Community Pool

If someone asks you if you want to go to a community pool, what comes to mind? I think of some dirty pool that is full of people with un-potty-trained kids swimming and adding things to the water that I don't want to swim in. My only community pool experience was one in Bakersfield a few years ago. When my wife asked me to take her and my son to the Ventura community pool, I was reluctant. My reluctance turned out to be unwarranted. The Ventura Community Park is nothing like I expected.

"The Ventura Community Park opened its doors in October of 2005 to great fanfare. The park features various three large sports fields, a 1.4-mile paved trail and a state of the art aquatics facility with two 25-foot water slides, a recreation pool, competition pool and a water playground for children. This initial phase of construction only built out 25 of the parks 100 acres."
See Official Website

As you can see from the pics, this place is a mini water park. There are water slides and a variety of ways to get water dumped on your head. I was very pleasantly surprised. You can do so many things, including using their two full size water slides, for only $5 per person. My son was free because he is young enough. For $10 we had a blast.

Once my son got used to the idea of water being splashed in his face he got pretty excited. He wanted to venture out further and further from us, though we made sure he didn't get away from us. He used the kid-sized water slide and loved it. My son loves water at least as much as I do, so this place was pretty exciting for him.

My wife and I decided this was a pretty cool place to go, so we are looking at the discount pricing rates for multiple visits. We can save $40 initially and get 12 trips each. It is not a bad price considering what it would cost to go to a full sized water park.

If you live in the Ventura area I recommend giving the Community Park a chance. I think you will be glad you did. I know I am.

What a Day

Tonight I am pretty tired. We got a lot of things done for one day. Normally I like relaxing a bit on the weekends, but some weekends that is not possible. My son normally wakes us up by 6:55 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings, reliably doing so this morning as well.

First stop was McDonald's for breakfast. My son is usually not too thrilled to be taken anywhere before he has breakfast, so taking him to breakfast is usually a chore. Today was no exception. Once we got to McDonald's he was ok with the situation though. He ate most of his meal, which is a rare thing these days. We went to Target to get some stuff, and then headed home because he decided to melt down.

By the time we got home, daddy and son needed naps, and mommy needed a pedicure. She took advantage of nap time, and went on her errand. Nap time would have gone better had my neighbor not been home. She seems to think that everyone LOVES their walls thumping and pictures shaking to the beat of her Janet Jackson album with the woofer on full blast. This woke up my son on two occasions, and I had to help lull him back to sleep.

My wife got home from her pedicure, and when the boy woke up we had lunch. It was off to the Ventura Harbor then. From the website, Ventura Harbor, or at least Oxnard, looked like a pretty busy place, kind of like Seaport Village in San Diego. It turned out not to be the case. I need to check out Oxnard to be sure, but the Ventura Harbor was not much to look at. It was nice and all, but the shopping and restaurant selection weren't all that great. We will go back for the boats, or a nice walk, but not much else.

Having spent only an hour of what was supposed to be a full afternoon, we had to think of something else to do. My wife had been talking about Santa Barbara for a while, so I thought we could go up there. Turned out it was Prom Night, so we headed back to Ventura. We had dinner at one of our favorite places, Casa de Soria.

All in all, we got quite a bit done. I think we had a pretty full day. My family seemed pretty satisfied. I am looking forward to seeing what happens tomorrow.

Where are you Wii?

Wanted: Nintendo Wii for less than $300.

Location: Unknown

My wife and I have lots of options for things Uncle Sam can buy us with this Economic Stimulus check we received today. We already have the plan pretty much, but we decided to think about getting a Nintendo Wii. The basic price has been $250 for at least the last 6 months, so this is the maximum we want to pay for the console. It seems most of the Oxnard merchants (Fry's, Wal-Mart, etc) want to sell it in a bundle, costing up to $400. In my opinion, if I have to pay $400 I might as well get the X-Box 360 which I want more than the Wii.

I finally found two stores which had the Wii at the basic, non-bundled price. These were Target and Best Buy. Normally Best Buy is on my DO NOT SHOP list, but every so often they try to make amends for poor service over the years. Today I focused on Target. It seems I will have to try Best Buy or Ebay after all. Target does not have its' act together when it comes to the Wii.

I looked at target.com to see if they had the Wii, and the website didn't have any available. I looked for local stores, and found it was available in a couple of the Oxnard stores. I went to the first after dinner tonight, and they did not have it in stock. This was the nicer of the two Targets. I had not been to the alternative Target, but was told by my wife that it is a filthy place. She was right.

Never go to the Esplanade Target. This is the one off of Oxnard Blvd, right off the freeway, and next to a lot of brand new, nice stores. From the time I got out of my car and smelled the foul odor in the parking lot, I knew things weren't going to go well. We got inside, and the entry carpet was so filthy I could not believe they clean the place on a daily basis. The tile further into the store was no better. Black streaks adorn almost every tile in 6-8 feet chunks throughout the store. My wife and son went to get ice cream while I went to the electronics department.

I got there and asked if they had a Wii in stock. He told me they don't. I told him that the website told me they had one, so he took his laser and scanned the bar code for me. He confirmed they had a few in the back, but then told me he couldn't sell me any. I was very surprised by this. He tried to explain that since the Wii will be featured in the Sunday ads, they are not allowed to sell any Wiis until Sunday. He said it was because it would be bad if they ran out of Wiis when they advertised them in the Sunday ad. He also said something about getting a $10,000 fine if they sold one to me today. The best part of this outlandish story is that he told me the price was the same. This is not a sale price on Sunday. It costs the exact same if I buy it today or Sunday. This is ridiculous.

I leave him and go to look for my wife, determined to add Target to my boycott list, right alongside the Oxnard Wal-Mart. I told her what happened and she wanted me to talk to the manager. I had already thought to do so, but decided that I wasn't interested in giving Target my money even if I could convince the manager to sell me one. Ultimately I talked to the manager.

She seemed surprised to find out about the no sales before Sunday thing, so she went to investigate. The kid told her a different story than he told me, then she came back to talk to me. Apparently there were no Wiis in the back. If there were, they hadn't gone through security where the serial numbers are recorded, and wouldn't be available until they did go through security. She explained that both the web and the bar code scanners are off by 24 hours. Neither allows for a purchase less than 24 hours before the scan. I was pretty frustrated at this point, and we left the store.

My wife and I discussed the fact that Nintendo keeps shooting itself in the foot with the Wii. They know the demand, and refuse to produce a reasonable number of products. If Nintendo intends for me to purchase a Wii at $400, maybe it is time I left Nintendo. I have every non hand-held Nintendo except the Wii. If Nintendo can't get their act together, maybe I will move on exlusively to the better brands, namely Sony and (I can't believe I am going to type this....) Microsoft. If anyone from Nintendo happens to read this, please fix the problem. This is getting old.

I am not sure what I am going to do about the Wii thing. Maybe I wasn't meant to get one for whatever reason. It shouldn't be this hard to buy something so basic.

Review - Time Warner Cable

I switched to Time Warner Cable when I left Dish Network. Part of the reason I left Dish Network involved my DVR breaking, and therefore an inability to record shows, pause, rewind, fast-forward and such. This is a feature that one has to pay for, and I expect it to work. Dish Network didn't seem to agree, and I was to find out only too soon, neither does Time Warner.

At the time I signed up, I was in the process of leaving Verizon's DSL and Phone services. I was looking for the fastest internet connection I could get, which at the time was Verizon. I knew Time Warner had an Internet Service Provider (ISP) called Roadrunner, which in past experience was a nightmare. The salesman signed me up for the three pack bundle, which included 10mbps internet, cable tv, and a voice-over-IP phone service. He told me that I was in a fiber optic area, and that I would really be getting 15mbps, which I was pretty stoked about. He was wrong.

Considering the 10/15mbps rates were identical, I didn't complain when I found that I was in reality getting the 10mbps speed. What I did complain about was the fact that my upstairs DVR stopped recording. I was annoyed at the fact that I had to rent two DVRs for Time Warner, when Dish Network only took one. I was far more than annoyed when the thing broke in the first three days.

Eventually the DVR fixed itself, about a week later. We thought that we were out of the woods. We weren't. The downstairs DVR decided to fail. At this point we were also wondering what happened to our phone service, as our install date had passed. I called to figure out what was going on.

As for the phone, apparently the salesman screwed up and the phone order was dropped without notification. The DVR support person made me jump through some hoops, and nothing happened. It eventually fixed itself, as the upstairs one had done before. A couple of weeks later guess what happened. Yup, the upstairs DVR broke again.

In the mean time Dish Network had offered me a sweet deal to come back, so I decided to take them up on it. I got a salesgirl who didn't want my business, so I was forced to crawl back to Time Warner. I called and asked for a technician to come in, and asked for all charges to be reduced/dropped. They complied to their credit, and sent a tech out.

The tech was pretty good, and found that our signal was weak, and did his best to fix it. He boosted the signal by 4 times the original strength. The DVR was still out, so he replaced it. He offered to come by without a work order if anything wasn't working, which we are about to take him up on. Want to know what happened as soon as he left? The downstairs DVR broke again! Now I am furious with Time Warner. This stuff is way too expensive to put up with this kind of garbage.

I went back to Dish Network, hoping to get a more cooperative salesman. I managed to find one, and began the sign-up process when I hit another roadblock. This time it was not the salesman, but Dish Network itself that didn't want my business. I explain this in my Dish Network review, so I will move on.

I am now at a crossroads. I can't get Dish Network, and don't want Time Warner. One of my friends has gone the Netflix only route, which I am tempted to try. I can get DVDs of my favorite shows for less than half the price of cable. What is a disgruntled consumer to do?

Time Warner cable has a few redeeming qualities which I will cover to make this a fair review. Every time I have called I got a very friendly customer service rep. They aren't all knowledgeable, but at least they are friendly. The last guy I talked to was VERY good. He listened to my technical opinions and agreed that I was on the right track with my assessment. He sent out a tech and credited my account with no hassle.

The tech was another asset to Time Warner. He went above and beyond when he made the house call. My wife was very impressed with his service and he was on time. This is something that can be rare in the cable business.

The two positives mentioned above being considered, I still cannot recommend Time Warner cable. I plan to remain on the RoadRunner ISP, which the tech was able to fix, but I cannot justify wasting any more money on Time Warner's cable service. I give Time Warner a 1 out of 10 for value, but an 8 out of 10 for the customer service personnel I have encountered.

Review - Dish Network

I was a Dish Network customer in Cherry Valley, CA for 2 years when I moved to Oxnard. During that whole time I had a great experience. Everything worked as it was supposed to, and the one time it broke they fixed it quickly. Keep in mind that Cherry Valley is in the middle of nowhere.

I moved to Oxnard and intended to cancel my service, as I had been told I would have to pay for the move since I refused to pay an extra $6 per month for insurance. When I called to cancel they convinced me to sign another two year contract without paying to move my service. I should have followed my gut on this one.

The Dish Network tech came to my house and installed the service. Within a day we lost the ability to watch tv upstairs. I looked the connections over, and then called customer service. They walked me through some stuff, but were unable to resolve the issue. They were going to send a tech out, so we ended the call amiably. I took another look at the cabling, and decided the tech didn't know what he was doing. I had uninstalled the unit from my old house, and knew how it was supposed to look. In moments I fixed the tv. I rerouted the cabling to the appropriate places and changed the signal from air to cable, as it was plugged in by a coax cable. This fixed the problem so we called off the house call.

Well, a few days later it broke again. My wife called and they attempted to force us to pay for the house call. She explained that one was already going to be sent, that we fixed the first problem ourselves, and had only had our service for three days. This fell on deaf ears. Finally she asked to talk to the manager, at which point the girl immediately approved the house call at no charge.

Well, it turned out that the tech had put a staple through the coax cable when he tried to hide it under the carpet near my fireplace. He replaced the cable and things started working...until the DVR broke.

I ordered a new DVR and waited for it. What happened next wasn't Dish Network's fault, but the way they handled it made them complicit. The forecast that week was the biggest storm California had seen in years. All the news stations were preparing us for some massive rain storms to come through southern California, dropping as much as 14 inches of rain in the first day. What did UPS do about this? They left my new DVR in a puddle at my front door, in open sky getting rained on. I put the box on some towels and promptly called Dish Network to arrange for another DVR, explaining what had happened.

I was told that I had to turn in the wet DVR before I could get another one, so I got the instructions for returning it. I told them I wasn't going to pay for service since I wasn't receiving service, and he told me that he credited my account. Apparently he didn't pass the word on to his company, as they cut off the service for nonpayment. This was after I had confirmed with 3 separate people on 3 separate days that I owed nothing.

I was not happy, to put it as kindly as possible. I spent the next week on the phone with customer service, trying to get the mess sorted out. I logged 12 hours in three days during that week, and was so fed up with Dish Network that I decided to move on.

While I had great service in Cherry Valley, my horrible experience in Oxnard forces me to give Dish Network a rating of 1 out of 10 for both value and customer service.

********Update**********

After switching to Time Warner Cable I received a call from Dish Network's retention department. They offered me a pretty sweet deal, but I told her I would be in a better position to decide in a couple of days and she should call me back. The deal was 3 months free (1st, 10th, and 20th months), $14 off the first 6 months, and no contract.

I called back a couple of weeks later and was told that the girl had no business offering me that deal, and that she couldn't honor it. I was dismayed, but accepted my fate. Things kept getting worse with Time Warner, so I tried again. Apparently I was two weeks too late this time. I was signing up for the exact deal I mention above, when my credit card raised a flag on their system. He asked me if it was a real credit card or a debit card. I told him it was a debit card with a Visa logo on it, therefore making it qualify as a Visa.

He explained to me that two weeks ago Dish Network implemented a rule that only credit card holders could become new customers. The DVR costs $600, it was explained to me, and Dish Network wanted to protect themselves from loss. Having already turned in my broken DVR and following their instructions to the letter, I found this rather insulting. I do not have a credit card, as I prefer to pay for any luxuries in cash, thus better managing my money. The fact that I don't have a credit card should not be the reason I don't qualify for a service I had for two years. I never missed a payment, and they got their equipment back. They even managed to purge me from the system, so even if I was delinquent, which I wasn't they had no way of proving it. I was denied solely because I am being responsible with my money. Bad form Dish Network, bad form.

Why I Won't Shop at the Oxnard Wal-Mart Again

I went to Wal-Mart last weekend to get my oil changed. I have been going to Wal-Mart for years now, as I like all the extra stuff they do for the price. Typically, I park my car somewhere near the garage, walk to the counter, hand them my key, tell them where to find my car, and all is good. Occasionally there will be someone guiding traffic, and I will arrange for the oil change right there.

This day turned out to be different. This is my first oil change since moving to Oxnard last October. Some of you are thinking I should have had my oil changed long before last week, and you would be right. I am well aware of how I should have done this far sooner.

Now, this Wal-Mart is already pretty ghetto, but I was hoping for some sense of normalcy in the automotive department. I pull my car into a spot near the garage, and walk in to turn in my key. The person behind the counter tells me that I do not set up the oil change inside, but am supposed to talk to the guy that is out there. She also told me to park my car in the back of the line outside. I had just taken my son out of his car seat, and in a two-door car, this is a somewhat difficult task. I informed them that there was no guy outside, and it would have been nice to know the arrangement before I took him out of his car seat. She just shrugged. I was mildly annoyed, but thought I would just get over it and go about my day.

I was meeting my wife at the Wal-Mart so we could do our grocery shopping elsewhere while we waited, and managed to meet up with her on the way back to my car. I told her of my annoyance, and gave my son to her so I wouldn't have to put him back in the car seat. I then pulled into the line. Again, nobody was standing around, and I saw one guy pull the first car in line into the garage, so I thought I was in the right place. I leave my engine running and step out of the car part-way, trying to scope out the situation. I was quickly confronted with an angry voice telling me that the line didn't start where I was. I looked around, saw no other cars, and waited until he finished his reproach. There was no attempt at customer service, no "Hey, I noticed you aren't familiar with this particular Wal-Mart's procedures, let me help you out." No, I just got railed on for no apparent reason.

At this point I was more than slightly annoyed. I expressed my dissatisfaction by commenting on how the process was incredibly stupid. The next thing I know, he is rushing me with violent intent in his eyes, and he demanded to know if I called him stupid. Of all the things I wanted to say at that point, I informed him that I was calling Wal-Mart's procedures stupid, and not him. It took a little time for this to sink in, and he continued his approach. I had to open the door wider to keep him from being able to physically assault me. Can you imagine that? Instead of customer service I get confronted with a seemingly imminent assault?

I don't know if I managed to appease him, or if he realized there was a woman with her kids watching, or what, but he finally backed off and walked away. Needless to say I did not get my oil changed that day. I was pretty fired up at that point, and spent the next half an hour venting my frustration in a more productive manner than the one almost used against me.

I was already having second thoughts about this particular Wal-Mart, but this event seems reason enough to boycott the Oxnard Wal-Mart for the foreseeable future.