three cups of tea

Andy and I just finished reading this book called Three Cups of Tea, which is about ex-climber Greg Mortenson, who, after a failed attempt to climb K2 in the 90s, was inspired to do what he could to build schools for children (especially girls) in rural Pakistan. All I can say is that this book was both inspiring and humbling; you should read it. If your library doesn't have it, then buy it; it's absolutely worth $9. Or more.

Although the author explains that Mortenson grew up the son of missionaries, he implies that Mortenson's faith is kind of nebulous--at least, I came away from the book not knowing for sure whether or not he is a Christian. However, the book is so packed full of "coincidences" that it is obvious that God is at work in this man's mission. The first step on Mortenson's path was when he got lost on the descent from K2, lost his porter, and ended up Korphe, a Pakistani village so small and remote that it wasn't on any maps, and, although he had traveled to the area several times for climbing, he had never heard of it either. After a night's sleep, he asked to see the village's school, only to discover that the children met in an open field above the village. They shared a teacher with another village; on the days the teacher was not there, they practiced their facts by scratching with sticks in the dirt. Mortenson was shattered. His attempt to summit K2 had been taken on in order to honor the memory of his sister. Having failed that, having seen these children, he vowed to honor her memory instead by building them a school.

So began a process full of optimism, false starts, danger, sweat, and tears. At the time of publication of Three Cups, Mortenson's nonprofit, The Central Asia Institute, had built 53 schools in rural Pakistan and was beginning to look towards Afghanistan.

I don't want this to get really long, but I'd like to say that I believe that we as Christians could learn a lot from Mortenson's work. What came across over and over again is that the CAI is fighting the "war on terror" simply by providing education. Mortenson watched radical Islam build schools as well: schools which taught extremism over mathematics. Mortenson's schools offer knowledge over ignorance, and through his persistence, he, an American, has gained love and respect in a region where that is hard won.

Anyway, read this book. It is thrilling, humbling, and heartening all at once.

congratulations!

I just wanted to say a big congratulations to my beautiful sister-in-law Rabia, who (as of yesterday) is officially a US Citizen! I am just guessing it was a little anti-climax after years of paperwork and interviews, which were sometimes a little silly...her final interview included an English test consisting of writing a sentence along the lines of "The man wants a job." Have I ever mentioned that she is a writer? And alumnae of an Ivy League school? I think it's Ivy League, anyway, certainly a step or two up from Wheaton.

Anyway, welcome to the mix, Rabia, and congratulations on picking an interesting election for your first!

thoughts on customer service

Customer service is one of those issues that you don't think a lot about...maybe when you have great service somewhere and especially when you have bad service...but I've been noticing different calibers of customer service around me and sometimes I just really wonder what makes the difference.

True confession: I take our van to the local dealer for oil changes. I actually have two good reasons: the first is that if there are any issues with the van, recalls, warranty covered problems, they fix it right there and generally they catch it before I have to bring it to their attention; the second is that they have great customer service. I am sure they do charge more than the budget oil change across the street (although my last oil change was $28.95 at the dealer and Andy's was $45 across the street), but the service people are consistently friendly and really take time to talk with me about everything going on with the car. I know I'm not the only one who likes them--as I was pulling out the other day, I saw a Kia being driven into the service bay (it's a Nissan dealer). Would I buy a car from this dealer? Probably not. In fact, after a bad sales experience when we were shopping for the van, I bought our van at a Nissan dealer about an hour up the road, just to deal with friendlier people. Why are the service people fantastic and the sales people... pushy? Never mind, I think I just answered my own question.

When we were out in Pasadena last year, we could pick from two large, more or less run of the mill, grocery stores--Ralph's and Vons. One (Store A) was quite close to our apartment and the other (Store B) required a 5-10 minute drive. I won't tell you which one is which, but after the first visit to each one, I never went back to Store A unless it was an emergency trip. The employees were lackluster, hard to work with, and almost unfriendly. At Store B, if I stopped in an aisle for more than two minutes, an employee would inevitably stop and ask me if they could help me find anything. I had Larry, the friendly meat guy, who always took time to talk meat with me. (I miss Larry!) The cashiers were friendly and engaging, and if I ever needed help finding anything, any employee would cheerfully drop what they were doing and help me look.

It wasn't just me, either. A friend was at store A the day before her son's birthday and wanted to order a cake. She waited for ten minutes at the bakery counter for help and was ignored. She gave up and decided that she would go home and call Store B to order a cake. Well, she forgot. She got up on Saturday morning and panicked, wondering what she would do about a cake. Called the bakery at Store B as soon as they opened and begged for whatever they had for a cake. The employee cheerfully asked her what kind of cake she wanted, how she wanted it decorated, the works--all at the last minute.

I'm reasonably certain that different grocery stores probably pay their employees about the same amount. So I am a little boggled that one store could be so unpleasant, while a near neighbor is fantastic.

It comes up again and again. We just took the kids to Orlando for a mini vacation and although the hotel we stayed at was better than decent, it wasn't exciting enough to guarantee that I would want to come back on its own merits. However, the customer service was shining, and that would make me want to go back. It makes me feel welcome. That's why I kept going back to Store B, and that's why I keep going back to the local dealer. I value the service with a smile more than I value cheap labor.

I don't know, just something I was thinking about lately.

my new computer

I know, I have been a bad blogger lately, but I promise it's just that I've been busy with not really fascinating things. I recently bought a new computer and I thought that experience was moderately entertaining, so I'll inflict it on you.

I wasn't actually in the market for a new computer, but when mine overheated after processing MOPS pictures, I decided it was no longer reliable enough for business use and needed to be replaced. I have a NAPP membership, which offers discounts on hardware from certain vendors, one of which is Dell. So I started shopping at Dell (interesting fact: although I have bought a handful of Dell computers for other people, I have never bought one for myself) and settled on a nice higher end XPS machine. In order to even find out what kind of discounts you can get from Dell with your NAPP membership, you have to call Dell and get cozy with a salesman. So I called Dell and got this guy Mark.

Now, Mark is a really nice guy, and it would probably be a pleasure to buy a computer from him. Theoretically, his job should have been really easy since I had configured the exact system that I wanted and all he needed to do was take my credit card number. We quickly got into trouble, though, when I told him what line I wanted and he started... trying to talk me out of it. First, maybe I really wanted a laptop. No? Well, I sure don't want that computer, because it's the "Cadillac" of Dells and I would be spending too much money, plus it's a gamer's system (that means powerful because those guys are really demanding), and I don't need that much. What I really want is (I forget what the line is but according to Mark, they made Shrek with it), because I'll spend way less money--sure, I will get less computer, but I'll still be getting all the things I need, and Mark is all about saving me money.

Now, if you know me, you know that telling me that I don't know what I want to do is going to get my dander up, just a little bit. And so Mark is working uphill at this point. First, he tries to talk me into a workstation (after I have told him I'm a photographer and pushing my computer and am shopping because I just melted mine). When I point out that I need space for a second hard drive, lots of memory, and dedicated graphics, he switches over to the Shrek line. He starts configuring with a lower end (but still powerful) processor, dedicated graphics, and then we hit a snag with the 80GB hard drive. That used to be big, but we're talking lots of picture files here. We debate for a while and decide not to upgrade because I do have my second hard drive ready to install and it's large... although the first hard drive is where Andy's considerable music collection and our documents are all supposed to live, along with the operating system. Then he tells me that it comes with 1GB of memory. I try not to laugh, but we agree that it will be more cost effective to pull my extra memory out of my melted computer and put it in along with the hard drive. Then, it's a selling point that this machine comes with XP and I will be able to upgrade to Vista myself when I want to. Somehow, installing a new operating system is not high on my list of fun things to do, and I have actually been using Vista and all my programs run on it already. Well, he leaves me with XP. Next up, apparently this computer doesn't come with a sound card, and to get one, I have to actually buy it with Vista (oops!) and pay almost $200 to have a sound card installed. I have repeatedly pointed out that this is not just a work computer, it is also a home computer, and even when I'm working I might actually like a little music. Then, he's staggered that I don't want a 19 inch monitor, I should just get it anyway because you never know when you will need an extra extra monitor (yes I have an extra already), and it's probably actually more expensive to take the monitor off. I do succeed in getting him to remove it and the computer is, in fact, cheaper.

At this point Mark has successfully built a computer for me. With a less powerful processor, a teeny hard drive, a negligible amount of memory, and he has saved me...wait, he hasn't saved me any money at all. In fact, his computer costs slightly more than my Cadillac. And the kicker here is that can't get a NAPP discount on this system because it is already so cheap. I thank Mark for his time, promise to read his emails carefully, and hang up.

Then I go back to the website, reconfigure my Cadillac, double check that I am, in fact, spending less money this way (and hey, I can play music on it!), and buy it. It came within a few days and it hums. The only issue I had was installing my second hard drive and my second DVD burner (lightscribe, before you ask), because it was a new format and required working with the BIOS, something I've not done a lot, but it was an easy issue to fix. I am thrilled with my new machine. And Ben, before you ask, I never considered buying a Mac.

I wonder if they had a big pile of the Shrek machines, or a competition going on to see who could sell the most of them, or what.