DirectTV

Anyone? I have a subscription that I'm about to have to pay the early termination cost to get out of... One of those, "Oh, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, so SURE I'll sign a 2yr contract" type thoughts that I had pre-Addie. (Thankfully AT&T let me out of said thought pattern, withOUT paying the early termination fee) Anyway, I'm pretty sure I can transfer the account to someone, somewhere else.. and you'd even get $10 a month off of the subscription cost for the first 6 months! (I think there's a year left)

Let me know if you're interested, otherwise I'm going to call them in a couple days and just take the whack and close it down.


Oh, and I shot some SAWEEEET video of a normal-grade powerstrip blowing up in the Vann's warehouse. And the power management WE sell taking the hit just fine and doing exactly what its supposed to do. (kill the power) I'll have to get permission to post it anywhere public, but I'm going to start working on the edit next week. (Per request from the wife who wants to spend time with me this week, since I worked on my day off.) [Love ya babe!]

/rob

Oh yeah.. wow. Shout out to this comic & author... perfect! :)

/rob

AOR

... which means, Area of Responsibility. Mine's going to be the Receiver / Speaker section of the Bozeman Vann's store. I have much learning to do, and I hope to start putting together cool audio packages as I begin to learn the ropes. I'm not sure where I'm going to be posting my blog/packages/deals, but keep an eye out and I'll let ya know. This also goes for any appliances you might be looking for! I've been quoting out a couple kitchens lately and I'm hopefully on 2 of the most recent ones. Sometimes it feels a bit tougher sometimes for me to 'beat' prices at places like Sears, Lowes and Home Depot... since we don't carry cheaper brands like they do. If you buy something from Vann's, its gonna be quality, that's just How We Roll!

PS: You're now personally invited to the "By Invitation Only" Vann's pre-black friday sale. The deals there are gonna be as good or better than our actual Black Friday stuff. Come in and see me!! (Ask for Robert though, as there's another Rob in the store.)

/rob (robert)

this is a cool little site.

Coffee bean vs. carbon molecule

Anyone have

a cell phone that's Cell One capable, accepts SIM cards and works... that they could let me borrow and/or buy super cheap?

Approved..

to do the VLOG! I should probably start a separate blogspot for this, though? I mean.. i have my rbedfordpro one, but that's relatively inactive now that my focus is changing to doing a great job at where I am.. (Vann's) This one is more of a personal venue, not that I use it overly much for that.. :-P

What would be an obvious and catchy name for a blog that's primary purpose is hosting my vanns vlog?

robsvannsvlog
robatbozemanvanns
robatvanns
...

First day

of training is complete! These are going to be some long hours, lemme tell ya. Its about an 8 to 7 shift, 5 days a week. More starting soon when we switch to +half day on Sunday. I'm still excited about the job though. A lot. I like the idea of "helping" more than "selling." I'm hoping to do a couple of the 'instructional' things tomorrow and 'job shadow' a couple of the guys on the floor.

I have a ton of stuff to learn, and only a small part of it is the products / models / features... most of it involves the questions to ask, the paperwork/program we use, the garnering of clientele... and the list goes on. Remembering to tell about warranties, cables, power management... Wheee!!!! :)

Serious consideration

is what I'm giving to the idea of doing a vlog. Probably something once a week, maybe shoot on Monday and then edit at night, post it Tuesday morning.

VLOG includes:

1) Upcoming sales.
2) Video shots of product.
3) Events happening in the store that week.
4) Special packages that I put together.

Every once and awhile (monthly?) I could have someone else 'featured,' and have them talk a bit.

Later features could include:
1) Coolest new feature.
2) "Did you know: " tip
3) Coolest old feature.
4) .... any ideas, reader(s)?

rob

I wonder if

doing vlogs in the mornings would help me drum up some clients?

I still can't believe...

its not butter!

I officially start my new position on Monday. Things I'm liking already:

1) Vann's views its "customers" as clients. To me, this means that the process of selling/buying is much more involved, much more personal... much more better.
Than even butter!
We work more on a relationship than "Sell this item to that person and move on." As a relational guy, I'm looking forward to developing a client base. :)

2) Our products rock. Seriously! I've been installing them now for the last month and we sell good stuff. Good quality, good prices, good support. (And don't forget to pick up a warranty, its well worth it)

3) I'm going to get to learn a LOT of stuff!!!

I am now

a "Product Advisor" for Vann's in Bozeman. Well, sort of. I start next Monday, this week I'll be finishing up deliveries until the store manager gets back into town from some meetings that he's at. Basically this means that if you're looking for TVs, Audio gear, Ranges, Dishwashers, Clothes Washers / Dryers, Wine Coolers, Speakers, GPSs... and the list goes on... wait til next week and come visit the Bozeman store! Look me up. Chances are I'll be posting any deals we have on here and on my twitter : rbedfordpro. Also, if you're looking for something particular let me know and I'll be more than happy to see what we've got and what I can do for ya!

And on a side note, my iPhone just got washed. From everything I've read and experienced with electronics, this is not a good way to clean the phone, so I may have just broken it permanently... which really really bites, as I've gotten quite attached to it.

Off to a Dave Ramsey course... ciao.

Trying out for...

a sales position at Vann's in Bozeman. If I get it, everyone that I know (and many I don't) need to buy all their appliances / tvs / audio-systems through me! m'kay?? Oh, and don't forget to get your cables and warranties, too. If I don't get the position, I'll stay delivery, but keep working on trying to get video work.. maybe I could get more training and thereby convince Vann's to pay me more money!

I'm actually working on a script right now for a "Delivery Expectations" type video for Vann's. I have the script completed, but it needs some editing in the audio side of things. (Go Go Gadget AwesomeWife!) I've presented it to my superiors and they're interested, but we're negotiating a price / compensation for it all to happen.

SG:1 rocks face.
Chipping up concrete in a warehouse isn't fun.
Almost done fixing the ceiling in the bathroom!
aaaaand i'm done.

If only

I had good things to say, like my wife... then everyone would read my blog!

Working

... lots of hours, mostly unscheduled! My 8 to 4 schedule hardly ever happens :( It keeps turning into 8 till 7. Makes for some long days. I suppose the checks will be good, but for the most part it makes it impossible to plan anything. I've been late for a couple dinners, missed putting Blake to bed once, and almost made Addie miss a night out with some friends just tonight.

Video work has been sparce, paid work non-existant! I got to work on some stuff for a friend who's an inventor. I can't tell you details, or I'd have to ... uhh.. do bad things to you. I've been able to drop off a few more DVDs/ resumes and what-not, still no video nibbles though.

Delivering

its hard work, really! Some of its not so bad, you definitely hope for the 'drop off' stops. Those are where you leave the appliances all nice and boxed up... and high tail it out of there after getting the signature. Its fun to set stuff up too, which is good, since that's what we usually do. I'm starting to work on a 'wish-list' for my Vann's purchases.. (don't tell my wife) I think I'm going to be saving up for awhile for some of them. Most of what I'm currently dreaming about is audio-related, to go with the TV & blueray player I already own.

Whatever though, right? Its good to be working again, nice to have something steady going.

Officially...

offered a job by Vann's Electronics as of today. If all goes well and the paperwork is cleared by the home office, I should be starting sometime next week! Oh, and I tested negative for all drugs.


God Provides.

All seems well!

.. with my soul, right?


I think the interviews went well. One was with a temp staffing agency, the other was with Vann's Electronics.
The Vann's job would be delivery / warehouse type stuff, with possible switching / promotion to installation if one of those positions ever opened up. It'd be full time, benefits to start after 90 days. Its not an OMG, we're gonna be rich! type job, but it will definitely pay the bills and, I believe, keep me interested... not to mention give me a chance to really get to know Bozeman and the surrounding areas!! Oh, and I'd get staff-pricing on their electronics. Seriously, how dangerous is that????!!!

If I got the Vann's job, my video work/dream would definitely have to be put on a backburner for a couple years. There are a few things that Addie and I need to take care of before we can even think about going back to the 'struggling artist' stage.

The plan then becomes that I take as much freelance stuff as I can after my real job, and/or during the weekends... stuff like that. In no way do I want to 'give up' the dream, but there's also that liiiiittle detail called "reality." Ooops.

Interviews!

I have 2 on Monday, pray they go well..

I'm not quite ready to give up on video, as I'm so damn good at it and enjoy it too much! Not to mention I'm good at it. Aaaand I have all this gear, you see, that's made for it! But its not bringing in the money, so its time to look elsewhere.

Its just the Blakester and I this weekend, Addie's off to hang out with her mom and sisters in Missoula! PAAAARRRRTTTY!

Our House... (decisions Rob made pre-Addie)

Its true... Blake and I have built some Bitchin' castles and space vehicles lately out of Legos.... Most guys want to take their son fishing & hunting.... yeah... I wanna build one of those big lego star destroyers with my son:
'cause that's how we roll.

Packrafting

is awesome. What's not quite so awesome is the aftermath! :) Addie's got a pretty massive cough/cold, and I'm not feeling on top of the world, but owell, life goes on! I love those 'vacations' where you need to get back to work to gain some rest. Work hard, Play hard; that's the Bedford motto!


Thinking about breaking out my guitar sometime soon. I have a trip heading up to Spokane tomorrow, where I'll be for about a week and a half, maybe more depending on progress on projects. When I get back it'd be nice to, as Lonnie continually suggests, "pick up a fun hobby!"

I've also recently dropped a tiny bit of money on a fly-reel, as I 'inherited' a fly-rod. Now I just have to sucker people into taking me out and showing me how its done... not to mention where!

rob

If i had business money:

If only!!

Legos, Taco Soup and Spankings.

Addie ditched Blake and I today to go hang out with my mom and sisters. Something about dress hunting, but I think my eyes glazed over pretty quickly when they started using mall-speak. Anyway, we started playing with the Legos and got pretty creative. Then we got hungry and reheated the taco soup from last night. After that, I ate two bowls, the Blakester ate about 2/3 of his and was just playing around on the table after I'd asked him to finish. So after giving him about 10 minutes of dinner-playtime, I figured it was time to nap. (and addie threatened me with ME putting him to bed tonight if he didn't nap...) I took the bowl away that he'd been ignoring for the last 10 minutes and said, "Alright! Lets clean up the legos! I'll help you since I was playing with them too." At that point he starts crying and sits on the floor, so I used the addie line of, "Blake, are you obeying all the way right away and with a happy heart?" and he kept sitting there and crying.. hence the Spanking. bleh. :( After the spanking we went back to the living room, cleaned up the legos and whatnot scattered all over the corner of the room, read a book, and now he's napping. (or at least in the room with the door mostly closed and not making too much noise)

On the path to greatness!!

Or at least recovery. (Always take the or, she said.) Things I have learned: 1) Some people aren't good at sympathy. 2) Man-colds are psychologically horrible. I'm so used to being able to function at a certain level that as soon as I come down with a cold and can't THINK / it hurts to move / i cough every other minute / i can't breathe because my sinuses are messed up and my chest feels like someone is standing on it... well, i fall apart. seriously. oh, and more importantly 3) i'm SO thankful I can't get pregnant. i couldn't handle being a woman.

Still sick

but doing much better! Better living through Chemistry is what my wife-to-be says. i gotta agree. life is better by a little bit when you take the right drugs. on top of the cold, i was also suffering a massive headache and didn't really figure out why until around noon today. 1) i've hardly eaten anything in the last 3 days. 2) no caffeine! so i made myself some tea and soup and i'm feeling a bit better.

i can't wait to get back to work, though. i'm getting really restless. not to mention the thought of bills, bills, bills, mortage and more bills start to press down on you when you're not working. addie and i are looking into refinancing the house, and we should be able to bring it down an entire percent. the initial 3k or whatever to get it done will be a bit fun to come up with, but it'll save us big in the long run. i also met with a realtor working with moody on student housing and he seemed very excited about renting the house. if that happened, we could have a signed contract for 3 to 5 years, depending on the student & major. even if we just break even, that'll be an awesome thing to have happen.

Sick.

Went to sleep last night with a bit of a cough, woke up this morning with a bit of no-voice and a bit of a cough and a bit of pain. I called Mortimore's to tell them I'd be a little late, since I'd need to pick up some cough suppressant and Angela told me not to bother coming in. I am now drinking very hot green tea in an attempt to burn my throat into numbness. I took some Buckleys but forgot to eat anything first, so its not feeling so great in my stomach. Thankfully Rachel picked up some breakfast when she went out, so I've now had a sandwich. I also now have some Robitussin. Yummy...

anyway, this shouldn't last long. only a temporary setback!

Today: Boze-Angeles to Spokompton.

All these Californian city names! Today i'm leaving Bozeman to head back to Spokane for some work. Start Tuesday, possibly busy until mid-March. This is good news, since it has me up in Spokane working on my house & 4-runner for a good solid month and a bit. My next trip down will probably be pre-wedding and ... permanent! whoah. I have quite a to-do list waiting for me in Spokane, so I'm eager to get to that and finish up as much as I can.

Today is Addie's birthday. You can say hello at www.softersideofcynical.com. I got the domain name for her as a birthday present. What can we say, we're nerds! :)

On a side note: Parenting is interesting. And that's actually a HUGE side-note, but seriously, I'm not sure how to expound upon that quite yet! :)

/rob

Its alive!

The truck, that is. Turns out it was just a spark-plug flooding issue. Which, unfortunately, now makes me wish I'd just taken all the spark plugs out and cleaned them, instead of just the one that I checked for spark. :( I might have actually been able to FIX something vehicle related. I felt pretty good about checking the fuel pressure, spark, fuses and what-not.. but i missed the seemingly elementary clean-the-plugs step.

I am now packing up the hard drives and monitor and DVDs and all my junk that's associated with being a "portable editing studio" and getting ready to put it in a place that I can easily grab it once we pick up my truck. JR's packing for Asia and we're ... uhm... yelling freestyle rap lyrics back and forth to each other. Its entertaining. Neither of us are sure what's exactly wrong with the other.

I can't wait to head to Bozeman and see Addie. It just feels weird to not be around her... and believe me, this is different for me... I've never felt almost "tied" to a place before. I couldn't wait to get outta TN, I liked Chicago, but was glad to leave after 4yrs, Spokane has been awesome for the last 5 or 6, but it's always seemed like a stopping point on the way to somewhere else... anyway, these are the thoughts that have been running through my head the last couple days. I'm still gonna work on convincing Addie we need to end up in New Zealand or something... ;-)

I've had a blast hanging out with Molly and JR at their place. They've been incredibly great hosts. Molly's cooking is off the charts, and JRs basement entertainment setup makes for some good movie watching.

enough for now. we're taking off to the Toyota dealership to get mah'truck!

Stuck!

I'm beginning to get the idea that the Toyota T100 I've been driving for the last month or so doesn't really like me. I spent my birthday trying to figure out what was wrong / what I could do, and trying to get ahold of people to check it out. As it was a Sunday, most people weren't working. I towed it into a local Billings place, Staley's, and they looked at it this AM and diagnosed it as something that'd be more involved than they would get into, but gave me a recommendation. I called up their recommendation and he's at least a week behind and recommended I call Toyota. Did THAT and they quoted $900 to $1000 to fix the timing chain. Ouch. The odd thing is, talking to dad, he says (and I've checked) that there ISN'T a timing CHAIN, its a BELT. I just called the Toyota guy back and told him i was sure it had a belt, and he quoted me an approx $400 fix. Better, but still an ouch.

Alright, so now its a case of waiting for JR to get back and we'll tow it to Toyota! Hopefully they can fix this in a couple hours and i'll be on the road either by tonight or early tomorrow.

As Calvin's dad would say, "Its character building time!"

/rob

This would rock...

Addie and I may be able to rent our house in Spokane. That'd be particularly nice with the market being as .... ... well, interesting as it is now. Its really close to Gonzaga University as well as Moody Northwest. If that happens, we're going to look into refinancing to bring the rate down a percent or so. Anyway, I've probably finished the below post regarding my dream A/V system... It would definitely kick some bootie, and I think my dad is going to wire his downstairs in prep for having a similar system!

We have thought about the registering thing, as far as it would be great from both a personal standpoint (What guy doesn't want such a system in his house!?!?), to an excellent entertaining system for guests/friends... Addie loves to entertain, and something like this would be a great centre piece for wii, movies and other such digital-age fun-ness! Not to mention we could have some great dance parties with such good sound... .. . ;-)

The beginnings of my dream A/V Setup.

(post will be updated as I add components)

Desires:
The receiver/AMP/Video throughput: Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH
Speakers for 7.1 HD Surround: Klipsch - Energy Speakers
DDR Game for Wii + Extra mat for exercise and being social.
Mario Kart for Wii (3 xtra wheels included for head-to-head competitions)


Already Haves:
This wonderful Sony BluRay player purchased as a Christmas gift from my lovely bride-to-be.
A Wii and a couple games.
A pretty sweet Olevia 42" HD TV.


Goal: A setup similar to this one.