Mattazuma's Revenge

Upside of a Business Trip

So, my company has a policy stating that I can't say anything about them.  So, I'm going to only talk about the non-work stuff I did in Florida last week.

First good break I got was scoring a free rental car upgrade to a convertible.

The Eclipse spider was a fun car, but the rear visibility with the top up was terrible.  So I spent the week driving with the top down.  On I-95 there wasn't much wind buffeting at 80MPH.

So, I spent the best parts of the trip eating.  I ended up going to the same place on both nights of my trip.  The Reef Grill in Juno Beach was great.  I ate a bunch of great seafood, and it's the main reason why I want to get sent back to Florida on another business trip.

Some food pics from the iPhone:

The stone crabs were great.

On Friday night, I sat across from the cooks.

I had Grouper cheeks on Friday.  They were very good.  FYI - The cheeks of any animal are a good pick.

Had Wahoo on Friday for the first time, it's like swordfish & needs to be cooked rare.

Some friends of the owner turned me on to a great wine.  It was Rusty Staub Relentless wine, from Relentless Vineyards.  It was an excellent Cab blend.  I hope to track down the vineyard when we are in Sonoma in March.

The one last thing I had to down in Florida was hang out at a beach for a few hours.  Some divorced New Jersey women commented on my lack of tan.

Juno Beach.

It's my feet in the Atlantic.  I'll be putting my feet in the Pacific next month.

Dell Twists the Knife

So, in my previous post, I talked about how Dell pushed out my order date by eleven days between when I placed my order and when I received my confirmation and how Dell would not let me pay to upgrade my shipping.

Well, this process has become much more interesting and annoying.

After my first post, I received a direct message on Twitter and a comment on the post from Dell's "Chief Blogger" volunteering to help.  I sent him my order number and didn't think anything more about it.  Last Friday (2/13), I received an e-mail from a Dell "Executive Support Resolver" asking for my phone number so she could call me and talk about my order.

Yesterday (2/16) I spoke on the phone with the "Resolver" and she volunteered to upgrade my shipping to next day.  I was very happy about this, obviously, since my estimated ship date was on 2/17.  Before we ended the call she told me she had checked her system and saw nothing that would hold up shipment.

I checked the Dell website this morning and shipment was still estimated for today. At 1PM I received an E-Mail from Dell telling me my shipment had been delayed.  The new estimated ship date is March 5. Which is 16 days later than the previous estimate and 28 days later than the shipping estimate when I placed my order.

To put it mildly, this did not make me very happy.  I called my "Executive Support Resolver" to ask her what happened to my order.  After a few apologies, she said some very interesting things. She said Dell's order tracking system will not update an estimated ship date until you have reached that day.  So, even if Dell knows internally a component is going to push your delivery back weeks they won't tell you until the day you think your PC is going to be shipped.

The other interesting thing she told me is that Dell customer service is also in the dark about any shipping date problems until the estimated ship date is reached.  So, before the estimated ship date, whatever a Dell customer service person tells you about system delivery is just to placate you, they really have no idea when your system will be shipped.

I also found out that my "Executive Support Resolver" does not have a supervisor.  Which is convenient for her.

I'm not sure what to do next.

FYI - It is a Studio XPS 435MT.

Amusingly, the current (on 2/17) ship date for this PC on Dell's site is also March 5. http://is.gd/jUq7 What's the over/under for when a new order actually ships, April 1?

Yet Another Dell Customer Service Failure

I blew up my PC two weeks ago.  Long story, but I killed it good and repairing it wasn't an option.

Nine days ago, on February 2, I ordered a new PC from Dell, I got a fancy new Core i7 system with a 23" monitor for $950, which was a very good price.  When I placed my order, Dell's website said it was going to ship on February 6, so I chose the free standard shipping.

Once the order made its way into their system my ship time was pushed out until February 17.  I called and complained about the shipping bait and switch and the customer service guy told me "it's just an estimate it may ship sooner".  So, I believed him and sat on my hands.

It's now a week later and it hasn't shipped. I am suffering major PC withdrawal symptoms.  So I call Dell again to upgrade my shipping to 1 day.  The nice gentleman on the phone tells me that for "security and privacy issues" I cannot change my order in any way, including upgrading my shipping.

This is terrible customer service.  First they misled me on the ship date and then they won't take my money to upgrade the shipping.

I have bought Dell PCs and monitors in the past, and still may in the future, but if I have a critical need for something in the future, I certainly am going to be more wary about buying from Dell.

My Coke Rewards - The Beginning of the End

Well, Coke did it again.  In the past two years, they have cut the relative value of a point significantly, remember the 10 point 2 liter bottle coupons? Now it is 24 points for a 20 oz. bottle coupon.

Today Coke sent out an E-Mail that I think is the beginning of the end for the program.

Starting on February 16, Coke is now limiting people to entering 120 points worth of codes each week.

Currently, Coke limits people to entering ten codes a day, with no limits on points.  A 20 oz. bottle cap is worth 3 points while a 12 pack of cans has a code worth 10 points.

It used to be possible to enter 100 points a day for a total of 700 points in a week.

Coke has reduced the number of points you can enter in a week by 83%, which is a pretty dramatic reduction.

Even if you were only entering 10 bottle cap codes per day, your total # of points per week has been reduced from 210 to 120, which is a 43% reduction in points per week.

I know, most people won't be affected by this, but it is still a dramatic reduction.

I wonder if Coke is planning on ending the program this year.  They are also getting rid of all of the prizes above 2000 points and they are killing the Spanish version of the program.

If you have a large number of points you better use them in the next few weeks, or be content with getting a large amount of Coke-branded clothing.

Here's the link to the details of the changes.

Quesadilla Burgers

My inspiration for the quesadilla burger came from two very different places.

In honor of the Blago debacle here in Illinois, Kuma's Corner, a bar with excellent hamburgers, came up with the Blago burger.  It has a large burger patty, a big slice of grilled bologna and yellow mustard, and instead of a bun, the burger is placed between two grilled cheese sandwiches.

Jonnell likes to watch the "Ultimate Recipe Showdown" on the Food Network on occasion.  It is a cooking competition show, where the winner get a very adapted version of their recipe put on the TGI Friday's menu.  Well, this show was the hamburger show, and one of the contestants had what she called a "quesadilla burger", where she put the patty and assorted fixings between two flour tortillas.

I wanted to put these two ideas together, and put the burger patty between two actual quesadillas.

First I cut down some flour and corn tortillas:

Since I was going to eat two of these, I didn't want full size tortillas.

Next, I rendered down some bacon.  Everything is improved by bacon :)

The corn tortilla quesadilla is up first.  Normally, I am a flour tortilla person, but I wanted to try both here.

They are just cheddar & pepper jack cheese, some of the bacon and a couple jalapeno slices.

Time to cook!

Now, side 2...

The only condiment that seemed to make sense was salsa.

It came out really well.

Next up was the burger made with the flour tortillas.

Golden brown and delicious...

How did they taste?

The were both very good, both quesadillas came out great.  I think the corn tortilla burger was better, I think the inner tortillas broke down a little due to the salsa and juice from the burger which made kind of a masa-thickened "sauce".

The flour tortilla burger was also pretty good, but it tasted more like a traditional burger.

I can't wait to try this again once it warms up out on the grill!!