in one of our pots:

Apparently I find it more funny than she does.

We have since taken care of the “problem.”

(Photo credits obviously go to Cedar Point)

We get a Sunday newspaper solely for the coupons. Sure, we’ll look through the ads and read some other things, but Abi digs through the paper and cuts out any useful coupon that she can find. These coupons are then filed in categories with the others for use on her next crazy shopping extravaganza. One of the tricks that Abi uses to save big is to only buy something if it is on sale AND she has a coupon for the item. Most grocery stores will double coupons, so after the sale and the coupon times two, it really can create some incredible deals.

For example, on her last grocery shopping trip to Kroger she saved a total of 51% off the bill, which was over $90. Just in case you think you misread, that is ninety dollars in cash. $70 of that was from coupons alone where the remaining was from in-store savings (sales, etc.). Some of the crazy deals she got this time include a large box of Russell Stovers candies for $.50, a family-sized pack of frozen Taquitos for $.25, a bottle of Herbal Essences shampoo for $.13, two bottles of Pert Plus shampoo for $.09 each, and even was able to get a toothbrush for free.

Sometimes Abi will actually pay negative dollars for things, ie, the store will pay her to “buy” something. For instance, let’s say something was on sale for $.75 and Abi has a couple for $.40. After the coupon is doubled the cost of the item is -$.05, which sometimes is actually subtracted from the total bill.

It’s ridiculously awesome, and that’s why Abi does the grocery shopping at the Lepolt house. I have no idea how many hundreds of dollars she has saved us since we have been married, but I do know that we’ve paid for the newspaper for the next couple years…and that’s just in her last trip!

As best I can guess (and estimate from the date I got them developed), these were taken in the summer of 1996. My Grandpa Wagner used to take my cousins (Greg and Chris) and me on a yearly fishing trip to Robinson, IL, where his sister (my Aunt Carol) lived. Aunt Carol belonged to the Quail Creek Country Club, where we did all of our fishing. We made it three or four consecutive years without killing each other, and we always had a pretty good time. Each trip would last a few days where we would fish and hang out, but mostly fish.

]]> http://www.lepolt.com/blog/2008/12/04/just-for-fun/feed/ 5 http://www.lepolt.com/blog/2008/11/02/fairbanks-packs-house-records-live-album/ http://www.lepolt.com/blog/2008/11/02/fairbanks-packs-house-records-live-album/#comments Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:23:35 +0000 Jonathan http://www.lepolt.com/blog/?p=145 CINCINNATI, Ohio – 23 August 2008 – Roger Fairbanks is at it again, this time in front of a live audience. On August 23, 2008, Fairbanks invited a crowd of 50 friends and family to his home for a private concert. The Cincinnati weather was hot and muggy, but that didn’t stop the enthusiastic fans from attending, even after some minor difficulties with the air conditioner.

Fairbanks provided guests with beer brewed in the home countries of many of the composers that would be featured that evening, including Poland, Russia, France, Austria, Belgium, Argentina, and the United States.

As people sat down with their beers of the world in anticipation of a great show, Fairbanks got things going with some contemporary favorites by the Beatles, Chicago, and Charlie Chaplin. “Songs like these are always fan favorites,” said Roger. “People know the words and tend to sing along in their heads. It keeps them excited for more, and before they realize it they’ve become entranced by the classical pieces.”

The contemporary pieces were followed by a familiar tune, heard recently in an Xbox commercial for Halo 3. It was Chopin’s famous Prelude in D-flat Major, better known as the Raindrop Prelude.

Music enthusiast Joseph Valentin says, “Mr. Fairbanks dazzles audiences again with his latest release, Live in Cincinnati. On his newest disc, Fairbanks displays unusual versatility, bringing to life everything from the nostalgic melodies of the Beatles and Chicago to some of the repertoire’s most difficult riffs from Debussy and Rachmaninoff. Live in Cincinnati will keep listeners interested from start to finish and promises to bring audiences back for a repeat performance.”

For this special event Roger invited his piano teacher to stop by to play a few pieces. Judith Fleitas is a Doctoral candidate at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Her musical genius was demonstrated tonight as she performed some classical pieces by W. A. Mozart and Alberto Ginastera. She wowed the crowed as her fingers moved magically along the keys, producing a sound that Ginastera himself would have appreciated. A quick biography about Judith can be found at the end of this release.

Between Fairbanks and Fleitas, the night was a huge success. After the concert was over the fans erupted with applause, standing up and asking for an encore. Roger’s CD will be release to the public in the next few weeks, but in case you can’t wait, digital downloads of the individual pieces can be found here: http://www.lepolt.com/roger_live.

Press Contacts:
Jonathan Lepolt
Fairbanks/Lepolt Recording Studios
lepoltje [at] gmail [dot] com

Judith Fleitas is a Cuban American pianist. Ms. Fleitas is completing her Doctorate in Musical Arts at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Her repertoire includes most of the Classical composers and her specialty is Latin-American Classical music. Besides that, teaching is also her passion. Roger Fairbanks is one of her adult students, and one of the most dedicated and entrepreneurial ones. Mr. Fairbanks has been taking lessons from Ms. Fleitas for several years, and this performance was one at his house, where several friends and music lovers gathered and both, teacher and student performed in an informal atmosphere for fun.

About the pieces: Alberto Ginastera was one of the most famous Argentinean composers of the twentieth century. The piece performed by Ms. Fleitas is from a set of three dances titled “Tres Piezas.” The earlier piece is the second movement from W. A. Mozart’s beautiful piano sonata in F Major K. 332. If you would like to contact Ms. Fleitas, please do so at: fleitasjc [at] hotmail [dot] com.

The other day we left our house and were headed down the street. All of the sudden some car backed out of a driveway, clearly not looking for oncoming traffic. I calmly hit the brakes and slowed to avoid a collision, only to realize it was the kid that had been practicing maneuverability with cones in his driveway for the past couple months…

He must have nailed that part, but skimmed by on the IMPORTANT aspects of driving (like not running into other cars). Oh well, at least he wasn’t headed the same direction that we were!

We actually ended up losing power around 3:00pm Sunday afternoon. It flickered on and off a few times until finally settling on off. No big deal, right? It will come back on sooner or later…or not.

2.5 days later power was restored to our house. As of 1:30pm today there still are over 297,000 customers that aren’t nearly as lucky as we are. Regardless, I’d like to recap the past 2.5 days as a list of things that were good, bad, ugly, ridiculous, etc. Here we go:

The good

• After the wind was done blowing on Sunday, the temperatures dropped into the 50-60s at night, and 70s during the day. This meant that we weren’t going to freeze to death, nor would we sweat to death.
• Although Hurricane Ohio was tough, we never saw more than a sprinkle of rain.
• Our 40 gallon water heater managed to keep enough hot water stored up so we could take minimal showers.
• Team Lammi was supportive throughout this whole catastrophe, as they offered up their hot food and some electricity (hopefully we don’t get a bill).

The bad

• After 2.5 days we had to toss out a bunch of food. This was by far the thing that upset me most about the power outage.
• Busy intersections with broken stoplights. At least most people realized they were four-way stops.

The ridiculous

• A few people in our neighborhood were running generators to keep part of their houses powered. Which parts I have no idea. I do know that we saw one guy siphoning gas from his car so that he could run the generator a little longer. Hmmmm, necessary? I think not.

The ugly

• The number of people that thought the world was going to end because of a power outage.

Insult to injury

• Tuesday morning Abi and I were leaving for work when we found out that Abi’s car battery had died. D’oh! Good thing Autozone was open until 10pm.

Things I’m glad we had

• Bread
• Peanut butter
• Honey (goes great with the bread and peanut butter)
• Random snack food
• Flashlights with charged batteries
• Tons of candles
• Matches + lighter
• Cars with gasoline
• Grill with propane
• Friends with power

Things I wish we had

• Ice
• Generator (mostly for the fridge)
• Bottled water
• Ice
• Dry ice
• More ice

Problems for others

• Missing roof shingles
• Missing siding
• Exposed plywood on roof and/or side of house

At 12:49am this morning our power came back on. Things can get back to normal at Casa de Lepolt.

At this point I’m not ready to spend a smooth half grand on electronics, which is why #2 was the answer. The problem with this is that now we have no good way to watch DVDs. There’s a slight chance that Abi and I both brought portable DVD players into this marriage…but the real issue (finally stated) is that neither of those DVD players has a digital audio output for the 5.1 Bose surround sound system in the house. This means I am unable to get some sweet surround sound effects while watching movies with the sound cranked up rattling the walls, and that’s what I’m really looking for.

I held out for a while but was really inkling to watch something with a lot of explosions. After all, THIS IS MY HOUSE AND I CAN BE AS LOUD AS I WANT TO BE BECAUSE THIS IS MY HOUSE AND NO ONE CAN TELL ME TO BE QUIET!!! Last week I made the decision that I would find the DVD player with the cheapest retail price I could find just to hold us over until Blu-ray was a bit more reasonable.

Let me take a moment to explain a few things about my buying habits. When I buy things, especially electronics, my philosophy is to buy very high quality products. There are a few reasons behind this:

1. I take good care of my things. When they break, it’s not my fault.
2. I have found that nicer things last longer; therefore when I buy nice things I don’t need to replace them because they don’t break.
3. This philosophy was pretty much followed out by my father (at least in terms of electronics), so it’s hereditary and I can’t help it.

Anyways, I decided that in my current situation that buying a cheap DVD player to keep me satisfied until it was replaced by a new Blu-ray was acceptable, even though it was against my core beliefs. I mean, come on! DVDs have been out since 1993…even a cheap DVD player should be decent, right? Abi and I stopped by Best Buy one day last week and found a $30 Insignia DVD player, decided it was acceptable, bought it and took it home. We plugged it in and watched a movie. Everything went surprisingly fine: good sound quality, good picture quality, remote worked…this thing was actually going to work out. Sweet, $30, not bad.

Saturday we were doing some work around the house when I decided to take a break and watch a scene from a movie with a great surround sound scene. The office building lobby scene from the Matrix came to mind, so I popped the DVD in. You know the one I’m talking about:

Anyways, I was fiddling around with things trying to skip directly to that chapter, but the remote wouldn’t work. No matter how hard I pressed on the buttons, the selected menu would only go up. Different buttons did the same thing. Hmmm…maybe I can program my Sony receiver remote to work with this Insignia DVD player. Good thought Lepolt, but Sony spits on that crap.

To conclude this long story, I took back the $30 POS and picked up a nice Sony $80 upconverting DVD player, which still works like a champ even after using it twice. So there you have it: 30 reasons I don’t buy crap.