thoughts about a recession

The more that you fear a recession, the more that it will affect you.  A recession is the public reaction to a "perceived" problem.  In truth, if everyone ignored the news of a recession, it wouldn't happen.  There isn't any less money.  The job market is really good.  So what is the problem??  The TV News has to make everything a big deal in order to sell advertising.  We, at Airless Spray Center, are dependant on the construction industry.  The TV news claims that the sudden drop of "new housing starts" is the main problem.  In actuality, there are now more houses that need maintenance than ever before.  So the jobs have just swung from new house construction to repair and maintenance.  And all of the new houses built in the last 10 year boom were "tract homes" and need work on them to make up for the minimum paint jobs, etc that they were sold with.  So there is more work needed now than ever.
Most of the lasting problem is with the houses that were purchased by people that couldn't afford them.  The teaser interest rates allowed people to qualify for houses that they had no business buying.  These owners have done no improvements and most have let the property run down as they couldn't even afford the mortgage.  So they are making the housing market dip back down to affordable prices.  This lets new buyers, that couldn't afford the inflated prices, now start looking at these homes.  And they will be solid buyers.  They will hire contractors to revive these neglected homes and the market will gradually come back.
The TV news makes it sound like this has never happened before.  I am well below retirement age and this is the second time that I've seen it happen.  The trick to making this cycle work for you is to NOT buy a house when prices are climbing beyond what you know the house is worth.  Buy NOW when you know that the houses will increase within the next 5 years.  Look at it this way.  You wouldn't buy a $80.00 jacket if it was being hyped and priced at $120.00.  But you WOULD buy that same jacket if it was priced at $75.00   If you watch the housing cycle, you will not be surprised or ever take much of a loss, if any.  Be smart, Be cautious, Be informed and TURN OFF THE TV NEWS !!

Why you should consider Best Buy

Ok, on with the laptop saga. After having Fry's Electronics tell me that our business wasn't wanted or needed, we had to figure out where to take our business. Up here in the Natomas area, we have a few choices. There is a Staples, an Office Max, a Sam's Club, a Best Buy, a Fry's - nope never again, and if you go a little further there is a Circuit City, an Office Depot, etc. To be truthful, none of these thrilled me. Having built my own computers and running my businesses on them since 1979, I've forgotten more than most of the employees at any of these places know. In fact the only reason that I ever went to Fry's was because they are within 3 miles from our house, their prices were good and the selection was even better. Fry's employees must be all on commission, as they will only wait on you if you have already picked out what you want and all they need to do is write the ticket and get credit for the sale. Otherwise they seem to ignore you. The only store that had knowledgeable employees was Comp USA and they've quit the entire Northern California area. So what to do....
My lovely bride said that someone had told her that they really liked Best Buy. They said that the employees there are much more helpful than Fry's. (which can hardly be a brag) The last few times that I walked through Best Buy, I found their employees to be ignorant if you could find one. I haven't been in a Best Buy for many years though, because of my impression of their staff. However my friend Chuck, who is kind of a techie, is always telling me that he buys everything at Best Buy. I had seen an ad about a Toshiba laptop on sale at Best Buy. I figured that if I wasn't going to get any service from the store staff, I might as well give Best Buy a shot at pricing. So I grit my teeth and we went to the Best Buy in Natomas. We walked back to the computer section and started looking for the 2 laptops that I had seen on sale. And, of course, we couldn't find either of the sale items. Then we were approached by an employee who introduced himself as Nathan. I told him what I was looking for and he walked us right to them. There was a $50,00 difference between the Toshiba and a HP. I asked Nathan what he thought about both machines and their companies in general. He was very articulate and his reasons pro and con for each machine showed thought and knowledge. When I told him what the machine would be used for, he recommended the cheaper Toshiba. I then asked him if another machine would be better, even at a higher price. He showed us other machines, but he still thought that the Toshiba was the best machine for us. (obviously not a commission driven salesman). When he went to get us the Toshiba, he found out that they had just sold the last one and it must have still been in the store (not rung up yet). He then got into their database, found out that Roseville had 23, called them and had one put aside for us. We drove up to the Roseville store and they had it set aside and marked with our name, waiting for pickup. And the "Geek Squad" guys at both stores were really helpful under my barrage of questions. Eloise has some vendor supplied software that is hard to shoe-horn into any computer. I can't remember when I have had such good service in a large (big box) electronics store. If you go into Natomas Best Buy looking for computer equipment, look up Nathan. You'll be glad that you did.
As an aside, I had heard that when Best Buy brought in the "Geek Squad" to their service department, that they were changing how their business was going to be run. Do to really poor service at the Arden Mall store in 2000 and previous poor service in the Santa Rosa Store prior to 2000, I had never given them a try. And I had been sorry to hear that the Sacramento Comp USA had closed. But now I think that I know why. Best Buy is their equal in service and beats their prices.

Why you should never buy from Fry's Electronics

OK.  It is a title that leaves little to the imagination.  However, as a loyal buyer at the Fry's Electronics in Sacramento for 6 or 7 years, it tells allot about how they treat their loyal customers.  And I'll give a little background on my purchasing first to show the credibility of my complaint.  Since 2001, I have purchased 6 laptops from them (3 were for family members).  I have purchased 5 desktop computers,  4 flat screen monitors, 5 or 6 printers and 6 cordless phones.  The shop and store have 8 security cameras, a tape recorder and a hard drive hooked to them from Fry's  I bought a 27" TV and a VHS/DVD player for the office.  These are just the items that they keep track of by my phone number (and can look up).   The amount of accessories would be relative to the major purchases.   I figure that my traceable purchases run well over $2000 a year and the miscellaneous ink, cords, mice, battery backup (4 in the last 2 years), etc would at least double that amount.  Substantial enough to at least warrant some customer satisfaction.  Nope.  Here's the story....

Eloise had her Fry's laptop stolen and we went back to Fry's to replace it.  I believe that this was in Nov of 2006.  She purchased a HP laptop that was a little over $1000 and she also purchased a 3 year Fry's extended warranty with it.  Eloise had trouble with the display  twice and we took it to Fry's for repair both times.  One time they had it for 2 months !!!  Then 2 weeks ago, the screen went out completely,  Just a white screen.  This time I knew that it was the video card, as the video port on the side wouldn't light up a remote monitor.  Now here is the problem.  The video card in ON the motherboard.  So the motherboard would have to be replaced.  And this is now on the Fry's extended warranty, not the HP warranty.  Eloise took it in and they told her that there was a screw missing from the bottom, there was a screw that was stripped and there was a small dent on the corner of the case. Without opening the case, they declared that it had been abused and the warranty was void.  I went with Elly to the store to help.  I stated that Fry's were the only place that the laptop had been taken, so that if there were screws missing or stripped, they were responsible.  The small dent didn't even come close to damaging any components as it obviously was an old dent.  They looked it up and verified that they had the laptop in twice before for repair.  Their service manager wouldn't budge.  He said that the motherboard must have had something spilled on it.  This was decided without opening it up!!!  In fact I knew that the motherboard would have cost Fry's less than we paid for the extended warranty.  After pleading my case for 20 min, I asked to talk to the store manager.  They claimed that all of the managers were busy with store business (?) and the guy that spoke to me in their stead wouldn't override the service manager.   He said that it was company policy.  (their Company Policy must be whatever is most profitable and/or the least bother for Fry's)  Since it is my personal policy to stop all purchasing with greedy, unreasonable companies, I asked him to look up my purchases to see of he was willing to toss all of my business.  He looked my phone number and agreed that there were substantial purchases, but he still wouldn't overturn the service managers verdict.  So we left.  We purchased a Toshiba laptop for Eloise at Best Buy.  More on Best Buy later.  Since that occurrence, I have purchased 2 laptops and am looking for a new 42" wide screen TV.  And you can bet that NONE will be purchased from Fry's.  So far, I have cost them a wide screen TV purchase from my neighbor and about $600.00 worth of computer components from a friend at church.  I announced the story to the entire Men's group during our breakfast meeting last Saturday and cost them at least another computer sale.  I have posted the story in my store and will post it on both my business and personal blogs.  And I will repost it every few months to keep it visible.

Now as to the extended warranty.  At Airless Spray Center, we deal with extended warranties all of the time.  And we honor them to the customers.  The warranty companies make so money on them that they WANT us to go WAY out our way to make their customers happy.  They are looking for repeat business, unlike Fry's.  We deal with a extended warranty company that treats their customers really well.  The name of this company is NEW.  Buy their warranties with confidence; as long as you don't take anything into Fry's for the warranty service.  I think that they may be denying their customers their claims and getting credit from the underwriter.  Why else would they deny a legitimate claim?