Author Archives: Andy

Scammers

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I am tired of getting ripped off.

Over the last six months, several people have tried to defraud or steal from me.

Credit Card Fraud

I got my first credit card at age 18. Despite running as many purchases as possible through my cards, including countless online transactions, I never had someone compromise my credit card until last year. I guess I was due. On two different occasions, someone somehow got my credit card number and started running up charges. In November, someone spent maybe $200 at a Speedway gas station in Illinois. (Using a stolen credit card number to buy gas? Really? Why not something fun like an Apple store?) Then in December, someone in Tokyo ran up several charges totaling several hundred dollars at a gas station (gas again – what gives?) plus some other businesses I couldn’t figure out.

I caught the charges quickly thanks to Mint.com. I use its iPhone app to check my credit card balances at least once a day, enabling me to know my balance and see what charges appear. Each time I found something fraudulent, I called Chase, and they took care of it. The first incident was extremely easy. The Tokyo incident took at least three phone calls and was much more frustrating, but I think everything is wrapped up now.

Any informed borrower is simply less vulnerable to fraud and abuse. — Alan Greenspan

I have no idea how the thieves got my numbers. I only enter my credit card numbers at reputable, secure sites. I don’t fall for phishing emails. Apparently, thieves sometimes use cameras or special equipment to snag numbers at gas station pumps, so maybe that’s what happened. I doubt I’ll ever know. But I’m thankful that Chase dismissed the charges instead of making me eat them.

Texting Fraud

One October day while I was sleeping after work, I was rudely awoken by a strange text. It looked like spam and said something like, “You have been signed up for LongLifeLoveTips for only $9.99/month. Text STOP to cancel.” Half-awake, I was afraid to respond to a spam text, thinking my response would only confirm that the spammer had found a legitimate mobile phone number. I ignore spam emails for the same reason, so I figured it worked the same way.

Then I got my AT&T bill and saw that my friends at LongLifeLoveTips really had charged me $9.99.

Foolishly, I ignored that charge as well and hoped they would just go away. I was wrong. Then I got another text from them in November saying that my subscription had been renewed for another $9.99. I was especially upset because I hadn’t gotten a single Long Life Love Tip. (Is that a fortune? Sex advice? Health tips? Lottery numbers? Digits for someone who wants a date?) This time I texted back with STOP and got a reply saying my “subscription” would be canceled.

Finally, I got it through my thick skull that I needed to overcome my reluctance to complain to customer service people and actually contact AT&T. Naturally, I took the easy road and emailed them through their website. (I also figured out who was behind the scam and sent them a strongly worded email. I’m sure they repented immediately.)

Emailing AT&T actually worked. They responded within a day and put a credit on my bill the next month for both charges.

Auto Shop Fraud

Recently my car told me it was time to change the oil. Instead of standard service intervals, my Honda Fit (and many other Honda models) has a Maintenance Minder system that monitors the condition of my oil and keeps track of its remaining useful life. Once it gets down to 15 percent, I get a warning light. Cool, eh? It usually works out to around 7500 miles.

Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud. — Sophocles

I went to the local City Garage, which has treated us well in the past with no upselling pressure. This time the manager was there instead of the guy we normally talk to. She tells me my oil is very dirty and a quart low and recommends an engine oil flush. Never mind that I just checked the oil a week or so ago and its level was fine. I’ve never found the oil below full in 5.5 years of ownership. The color was brown when I checked it, but I would hardly call it “very dirty”. But the flush sounded like a good idea since I was approaching 70,000 miles and had never done it before. (turns out that was a foolish decision that did nothing but add $20 to my bill)

It got better after that. She asked (accusingly?) whether I’d gotten my oil changed somewhere else since I came in last. My windshield sticker said I was a few thousand miles overdue. I said no, I followed the manufacturer’s recommendations and the Maintenance Minder. She explained that the Maintenance Minder was set up for standard conditions rather than severe conditions, and that around here I should use the severe maintenance schedule due to my short trips and our “extreme heat and cold”. Yes, she actually referred to extreme cold in Dallas, where we haven’t dropped below 25 all winter and probably wouldn’t. We argued about it briefly, with me explaining that my driving pattern matched the normal schedule. She obviously wasn’t convinced but wisely decided not to press the matter too much.

The kicker was the air filter. The technician working my car brought my air filter in, and the manager said it looked dirty and recommended changing it. The filter is 5 months old. I replaced it in August 2011, according to the record I checked when I got home. I told her I thought I had changed it pretty recently. At that point she looked closer at it and then explained to the technician that she could still see through the filter, so it was okay.

Wow.

So we’re now in the market for yet another oil change shop. I could avoid getting ripped off by doing it myself, but I just don’t enjoy working on cars. Maybe I’ll try Christian Brothers and see if they live up to their name. Do you recommend anyone?

Overrated and Underrated

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I haven’t stirred up enough trouble lately, so let’s fix that. Here is my completely subjective list of some of the most overrated and underrated brands/companies I have found.

OVERRATED

  • Raising Cane’s – People talk about how great their chicken is, and their stores keep popping up around here. Although I’ve never eaten there, Jenny and several friends agreed that the chicken is mediocre, the ONE available sauce is weird, and the menu is limited to two items: the aforementional mediocre chicken fingers and average french fries. Give me Chicken Express or KFC any day.
  • Joe T. Garcia’s in Fort Worth – Jenny’s sister LOVES this place. I must admit the huge ranch-style house that was turned into a sprawling Mexican restaurant does overflow with character, and the servers are very nice. Unfortunately, nothing else about the place appeals to me. It’s a Mexican restaurant that doesn’t serve an enchilada dinner. Are you kidding me? On my last visit, I ordered chicken fajitas instead. The fajitas were pretty good, but the salsa didn’t do much for me, and the rice was dry and overcooked. The restaurant is so busy that waits of up to two hours are not uncommon, and it’s so noisy that conversation is difficult, especially when dining in a large group. Finally, their cash-only, no-check splitting policy makes payment quite difficult for those of us who like to dine with other parties and get airline miles for our meals. Finding a better Mexican place is extremely easy to find around here.
  • Dublin Dr Pepper – Sacrilege, some of you say! Take a deep breath. I like Dublin Dr Pepper, too. I just don’t understand why people idolize it so much. The Dublin version uses cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) like normal Dr Pepper. The taste is slightly different, but the difference is hard to describe. To me, it does taste slightly better, and the HFCS haters believe it’s healthier. But now that the Dublin plant has been forced to stop using the cane sugar recipe by Dr Pepper corporate, Dublin fans are buying up supplies like bottled water before a hurricane. Apparently one auction had bids above $8 per bottle for the stuff. If I pay $8 for a bottle of ANYTHING, it better include some fermented grape juice.
  • Starbucks – As I’ve noted here before, I am not a fan of Starbucks. It’s a nice place to hang out if you can find a place to sit. It’s convenient because they have stuck a store seemingly on every street in America. But the coffee just isn’t good. Regular coffee is bitter and needs tons of help to become palatable. The specialty drinks are too sweet, too high in calories, underfilled, and/or overpriced. And despite their claims to be green, they serve coffee in disposable paper cups wrapped in a paper holder with a lid unless you specifically request a “for-here” ceramic mug, which they don’t even advertise. This Seattle company kills an awful lot of trees.
  • In-N-Out – When In-N-Out announced its expansion to the DFW area, fans flipped out. I’ve been to In-N-Out a few times on business trips with Jenny out west. They make a decent burger and fries, I’ll give them that much. But the hullabaloo and huge lines just don’t match the product. One opened a couple months ago near our church, and we couldn’t find a table for Sunday dinner even weeks after the opening. It’s just a burger. I’ve had better at Braum’s. Moo-Yah. Even McDonald’s if you get one of their premium burgers. I think for many of the In-N-Out fanatics, it’s not so much the food as the connection to their past. Many are West Coast transplants, and hitting In-N-Out is like going home for an hour.
  • Dallas Cowboys – Sorry guys, I know bashing the Cowboys is a hobby for at least half the local population, but let’s face it – the Cowboys don’t deserve the attention lavished upon them. I heard recently that the Dallas Cowboys are the second most valuable sports franchise in the world after the Manchester United soccer team. How is that possible for a team that has won a single playoff game in the last 15 years and is famous for not living up to its potential? I’ll always be a Cowboys fan whether they rock or suck, but it’s time to either step up and play like The Most Valuable Sports Team in America or to give another team that title.

UNDERRATED

  • Andre Sparkling Wine – No, it’s not technically Champagne since it doesn’t originate in the Champagne region of France. It doesn’t appear in rap music videos. Mark Cuban doesn’t serve it to his players at their NBA championship celebration. But for $5-6 a bottle, you can have a very tasty and very affordable sparkling wine for everyday celebrations. Our favorite is the Extra Dry variety, which is sweeter than the better-known Brut.
  • Buon Giorno – If you want to sit down and enjoy good coffee from a real coffee cup, head to Colleyville and visit this local coffee shop. It has the amenities you like at Starbucks – pleasant coffee smell, comfy chairs, free WiFi, live music some nights – plus great coffee and the ability to buy ground and whole bean coffee that is freshly roasted right there in the store.
  • Carnival Cruise Lines – I’ve heard people deride Carnival as a fleet of party ships with riffraff clientele and too many kids, dismissing it as a step below the other lines. After cruising on Carnival twice, Royal Caribbean once, and Norwegian once, I found Carnival to be my favorite. Maybe it was the time of year (mostly fall plus one in August), but we had a fabulous time with great service and had no major complaints about our fellow cruisers.
  • AT&T – It seems that everyone loves to hate AT&T, from its own customers to those of other carriers. Poor customer service seems to be the most frequent complaint. But I’ve been with AT&T for several years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad customer service experience. The reps in their stores are very nice and helpful. Their technicians show up on time for TV and internet installations and do fast, quality work. When I had a problem with fraudulent text charges, I emailed them, and they took care of it with no questions asked. My only complaint is the occasional dropped call on my iPhone, but I hate talking on the phone anyway, so who cares? =)
  • Minivans – People mock them, even people who own them. Toyota even created a “Swagger Wagon” ad campaign playing on the idea. People say they ugly, big, and most of all uncool. Granted, our Grand Caravan isn’t exactly a Ferrari. But you know what is cool? Being able to drive around my wife, both kids in bulky carseats, all our stuff, plus three grandparents in the back while we do something fun as a family. We have all the room we need, plenty of power, and helpful extras like power sliding doors and tailgate. There’s a reason minivans are popular for families – THEY GET IT DONE.

Now it’s your turn. Agree or disagree with my lists? Have some others to add? I want to hear from you.

Brenden’s First Bike

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We got Brenden his first real bike for Christmas, a Specialized Hotrock 12 with black and lime green trim. He was having so much fun on his scooter this fall that we weren’t sure how much he would like a bike at first, but so far he’s really enjoying it. The pedaling is a bit different from his tricycle, so he still has a little trouble with hills and bumps in the sidewalk. He and I rode together in the neighborhood a couple of times this week. I love being able to ride with him. Once Jonathan gets older, we might get a couple more bikes and go riding as a family in the parks near our house.

The Future Is Now, Man!

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Hello, 2012! The first thing that comes to mind regarding the year 2012 is the whole Mayan end-of-the-world thing. And the disaster movie by that name in my Netflix queue that I should probably move higher on the list. You know, just in case.

But aside from all that dramatic stuff, actually reaching 2012 presents some interesting time-related tidbits:

  • The Cowtown Half Marathon that was next year is now next month, less than eight weeks away. My training is going great, so well that I’m having to fight the temptation to run more than my training plan prescribes.
  • My younger son turns two later this month. TWO.
  • Jenny’s nursing school, which has been a fairly nebulous future concept, is now an event that starts next August. Whoa. Which means that in about 3 1/2 years (May 2015), she’ll be an official RN.
  • Brenden starts kindergarten next fall (Aug 2013), probably at Bear Creek Elementary right by our house.
  • Jonathan just started preschool for the first time! (pics soon, I promise!).
  • In less than a year, Jenny and I will hit our 10-year anniversary. That almost sounds like we’re grown-ups.

So I am excited about this new year. It’s also a big year for me at work with new aircraft (737-800 and 717-200), the beginning of integration between Southwest and AirTran, and a new labor contract if the negotiators can get it done. I wish all of you a wonderful 2012!

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Happy Ninth Anniversary, Jenny!

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Nine years ago today, Jenny and I promised to spend the rest of our lives together. I can’t speak for her, but it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Over the years, I’ve gotten to see her in a variety of roles – wife, hardworking student, supportive family member, outstanding coworker at Southwest and CARES, loyal friend, and devoted mother. In every one, through all the years, her best qualities have never dimmed. Here are a few of them:

  • Extraordinary patience – I’m not the easiest person to live with by any stretch of the imagination, and together we have created two little boys who are wonderful but sometimes…um…difficult. She puts up with all three of her boys, handles our drama, and somehow manages to keep a smile on her face most of the time.
  • Big heart – Those of you who know her already know that Jenny gives and gives and gives and expects little in return. She willingly sacrifices her own comfort, possessions, and time to help someone else.
  • Silliness – She doesn’t take herself too seriously and cherishes the funny things of life – Muppets, the bizarre proclamations of Brenden that force us to avoid eye contact with each other, even Mr. Hankey. Her silliness helps everyone around her relax and be more themselves.
  • Brains – She doesn’t flaunt her intelligence or try to belittle you with it, but Jenny has a ton going on upstairs. She embraces her inner nerd, and I love her for it. Did you know she got accepted to Harvard?

I don’t tell her nearly often enough, but I’m so blessed to have Jenny as my wife. Those of you who know her understand why.

I love you so much, Jenny. Thank you for saying yes and meaning it.

Failure of the Calorie Equation

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Thanks to various health classes, articles, and my own desire for everything to make sense, I’ve always believed the old equation that says calories in – calories out = change in weight. It’s simple. It’s easy to remember. It seems to be widely accepted.

It also provides an easy way to assign credit or blame for one’s weight. If you’re at a healthy weight, you must be doing the right things. If you’re overweight, you must be doing something wrong, and it’s your own fault for not being more disciplined. If you really wanted to, you would make the tough choices and eat better and exercise more.

However, that simple formula has a glaring problem that I tried to ignore or explain away for years:

It doesn’t work very well.

In the real world, most people want to be fairly healthy and maintain a good weight, but losing extra fat is difficult. Once lost, it’s extremely difficult to keep the weight off, and most people eventually fail and gain all of it back if not more. I doubt this is news to any of you. Having never struggled with my weight, I blew off this phenomenon as lack of discipline (“these people just aren’t respecting the equation!”), even though I knew how hard many of them fought and how much they watched their diets and how much they worked out.

A growing pile of evidence suggests that I’ve been wrong, that most of us have been wrong. Like it or not, metabolism isn’t nearly as simple as calories in vs. calories out.

The New York Times ran a fascinating article this week called The Fat Trap. I strongly recommend reading the entire article, but its main point is that your body actively resists weight loss and seeks to return you to your previous weight after you lose any significant amount. Once you reach a given weight, your body resets that weight as the ideal and tries to keep you there. Even if you do manage to lose some weight, you’ll have to work much harder to stay there permanently compared to someone who was already at the same weight, almost to the point that it becomes the primary focus of your life. Also, to make things even more difficult, people really do process food in different ways. In one study, given the same diet and same level of exercise, people lost or gained weight at different rates. That blows my mind. It also blows the equation out to the compost pile.

I’m no doctor or biochemist, but if true, this concept explains a lot. It makes me feel like a jerk for silently and ignorantly judging overweight people. It also makes me sympathize much more with those who do struggle with their weight. They not only fight the social stigma of being overweight and the difficult battle to eat better and be more active, but also their own bodies’ fighting against them.

Sure, there’s plenty of room for discussion about how and why we should prevent people from becoming overweight in the first place, which seems to be the only good solution. I’m working hard myself to stay trim, hoping to avoid a much more difficult battle 20 years from now. But for now, I merely want to open my own eyes, and maybe some of yours as well, to the nasty war that millions of people are fighting every day.