ShakesItUp's Blog - 2old2play

Self Checkout

To the lady in front of me at the self-checkout line,

If new-fangled technology like the cotton gin and opposable thumbs make you all nervous and sets your heart aflutter, the self-checkout is not for you. You are brand new breed of retard. I'd like my 20 minutes back please.

Shakes

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I've got this itch...

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Shop Smart

Shop S*Mart...

Just a little something I came across in my travels here in Korea. If you're interested in the ramblings of a lurpy foreigner in Seoul, South Korea on business, check out my main blog, It's Shake N' Bake, and I Helped.

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JPM Real Estate Services can suck a blue wienie

Dear JPM Real Estate,

I'm writing in response to your notice dated 1/23/08 regarding a rental rate increase to be effective 2/1/08. As I hope you are aware, Oregon state law requires a minimum of 30 days notice for any rental rate increase. As such I am including a check in the amount of $850, our current rate, for February rent. As per Oregon law, notices will not be honored unless filed properly. Please re-file any notice you deem fit and allow for 30 days from the time of re-filing.

Furthermore, I feel that the rate increase is unjustified in the unit's current condition. Firstly, let me give you some detail on our history with JPM. We signed our initial lease in January of 2006 with one of your employees named Melissa. Apparently Melissa's employment was terminated shortly thereafter and our paperwork was "lost". Save Melissa, JPM was unaware of our inhabitance until our February rent check arrived. At that point Maria contacted us and spent several weeks searching for our "lost" paperwork to no avail. Despite our providing copies of the original lease, Maria required we sign a new lease in March, backdated to January 3rd, or face eviction.

In your notice you site "increase cost of utilities" as one reason for the rental rate increase. At this time we pay ALL utilities, rendering this point moot. Furthermore, water, sewer, garbage service and garbage container were the responsibility of JPM in our initial lease. The new backdated lease put all utilities into our responsibility. Maria would not budge on this point and claimed that utilities were never paid by JPM at Mayjohn Court Towne Homes. We later learned our neighbor's utilities were paid by JPM.

Your notice also states increased "property expenses" as reason for the increase. I am curious as to what these property expenses are. If they are HOA fees I highly suggest you investigate the Mayjohn Court Towne Homes HOA. In the 2+ years that we have lived here the only service they have provided is a once a month mowing of the half-dead lawn. They are, however, very quick to tow any vehicle parking in the extremely faded, undistinguishable "yellow zone", resulting in a late night $285 visit to the tow yard for my mother-in-law. Despite the towing the street always seems to be clogged with vehicles. The street is unkempt. The signs are an eyesore (except for the pristine towing signs!). The buildings are dingy. The mailbox is in a sad state of disrepair. The fencing between units in the rear is falling apart and is dangerous. The police frequent our street on a weekly basis, if not daily in the summertime, to deal with several residents near the end of the street. Many residents do not abide by the 10 p.m. noise curfew, especially in the summer. There are also several heavy smokers in the near vicinity who enjoy "sharing" their habit by smoking in the back and side yards within feet of our open windows. One resident even had someone living in a tent in the backyard for a few months that frequently enjoyed rather pungent cigars.

If the "property expenses" are in regards to maintenance I have several requests to make. When signing with Melissa, there were several points discussed in regards to items that would be fixed after our inhabitance. Melissa told us that a painting/resurfacing of the kitchen/bath/laundry cabinets was already "in the works" as was a repair of the warped and marred countertops in the kitchen. This has not happened. We were told the bathtub would be resurfaced. This was finally completed in August of 2007 and is already beginning to crack and peel. We were told a power washing of the dingy exterior was already scheduled. It has yet to happen. There are a few windows with blown seals. These were to be resealed. The only maintenance item completed as promised was to deal with the mold on the garage wall caused by a leaky water heater. This was done by painting over the mold with an anti mold paint. The water heater burst in summer of 07 and was replaced with one that was up to code (the former was not). The wall remains only treated with paint. The rear outdoor faucet did not function at the time of inhabitance and was to be repaired. It was finally repaired in summer of 07. All these items were raised again with Maria, who said she would look into it. None were addressed until Devina Baker took over our account.

In light of the rate increase I would also like to formally request the repair of some issues that have come to light after living in the unit for a time. The refrigerator is dying. It has been "repaired" several times in the past few months by blowing dust out of the compressor. It's temperature fluctuates significantly, it leaks water and we often hear hissing noises from it, as if water were dripping onto something hot. The door seals are also in disrepair. Several wall outlets are loose internally, causing plugs to slowly slide out, creating a moderate risk for our small children. Some items will not work when plugged into some outlets due to the looseness. The fireplace tile damage that is noted on our move in report is worsening. The clothes dryer tube under the house was clogged some time back. The repairman cleared the clog, but punctured a hole in it in the process. He claimed this was acceptable. I informed JPM verbally, but would like this notification to be in writing as there could be potential damage due to moisture seeping in under the structure.

Lastly, I would like to point out our rental rate history. Our initial lease rate was $790/mo. In February of 2007 our rate increased to $850/mo on a month-to-month basis. We asked to sign a new lease, but were told by Maria that new leases were not being offered at the time. Now you are proposing a further increase to $920/mo. This would constitute a total rate increase of 16.4% in just over one year. I personally find this highly unreasonable, especially considering the points outlined in this letter.

In closing I would like to sympathize with Devina Baker for inheriting this mess from Melissa and Maria. She has been nothing but prompt, professional and friendly in helping us work through maintenance issues as they arise from time to time. Had we been working with her from the beginning I'm positive we wouldn't be in this situation. I hope that we can find amicably beneficial solutions to the problems outlined above and agree on a reasonable rental rate for the property.

Sincerely,
Kyle and Rebecca

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StrengthsFinder 2.0

We're in goal setting mode at work. I've been wading through all of the corporate puffery and motivational ramblings that are ever present this time of year in hopes of actually setting an awesome path to follow and really blow some minds at work this year. In the course of attending workshops and filling out my CFE (Coaching for Excellence, corporate mandated "tell us how awesome you're going to be and when the awesomeness will occur") form I was asked to read the book "StrengthsFinder 2.0" and take their web survey to find my strengths. I love studying psychology, personalities and the like, but I'm usually skeptical of the little personality tests and evaluation tools that blow through at work. I have to say that I was impressed with the results from the book and survey. I haven't had this good of an introspective look since I took the Myers-Briggs test. For those that have taken it, my 5 strengths are:

Futuristic

People who are especially talented in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future.

Ideation

People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

Maximizer

People who are especially talented in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.

Adaptability

People who are especially talented in the Adaptability theme prefer to �go with the flow.� They tend to be �now� people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.

Belief

People who are especially talented in the Belief theme have certain core values that are unchanging. Out of these values emerges a defined purpose for their life.

The thing I like most about StrengthsFinder is it's focus on building and leveraging your strengths instead of trying to fix your weaknesses. My favorite quote is one by Goethe, "Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become all he can and should be." I think all workplaces would be much more enjoyable if we all just focused on the positive and stopped worrying so much about pointing out our faults and trying to fix them.

Enough about work. 360 is back from rehab and seems to have kicked it's bad habits. W000t. Maybe now I can get to playing through Gears of War. I borrowed it from a friend just before the console died. Awww, who am I kidding. Lady's been having Oblivicrack withdrawals, so I'll probably have a tough time prying the controller from her hands. You don't touch a pregnant redhead's contoller, trust me. ;)

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I'm a game designer

OK, not quite, but close. I've been working for Nike for 3.5 years as a production artist for licensed and promo apparel. When people ask what I do for a living I respond, "I draw jerseys". Among a plethora of other design, production and technical geekery I draw catalog line art of both on-court and retail apparel for teams that are sponsored by Nike. I've had the privilege of working on Team Apparel (think blanks that high schools order), Federation and Club Soccer, and now College Basketball. From time to time our sports marketing guys will come 'round begging for a disc of uniform images to send to EA. I've fired off discs for the FIFA series and I'm assuming they made it to EA because the jerseys look accurate in game. Today was a bit different, though. The sports marketing guys for basketball are on vacation. They fired up their crackberries and hooked me up straight with the artist at EA. I spent the afternoon gathering uniform line art for the coming season and sending it straight to EA for NCAA 08 March Madness. I'm usually not big on sports games, but considering the quarters I pumped into NBA Jam I may just have to give this bball game a go. Maybe I can finagle a free copy...

On another note, my EksBocks 180 is dying. The disc drive won't open. I have to use the manual eject to get it to open. Once it's open it'll close as normal and read just fine. Fortunately my 360 is due back from rehab tomorrow.

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Nike Cube Rat

When I started working for Nike 3 1/2 years ago cubicle space at the World Headquarters campus in Beaverton, Oregon was at a premium. Due to space constraints the department I was hired by, Licensed/Team Apparel, happened to be housed off-campus in a business park we affectionately called "The Trailer Park". We embraced the situation and had parking lot barbeques every so often and even called our department softball team the Trailer Trash. My cubicle there was somewhat spacious, albeit typical and uninspiring. Because of our location I also felt seperated from the culture and resources available on campus, including cafeterias, convenience shopping, 2 full service sports facilities and an awesome design library.

Nike WHQ

This spring the decision was made to bring all product creation related jobs to campus for better cross communication between categories. I was moved to the oldest building on campus, Mike Schmidt, and conditions improved. I finally had access to the gym and was within walking distance to the cafeteria and employee store. My cubicle, however, was small, interior and at a junction between two major hallways. The foot traffic was disctracting, but the cubicle itself was a marked improvement from my previous location.

Fast forward to last week and the decision was made to move all design operations to the slightly newer Michael Jordan building. I have earned some seniority in our group due to my tech initiatives to improve our workflow. The seniority paid off and I was given preferential treatment when the new cubes were assigned. I rolled in this morning, found my new cube and nearly shat myself.

The pictures were snapped with my iSight camera, so they don't do the place justice. The entire wall to the left of my computer is a window. I'm on the 3rd floor overlooking trees and a pathway leading to the track. I get a little direct sun in the morning, but most of the day it's a nice diffused light through the trees. I'm still setting up and decorating (arranging all my toys), but I'm already quite comfortable in my new space.

I love my job.

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Sleep Deprivation...

...is good for the soul. Or so I like to tell myself. In all reality it just makes me kinda sweaty and gives me bad gas.

Here I sit at 5:30 am having not slept in nearly 24 hours. Please excuse the bad grammar and drool as I fall asleep on my keyboard. I've been up all night writing a 10+ page senior thesis on the effect personal computers and image editing software have had on the graphic design industry. I've also been putting the finishing touches on my portfolio that I have to dry run on Thursday and debut to the world on the 23rd. I'm finally graduating with a BS in Graphic Design after 12 years of off-and-on schooling. A lot of people go to school for 12 years. They're called doctors.

It still hasn't fully sunk in that I'm graduating in less than 2 weeks. I've been cranking full-time work/part-time school steady since '03 when I started at the Art Institute of Portland. I haven't known anything but stress and "go go go" for a while and a change of pace is long overdue. It's going to be nice to free up all that time spent doing homework and attending class. I'm looking forward to quality time with Lady and the kids, playing guitar, snowboarding, backpacking, mountain biking, working out, eating right, and a million other things that I haven't had time for and sacrificed for the past few years.

Lady has been a goddess and a huge support throughout my schooling. Thank you isn't enough to express what she's done for me. Tell her she's awesome when you see her on XBL.

On a side note, we need a second car so I'm going to look at this one tomorrow. I'll drop cash if it's in as good condition as it seems. I love older VW's and I miss my '92 Jetta. It'll be nice having a sporty car again and have a break from the Denim Blue Mica minivan.

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Fragrant Flatulence

If you are a connoisseur of fine onions, as I am, you'll be well aware of the Walla Walla Sweet Onion and it's fine flavor. I look forward every year to harvest season for these scrumptuous treats. From onion rings to a fine burger garnish, they bring flavor and sweetness to any edible that can be made with onion. One of my personal favorites is Nalley Walla Walla Onion Chili.

I'm sure we're all aware of the negative side-effects of eating chili. The Walla Walla Sweet Onion, however, sweetens the prize and almost gives it an elegant, pleasant aroma.

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I'm an insensitive jerk

So I come out of the stall and a guy in a wheelchair rolls up and shoots a sarcastic, "Try to be a little more sensitive next time." What did I do that was so horrible this handicapped individual would consider me an insensitive person? Let's take a journey:

As many of you know, I'm finishing up a bachelor's degree in graphic design by taking evening classes at the Art Institute of Portland. I usually get off of work around 5pm, hit the train, grab some food and barely make class at 6:00. This particular evening I was running a little late for Advanced Illustration and the only food place that is directly on my way to school is Baja-Not-So-Fresh. I knew we were having peer review in class, so I'd be able to munch quietly in the back without any problems. So I grab some chips and guacamole and slide into my seat around 6:05. The teacher was late so I was home free.
I sit quietly in the back, giving feedback on fellow student's illustration work and munching happily on my chips n guac. Round about 7:30 we take our first break of the evening (class runs until 9:45) and at this point I'm starting to feel a little tickle in gut. By the end of break I've got the sweats, you know when everything on your body is sweating, even places you didn't know had sweat glands. That's my first clue that something is horribly wrong and I know at some point in the evening I will have to take care of exorcising the demons currently posessing my innards. But I try to be a champ and head back to class.
Not 10 minutes in to class el Baja Diablo tries to take control and I make a b-line for the one restroom on the entire floor. I bust through the door like SWAT at Mike James' house on a porn raid and look for the nearest stall to perform my Exorcism. The first two are taken, leaving the handicap stall as my only option. Not wanting to call janitorial to clean up a mess I happily accept my new accomodations and even secretly appreciate the handles installed next to the commode. I settle in, open my mouth and begin praying loudly to the porcelain gods to excorise the Guacamole of Doom and send it back to the sewers from whence it came.
In the meantime the other 2 stalls had finished their business (or been scared off by mine) and vacated the bathroom. Keep in mind I mentioned my exhortation for relief was extremely LOUD. No doubt other people could hear and knew what was happening as one kind gentleman asked if I was OK and offered his deepest sympathies.

Around 5 minutes into my little seance and I hear an obviously annoyed voice ask, "Are you going to be long?"

"I hope not," is my reply, followed by more prayer and supplication

He angrily responds "Why did you have to choose the handicap stall when the other 2 are open, a**hole?" at which point I realize this man might possibly be handicap and need the stall I'm in. I reply as politely as I can between vomiting "The other 2 were taken when I came in." I finish as best I can, clean up and exit the stall. Sure enough, there is a pissed off hesher in a wheelchair who shoots me a menacing glance. Being a nice guy I try to apologize to which he responds. "What the f*** were you thinking? Try to be a little more sensitive next time."

It took every ounce of energy left in my body not to grab him by the mullet and puke all over his ball-point-pen-band-logo emblazzoned jean jacket.

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