UPS vs USPS
In Hawaii, I get 80% of the food/goodies I consume from Amazon shipped free to my residence via FedEx, UPS or USPS. Free shipping to Hawaii is difficult to ignore, (thanks Amazon). The only way Amazon could improve their service is to allow the customer choose the carrier. At this moment, I would always choose UPS.
I am sure that Amazon uses a complex algorithm to determine the shipping carrier based on the shipment dimensions including weight. If they don’t, I would be happy to write a program for them. In the past week I have had deliveries by all 3 carriers. My rating comes from observation for the past 10 weeks but the examples are from the past 7 days.
3. The United States Postal Service (USPS) has mostly good people working with antiquated guidelines. The Postman, quite often a female, seems to be able to make one attempt to deliver a package , and then is able to pass the problem to the customer. The package I received did not fit onto my mail box (standard 5″ x 5″ by 12″), nor did it fit into the larger temporary boxes where a key is left in your box. All the driver could do is leave a note in my box to pick up the package at the Post Office. The absurdity of this business practice is costly to USPS and the customer. The driver puts the package on their truck knowing it will not fit into any box, and the odds of my waiting for the driver to show up is minuscule. The driver must hand write a note, and return the package to the Post Office where it cannot be picked up until after 6 a.m. the following day. With the note from my mail box, I waited for the driver the following morning. I was hoping the package might be on the truck. She read the note, looked briefly at the packages on the truck, and then asked “What is your name?”
2. FedEx is technically quite a bit better than USPS. Quite often, I have received a written note stuck on my outside door telling me about a package delivery attempt. Of course, if I am not at home, I simply take the note to our security office where all deliveries arrive except for USPS. Even if I am in my condo, I may not hear the knock on the outside door, and the above steps are necessary. The driver has security access to floors in the building and is willing to attempt personal delivery but has to resort to a hand written note and return to the security office with the package. This is a good effort but with a 50/50 chance of success.
1. UPS (in Honolulu) utilizes technology to enable their people to give very personal service that is also quite efficient. There are no failed personal delivery attempts, and no hand written notes. Today I received a phone call from the UPS driver at 12:44 p.m. All he says is “Mr. Reed I have a package for you”. I know to go to the security office to pick up my package. If I had been out walking, I would have known to stop by the security office to get my package before I went up 27 floors on the elevator. Today’s event was simply spectacular. He was waiting by the elevator when I arrived. He told me to stay on the elevator as he scanned the package to document the delivery. I was back in my condo in less than 5 minutes, and the Texas Rangers were still batting in the same inning. I believe the driver utilizes a smart phone to scan my package to be able to call me. This driver knows my physical limitations, and may not provide this level of service for everyone. I am grateful that he has the tools and skills to make my life easier.
Yes, I was smiling when I made the call to UPS to tell someone about this outstanding service by one of their employees. Less than an hour later, I got a return call from a supervisor advising me that my driver would receive proper recognition as a result of my call (after 5 p.m.) to the home office somewhere back on the mainland.
Can you image the time I would spend on the phone trying to contact USPS to question the whereabouts of my package. I don’t think ,y phone plan has enough minuets to be on hold for such a long time.
Nice Lid
Nary a day goes by that I do not hear kind words or questions about my distinguished hat or prosthetic legs. I reside in a 48 story hotel/condo less than 1/2 mile from Waikiki Beach and the neighbors are always changing.
The condo elevators are separated from the hotel but the common areas in the hotel lobby provide opportunities daily to meet strangers. Every trip down of up the elevator is an adventure for one with poor vision and prosthetic legs. Riding the elevator requires a security card. When others get on the elevator, I show my card but allow them time to use their card and push my floor’s button.
When I ride down and others are already in the elevator, they can watch me struggle to find the slot for the card. Finding the slot is easiest with both hands and then finding the button within 5 seconds is a challenge. Even with the bifocals I must be within 12 inches of the numbers to read them. Add a package in the hands, and you can see the makings of a real balancing act here. Keep in mind that I am always standing on stilts that do not have a Segway-style automatic balancing mechanism other than my brain.
The condo security office on the lower level is where we go to pick up packages from the delivery services like FedEx and UPS. The lady is always telling me that the box I got is heavy and I may need help. Her sense of weight is very poor, or her initial perception of my ability to balance and handle boxes up to 30 pounds needs improvement. I am certain she is shaking her head in disbelief as I pick up the packages and open the door to head to the elevator.
As I wander around the hotel exterior entrance way and parking garage, as well as the occasional walk on the streets in the area, I hear the kind comments and questions. Waikiki is a friendly tourist attraction known all around the world. The sidewalks are in good condition and traffic controls are pedestrian friendly. There are skateboards, bicycles, scooters, Harleys, three wheel mini-cars on the sidewalks and streets.
The pedestrian traffic is what I enjoy the most. It is constant all times of the day and evening. Several weeks ago, I wondered why I saw a number of young women dressed in heels at 10 a.m., and then I found out an aircraft carrier was arriving soon. Just another day in the neighborhood, right Mr. Rogers.
In my effort to keep balance in my daily activities, I go down to the entrance/parking garage several times each day and evening. Today, as I got off of the elevator at the lower level to check my mailbox, I noticed a young man in sunglasses waiting for the hotel elevator.
Nice Lid, Thanks to Wendell
As usual, my customary greeting of ”How are you doing” came from my lips.
His reply “Nice Lid” brought a smile to my face, and lifted my spirit.
Wendell & William Reed 2008
OTRA Ala Wai Canal & Park
Ala Wai Park is across the Ala Wai Blvd and Canal from my condo building. Ala wai means freshwater way. The Ala Wai Canal is a beautiful waterway at the western entrance to Waikiki. Constructed in 1922-1928 (by moving 2.4 million cubic yards of coral, mud and sand), the canal drains up to 150 inches of rainwater that falls in the Koolau Mountains above Waikiki each year. http://www.hawaiiweb.com/html/hiking/ala_wai_canan_trail.html
Today (Friday) I walked 0.8 miles x 2 in 90 minutes. I walked over the canal on the McCully bridge and then along the walkway along the canal and the edge of the park to the far end and the Ala Wai Plaza.
Ala Wai Bridge
As I approached the park, I saw a crane on the skyline so I felt right at home after Thursday’s walk.
Ala WaiCanal-Park
The park is a good place for a future Reed Reunion. It has all the facilities needed, and no air conditioning is required here. It is a long stretch along the canal with several large sports fields.
Recently I had seen kayaks on the canal but I have not seen these outrigger canoes on the canal.
The cabal is fresh flowing water springs from the mountains and moves at a good pace on the way to the Waikiki Yacht Basin and the Pacific Ocean. .
Ala Wai Canal-Hawaiian Monarch Hotel/Condo
OTRA Fort DeRussy
I started out this morning to find the crane on a construction project I can see and hear from my window. I found the crane and a whole lot more. I was walking on ground where my Uncle Aubrey Glenn Martin served when Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941. I found a treasure instead of a tool.
I took these photos, and made several videos of my walk today. Until tonight I could not see what was in the photos until I opened them on my big screen. Now I can barely see the images on my screen through my tears as I think of my Mother wondering how her only brother was doing when she heard the news about Pearl Harbor.
Fort DeRussy Historical Marker
Wendell Reed needs to share the story with the entire family about how he heard the news of Pearl Harbor. I hope he will record this in a short video, and do it soon.
Fort DeRussy Armed Forces Recreation Center
After I took these photos, I sat down to rest on a bench which is less than 100 yards from my building. Several street people walked by, said hello and we chatted for a moment. I asked if they could see the crane, because i had not seen it. They pointed through the trees right in front of me, so I stood up and took a picture.
Maybe I should be more scared of walking around on my own if I can’t see a large yellow crane 100 feet away. Maybe NOT!
Mission accomplished; objective meet. Tomorrow will bring another adventure such as this and I will be smiling as I head outdoors again.
Rear Window
I live in a 27th floor condo which has only one large window that looks southward over the Pacific Ocean, Waikiki Beach and the numerous hotels that block the horizon view. It is peaceful to look out the window, day or night.
View from the new camera
In the Alfred Hitchcock movie Rear Window, a handicapped journalist played by James Stewart, starts watching his neighbors. Perhaps I will start doing this with my cameras. The YouTube movie recap-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJGaRyQhk5M
My limited physical view of this beautiful landscape and scenery in Waikiki is enhanced dramatically by the digital capture capabilities. I see the images on my screen much better than I see the real view with my eyes. Making a good video, or even taking a good snapshot is lucky for me. For each one that I share, I probably took 10 bad shots. Digital memory is very cheap.
I enjoy my rear view of the neighborhood, and soon I will start walking to the locations I see from my window. I will be on the road again soon.
A Place in the Sun
Friends at dawn.
Soon after the sun begins to lighten the morning sky, these critters arrive to see what I left them from the evening before. There seems to be a discussion about whether they should boycott this breakfast diner, or take what is there.
I began enjoying the benefits of Sunshine on the body several days ago. The pool deck is almost desolate in the mornings and the sun is plentiful. My skin is reminding me that too much sun too quickly brings redness and sunburn. I am not burned, but definitely feel a tenderness on my stomach.
View from my condo showing about 1/2 of the deck area.
This is the best picture I can take from 20 stories above because my sister Edna gave me a stern warning about leaning out the window too far.
These quiet times in the sun in the morning are really refreshing. The brain stays alert even when the eyes are closed. Today my first thoughts were about who I should call to make them jealous of what I was doing while they were hard at work.
To make you jealous right now, here is a view to the North showing the mountain range that becomes Diamond Head to the right.
A Place in the Sun is the title of a good movie from the year of my birth 1951, and a song. Little did I know when I looked at the lyrics of the song that it is a sad reminder of some parts of my life.
Like a long lonely stream I keep running for the dream moving on moving on
Like a branch on a tree I keep reaching to be free moving on moving on
There’s a place in the sun where there’s hope for everyone
Where my poor restless heart’s gotta run
There’s a place in the sun and before my life is done gotta find me a place in the sun
Like a dusty old road I get weary from the load moving on moving on
Like this tired troubled earth I’ve been running since my birth moving on moving on
There’s a place in the sun…
You may remember this Glen Campbell version on YouTube-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj7La1P88mQ
I am here in Hawaii and perhaps this is my place in the sun…at last.
Lost in Space
Many of you know of my work in getting an alumni association started for the benefit of Palestine High School in Texas. You may have visited www.PalestineHigh.com to view the website I started working on in 2000. Janice Bedre Burris (1958) gets credit for leading the group in Palestine that formed PHSAA in 2008.
Over the years since 2000, my journey in learning website development by ‘trial and error’ allowed me to cross paths with hundreds of PHS alum literally around the world. The support of my effort and work from my PC in Houston by my brother Wendell Reed gave me the opportunity to meet many of these fine folks in Palestine.
Wendell flew, or drove to Houston from Denver, Colorado numerous times to take me to Palestine for alumni meetings. Thank You, Brother. If you know Wendell, you are a lucky person. He is the best friend anyone could ever have.
Several days ago, the PHSAA website disappeared; simply lost in space in the www black hole. My access to the web hosting company was invalid. My only clue was in an email from Ed Link (1965) about the new website development company [Red Yetti] would start the domain transfer process apparently to PalestineAlumni.com. I was curious but not concerned.
On Monday I noticed a formal request to transfer the domain name from my control; part of the normal procedure for domain names. I was shocked when I contacted my web hosting company by phone. My personal account had been hacked by someone. I found a name and phone number that was used to replace my information. I left an indignant phone message at that number.
A short time later I received a return call from an employee of Red Yetti. I listened and questioned him intently to determine what had happened and who was responsible for compromising my personal web hosting account.
The website I created contains in-depth information about Palestine and the high school. The Red Yetti employee suggested they under-estimated the amount of work it might take to build a new website. I felt pride when I heard the compliments about the amount of work that he knew had gone into the creation of the website.
I am smiling in Hawaii as I think about the PHSAA journey that began in 2000. I know that my creation is ’lost in space’ permanently. The new creation replaces my work completely. It will not be what I wanted. I hope it will be better. People from Palestine,Texas, even those born in The Sanitarium, have a long history of achievement.
Sweet Memory
My desktop was damaged on the trip to Hawaii and while in the shop for repairs, the tech found a bad 1 gig memory module. I just replaced (all by myself) the memory and have 4 gigs going again.
Everything is faster now. The screens change faster. Downloads are faster. My brain is smarter and I can see a lot faster now. Oh well, two out of four are true.
This is the corner of my room where my computer work is done.
The tablet is resting on top of the printer. The tablet runs on Windows 7, and we are still at odds on whether I will get a desktop that runs Windows 7. I know if I upgrade, I can still run XP as a virtual machine on 7 and keep using several critical programs. XP and Windows 7 32 bit operate with 4 GB max memory but a 64 bit 7 machine is limited to 8, 16, and up to 192 GB.
Perhaps Santa is reading my blog and understands how sweet a machine with 16 GB memory would be.
Sat/Sun
You may be thinking that the title indicates this is a Saturday/Sunday posting. It is not! I sat in the sun for an hour again today.
Before I went down to the pool, I was happy to find UT football but sad to learn the score – UT 0 BYU 6. Hook Em Horns. When I came back, the score was UT 10 BYU 16. I kept hearing “McCoy at quarterback..”. I thought I had been out in the sun too long.
I took the tablet with me. I could only see the screen while indoors, so I started a video recording inside and and walked out to the pool deck area and continued recording. Since I could not see the screen, I just turned the power off to stop recording; I hope it worked.
The pool deck is huge. I estimate the length at 100 yards and the width about 40 yards. This is on the 6th floor above the parking garage. After my sun time was over, I roamed around (carefully) to see what else was nearby.
On the north side of the building is Ala Wai Blvd and then a canal. The canal, as viewed from the 6th floor appears to be about 50 yards in width. A stream of kayaks came into sight and started turning around a buoy before a bridge over the canal which leads to Ala Wai Park on the other side.
It is fun to watch slow moving kayaks in a race. It is even funnier to see a kayak on the inside of a turn realize it cannot make the turn and t-bone the kayak on the outside.
This canal is like Buffalo Bayou in Houston: no swimming if you want to stay alive. Recently a man fell into the canal water and died later from a strange infection. I have walked along a short section of the canal on the way to WalMart about two weeks ago. I discovered that some sections have pedestrian guard rails but some do not. When I realized this, I quickly moved to the other side of the sidewalk. I would much rather trip and fall under a bus on the street than to fall into that scum.
The view from the north side is also where the mountains can be seen in the distance. Diamond Head is close around the corner from here. The southern view is what you see in the webcam – Waikiki Beach (southwest) and Fort Derussy (due south). I made my way to Fort Derussy last Saturday, and then wandered for an hour through the hotel jungles and tropical landscape before I got back home.
I will evaluate the sore on my left leg this evening. After a close medical review, I will prescribe a long day on Sunday watching NFL football, snacking on Cheeto’s and Cheerios with a beer chaser.
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