Last week, I took a day trip to the Minneapolis area for a customer meeting. The meeting was in one of the suburbs located northwest of Minneapolis itself, and I normally would have taken a cab there from the airport. However, I noticed that the region’s relatively new light rail system covered about half of […]

Whenever I arrive at an airport, I go through the same charade: locate any bottled water in my bag, throw it away, go through the security screening, and buy a new bottled water inside the terminal. Since airports aren’t exactly the cheapest places to purchase things — especially items that you’re prohibited from bringing along […]

If you’ve ever tried to look up information about a park at the corresponding city’s website, you probably noticed that it’s easy to find out the hours, amenities, and other basic details. However, one important thing tends to be missing: actual pictures of the park itself. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a small image or […]

While looking at a few stores and restaurants on a popular local business website, I was amazed at the sheer volume of pictures that some of the venues had. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for the more popular places to have dozens of user-submitted photos, and I think I saw one restaurant that had 50+ […]

A couple of days ago, I answered a sales call that went something like this: – Customer: “I got an email from your company and I’d like to learn more about your products.” – Me: “Sure, I can help you with that.” – Customer: “What do you guys sell, again?” After that, I proceeded to […]

I recently received a gift that I wanted to exchange for a different version of the same product. The retailer has locations in shopping malls throughout the country, including one that’s only a short walk from where I live. But when I checked the return policy — both on their website and by calling the […]

Over the past year or so, the website for the health insurance company we use has gotten slower and slower. During that same period, our insurance premiums have risen dramatically. I know that premiums go towards a lot more than just the website, but it’s pretty sad that even this very basic part of the […]

The labeling on certain prescription medications puzzles me. For instance, I have a skin medication that says the following on the tube: “For dermatologic use only. Not for ophthalmic use.” If you’re reasonably familiar with medical jargon, you probably know that the warning means something like this: “This product should only be used on your […]