Flip and Ching Join a Bowling League
Posted on May 21, 2014 by Ching under Family, Hobbies.
After over a decade of marriage Brian and I finally joined our first bowling league. It’s a mixed league at Derby Bowl on Sunday nights. We are on a team with mom and dad. We named our team ALOBAKER because it’s a combination of our last names. Not very creative, but it works. LOL.
Our first league night was last Sunday. We had to be there early for a league meeting, to make some decisions about what to do about the holiday weekend, prize pool, etc. We also had to pay our sanction fees. The guy in charge of the league gave us the option of paying $21 to be sanctioned for a full year or $10 for just the summer league, which is an option if you’re not interested in being eligible for awards.
Brian asked what option I wanted. He was leaning more towards just paying the $10 because he didn’t foresee joining another league after this one ends. I was like, “Hello? Do you know who you’re talking to?” I want to get awards!
We both opted to pay the full sanction fee. Dad hadn’t bowled in a league in several years so he had to pay the sanction fee as well. Mom was already a sanctioned member.
Since the three of us were new league bowlers we had to set our averages. I wanted to set a low one so I could get a higher handicap. I think that was the plan for all of us. It was not to be, though. Dad bowled amazing. I bowled pretty well too despite all my efforts to sandbag. Mom says the more you try to sandbag, the more relaxed you are and you actually end up bowling better.
Let me explain the whole bowling handicap concept. The idea is to add points/pins to the score to make the game more competitive for less experienced and expert bowlers alike. Without the handicap the better bowlers will always win and it wouldn’t be as much fun playing. Handicaps equalize the playing field so as long as you bowl your average game or better then you have a fair shot at winning.
The handicap is based on a percentage of the difference between a bowler’s average score and the basis score. For our league we agreed upon a bowling handicap of 90% of 210. Since I bowled an average of 150 over three games last Sunday, my handicap is 54.
Here’s the calculation:
210 – 150 = 60
60 X .90 = 54
This means that when we bowl next week I get to add 54 points to my total for each game. This is why I wanted to set a low average. I was actually going for 130 which would have given me a handicap of 72. Knowing that I’m fully capable of consistently bowling an average of 150, that would have given me a 20 pin advantage. Now imagine if Brian and dad sandbagged also. We’d win every week!
Alas, I set my normal average. I tried to sandbag, but it didn’t work. Mom blames it on the law of averages — the belief that outcomes of a random event will tend to even out. For instance, she bowled 192 on her first game and 200 on her second game. Guess what she scored on the final game. She bowled a 109. It is a terrible game by mom’s standards but she explains it away as the law of averages at work. Mom’s average is around 170. The average of her three games that night is 167, not far from her typical performance. So she predicted that she would bowl a lower scoring third game because the law of averages assumes that it has to balance out.
I believe in the law of averages over the long term, but I avoid thinking about it or using it to explain events because I think it then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If you bowl two great games as mom did and you believe that the third game will be crappy (because of the law of averages) then that’s exactly what will happen. Why? Because energy follows thought. I think mom was fully capable of bowling a 600 series that night. She’s done it before so it wouldn’t be such a fluke. She just had to believe that she could do it rather than thinking that the third game was the balancing event according to the law of averages. As for me, I intend to bowl better than my average every week from here on out. I want to win some awards, darn it!
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Rock Band Party at Hideki’s
Posted on May 20, 2014 by Ching under Games.
Our friend Hideki throws the best Rock Band parties!
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Happy Birthday, Eli!
Posted on May 19, 2014 by Ching under Family.
We celebrated our nephew Eli’s 8th birthday on Saturday.
This is his older brother, Logan. He is taller than his mom Jenni and me. He’ll be taller than his stepmom and his dad before long. They grow so fast!
Our nephews’ dad Matt and their mom Jen.
Matt with Brian. I love this picture because they’re under a sign that says “Mom’s Day Out.” LOL. I love our little family.
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The Effortless Experience
Posted on May 17, 2014 by Ching under Reviews, Videos.
Here’s my key take away from the 2014 ICMI Contact Center Expo & Conference.
Matthew Dixon was one of our keynote speakers at the ICMI Contact Center Expo & Conference. The video above is nearly identical to his keynote speech witout the Bill Rancic jokes. The speech covers the key ideas of their book, The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty
It is by far the best book I’ve read this year. Seriously. It articulates a lot of the things that I’ve been feeling but haven’t been able to articulate. I always tell my friend Darcy that I have all of these opinions and gut feelings but have no way to prove them. I’ll usually make some kind of statement or claim. Sometimes Darcy agrees or disagrees but, since she’s the keeper of our call center statistics, she’s the one who actually crunches the data to either prove or disprove my claim. Besides that, Darcy is really good at running reports and gathering information. But I digress… The authors and their colleagues have actually done the research and their research proves what we have all probably known for a long time: a strategy of delight doesn’t pay, customer satisfaction is not a predictor of loyalty, customer service interactions tend to drive disloyalty (no matter what you do), and the key to mitigating customer disloyalty is by reducing customer effort.
Customer service providers just need to accept that customers don’t want to have to deal with us. They want to take care of their business as quickly and as effortless as possible and be on their merry way.
The book talks about the concept of next issue avoidance, which is something that I’ve been working on for a few years now. Ever since we started collecting data on our repeat calls, this has been a topic of interest for me. I’m so glad that here’s a school of thought now that focuses on next issue avoidance because it’s actually easier for me to wrap my head around that than first contact resolution.
For years I’ve been trying to get at first contact resolution and can’t quite seem to get a metric that makes sense so I started attacking it from the repeat calls perspective. After reading this book I feel somewhat validated. LOL.
Anyway, if you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it. It’s an easy read. I read most of it on the flight home from San Diego. The examples provided are timely and relevant, and it’s just an enjoyable read over all. Kudos to the authors and their colleagues who helped with the research and contributed to the book. I haven’t been this excited about learning something new in a long time. Thank you.
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Dad is So Crafty
Posted on May 17, 2014 by Ching under Home Ownership, Projects, Tips.
My dad recently found a hole under the concrete slab that his AC rests on behind his house. He couldn’t figure out what had been digging that hole. It could be anything. Rather than speculating, he put a camera down the hole and captured video. It wasn’t in there and there burrow had no clues as to what kind of animal had been using the hole for shelter. The animal did not come back while dad’s camera was in the burrow.
Dad removed the camera and filled the hole up. As soon as that happened the animal returned and there’s the hole again. It drove dad crazy not knowing what he was dealing with so he did what any resourceful Pinoy would do. He didn’t want to have to buy an outdoor camera so he rigged his Foscam
Pretty clever, right?
He mounted the rig to a stick staked to the ground and pointed the camera right at the hole. Sure enough he got the perpetrator on video. He posted the video on his Facebook wall but I’m not sure how to share it with you guys because of the privacy settings.
Turns out, a skunk has been making a home under that concrete slab. I suggested calling Animal Control but it seems like dad is having too much fun playing cat and mouse with the skunk. Now he wants to build some kind of one-way door so that when the skunk leaves the hole it can’t get back in. Seriously.
For those of you who someday find yourself in this predicament, there are a couple of options: (1) make a trap, or (2) call Animal Control. I’m a proponent of the latter myself because it’s less hassle. If you are like my dad though, then you think it’s fun to rig things. I’m guessing there will be people out there who will go for the first option. However, think about what you’re going to do after you capture it. How are you going to release it into the wild without getting sprayed? And where are you going to release it? I say go with the second option all the way.
If you are not yet in this predicament and want to avoid it, here are some suggestions.
- Don’t plant fruit-bearing trees. If it’s too late and you already have trees that produce nuts, berries, crabapples, or other fruits, remember rake your yard often so the goodies don’t tempt critters to come over and feast on your lawn.
- Protect your waste. Don’t leave your trash bin out except on trash day. If there’s no room in your garage and the trash bin has to be outside, make sure that it is securely fastened so the smell doesn’t attract skunks and other critters.
- Close off hiding places. Use rocks, fencing, plywood, etc. to close off any potential hiding places. If you have unkempt bushes and vegetation around your house, make sure these are trimmed so as not to appear so appealing to wild animals.
- Install yard lights. Nocturnal creatures such as skunks don’t like bright lights so this may be a suitable and attractive deterrent. Lights with motion detection will probably be most effective because it will trick the animal into thinking someone’s there.
- Use chemical warfare. Okay, not in the grand World War III scale. Skunks don’t like ammonia so soaking rags with ammonia and placing it in potential hiding places is an option. Scattering orange or lemon peels around your property, specifically under your deck or porch is a good option also.
- Install motion-activated sprinklers. If you have the resources and really want to keep critters out, this is another alternative. It’s a nice surprise for two-legged unwanted visitors also. LOL.
I hope you find these tips helpful. I’ll keep you posted on my dad’s adventures.
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