While exploring a new underground walkway that connects a few of the other buildings near my apartment, I came across a nice-looking navigational sign. The sign was mounted on the wall just before the entrance to a new mixed-use building, and included an area map along with descriptions for each of the nearby buildings. On […]

It’s common practice for restaurant menus to omit the prices for some of the more expensive items. This is quite common with seafood, but it can apply to other special dishes, too. But there’s also a reasonable expectation that the prices for any unmarked items will fall within some logical range. With this in mind, […]

For a recent business trip, I stayed at the InterContinental San Francisco. The hotel is a bit off the beaten path, but offers very high-quality accomodations at a price that’s quite competitive with other downtown San Francisco properties. This was actually my second stay at the hotel, so they knew I was a repeat guest. […]

I had some relatives in town for the weekend, and on Saturday night, we decided to try a new restaurant just down the block from where I live. Once we arrived at the door, though, it was clear that our plan wasn’t going to fly. According to the sign in the restaurant window, the venue […]

Earlier this year, my apartment building installed a large monitor in the common area to show announcements and other building info. Despite my recommendation to purchase a system that’s designed for that purpose, they opted to cobble something together from scratch. It worked fine at first, but now the monitor is down almost all the […]

For an author, word of mouth is critical. When readers enjoy a book, they might give that copy to a friend, tell other people about it, or purchase more copies as gifts. All of these lead to higher sales, but I bet only a small portion of readers ever think about doing that type of […]

Regardless of how often the marketing department talks about cleaner store designs with wider aisles and lower shelf heights, drug stores like Walgreens and CVS always seem to revert back to a jumbled mess of random stuff. The CVS near me is no exception, and it’s sad to watch the “As seen on TV” items […]

A few weeks ago, I had a problem with my corporate credit card. Long story short, a fraudster in Europe had somehow obtained my card number, and was using it to buy tuxedos and high-end men’s shoes. (I know, you couldn’t make this stuff up.) So, Amex did the logical thing: they cancelled the old […]

A few days ago, I had a phone conversation with one of our new vendors. The person on the other end of the line was trying to explain why they couldn’t accomodate what I felt was a very reasonable request. During the call, she made several ill-advised statements, including: – “I just work here.” – […]

My favorite breakfast place in Chicago just opened a new location that’s much closer to my apartment, so I decided to try it out over the weekend. Aside from a few minor hiccups, everything was great. Well, except for one thing: they could only accept Visa and MasterCard, since their Amex account hadn’t been activated […]