Miserable allergy

Can't sleep. My nose is itchy and running. Eyes are watery. The allergy season starts out in earnest for me. Feeling really miserable. I took an anti-histamine pill. I used to cut it in half but now feel that I need the whole pill to stave off the allergy. It should take about half an hour before the pill takes effect. Surely, allergy does not kill but the misery index is quite high.

Deeply moved by pope's death

I woke up early - around 3 am - watching the funeral of Pope John Paul II. The ancient rituals and the scenes of the 21st century crowds hand-clapping celebrating the life of the pope were one of the most moving time for me that I ever remember.

Extended Warranty not worth it..

I bought an expensive (several thousand dollars) photocopier for my business and a 3-year extended warranty (cost $300) for it from Office Depot. Its Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) acted defective. Copying single pages was fine. Copying via the ADF caused dark streaks across the copies. I called the warranty depot and after being put on hold for several long intervals (one was about 40 minutes) I was put in touch with the "technical service manager". I told him that I thought the ADF did not seem to work right. He asked me to go through an inane procedure and returned with the verdict that the defective ADF was considered a "consumable" hence it was not under warranty. 

I went to the local Office Depot where I purchased the unit and talked to the managers. Again they seem to be clueless. I wrote a letter to Office Depot Headquarters explaining my complaint and also copied it to David Horowitz, the consumer advocate. While waiting for Office Depot response I experimented with cleaning the ADF: I sprayed a bit of Windex on a couple of blank pages and ran them through the ADF. Well, that clears all the streaking and the copier is working fine! It has been a couple of weeks and I still have not received any response from Office Depot nor from David Horowitz. Lessons that I learned: Many of the Extended Warranty may not worth the paper they are written on. Majority of the appliances, especially electronic ones will often fail during their manufacturer's warranty period and also it may make more economic sense and less hassles to buy new one instead of having them repaired.

Had wedding anniversary dinner with friends

Susan and I were invited to have the wedding anniversary dinner with our friends, Kevin and Jean. It was their first year of marriage. We had a wonderful time. The foods and drinks were superb. Took several pictures and emailed to them. It is interesting to note that as we get older we start to hear more about the urgent message of living a worthy life...