Archive for September, 2012

That’s What Customer Service SHOULD Be Like ALL The Time!!

Saturday, September 15th, 2012

Over the summer I started using my iPad to store and display my chord charts for the worship songs I play / lead in church.  It means I no longer have to fumble with paper on a Sunday morning (or while playing around during the week) and it means I always have nearly all my song charts with me all the time.  To do this, I use an app called OnSong which I highly recommend.

Now to make the page turns/scrolling easier I bought a wireless Bluetooth pedal system that connects to my iPad.  With it, I can do all sorts of things, but I’ve set it up for scrolling forward and backward, and for going to the next and previous songs.  The one that I use is the AirTurn “BT-105 on Pedal Board with 4 ATFS-2 Pedals“.

When I originally bought the system from a company here in Canada, the product actually had a defective 1st pedal.  I contacted the company I bought from AND the manufacturer (AirTurn) and AirTurn got back to me within a couple of hours and within a few emails back and forth they ended up sending me a brand new system from their offices Colorado.  The new system actually incorporated some new design elements that made it more reliable.  The service was great!!

Now, this week, when I was using the system, I realized that the battery wasn’t charging.  I thought I’d email them just to see if they had any suggestions on how to revive the battery and to see if I was doing anything wrong.  Within 10 minutes the co-founder and VP of the company (yeah, it’s just a small company) got back to me with a suggestion and asked me to let him know what happened this morning (Saturday morning!).

Well, I tried his suggestion and it didn’t work, so at about 7:30am EDT I emailed him to let him know that it still didn’t seem to be charging.  His response — about 30 seconds later — was, “Okay, we’ll replace it then.”  No questions about what I’d done to screw it up.  No trying to get out of anything.  Heck, I didn’t even ASK to have it replaced!  I just wanted to know if there was anything *I* could do to revive it.  (It seems to still function as long as it’s plugged in, so I just figured I’d have to live with it that way from now on!)

So often these days Customer Service people seem to more of a filter.  Their job descriptions seems to be “Do everything you can to make sure that we (the company) don’t get blamed for anything and just save us money.”  This has been a great Customer Service experience.  I wish more companies were like this!

In the meantime, if you’re a worship leader, or in a band where you need music, or you just like to tinker with stuff, BOTH these products — OnSong and the AirTurn pedals — and ones you should look into.  I can’t recommend either product more highly!!

TTFN

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Posted in Church, Computers, General, Music, Personal | No Comments »

Homemade Tortillas

Friday, September 7th, 2012

The following recipe is for flour tortillas that we make at home.  We played with a couple of online recipes to come up with one that we liked that used both white flour and corn flour.

  • White Flour – 4 1/4 Cups
  • Corn Flour – 2 Cups
  • Salt – 2 teaspoons
  • Vegetable Oil – 2/3 Cup
  • Water – 2 1/2 Cups

Makes 25 tortillas on our tortilla press that the kids gave us for Christmas.

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Summer is Over and Routine is Here

Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

Earlier this month I said that I would be getting back to blogging more now that July was over.  Little did I know that August was going to be just as crazy.  It’s been a great summer, but today the fall routine starts to set in, and I think that’s a good thing.  But first, the summer that has passed…

The end of June saw me panicking that I might not get my vacation time at the cottage! While I’ve been less than busy at work over the first five months of the year, a major project was about to kick off with the start date scheduled to be the last week of June – just before my two weeks vacation was expected to start!  Fortunately the timing changed, and even while on holidays I got an email to say the project start had been delayed for another week, and so it started AFTER my vacation.

The time at the cottage was wonderful!  Two weeks spent in the Haliburton Highlands at our family cottage just enjoying nature, reading, and puttering around the cottage doing various maintenance jobs.  We enjoyed a great time with the kids and their friends, and visited with relatives.  Overall it was a GREAT kickoff to the summer.

Of course, the first week of August was our usual trip to Darien Lake for Kingdom Bound.  After going for the last 11 of 12 years (one year off for our West Coast trip) this event never gets old for us.  You’ve heard me say before that it’s a great time of hearing music by various and diverse Christian artists – everything from worship to rock to hip-hop to country to krunk.  We listened to speakers, enjoyed the sunshine and this year even enjoyed a day of relaxation where we spent most of the day at the waterpark.

August saw us welcome back Jordan and Rachel back to civilization after their two years (three for Rachel) in Thunder Bay.  They are now staying with us while they look for jobs (Jordan in teaching, and Rachel in geriatrics) and it’s been fun getting to interact with them as a married couple (even though Jordan will ALWAYS be our son!).

While we thought the summer would be a time when we’d be able to slip away from the church on weekends, we found that our new church home has become just that – home – and so we’ve found ourselves wanting to be there more than ever.  It certainly has helped that Tim, Bethany and I have now gotten integrated into the Worship teams and we can certainly see that juggling the weekends is going to be lots of fun in the future!  Nancy and Bethany also helped out with our church’s VBS program and they were amazed to see the loads of volunteers and the enthusiasm of the kids and leaders throughout the week.

With fall rolling in, we’ve already been looking hard at the calendar to figure out what our priorities will/should be.  Like I said, getting back into the routine of fall isn’t necessarily a bad thing!

First of all, it means that there’s a little more predictability to life.  Planning around our home can require the skills of a professional project planner at times, and so having a routine isn’t a bad thing at all.

Daniel will be getting back into school mode, as he starts his next four years at Ryerson in the Film Studies program.  Tim is embarking on his new life as professional student again for another four years as he starts his training at the Chiropractic College.  Bethany is back into her academic and sports routine in Grade 11, and is working out what she wants to do after High School as well.

Nancy and I have also agreed to lead one of the Life Groups at our church.  This will kick off in September and with the people that have already expressed interest, and with the immense support of the church, it’s looking to be a very exciting time for us indeed.

Well, that’s about it for now.  We certainly hope that you’ve had a wonderful summer season, and we pray that your fall will be filled with blessings and that you will be a blessing to others.

By the way, we (Nancy and I) listened to a podcast last night on the way back from the cottage and I’m hoping that I can make it my mantra for the coming year (and longer).  The speaker was challenging us to always be asking in our families, “What can I do to help?”  I think that’s a great way to express our love for each other and to show our committment.  It applies not just inside the family, but outside as well, it all our relationships.

Think about it.  Maybe it should be your mantra as well 🙂

TTFN

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