US Cellular needs to improve customer service.

English: Samsung Galaxy Ace (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How many tries does it take for US Cellular customer service to activate three simple Samsung Galaxy Prime cell Phones?  It takes a full morning of several telephone calls to customer service, a trip to the Hartford, WI store and finally telephoning one magical US Cellular representative that knows how to do his job while sitting in my car outside a US Cellular store.

I realize that my time and my families cheap little plan are not that important to a big company like US Cellular but I still find it mildly annoying to spend several hours activating cell phones when I could have been cooking hamburgers and puttering about in my garden.  It only took a short time to activate the cell phones after I got lucky enough to telephone the one representative who knew the mysteries of the plan.

ATT had better customer service in my opinion but US Cellular is a slight bit cheaper and has better deals if you read the fine print and are willing to put up with their partially problematic customer service.  Maybe I made some type of mistake but it just shouldn't be this difficult to activate a phone. ATT was easier and more professional.  I believe the problem with US Cellular is that they separate the responsibility to the customer into different organizational groups and this instills a culture in their employees of passing the buck to the next group.  It is at least clear that a US Cellular store does not take customer responsibility for cell phones ordered on a US Cellular website.

Oh well, the price is right and I probably won't be activating phones for a few years. I am just too old and ill for these type of adventures.

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Trump vs Clinton Media bias

English: Bill Clinton’s flyer as he ran for President of the student body at Georgetown University (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am not a big fan of either presidential candidate but it seems that Trump does get negatively slanted press reporting of his campaign. Clinton seems to get a pass by the press on her gaffs and illegal emails.  I certainly wouldn't vote for either one of them but maybe someday there will be a candidate I could support.

The disruption at Trump events seems to be caused by external agitators and not by Trump supporters but the media does not differentiate this fact clearly.  Trumps words are extensively analysed for racism and inconsistencies. I do not trust Trump but I don't trust any politician so why should he be different.  Trump uses emotional statements to emphasize feelings he thinks people believe in and he clearly is not careful with his wording.  It is fair to give him significant criticism but not everything he says is wrong and he should not be automatically dismissed when he talks.  The liberal press has a knee jerk reaction to everything Trump says and that simply is not appropriate in a representative democracy.

The press seems to ignore Clinton's illegal emails and reviews of her comments are always slanted to put her in the best light. Her husbands sexual behavior while in office is a legitimate problem and he should not be in government.  Everyone may have sinned but that doesn't mean you should put someone in a public trust when they have used that trust inappropriately in the past.  Hillary plans to put Bill into some kind of public trust in her administration so his past behavior is fair game in politics.

It would be nice if we could just judge candidates by their policy viewpoints.  Unfortunately, most of Trump's policies change with every wisp of wind and the majority of Clinton's policies are not acceptable to start.  Third party candidates are not a viable solution at this time. There are not any presidential candidates that I would trust at this time.

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My grape vine planted last year is actually alive !

Example of old vine branch with ripening grape clusters. Some of the berries on the cluster are ripening unevenly with only partial veraison. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I thought the grape vine I planted last year was stone cold dead.  I was wrong which is a rare occurrence that seems to be happening more often as I slowly approach middle age. The grape vine had two beautiful little leaves coming out of the vine which appears devoid of life otherwise.  Some day I hope to enjoy the taste of these table grapes developed for people in northern climates.

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