haroldshawjr

blogging direction decision

2009-07-09T21:00:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, after I posted my response to Matt Chev…’s blog post – Measuring Your Blogs Success-Its Not All About Numbers, I did a lot of thinking and soul searching about the direction my blogging and blog needs to take for me to consider it successful.

After sleeping on it and then thinking about what I actually want from my blogs. I came to the understanding that I need two different blogs with different goals/objectives and audiences.

A personal blog that has my thoughts on politics, current events, things that I am doing like kayaking, running, hiking or things that some people will have no interest in whatsoever. It will be the catch-all for many of my thoughts.
A more focused blog that will have reviews of web applications/software/hardware from someone with over 30 years of end user experience, some career growth stuff and my personal experiences with things I should be doing to be better in my professional and personal life. Hopefully, at times the two areas I plan to focus on will overlap from time-to-time and that what I write will be informative to the reader.

Was this an easy decision – no but in fairness to someone who doesn’t want the level of personal information that will be provided on “My Thoughts”, they can check out my new blog:

“THINKING AT LAST”

I had a really difficult time coming up with a name for my new blog (all the great ones are taken), but I believe that this name fits, because it gives readers idea that I am looking at things differently than I have in the past and providing information from a different perspective than they usually get. We will see.

It does mean that I will be more sporadic in my posting, as I will be splitting my efforts between two blogs, but that is okay. I think that the quality will be better and the readers will get more what they want.

Those are my thoughts, what are yours? Please leave a comment, so I will know your thoughts.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

VISIT TO THE PAST – Portland HEAD LIGHT & FT WILLIAMS

2009-07-09T16:12:00.001-04:00

We went to South Portland, Maine this morning on the way to pick up step-daughter from the airport. This Fort Williams, which brings back a bunch of memories from the mid-70’s when I was stationed there on the SPAR and we would go there to have ship’s parties and our own parties. The park is a lot cleaner today than it was then. I have pictures from that time period of the same shots, maybe someday I will scan them and put them up side-by-side.

Portland Head Light

I used to love going between these two lights, it meant we were tied up in about 30 minutes.

The pictures of two buoys, anyone who served on a Coast Guard buoy tender understands why I took this picture. David H. if you look at this this ones for you.

We didn’t have much time at Ft. Williams, but it sure did bring back a flood of memories. Someday we will go back and actually wander around

Those are my thoughts, what are yours? Please leave a comment below, so I will know your thoughts.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

IS MY BLOG SUCCESSFUL?

2009-07-08T21:03:00.001-04:00

Image via CrunchBase

I have been reading Matt Chevy’s blog Life Without Pants for a couple of months now and found him to be an extremely insightful writer and someone that makes me think. Believe it or not I think that this is a good thing (a little tongue in cheek humor), because when I read his blog it makes me look at my own life a little differently and from a different perspective. Today he asked questions about Measuring Your Blogs Success – Its Not all about Numbers which I responded to in his comments, but the more I thought about it, believe that I should expand on some of the answers that I gave there.

Matt asked a series of questions that really made me stop and think about the future of my blog and how I measure if I consider my blog to be successful:

1. What do you think? My blog is an extension of who I am and a major part of what my online identity and reputation have become. Blogging helps me think through different or difficult issues and makes me put down the rationales for my position for them. It also give people a glimpse into who I am when I am writing about my interests, opinions or when I put my photographs up as part of a blog.

2. How do you measure the success of your blog? We all look at how much money our blogs make (mine made $0.01 over the last month), so you can tell I am really into blogging for the money. Everyone looks at different stats from Google, reader comments, hit counters, map counters or some other statistical tool. These are external measures of how your blog is performing and gives you an idea of how popular the blog is to others. The more intrinsic measure to me is as simple as opening up your blog and saying to yourself I really like how this reflects who I am or that last entry I wrote really provided good insight on the subject. The unquantifiable measurement of a blog is sometimes more important than the statistical analysis.

3. What ‘grade’ would you give your blog and what factors are you using to measure? If you measure my blog simply by the statistics it is not doing too well, probably a D- at best. I don’t have that many subscribed readers, comments or visitors when compared to many blogs out there, but I keep plugging along. But it means so much more to me than what the statistical numbers provide, to me I think that my blog is at the “B” level.

4. Does quality trump quantity? Sometimes. I think that I give up a little in quality in my rush to get my thoughts down and out onto my blog (I go back and proofread them and correct glaring errors), due to the limited time that I typically have to blog. Perhaps for more important posts, I should put them into LiveWriter as a draft overnight and then post them the next day after a 24 hour cooling period and a good re-read.

5. Can someone with very little traffic and limited discussion still claim that their blog is a success? It depends upon from whose perspective you are looking at the blog. In my case an outsider looking at HaroldShawjr.com would say it is a failure and to start completely over, keeping it as only a family personal blog. Which I have thought seriously about doing and still might.

But this question did make me think. Are you talking to me personally about my blog? I know statistically that my blog is not that successful, but looking back since I started blogging, it has meant a lot to me personally to blog. It has provided me a venue to share my thoughts on a wide variety of things that I would never had shared publicly without writing in my blog. So do I consider my blog(s) successful – yes everyone one of them have been successful to me.

6. What defines ‘personal’ blogging success? My blog(s) have been and are personal blogs that have had too many focus areas to create a brand or theme that readers could identify with. But to me, my blogs meet the needs that I have for them, they help me learn more about myself, the issues that I write about and allow me to enjoy one of my passions – writing.

What does the future hold for me in blogging? This is my question for myself, first I have to settle down to one or two blogs and set them up and keep them. I have had blogs at Blogspot.com, Ning, WordPress.com, Opera.com, EduBlogs, ThinkPad, Windows Live, self hosted WordPress through HostICan, and now back to a domain at Blogger. I just haven’t stayed in one place long enough to develop a decent readership and that is my own fault, I enjoyed the experimenting and learned a lot about what I like and dislike about the different services. I believe that I have settled down to the Blogger platform as my blog host of choice, it just meets my needs and I am comfortable with its idiosyncrasies.

But I do need your assistance if you have been reading my blog, should I keep things as they are (one blog for everything) or split off and keep haroldshawjr.com as my personal blog and then have a more focused blog on something that I really love, like end user reviews of applications/software/hardware that I use or try; some political commentary or some personal growth information? Any suggestions or comments would help me with this conundrum.

IF OPPORTUNITY KNOCKs–I AM NOT READY

2009-07-08T12:35:00.001-04:00

With all the rain we have been getting in Maine this week, when we are not doing work around the house projects, it has given me the opportunity to reflect and think about many different things. As part of this reflection process, I participated in a webinar on making your Resume stand out this morning and while I learned some good information, it also caused me to ask myself a lot of questions about my future and what I want from my career.

Does this mean that I am actively going out to look for a new job somewhere starting today – no I am not. I like what I am doing for the most part and believe that it is an important position that can help make a difference for people in Maine. At the same time if an opportunity does come around that is unique or particularly interesting for me, I have to be prepared to put my best foot forward, because that kind of opportunity will probably only present itself once. Just think that I used to give this advice both as a former Military Career Counselor and as a teacher to my students and that I have neglected to follow my own advice.

The worst thing that I or anyone can do is be in a rush to apply for that “dream job” or opportunity. I don’t want to be in that predicament, that opportunity knocks and then be in a hurry to update my resume, create a new cover letter, ensure when my name is searched in Google - what is supposed to show up is what is there (so that there are no surprises when someone does search my name or at least be prepared for it), that my LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media accounts are up-to-date. Doing all of these things at the last minute will lead to mistakes or omissions, that could remove me from consideration for my dream job.

Right now if that opportunity knocked, I simply am not ready (I would be in rush mode) and I don’t know what kind of opportunity that I am actually looking for. I haven’t done due diligence for planning my own future career goals, to determine what I want to do if I was no longer in the position I am now or something that I would want to do more. I know that I have strengths, weaknesses, abilities and interests, that will lead me in certain directions when it comes to what I consider to be the right opportunity. After participating in the webinar I “remembered” that I have to decide what kind of opportunities that I am looking to target if they do become available.

I have a bit of homework that I need to accomplish before I am ready for that opportunity to knock on my door:

Decide what my future career goals actually are.
Update my resume, it has not been updated since March 2008 and desperately needs some serious updating and format change.
Review what happens when Google searches for Harold Shaw and all the other variations of my name
Update my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.
Ensure that my blogs all work and if they are discontinued that they reflect that fact, instead of one being inactive for a long period of time with no updates.

Does anyone have any further suggestions or ideas that I should do as part of this getting ready “just in case opportunity knocks” preparation?

This I believe is a good first step, I have now acknowledged that I am not ready if opportunity knocks today, but can be ready in a relatively short amount of time, I just have to make it a priority and take the time to do it.

Question for you – If opportunity knocked on your door today would you be ready to answer immediately?

GOOGLE OPERATING SYSTEM – INTERESTING CONCEPT

2009-07-08T10:09:00.001-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Today Google announced in the Official Google Blog (Posted by Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management and Linus Upson, Engineering Director) what has been rumored ever since their Chrome browser was released. That they were going develop a Google Chrome Operating System (OS). This is the main reason why I have kept Chrome on my machine, the possibility that Google will make it into an Operating System that I will have some baseline knowledge of how to operate it, if it is based on the browser.

In my post yesterday I discussed how I didn't think Google Apps would be able to compete directly with Microsoft Office at this time or in the near future. However, the just announced Operating System is someplace that I strongly believe that Google may compete relatively quickly with Microsoft. A lot will depend on how well Windows 7 performs over the next few months, so Win7 will have about 6-12 months to show its stuff before the Google OS is ready for release.

Many people were disappointed with Microsoft's last Operating System – Vista and didn’t upgrade from XP. While I personally have had no problems with Vista and liked it enough that I pre-purchased my copy of Win7, which will be released in October. But many others did not have as good an experience and have been complaining about Vista since it was released. Apple is has a lot going for it and received a good boost when Vista was less than enthusiastically received by the public and business, but the costs of the machines are a great deal more than others. Then there is Linux, many of us are concerned that our technical skills are not up to the task of “managing” the Linux kernel and therefore have not loaded it on our machines. Having Google develop and back an “open source” but closed system appears to be a viable alternative to those three OS and if it is free, will setup an interesting conundrum for Microsoft and Apple.

At the same time I am seeing a Google backlash on many of the sites/forums that I have been reading. People are beginning to equate Google to the second coming of the evil empire and some have asked if they develop an OS how much "total global control" of the internet will Google have and how will they respect our privacy with even more information at their fingertips than they have now?

It is a question to ask, but I personally don't worry about it too much, I figure between Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, the Government and others, I don't have too many online secrets anyway - they pretty much can find out what I am up to and where I am without too much trouble. Like someone told me when I started this social media adventure, "If you are concerned about privacy and you are on the web, forget about it, because there isn't any". It was good advice then and I believe still holds true today. You can do reasonable precautions to protect yourself online, but if someone really wants to get your information they can.

I guess I am more worried about whether I can access the internet and how my laptop works than I am about the privacy issue, so I have some questions about the Chrome Operating System:

I have an HP Pavilion 2510us tablet PC which I really love. I have the touch screen capability and do not want to loose that capability and am wondering if the Chrome OS will maintain that touch capability.
I have recently "discovered" Opera 10.0 and really like the way it works, will I still be able to utilize my browser of choice in the new OS?

I am sure that there will be a great deal of discussion on the web regarding the Google OS and how it will affect us. I will just wait and see what happens, it should be great for competition and will be a very interesting next few years.

GOOGLE APPS – LOOSES THE BETA TAG

2009-07-07T14:32:00.001-04:00

This isn’t news to most people, but to me it is a major league big deal see the Official Google Blog for more details.

Google Apps (Docs, Gmail, Calendar and Talk) are out of Beta. What does this mean in reality to most of us – absolutely nothing. These Google applications will all act the same as before, Google will make changes as they think they need to and we will be able to access our “stuff” either online or offline (if we remember to switch “gears”).

Please note – no Beta tags.

So why do I consider this a big deal? Beta to me and I believe a lot of other people, means an application or software that is not quite ready yet and needs more work. The removal of the Beta tag from Google Apps tells everyone that Google has enough faith in its product to not tell everyone that it still needs work.

I still do not believe that Google apps is ready to compete head to head with Microsoft Office right now. However, with the Beta label removed, it can compete more than favorably with other online word processors that are already out there (Zoho Writer, Adobe Buzzword, ThinkFree, etc.). Statistics on cloud word processor market share are difficult to find, so I hesitate to comment on how Google Apps is competing against the other cloud word processors. If it can dominate market share among the online word processors with the Business and consumer users, then it might have a chance to compete on a more equal footing with Microsoft Office 2010, which will have its own Cloud version of Office that Google Apps must compete with.

I don’t foresee Google Apps supplanting Microsoft Office as the dominant player in “productivity suites” in the near future (the next 5 years). Google Apps is currently stereotyped as more a consumer/individual/student than a business model application. For Google to break into the business market, it is going to have to break down the stereotype it has built for itself with its Google Apps. Unfortunately, for them part of that stereotype was developed when Google decided to have a 5 year beta for their product. It will probably take 5 more years to get rid of the consumer stereotype that businesses view Google Apps.

In 5 years it will be interesting to look and see how the non-beta Google Apps has competed with Microsoft Office and the other online Word Processors and the improvements that all of them will have compared to the first generation productivity suites that are currently in the cloud.

Kayaking AT BIG INDIAN LAKE

2009-07-06T21:02:00.001-04:00

During my furlough day we decided to go kayaking at Moose Pond in Hartland, but the public boat launch was underwater and the current was a bit more than I wanted to mess around with. We decided to go over to Big Indian Lake in St. Albans, Maine.

Just a photo of Big Indian Lake, when we just started out.

Mother loon and baby – we gave them lots of room to not scare them.

A different loon

St. Albans public boat launch, my truck in the upper parking lot.

Mary said that this cloud looked like a dog running???

Can’t tell what team that I like :).

After we loaded the kayaks, a lady at the boat launch offered to take our picture. It was a wonderful day for kayaking and Big Indian was nice if you like Lake Kayaking, but next time out – as the water level goes down, we plan to do more streams.

MY FIRST FURLOUGH DAY

2009-07-06T09:31:00.001-04:00

Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr

Today is the first of 10 unpaid furlough days, I am required to have this year as a Maine State employee. To say that I am happy about loosing a day’s pay would not be telling the truth, I really do not like the idea, but I understand the rationale behind making State employees take these furlough days.

It will save the State a great deal of money, which helps it balance the budget, but I do foresee more cost cutting measures ahead for everyone in State government. In my personal opinion, no matter how much President Obama and Governor Baldacci attempt improve the economy, it is not going to recover overnight or in the next year. The underpinnings of this recession began when the answer to solve all problems was to cut taxes, and if things are not going good cut taxes even more. We have attempted to pay for government services that people want and two wars on an ever-shrinking budget, which to me and my simplified mind cannot work. If government does not take in enough funds (taxes) then, it has to run in a deficit (which it is) and has for the past 8 years.

The recent changes to the tax law in Maine, redistributed who is paying what and while it was a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough to actually help resolve our current problems. Unfortunately, I believe that State and Federal taxes are going to have to increase for those who remain employed or in business in order to help support those that are not. Tax loopholes need to be closed and the tax codes written to ensure everyone pays their fair share of taxes, instead of paying little or nothing.

I understand that the Governor and Legislature had the authority to implement the furlough days and the medical plan changes, but it strikes me as odd that instead of bargaining to do it, that they just did it. I am not an active Union member, but I was under the impression that when substantial changes like these are made to personnel policies or benefits, that they should normally be negotiated with the Union instead being dictated to the workforce, even in extra ordinary times like these. Otherwise why bother to recognize the Union?

I really do hope that the State and the Union get together and negotiate in good faith, regarding the economic problems that are facing our State. Together they will create a reasonable contract that addresses what needs to be done, instead of unilateral decisions that only reflect one side of the issue. I think that Maine State employees understand that some sacrifices are going to be necessary for the overall well-being of our State, but at the same time, want to ensure that when things are better that our sacrifices during the difficult times are not forgotten.

Me thinks that we are in for a long and bumpy next couple of years.

OPERA 10.0 AFTER 2 WEEKS USE

2009-07-05T21:09:00.001-04:00

Image via CrunchBase

Back on June 19th, I tried out a new browser – Opera 10.0 Beta and wrote a review about it discussing my thoughts on Opera 10.0 Is Very Impressive. Its been over two weeks since I first started using it and I still am very, very impressed with it. It isn’t perfect, but it is it is still in beta, which means as a user you have to be ready for some glitches here or there.

There have been a couple minor bugs, (I had some problems with rendering small images and another one – that was so minor I can’t remember what it was) but they seem to get fixed fairly quickly in the next build; the only long-standing one is that I have difficulty deleting a panel that I no longer want but even that is not a big deal.

Otherwise Opera 10.0 Beta has been very stable, quick and intuitive. Enough so that I deleted Flock, Safari, Firefox and Thunderbird, from my system and am probably going to delete Chrome very soon. IE8 doesn’t do anything for me and I would get rid it if I could, but stuck with it since I have Microsoft Vista. Which believe it or not, I do like and will probably upgrade to Windows 7 in a little while, so I will have Internet Explorer on my machine as part of that.

But back to Opera 10.0. The Opera email client is simply what I have been looking for in an email aggregator for several years and it is in my browser, but I can still access offline. I have all of my email from a bunch of different accounts coming into this and it works FANTASTIC! Not having to hunt over many different sites to get my email which is such a time saver.

The other big thing that I like is that the Opera community is so helpful, in my last blog on Opera I asked (”whined”) about not being able to put Twitter in the sidebar and several people gave me information on “panels” and I have twitter/facebook and some other Google gadgets in my sidebar. Their help was spot on. Even when I asked an absolutely dumb question, I wasn’t treated, as I have been in some other forums (like I was stooopid), someone quickly and nicely gave me the answer, even though there was an obvious answer. I noticed was the same for others when I read through a lot of the other forum questions and answers. The answers aren’t judgmental and are actually helpful, which is a nice change of pace.

The Opera community seems a bit different than others I have “lurked” about on, who knows maybe I will even start to participate in this one.

Opera synch seems to work flawlessly so far with my wife’s laptop and I have started using Opera as my primary browser at work also. So it is important to me to keep as much data as I can identical between the computers. So far so good, no complaints on synch, I just have to do some more reading on what is and what is not synched. I am on vacation this week, so hopefully, I will have a chance to do some of this reading to learn more about some applications that I am using instead of just using them by the seat of my pants

Overall, after using Opera 10.0 Beta is it simply the best browser I have ever used period. The only thing I miss from Firefox or any of the other browsers is the ability to have a in-browser blog editor like Scribefire or Flock’s Blogwriter, but LiveWriter works well as long as I have my main computer available.

I plan to keep using Opera as my browser of choice, it just does things that I want it to without being bloated, I guess if they started adding calendars, blog writers and all those other “nice” to have things that people might want, it would become bloated, so on second thought, keep it as “thin” as possible to keep it fast. I will live with using other applications for those things. But I am going to see if I can add Opera to G.ho.st and see how that works, it might be an interesting experiment.

The only other negative is that some online applications or websites recommend to use something other than Opera saying

but when I have used Opera there, I haven’t had any issues.

Opera is definitely worth taking a long look at, it is a step ahead of the rest in the browser wars in my opinion. It definitely deserves to be more than a niche browser, because it is so much more than that. The true confessions of another Opera convert.

msea/seiu – i don’t know enough

2009-07-05T14:02:00.001-04:00

I had some e-mail correspondence with Tom M. at Union Maine when he profiled a couple of my entries over at his blog a little while ago. They weren’t originally meant to be part of any other blog than my own, so I was very flattered when asked to do that. But it bothered me a bit that I really didn’t know anything about the Maine State Employees Association.

I believe that am a member of the Maine State Employees Association, but I don’t really know what that means or if it is true or not? Last year when I began working for the State, I was told that I had to join as either a full or associate member. I filled out the card to join last December, but I found it in my desk when I was cleaning it out last week. I had meant to drop it off at the Union offices, but I never got around to it. It is my understanding that by being a Maine State employee that I have no choice about joining the Union either as a full or associate member. But I really don’t know one way or the other, I don’t think that I ever received a membership card or notification of membership after my six months in State government were completed. But I do receive the newsletter, so I guess I am listed on the rolls???

I don’t have any previous personal experience with Unions – one way or the other, I spent almost 21 years in the military (which certainly doesn’t have a union and then went to work for a private school and basically worked there for over 10 years - which was not unionized. The only things that I really know about unions are what I have read about in the history books, magazines, newspapers and what others have said – all second hand knowledge.

I have heard the good things - how unions have increased wages/benefits and protect workers from abuse of authority and the bad – how they take away the flexibility of workers to perform necessary work, raise the cost of products/services or cost business/government too much. There appear to be good and bad points dependent upon whether you are management or a worker and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of middle ground on people’s feelings about Labor Unions.

The only contact that I have had with SEIU was a speaker at my State Employees orientation last August (I was on a steep curve learning a new position, it didn’t affect my day-to-day work, so I didn’t really pay attention – shame on me) and the newsletter I got a couple of weeks ago. Other than that I haven’t had any real contact with or from the Union. I visited their website for the first time today, while doing research for this blog entry and signed up for their e-mail alerts to receive new information. So part of this lack of contact is my own fault for not making any effort to do so, but at the same time as a new employee, there wasn’t any apparent effort made to contact me either – other than the orientation piece.

MSEA/SEIU has from what I have read done a good job historically of representing State Workers and negotiating good wage and benefit packages for us. I will never get rich being a State worker, but I earn enough to get by and the benefits are comparable with some corporate benefits. So I personally don’t have any complaints about the Maine State Employees Union – I just don’t know a whole lot about it and how it fits into what I do for work. Being a member to the best of my knowledge has not affected me in my day-to-day work, as salary versus hourly, the extra hours that I put in are simply “part of the job” and something that I always did in the military and as a teacher, so that part certainly is no different.

Why did I write this blog entry? To moan and groan about how no one has contacted me about union membership – nope. I wrote it to openly discuss and possibly to get a conversation going about something that I think I am part of and yet am very ignorant about the organization itself, my roles/responsibilities, the benefits or even why I have to be a member.

Tom has offered to sit down and talk with me about the Union and I guess that I might take him up on his offer. As things are playing out in State government, it might be important for me to know more about the it, so when people discuss the Union I can actually have accurate information, not rumor or gossip to rely upon.

Those are my thoughts, what are yours? Please take the time to comment below, so I can know your opinion on this subject.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

WHAT MY NEW BANNER MEANS TO ME

2009-07-04T17:53:00.001-04:00

I just changed the banner for HAROLDSHAWJR – My Thoughts and to an image that reflects what I want to readers to see as their first impression of who I am.

My previous banner - the fireball was free download banner that I found back in January when I created Aging Reluctantly and was attempting to put together a theme for that blog.

The fireball went perfectly with my “Tag – I will not go quietly into the the night!” and I liked the image it gave a blog about getting older a lot. At the same time it wasn’t my image and although it is a Creative Commons “free” download and it just doesn’t feel right using someone else’s work to represent who I am.

Since I have gone back to My Thoughts the fireball banner just didn’t to fit as well into the theme of my blog or the image I want to portray to others of myself. I have been half-heartedly searching for a new banner for a couple of weeks as a result of this dissatisfaction.

On Friday, while we were fishing at Martin Stream by Good-Will Hinckley, I took quite a few pictures of the stream, when I taught there, this is a place that I been to or by on several occasions. Then this morning while driving to Portland, I got to thinking about the times that I had hiked, fished, run or just sat and though in that area and how I might be able to crop and re-size one of those pictures and use it as my banner. When we got home, I took some time to look through the pictures and for some reason this one just stood out to me,

I cropped the picture and uploaded it to Picnik for re-sizing and I really liked the results.

The new banner shows a magical spot that has the calming sounds of rushing water, and when a breeze flows through the trees, it creates a symphony of sound that helps to calm the soul. This is the place I go when I need time alone or time to figure out answers to the really difficult questions that life throws at us from time to time.

The Martin Stream Rapids, now rightfully adorns the top of my blog – My Thoughts. I feel comfortable with the image to readers of what they see when they first see my blog, plus the fact it is my work (the picture anyway), not someone else’s.

Just to show that I am not completely full of hot air, here is the same spot a couple of years ago. I thought originally that this was going to be a simple blog on why I changed my banner and just seemed to write itself on a different track than I originally intended.

Do you have a special place in your life where you go to think?

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

FISHING AT MARTIN STREAM - HINCKLEY

2009-07-03T19:48:00.001-04:00

Mary and I went fishing today at Martin Stream by Good-Will Hinckley, it started out a bit rough, but she did catch a four fish.

Mary catching a small yellow perch

What we think was a bass, we caught and released everything we caught today.

Mary’s favorite spot to catch fish. The day started out overcast and dreary, but by the time we left it was bright and sunshiny. I didn’t get the lawn done, but we both were glad we went fishing. It was good to get outside again without the rain.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

EMAIL ADDICTION - say it ain’t so

2009-07-03T13:23:00.001-04:00

My series continues on things that I am changing as a result of reading “The Power of Less”.

Email as Leo said in his book has become an addiction for many of us. I didn’t believe him when I was reading “The Power of Less” how addicted to e-mail I have become. This week I have attempted to only look at my e-mail at 7:30, 10:00, 1:30 and 4:30 and found that I didn’t do very well.

The first thing that I discovered that I took for granted previously was the e-mail popups that are in Outlook and the Opera Browser. Every time I that little popup comes up, I stop what I am doing and glance down to look and see who is sending me mail and then usually click on it, so I can answer right then. What this actually does is that I stop whatever I am doing on the computer, loose my train of thought and answer a usually unrelated e-mail then try to get back to whatever I was working on. Multiply this by the number of e-mails that I receive over the course of a day or evening and wonder why I have so much difficulty getting work done.

My position is a fairly technical position: I am a Grants and Program Officer which requires a great deal of focus on the task at hand to ensure things are done correctly or that my interpretations of rules/regulations are appropriate to the situation. Looking back at how e-mail is ruling my life with its interruptions and instantaneous reply demands, I am surprised that I got anything done.

I am looking at e-mail from a different perspective now and I strongly believe that I have to take control of this tool in order to be more effective/productive at work and home. Learning how to turn-off the e-mail notification pop-ups in Outlook and the Opera e-mail client is going to be one of my big goals. To think I really thought that the pop-up notification was a great thing and a productivity enhancer, now with this different view, I believe it is part of the problem for me.

This is how my inbox is going to be from now on. I am taking the read it once then, file-it, forward-it, or trash-it method and applying it to my e-mail as well. This will hold down the number of e-mails that I re-read over and over being in my inbox.

I have to remember that just because I receive an e-mail that I don’t have to respond immediately and drop everything else I am working on, which usually is more important than the e-mail. E-mail I am learning has become a distraction that I need to take control of, if I want to be more productive and focused on what I need to get done.

E-mail is a tool that can be a significant time-waster if not carefully monitored. I am addicted to e-mail, but now at least I now realize it and can take steps to take back control of how I use it. Hopefully, while I am on vacation I can lower my level of e-mail addiction and find out how to get rid of the pop-up notifications.

Those are my thoughts, what are yours. Please take the time to comment below.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

a clean desk = less stress

2009-07-03T10:38:00.001-04:00

After reading the “The Power of Less” by Leo Babauta last weekend, I decided to make some real changes at work this week. I knew that that this would be one of those “hell” weeks, due to being gone to a Conference in San Francisco and then going vacation whenever I left work Thursday (July 2nd) with several deadlines due before I could leave. Usually this would be one of those weeks where I am completely stressed and not someone anyone else wants to be around.

The first thing that I did last week was clean off my desk, then clean it again and then re-organize it once more. Below is the result.

What I had left on my desktop were the planner and a phone. I have re-done my filing system and attempt to work on one thing at a time (multitasking is a difficult thing to avoid) and then the work folder back in the proper drawer. This system was really valuable when I was attempting to meet my Grants submission deadline by the end of the day Thursday, which I did meet and didn’t feel nearly as stressed as last time. The touch it once, read it, file it, forward it, or trash it method is helping me to keep things this way.

As a result of these two relatively easy and minor changes, I just felt much more focused on what I was doing last week. I found another minor distraction that I had never really thought about until after I moved my phone to the desktop. The little red blinking light, it kept causing me to look at while I was working which would cause me to loose focus on what I was doing (I covered it up). It really is amazing how many little distractions there are on your desk that you don’t even realize until you eliminate the clutter and move things around.

I came out this week in a much better space and relatively unstressed. I was definitely much nicer to be around and even smiled and laughed a lot, which I believe is very important. The work got done and yes 3 of the 4 nights this week I worked quite a few extra hours and didn’t get to exercise per my agreed upon daily schedule. But I didn’t get all upset and actually had some energy still at the end of the week.

Even though there are some other things that I am doing in addition to this (which I am going to blog about later), cleaning off my desktop is by far the most visible and has received the most comments from Co-workers. The clean desk idea is seems, is part of the solution for me.

Thanks Leo.

Those are my thoughts, what are yours. Please remember to comment at the bottom of this post.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

DISCIPLINE HAS A BAD RAP

2009-07-01T21:38:00.001-04:00

Discipline is such a unique word, it conjures up images of horrible “punishment” by schools to many and yet to others it is what ensures that things get done. I cannot think of another word that conjures up so many conflicting emotions in so many people. How people react to the word discipline depends greatly on the context it is being used in and how it is viewed in their life.

Definition from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discipline
1: punishment
2: obsolete : instruction
3: a field of study
4: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character
5 a: control gained by enforcing obedience or order b: orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior c: self-control
6: a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity

I have seen parents cringe and students cower when discipline was being discussed at “disciplinary” meetings when I was a teacher. Yet in those same meetings when they were told that the student lacked discipline to complete their work or attend class, both the students and parents would chuckle and offer a variety of excuses. It seems when discipline is related to possible punishment people view it very differently than when it is used to describe a personal trait.

Did I enjoy being “disciplined” while in school or the military (I had my share of opportunities), at the time “definitely not”. I would much rather preferred not having gotten caught at whatever it was I did…but looking back on many of these “times”, I wasn’t actually punished (which is a different thing in my book), I was disciplined to teach me that there were consequences for my actions or sometimes my lack of action.

Discipline has become a positive thing in my life. It is what allows me to get through difficult situations, maintain the personal standards that I have chosen and provides me with the ability to improve myself academically or professionally. Without discipline in my life, I would be much less focused on what I need to do versus what I want to do. They are not always the same thing and being disciplined is what I believe keeps me doing the right things, especially when it would be easier to do something else.

If there was more adherence to being disciplined in today’s world many of the scandals and other negative “stuff” that ends up in the news would not happen. So here’s to the hope that future generations of leaders are more disciplined than many of today’s leaders.

Discipline has gotten a bad rap and people focus way too much on the punishment definition of the word. I wish that people would focus more the other positive meanings that discipline should convey to everyone. Remember discipline can be a good thing.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

MICHAEL JACKSON – WHY THE HOOPLA?

2009-06-30T22:20:00.001-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

I guess that I am just a bit out of step with everyone else, I don’t understand the hoopla and hysteria surrounding the death of Michael Jackson. I am few months older than he was and I have been following him since his early Jackson 5 days. We had a “Thriller” party to watch it when it was released the first night, so long ago. So I was a big fan of his for many years.

Michael Jackson was a huge star and then he went down the path of strangeness and had several allegations that were never proven but diminished his star appeal considerably. This was when I decided that enough was enough and just basically stopped paying attention to the press or others who discussed his life or by some accounts “lack of it”.

The current amount of public outcry about how great everyone thought he was – it seems that too many have forgotten why - he was becoming quickly an after-thought. In the last years of his life his physical appearance changed significantly for whatever reason, his interviews became painful to watch (when I caught them by accident), and his music deteriorated to point where his new stuff was not all that popular even to his devoted fans.

I agree at one time Michael Jackson was at one time one of the greatest performers in the world, but it appears that he caused many of his own problems and like many other famous people who experience a major decline in their popularity he didn’t handle it well. If the news reports about his possible drug overuse are true, then I feel sadness for him and his family, just as I did for Elvis.

But the allegations that surrounded him for the past 10-15 years are such that I cannot mourn his passing. I do feel sadness for the life that could have been (so much promise in those heady years of the 80’s), the difference he could have made and for those that do mourn his passing.

I will remember Michael Jackson of the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s but after that as someone else. But I do hope that he rests in peace for the music he did give the world.

I may be in the minority on this one, but those are my thoughts.

JUNE’S 10 MOST POPULAR BLOGS

2009-06-30T20:53:00.001-04:00

I am getting back into the flow of things, here are my monthly top 10 blogs for June according to Google Analytics.

No	Blog	Visits
1	/2009/06/photo-blog-of-san-francisco-day-3.html	59
2	/2009/06/opera-100-beta-is-very-impressive.html	54
3	/2009/06/what-good-will-hinckley-meant-to-me.html	24
4	/2009/06/maine-state-employee-budget-cuts.html	14
5	/2009/06/san-francisco-day-1.html	12
6	/2009/06/advanced-volunteer-management-opening.html	11
7	/2009/06/this-is-reason-i-am-leaving.html	10
8	/2009/06/delta-flight-from-hell.html	8
9	2008/06/new-hp-pavilion-tx2510-tablet-pc.html	7
10	/2009/06/san-francisco-day2.html	7

Below is the same information from StatCounter.com

No	Blog	Visits
1	www.haroldshawjr.com/2009/06/photo-blog-of-san-francisco-day-3.html	69
2	www.haroldshawjr.com/2009/06/opera-100-beta-is-very-impressive.html	55
3	www.haroldshawjr.com/2009/06/what-good-will-hinckley-meant-to-me.html	25
4	www.haroldshawjr.com/2009/06/delta-flight-from-hell.html	17
5	www.haroldshawjr.com/2009/06/maine-state-employee-budget-cuts.html	14
6	www.haroldshawjr.com/2009/06/advanced-volunteer-management-opening.html	12
7	www.haroldshawjr.com/2009/06/san-francisco-day-1.html	11
8	www.haroldshawjr.com/2008/03/slide-show-presentation-on-discipline.html	10
9	www.haroldshawjr.com/2008/06/new-hp-pavilion-tx2510-tablet-pc.html	10
10	www.haroldshawjr.com/2009/06/website-updatecleanup-day.html	10

I like to look at my stats from a couple of different sources and they are a bit different, but it does give me an idea of what people are reading on the blog this month. It looks as though people were interested in the San Francisco trip. But the old HP tablet PC blog from last year is still getting a few views per month.

Plus this is the first month back to this blog, so I am very happy with the results and getting things tweaked around so that I can just write next month.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

TRIED TO USE WORD 2007 AS A BLOGWRITER

2009-06-30T20:22:00.001-04:00

I attempted to use Word 2007 as a blogwriter and was impressed until I attempted to post to my blog. It did not support the images that I attempted to add to my post.

Does anyone have how to add images to a self-hosted Blogger account using Word 2007??? I would appreciate some suggestions on this. How does Blogger do this?

Yes I can use LiveWriter (which I used to finish this post), but I like and am used to Word 2007 and want to use it for writing to my Blogger blog.

Thanks

Harold

By the way this is what I attempted to post.

This is a test to see how Office 2007 works as a blog writer. I tried it out when I first played around with blogging, but it didn’t do what I wanted with images

This is just to test the different fonts to see what happens.

I have been using Opera for a couple of weeks and I really like this work. I want to see how office does with resizing images.

What I would really like is to be able to use one Word Processor that also doubles as a blog writer so that I don’t have to figure out the intricacies of different programs. That simplification thing again.

I like Windows Live Writer, but it is just another application that I have to use, I want to have as many multi-use apps as possible.

If this works it would really make my life a little less overwhelming. As good as Live Writer is, I just like Office 2007 more. I am familiar with its interface and it is the most powerful document creation software around.

Well let’s see what happens.

Unfortunately for right now – it didn’t happen.

THE POWER OF LESS is working!

2009-06-29T20:07:00.001-04:00

While I was at the NCVS conference in San Francisco, there was a book sale and I came across Leo Babauta’s book “The Power of Less”. I have been following Leo’s Blog for about 6 months and have enjoyed his thoughts considerably, but had never really thought about buying the book.

After reading it I can honestly say that I am glad that I did and the only complaint that I have is that I didn’t do it sooner! I have been attempting “to do with less” for some time, but in “The Power of Less”, Leo gave me quite a few concrete tips/strategies that will help me at work and personally.

Today is the first day of re-organizing my work space, I got most everything off my desk and went to a file folder system to use in conjunction with my written planner. It paid dividends when I got a phone call about something and just put my fingers right on the folder instead of “looking” through my “pile”. I believe that this read it, file it, delegate it or trash it method will help my stress level so much. That along with his belief in focusing on one thing at a time, instead of the multitasking hell that we put ourselves through on a daily basis and don’t complete anyone project to the fullest extent (it usually gets done “good enough”).

Picture of my desk (taken about 2 months ago) – not too bad, but you can’t really see around the side – there was a lot of stuff in a pile by the window and it is a mess over by the computer terminal.

This afternoon just before leaving, (I know it won’t always look like this), but if I use the file folder system correctly and only focus on one thing at a time, it can look like this most of the time. I still have to get rid of the notebooks (they will go tomorrow to the bookcase) and I will finish up the computer terminal area. Then I will attack the drawers, they need a thorough cleansing. It actually feels good to write about this, because I feel as though I am making progress.

The other big thing that I did today was clean up my e-mail, because Leo was correct, I was being “ruled” by e-mail (I would stop everything and answer the most recent e-mail that I had received, then attempt to get back to what I was doing – which did cause mistakes, lost train of thought and productive time lost on projects that need to get done. He recommends that you limit the times you check your e-mail and to turn off the notifications – when you receive e-mail. I still have to turn off the notifications, but I did limit myself to checking my e-mail at 7:15, 9:45, 1:30 and 4:30. It was kind of liberating to give myself permission to ignore the siren’s call to check my e-mail constantly and not having to worry about answering someone immediately.

I honestly believe that after making these relatively small changes that I got a lot more done than usual and felt much more focused day than I have been for a long time. I even undertook a small piece of a large project, I am not looking forward to and have been procrastinating on for way too long. I didn’t get home completely wiped out, which is my usual state when I leave work. Let’s see how I am by Thursday (before vacation).

I also cleaned out my e-mails (that took a little longer than I thought it would, but was worth it) and I have gone to the read-it, file-it, forward-it, or trash-it system for my e-mail, the only change I made was a to-do e-mail file (to just keep on the surface for quick retrieval) that gets filed or deleted when checked off in my planner. When I left work today, for the first time that I can remember, I had no new e-mails in my “in or sent boxes” and it was a good feeling.

One of my co-workers wants to read the book now, so I will bring it in for her to read, but I want it back, because I am going to read it again, only this time I will go through the lists and highlight areas that are important to me.

The “Power of Less” I have a feeling is going to make a positive difference in how I approach work and when I get the book back some other areas of my life. I strongly urge anyone that has not read the book to read it. It could make a difference for you.

I will continue to give updates on other things that I am trying since I have read the “Power of Less” - it should be an interesting journey, but one that I will be better for doing.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

WEBSITE UPDATE/CLEANUP DAY

2009-06-28T18:27:00.001-04:00

This has been one of those rainy, yechy days where you don’t get anything done outside and and it is too muggy to work on the inside projects. I can’t sit and simply watch watch baseball with a beer in my hand anymore, I want to participate and do not just watch. So that left cleaning up my applications and websites on the computer, which is now interactive.

GOOGLE

My Thoughts: (http://haroldshawjr.com) I tweaked a bunch of code, cleaned up the widgets sidebar, got rid of the search bar/navigation pages that didn’t work and setup my important links page. I got it connected to Google Adsense, Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Adwords and all the other publishing tools that Google provides. I don’t expect to make any money or anything from my blog, but it doesn’t hurt to have things setup just in case an entry goes viral (yeah right).

I then got looking at my Google homepage and found out that I hadn’t updated since before I left Good-Will Hinckley, so it was due for some cleanup. I updated the picture, personal information and my website address.

FACEBOOK

I did the same thing in Facebook, cleaned out a bunch of applications, “friends” and other stuff that accumulates over time that are no longer pertinent or what you want in your account. I updated the photo to the newest one and feel a lot happier about that. I don’t know, I just don’t like the user interface that Facebook has, (I never have) but at the same time I don’t want to loose all the contacts that I have there. I guess if you are going to do social media, you have to use Facebook, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like using it.

TWITTER

Again I changed this Avatar to match the other social media sites I frequent. I cleaned out a few of the people I was following, it seems as though you have to do this about once a month to make sure that you keep on top of who you are actually following. I also updated the backdrop for my twitter homepage.

I guess we all need these days where we focus on website/application maintenance, but I still would rather be outside doing the yard work than stuck inside on a rainy day.

WHERE I HAVE LIVED

2009-06-28T15:46:00.001-04:00

I hate rainy days, getting outside and finishing up all those chores that I have been procrastinating about have eluded me yet again. So I have been able to do a lot of updating of my accounts and cleaning stuff out that isn’t pertinent anymore. Going through my Google profile (which I haven’t updated in a long time) I noticed the map below:

I had never looked that closely at my Google home page before and never really noticed this map before. It shows where I have lived since I graduated from high school. This map actually shows that even though I did go in the Coast Guard that I stayed pretty much in the same region.

It was rather interesting when I first looked at it, but now looking at it a little differently, it shows that I really am rather limited regarding where I have lived and what I have seen. I don’t have the perspectives and experience of others who have lived in the Southern or Western U.S. or some other Countries. Visiting for a few days in an area does not provide you with a depth or getting to know the people who live there.

I guess that is why I like to read such a wide variety of blogs and some Non-U.S. newsfeeds to get something other than the traditional Northeast U.S. view all the time. Do I ever think that I will move to another region – probably not, I enjoy the comfortable life that I have made for myself up here. So everyone from those other regions and Countries continue to write your blogs, so I can reap the value of your experiences in those areas, even if it is only vicariously.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

FISHING IN THE RAIN

2009-06-28T13:00:00.001-04:00

It was raining too much to do any yard work, so I got a reprieve from cutting wood, splitting and stacking it and mowing the lawn. So we decided to go fishing at the Sidney Boat launch to the Kennebec River. I caught a Shad which I released, then it started to really rain and we just came home.

I am glad we took the time to go kayaking yesterday afternoon, but boy is the grass getting high on the lawn. I don’t ever remember seeing the Kennebec River this high this late in the year, oh well with all the rain we have been getting, we can’t expect much else.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

MY TOP 10 POSTS THIS WEEK

2009-06-27T23:01:00.001-04:00

Below are my top 10 posts for this week according to StatCounter.com:

Surprisingly my number 4 this week is a blog that I wrote about my Tablet PC last June, I guess a lot of people are still interested in looking at HP 2510 Tablet PC. Quite a few people looked at my blogs about the trip to San Francisco.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

KAYAKING PHOTO BLOG 6-27-09

2009-06-27T19:54:00.001-04:00

Instead of getting to take a nap this afternoon, we decided to go kayaking, it was a great choice, we got to see a lot of wildlife and paddled on Martin Stream for almost 3 hours. I have posted the better pictures of today’s adventure.

This was the strangest thing that I have ever seen, this was a large turtle that had crawled up this tree about 25-30 feet from shore and about 15 feet above the water. As we drifted in closer, the turtle pushed itself off the tree trunk, bounced off that bottom branch and splashed into the water like a big boulder. In all my years outdoors, I have never seen anything like this.

Just a pretty shot going upstream.

I have been told that this is a Cormorant , but I am not sure.

Another glorious day on the water

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

THE DELTA FLIGHT FROM HELL

2009-06-26T22:33:00.001-04:00

This is going to be a story about my trip from San Francisco back to Maine. Now I am not usually one to whine and complain too too much, but what happened last night and today were at least to me, unacceptable at any level of customer service for any business.

I left for the San Francisco Airport at 7:00 A.M. PST on June 25th, when I got to the Delta check-in they weighed the bag and I was 6 pounds over the max weight that I paid my $15.00 for. The attendant said that I had to remove those six pounds, so I took out a book and my dress jacket (more about that later). This didn’t make sense to me, because I would simply be carrying those six pounds on the same airplane anyway?????

The flight to JFK was uneventful and my flight got in “on time”, but by the time we were able to unload it was 8:35 P.M. My next flight was at 9:12 P.M., so I only had about a 1/2 hour before my next flight took off for Bangor, Maine. I got off the plane as quickly as possible and dashed through JFK Airport’s terminal to get to my flight all the way at the other end. What I didn’t realize was that I had left my suit coat and Retired Coast Guard hat in my seat on the other plane (they are gone, I didn’t even try to find them with everything else going on.).

I just made it to the other flight before it was supposed to board (the screens on the way there was saying “boarding” which made me run even faster). I got there and everyone was standing queuing up, getting ready to board -- that is when we received the first notice that we were going to be delayed due to there not being a Stewardess available. This was the excuse we continued to receive for the next two hours until at 11:15 P.M. we noticed that the flight had been taken off the board – which is never a good sign. A few minutes later we were told that the flight had been cancelled because they “couldn’t find a stewardess”. What a bunch of crap…so we all rushed over the counter to re-schedule flights to Bangor, Maine. At about 11:30 P.M. after finding out that there were no flights with seats available until Sunday (this was Thursday night) and a bunch of Maineiacs growing angrier by the minute – a Delta representative came out and offered the option of Delta providing a bus to Maine. She said it would take about an hour to get one.

Almost all the passengers went along with that plan so they got us out of the terminal and down to the baggage claim area, this was midnight. We sat around for another 2 1/2 hours until the bus arrived which really improved everyone’s mood a great deal. We then found out that the bus had no toilet and didn’t have enough room for everyone. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful except for a pit stop, at a 24 hour gas station with only a single bathroom for over 50 people and one baby who was good 95% if the trip. Needless to say several trees were watered. We finally arrived in Bangor, Maine at 10:30 A.M. on June 26th. But hey at least Delta gave us water, cookies and peanuts for the trip to Maine (sarcasm).

These are the things that I will note that especially bothered me during this trip:

1. Baggage, if they are going to charge me $15.00 dollars to check luggage and then make me take extra weight out, it makes no sense if they are going to let me carry it in a carry-on on the same flight???

2. Claiming that a flight was delayed for two hours, then cancelled because they couldn’t find a crewmember seems a bit far fetched, especially when I am watching them going back and forth to a section of the plane under the right wing 4-5 times with 3-4 maintenance people each time. I could be wrong, but there seems to be more to this than we were told.

3. It might only be 80 travelers to Maine that were affected, but from the time we went to the baggage area to the time the bus came, we were blatantly avoided by Delta officials. I do not blame the Delta workers (I believe that they tried), but it would have been nice for a supervisor or “suit” to come down and explain the situation, what was being done to correct it and tell us the truth instead of herding us around then ignoring us and our needs for information and other things.

4. Sending a bus for an almost 8 hour interstate trip from New York to Maine without a bathroom, how many laws/rules or rules for simple common decency did that break. Even when I commuted from Cape Cod to Boston, the buses were equipped with bathrooms for a trip that lasted less than an hour.

5. No Delta official or representative met us at the Bangor Terminal to discuss what had happened and listen to our concerns.

Delta Airline officials had several opportunities to communicate with us on what was actually going on, how they were going to provide us with a solution and take care of the problem that Delta Airlines was responsible for (this was not an act of God, this issue was completely caused by Delta Airlines). The lack of respect for travelers using their service was unacceptable and simply not doing attempting to do the right things after their company screwed up really does not bode well for their reputation. Or offering something even more basic -- an apology from someone higher up in the organization than one of the line workers.

They chose to do none of those things and gave the absolute minimum service that they had to. Everyone on the flight discussed how they were not going to fly Delta again in the near future and I know that I personally will not fly Delta Airlines, unless it is an emergency situation or one where I have no choice in the matter.

I have a comment for the executives at Delta Airlines. Yes your company got me back to Maine, but if this is an example of your business’s blatant disregard for customer service, it could also a major reason that your Company is experiencing problems with returning customers.

I am glad that I had a chance to settle down and wait to write this blog entry, because if I had had an internet connection last night or earlier today, this would have been an extremely scathing and I would probably had said things that I might regret later, but to say I was disappointed with Delta Airlines customer service would be an understatement.

I know that most Corporations maintain a Google search on their Company name and I hope that when they read this post that they understand how frustrated I am with their company at this time.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.