Monday, December 1, 2008

The New Dish on the Dish

I am reposting this in concert with my wee rant on KRCB with  Bruce Robinson, please add your comments if you have any!

A wee bit ago I moved from a great old barn i was staying in and cancelled my Dish Network service . . . herin follows a description of a practice that abhors me!


To Whom!

I recently cancelled a television and internet contract with Dish Network . . . besides becoming a process akin to extracting teeth, there were a few disturbing extrapolations of the process . . . when one cancels their contract, it is incumbent upon the client to climb upon the roof, or wherever the dishes are located and indulge in some complicated maneuvering to extract the brains of the dish network while leaving the dishes wherever they may be . . . my first reaction to this was, what if the clients are 80 years old and cannot afford to hire someone to remove the desired parts . . . besides having to cancel my subscription multiple times, which has been a long and arduous journey worthy of it's own saga, the company will not take any responsibility for the dish apparatus themselves . . .

I was originally called with a recorded message telling me that it was incumbent upon my own self to return all of the companies equipment to them within a certain time period . . . I have packed all the materials in a 2' x 2' x 2' box but they will not accept any of the parts except the hard drives and receiving chips.

I have been told by three different representatives that I am to throw the perfectly good, one year old parts in the trash! while I was having this conversation on the office phone . . . part of the seven hours that I and my office manager have spent thrashing through this corporate nightmare, one of my clients waited til I hung up in frustration and mentioned that she and her husband had the same frustrations and difficulties but finally gave in to some semblance of compliance as life got in the way, and he is Dr. Rocky Rohwedder, professor of environmental studies at Sonoma State!

I run a re-use, re-purpose and recycle company and devote endless hours to trying to achieve zero waste and here is a company that finds it more efficient to ship newly manufactured materials in cartons from China to wherever and out to consumers and leave thousands of perfectly good equipment pieces littering the landscape daily!

I believe that we are two of thousands if not tens of thousands of people that are appalled by this approach! I am writing you in the hopes that we might draw attention to this very disturbing and wasteful manner of doing business.

In a country that has been striving to decrease it's already world record production of landfill, where the most oft spoke key word is green, where jobs could be had to resurface old dishes and re-use same and where we sully our once beautiful landscape daily with technical accoutrements including the hundreds (maybe thousands) of dishes left singing their ungainly, unsightly, disconnected woeful tune, it would be nice if we could make some sense of this behaviour!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Best shop door in the Biz

I have had many a woodshop and worked in a few besides, but i do love our little back door in our Heritage Salvage yard on the mighty Petaluma River . . . we are constantly entertained by passerby, including Red Hawks, Swans, swimming Deer, river Otter (Otter know better), Ducks a paddlers of human types, and a plethora of pigeons in formation!

all blessings flow in the appreciation of your own life!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Time to Fix It!!


As Mr Morita once said when asked about the American propensity to get bogged down in Politics, In Japan most politicians are engineers, so when something is broken we try to fix it! In America, most politicians are lawyers, so when something doesn't work, they sue! 

Although when the Japanese went through the same thing economically, some fourteen years ago, they tried to intervene the same way we are doing and their economy has remained stagnant since. Can we not garner lessons from the past?

As i wandered about the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit at the Tech Museum and wondered at his exceptional and non-stop propensity to invent and improve and to facilitate things mechanically, i wondered what he might think now, of how far we have taken his acumen and how close to the edge of breaking we have brought humanity and our penchant to devour the planet! I wish we could just vote and decide on the issues and need not bother to vote for another human to decide what is best for us by listening to those who can butter their bread best! . . . ahhh, but vote we must!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Green and Golden Parachutes


Although Leonardo Da Vinci invented the parachute long before airplanes were invented, American business has invented the golden parachute, which irresponsible executives can deploy long after the plane has crashed . . . gotta love America and the politicians on both sides who let it all happen!

I am just hoping for a green parachute, which may mean that we all still get to stay on spaceship earth after all we have done!

Gotta love it!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Mary Nova desert Bound


Our Dearest Mary Nova is winding her way to the Camp of Martin Prechtel's Bolad's Kitchen in the desert of New Mexico . . . Mary has been our graphic artist, web weaver, wearer of many hats for the most many moons of any HS associate/employee . . . she is primarily responsible for the look and feel of our appreciated website and we wish her fabulous success on the path of her choosing . . . always a joy to be with and a gentle nurturing soul for our one and only earth mother

TRAVEL ON THE WINGS OF YOUR SOFT APPROACH!!!

We Love You!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

The joys of Gardening

singing with Bobby Mantis !!
The rewards of gardening are the icing of the fabulous produce you proudly consume and give out to your friends and neighbors and the cake of the  journey getting there!

too long, too little

Gerstle Cove                Rivers End!

It's been a month since i blogged, and that is just a tad too long gone . . . this is a happy camper who just returned from a busman's holiday delivering wood to fine clients Peter and Marianna and staying at their beautiful casa north of Gualala . . . i had all these great photo's to show off their home but left them on the beach . . . when i inadvertantly erased them trying to make room for photo's at Cool Rocks Beach (otherwise known as Gerstle Cove in Salt Point Park) . . . it is worth supporting state parks by giving them the 6 bucks, and finding yourself alone for 5 hours climbing moon rocks, wondering at wild life and hiking through beach pine forests . . . i have finally been reminded often enough to get out and smell the planet . . . life is too short . . . on my second evening i hung out at Anchor Bay with old friend Jerry Powers at his fabulous property and in his inimitable fashion ran me about his neck of the woods, uncovering hidden beaches and natural wonders and enticing me in to introspection! Then on third day after douing my cool rocks hike i hung out with Joe Hawkins and discussed the passing of the torch with the Blue Jacket . . . more later!
Friends are so valuable! as is time spent wondering of the wonders of our one and only! What a ball our home is!!