Now whether or not $175 per appliance, plus parts for an in-home visit that ran less than 30 minutes is fair is not why I am writing this post. The reason I am writing this post is because when it came to resolving my concerns, Sears representatives were less than helpful, at times even stepping over themselves to avoid communicating with me at all.

Now surely, I would never call Sears for an in-home repair again, I was less concerned about placing an order on-line for clothing and household items which I did order from Sears.com in the past few days.

That brings us to today where noticing an over-charge on my Visa, I contacted Sears Customer Support only to be told I was incorrect as to the displayed price of a particular item, (a shirt showed $2.99 in-cart and billed at $4.99) and that I was not charged a shipping fee even tough a separate charge for $6.40 had in-fact been debited and cleared my account.

The promised $50 gift-card I was promised 5 years ago in response to my original complaint never materialized, and I am highly doubtful Sears will be more responsive to the more recent concern based on the pass the blame e-mail that I received today.

I don’t know why Sears has abandoned the consumer during the follow-up support process, but I am guessing that ‘ignore and the customer will go-away’ has become an everyday manner of handling customer complaints at Sears.

For the above reasons I am confident in my belief that Sears doesn’t want my business. The question you should ask yourself is does Sears want your business?

Why would a single? State Child Services employee be the only one present and why would anyone, knowing the volatility of the situation place the children in the home without first scouting the location to insure the children’s safety?

This sad news did not have to happen and I am hopeful that the forthcoming investigation puts better protocols into place to prevent similar events.

I don’t know what else to say except may the two boys rest in peace and God bless the family already victimized by this sick individual.

The tradition basically revolves around whom crosses your threshold as a guest in your home first in the New Year. Your luck or misfortune for the coming year can be determined by whom this guest is.

I am going to keep my first foot visitor a secret this year but alas they were treated like royalty just in-case. May your first foot visitor bring you all the luck that you desire in 2012. Happy New Year!

Google with recent introduction of its authorship verification methods has begun tackling the issue head-on and I for one am excited at the possibilities this brings to the table.

Of course, verifying original authorship’s benefits are not only limited to the issue of reducing scraper sites and sites full of re-posts but of the more important timeline and social interaction that now receives indexing preferences.

+Nick J. West

I recently returned from a short-jaunt to San Francisco. Do I love that city. Wouldn’t want to live there full-time but I enjoy the city fully every chance I can get. The visit to the city included a Sunday which is when I usually get a chai tea at 9th and 9th so my routine was changed, leaving me perplexed at how to deal.

In the past I may have substituted with a local coffee shop’s chai tea but that usually ends up just as bad, sorry 9th and 9th has it spot on!

So, this weekend we went to Bob’s Donuts. Delicious and I can’t recommend the place enough, Bob’s on Polk Street near Sacramento St.

Anyway back to the point of this post: Life’s little things matter. Take note of what your list of the ‘little things’ in your life is and reflect on them, just for a few minutes.

There are a number of tutorials on setting up a Google + page for your business or organization so I won’t repeat here. Early adoption is key to these new Google Tools so integrate them as soon as you can.

Using the Google Plus platform in conjunction with rel=author tags on your website can make a huge dent in reducing the number of scraper sites that repost your material.

I know its just a coincidence but the fact that its so precisely at 4-0-4 has to make you pause to wonder.

If anything is to be learned from the recent catastrophes in Haiti and Chile is that every family needs an earthquake emergency kit that includes a tent or temporary shelter in addition to food and medicine.

Last year the pattern was similar but we were able to eek out a few steady weeks of storms that left an average of 4-8 inches in the valley each storm. This year it has been 1-3 inch storms relegating most of the snow to the mountains and the central Utah mountains.

Spring is still a few weeks away, and the frost can still happen until mid-May so there’s no planting anytime soon but I do predict a mild, but very wet end of winter and into spring.

Why? The willow trees are already beginning to yellow and the buds bulge, the willow tree being one of the first trees to green with most hardwood trees greening 4-8 weeks later. Another sign that spring is nearly here, the blue jays and robins are busy building their nests and singing their mating calls.

I will be taking a trip across the Southwest and Southeast U.S. this spring and I eagerly look forward to all the beauty of our country, especially the flowers along Texas byways and the flowering trees of the South.

It’s all in an effort to promote its Google Apps products, e-mail and the like. I have been using the product myself for over two years, and quickly dumped Microsoft Outlook and use it daily. Sure, its had a few hiccups but nothing as bad as I experienced using Outlook.

Haven’t tried Google Apps yet?, click here for more information.

If your search involves commerce, products or things like “travel” you’re presented with options that don’t require you to leave Bing to view, example being a current air-fare to Atlanta. Displayed are the top results, but instead of requiring a “click” you see the results of the lowest or top fares immediately.

If your search involves something more mundane, your likely to see the same results you saw on Live.

I sincerely wish Microsoft the best in this endeavor but it seems a waste of money, especially with the upcoming buzz around the amount of the spend on promoting the new “decision engine”.