Letter From REI

Letter From REI

Following is the response to a letter asking REI to consider the store location in Brea, California.

Thank you for contacting REI regarding a store in the Brea, California area where the Sports Chalet was.

Customer feedback is our best tool for improvement and we appreciate your input regarding the possibility of a new REI store in your community.Your feedback has been passed along to our Real Estate Department.

As a co-op, we approach our store location and openings slower than most national retailers. REI only opens between seven to nine stores per year, allowing us to be very thoughtful and deliberate in our real estate selections.

To stay informed of our latest news and openings, please refer to the link below:

https://newsroom.rei.com/

Thank you for choosing REI as your clothing and gear resource and we hope you continue to use our website at https://www.rei.com/    for your online shopping needs.

Wishing you happy outdoor adventures!

REI Online Customer Service

Update:  3-6-19.  I got a time out error for this link: http://www.rei.com/about-rei/newsroom.html.  The link is now: https://newsroom.rei.com/
I then lot a time out error for: http://www.rei.com which is now:  https://www.rei.com/
I then got a 403 Forbidden error for https://www.rei.com/ and I removed this as a link.
Why Sports Chalet May Have Been Taken Down

Why Sports Chalet May Have Been Taken Down

It seems to me that Vestis Retail Group may have realized that it could not easily appreciate, measure and thus manage  a store that offered technical customer service in addition to everyday fitness and sports product.  Vestis typically offers product only and may have come to realize that Sports Chalet had technical services that were not high enough profit makers or enticements or they could not understand what value those services added to the store.

Here is an example of a Sports Chalet Store in Brea, California’s specialized services:
•    Scuba certification
•    Rentals
•    Tennis racket restringing.
•    Bicycle repair and tune up. (About 2 miles to nearest bicycle repair shop).

Another factor that VC’s seem to not understand is if there are community ties to a store.  This factor typically is important if the store has resided in the same location and local community comes to depend upon it over other retail stores.

Another driving concept is that Vestis and Versa may be married too is a concept called retail compliance.   Retail compliance is ensuring that you have the right stock in the right place at the right time and, at the right price to maximize sales.  This is in line with the KISS idea of “keep it simple stupid” which may indicate some  lack of sophistication of Vestis.  A clothing store comes close to being married to the retail compliance concept.  Once you start adding specialized skills, that concept is only partly correct.

I detected an apparent Vestis using the KISS (keep it simple stupid) top management approach where old ideas such as sales vs expense type analysis is valued, maybe because it is more easily understood.  Business that must survive in the United States today and in the future may find this KISS mode more complex to the degree when they offer varied product beyond clothing and sports gear.  Many brick and mortar stores have failed to adjust to the biggest elephant in the room, the Internet.  Almost every store I visit, to varying degree, including Walmart, Best Buy, Staples, Sports Chalet, COSTCO fail the retail compliance because their buyers fail to stock what the customers want.

Summary: The stores that Versa did accept to keep running was EMS and Bobs, both are product only stores which adds nothing unique to the ocean of retail stores.  It does diminish the sports technical services for the local community and a chance to use these services to attract customers and be known as a unique store.   Vestis may have lost a good chance to leverage some of the Sports Chalet stores into a full service community sporting goods store chain and thus dumb down further the brick and mortar landscape.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Often Reboots

Samsung Galaxy S5 Often Reboots

I was really getting annoyed that my Samsung Galaxy S5 would reboot as many as three times a day.  The reboots would occur, oftentimes, at the most inconvenient times.  One day I sat down and using my Mac laptop, I perused the Internet looking for a solution.  Nothing came to light except one weird report that some individuals thought the problem was a local cell tower problem.  I used that tip to find a few cell phone settings that might relate.  Following is my last two day notes which reveals the single culprit.

March 26, 2016,

  • BATTERY:  I checked my battery for not being flat and it was perfectly non curved.
  • SYSTEM UPDATES:  I checked for system updates and it is up to date.
  • SMART NETWORK:  I turned off  Wi-Fi > Smart network switch to see if this is the cause.  This automatically switches between Wi-Fi and mobile networks to maintain a stable Internet connection.
  • PASSPOINT:  Under Advance options (upper left corner screen options) I also turned OFF Passpoint.
  • VoLTE:  Select Phone main menu item at the bottom of your main screen.  Once Phone is selected you will see 4 menu items at the top of the new screen.  Highlight the Keypad and you should see all the numbers for making a call.  To the right are three vertical dots. Press on those 3 dots and then choose the following:  Settings > Call > Call Settings.  Then choose Voice over LTE settings and then “Do not use VoLTE”.

April 8, 2016,

  • In over one week, only one cell phone restart.  I was on to a solution but which of the 3 was at fault?
  • PASSPOINT:  To narrow the problem down, today I turned ON Passpoint.
    Settings > Wi-Fi  >  Advanced.
  • VoLTE:  I also turned ON VoLTE.
  • SMART NETWORK:  This left Smart Network still turned off.  For me, this was the problem.

Solution:   From what I read, Smart network switch has had problems.  Once I turned off Wi-Fi Smart network, my cell phone only rebooted once since April 8, 2016.

This is how you can turn OFF the Wi-Fi Smart network switch:

  • Press your screen Settings application which looks like a spiked wheel.
  • Choose Wi-Fi once you are into the settings.
  • Once you see the Wi-Fi screen look at the top of that screen and you should see “Smart network switch”.  Turn that off.  This automatically switches between Wi-Fi and mobile networks and also between 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, to maintain stable connection.

Give this a try and if it does not work for you, come back and follow the above directions to turn this back on.  Good luck to you.

CERT TIP: Coaches Wristband

CERT TIP: Coaches Wristband

Last revision: May 1, 2016

Let me start this post by defining some abbreviations that you need to understand before reading my main post.

CERT stands for Community Emergence Response Team.  These are city volunteers that are trained to go out into their neighborhood after a disaster and administer aid.  These individuals may very well be the first individuals that give aid.  City governments offer free classes and typically follow this up with simple protection gear for these volunteers to use.

RACES stands for Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service.  It is a group of amateur radio operators that volunteer their time and equipment to offer emergency communications to some U.S. government agency whether that is city, fire or police.  Some cities put one RACES member into a geographical area to serve as long distance communications member because in large cities CERT FRS radios might not make good communications to city government due to distance.  RACES typically have the capability for a city to send messages very long distances.  Their role is typically to maintain constant communications with CERT groups, city, the county and even state agencies.

FRS stands for Family Radio Service.  These radios do not require a special license so CERT members can easily use these radios. The radio manufacturers advertise these radios will communicate up to 30 miles.  Do not believe it.  Two miles is average.  This is a short distance radio system.  Some cities use this type of radio communications for CERT individuals and teams.  These radios are cheap and very easy to use.

Back to my story:
I had taken CERT class years ago and cribbing, extracting people from collapsed buildings, was probably, the only skill I still remembered.  Our city RACES group members were encouraged to sigh up for the CERT class again if we had not taken it for a long time to refresh our memories.  I decided to take the class again.  When we got to the section covering triage, I fully expected that I would forget what I had learned.  I asked a friend of mine who had taken CERT about a year ago and asked him if he could remember the triage procedures.   He could not.  I rather quickly came up with a solution.  I remembered seeing football quarterbacks having a wrist band that showed vital play information on their arm.  I looked for this device and quickly found them for sale.  The one web site I read reviews about this device revealed that the military uses these.  There are a number of these wrist devices.  I decided upon the SteelLocker Sports X200 Adult Play book Wristband.  It cost me $7.99.  It does not use Velcro to adjust to your size arm but a soft elastic sock, about 6 and 1/2 inches long, which holds a 5 and 5/8  by 3 and 1/2 inch plastic sewn in window.  If you have a thick arm, I suggest that you look at Velcro adjusted wristbands.  The top page part of this wrist arm band window lifts up so you can use both sides of the top portion and then view the bottom.  You thus have 3 windows.  You slip in your paper notes into slits along one side.  I measured and cut my notes to 2 and 1/2  tall by 4 and 1/2 inches wide.

Image shows a wrist band on the left arm. The top page can only be seen.
Coaches wristband showing outside first page (of 3 pages)

 

A wrist band is shown and the top page has been lifted up so the bottom of the first page shows the second triage procedures and then under this top page and resting next to the arm is the final of three pages showing the final triage procedures.
Coaches armband top page has been lifted up to reveal two more pages of triage procedures.

Following are my list of note pages:

These pages were updated May 1, 2016 after I had Captain Alan Wilkes from OCFA, who also teaches CERT, looked over two of my pages.  He reviewed only Triage 1 and 2 pages only.  He did not like my long winded presentation and said “stay out of the weeds”.  I took his suggestion and added a single page called RPM (see below).  I still think there is a need for TRIAGE page 1 and 2 because most of us hardly ever have to use these skills.  People who have to TRIAGE more frequently probably only need the RPM page.

Top page: Emergency radio frequencies: RACES, Red Cross, Hospital Group, FRS frequencies.  Each is fully labeled as to ID, repeater shift and PL tone.

Optional radio template:

RADIO Template

Page 1:  Triage procedures in .pdf form.  I created these documents using Pages.  Font size is 7pt.  I confined the text into a 2 and 1/2 inch high by 4 and 1/2 inch wide space so it would slide into my X200 Coaches Writstband (adult size):

TRIAGE 1

Page 2: is a continuation of the triage procedures.

TRIAGE 2

Alternate top page:

Here is a single page that show, in a very brief form, how to perform the whole TRIAGE process.  This single page is intended to replace page 1 and 2.  Another idea is to put the RPM page as the top arm band page.  You could then open the arm band to see TRIAGE PAGE 1 and TRIAGE PAGE 2 for more detail.

RPM

I am still going over these documents to ensure they are accurate for content and clear in how to use the directions.  If anyone sees a mistake or improve the wording, let me know.

The reason I went to all this trouble is that triage is what scares me the most.  The triage process we are making life and death decisions and I do not want to screw that up.  I want those procedure to be ready after I forgot them.  I put this arm band into my CERT backpack.

Another, being prepared, solution was suggested by Mrs. Anna Lee Cave, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for the City of Brea, California.   She sent me this link: http://quickseries.com/index.php?prodcode=01-0595-000-01  and recommended the Field Operations Guide.

I hope you find this helpful.

Book: Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown

Book: Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown

If you are amazed at the level of political anger in the United States, in 2016, and wish to explore some possible reasons motivating individuals to so significantly change from past norms of political party action and support, then you might consider reading this book.

Author: Wendy Brown

Recommended Free Reading (requires you to download a pdf file)

Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown  (PDF file)

Paid version at Amazon:

  Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution

Review for (paid version) of this book at GoodReads:

Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown

Wall Street Journal “Overcharges” The Unsuspected.

Wall Street Journal “Overcharges” The Unsuspected.

March 19, 2016 I get a letter from The Wall Street Journal telling me they will raise my newspaper subscription rate to $131.25, quarterly.  I go on line and find the price to be way less.  I call customer service and they lower my rate to $98.97 quarterly.

One reason I like to read the Wall Street Journal is almost daily reports of this and that company getting caught doing unethical, criminal, and immoral activity.  I call it white collar crime.  Just below that high bar of despicable activity is corporate greed.  “See what the market will bear” is corporate America creed; I mean greed.  It is sort of ironic that the very news paper that brings me stories of corporate greed is itself an alleged participant.