Ronalfy.com

Wild Iris in Brentwood, Tennessee

So I attended my first ever WordPress meet-up in Nashville, Tennessee. As I was leaving the meet-up, I asked one of the attendees if there were any good restaurants close by.

“Yeah, go to Interstate 65 South and exit Old Hickory and there are a bunch of restaurants down there.”

I took the advice and stumbled on what looked like a nice and cozy restaurant called Wild Iris.

It was one of those $20 a plate restaurants, which I wasn’t quite expecting. However, I thought I deserved a treat and stuck around hoping for some good food.

After the waitress took my order, I asked her how long the food was going to take to come out.

“Oh, it’ll be about fifteen minutes.” she said.

“Is it okay if I go bring my laptop in from my car?”

“Sure, honey. Go right ahead.”

I walked outside and got my laptop and set it up on my table to field some WordPress plugin support requests.

“What is he doing?” I could hear a loud and irate chef in the background, but I didn’t know whom his comments were being directed at.

“This isn’t the type of place where he can do that.” the chef continued.

I typed away, trying to hear what was going on in the background.

“You can’t just pull out your laptop here. That’s disrespecting the table.” the chef concluded.

By that time I was getting angry and glared at the chef to mind his own business. It wasn’t like I didn’t ask permission.

I finished my e-mail and closed down my laptop to satisfy the chef and to stop “disrespecting” my table.

However, the chef’s remarks spoiled the rest of my meal. It’s sad when all a chef can think about is a table being disrespected rather than the customer. Which begs the question, is the establishment more important than the people in it?

When I left Wild Iris, it was about six in the evening. Every other place in that area was packed with customers. But not this place. The food was good. The prices were somewhat reasonable. But the cockiness of the staff and the attitude of the food preparers was what drove the experience down.

My advice to the people of Wild Iris: respect your customers. You won’t win repeat business by being too into yourselves.

What are your thoughts on this? Should I have just left my laptop in the car?

Coyote Ugly

The following was my first (and probably last) experience at Coyote Ugly in Austin, Texas.

“You, in the glasses.” a lady said into a microphone pointing into my direction.

It wasn’t everyday that a lady on top of a bar was pointing at me and announcing my presence to the slew of drunkards and bar-hoppers. I wasn’t annoyed or embarrassed, just wondering why my glasses were my prominent figure.

“That’s right. You. Front and center.” she used her index finger to lure me close to the bar.

I looked at my dad, who was laughing at me, and he signaled me to get off my stool and make my way to the bar.

I approached and stood at the bar next to another gentleman.

“It’s her birthday.” she said pointing at another lady. “I want you to pay for a body shot.”

I stood confused. I had never given anyone a body shot, much less a complete stranger in a strange bar in a foreign city.

“Twenty bucks.” she said.

Even a three drink buzz couldn’t talk me into paying up. I shook my head, “I don’t think so.”

“You and him”, she said pointing to the guy next to me, “You guys split it at ten a piece.”

I couldn’t imagine sharing the wealth when it came to body shots. The guy chipped in, “I’ll get it. Don’t worry about it.”

I made my way back to my stool, twenty dollars richer than the other guy.

Turned out it was the Coyote Ugly staff that gave the birthday girl her body shot. I was relieved and silently calling the gentleman at the bar a sucker for thinking he might get lucky.

When I came back, my dad was talking to a fairly attractive Asian lady.

“Where do they get these girls at?” she complained pointing at the bar, “Because not one is good looking. Which one is the best up there?”

My dad shrugged.

“I could out dance any of those girls on that bar.” she said.

“Then do it.” I responded. “Get up there and show those girls what you got.” Several other people assisted in persuading and eventually helping the lady onto the bar.

When she got on the bar, a fast jam came on. And she put all of the other girls to shame.

When she got down, I bought her a drink.

UPS - Don’t Leave Stuff by My Door

It was only just a week and a half ago that I was basking in the glory of Austin, Texas. And during my stay in Austin, I ordered a package and had it sent to my dad’s place. Why, you ask? Well, let’s just say I didn’t want it delivered to my apartment and left on my door step for anyone to snatch.

My dad called me and said, “Ron, the package is on its way. I sent it so that it would be sent to your apartment office so they won’t leave it at your door.”

“Good.” I replied. And then I waited.

My dad calls again a few days later, “Ron, you should’ve received the package today. Did you get it?”

I looked at my watch, “That’s a negative dad. The UPS site says that the address was incorrect and that the delivery was re-scheduled.”

“Shit.” my dad said. “I left off your apartment address hoping it would be sent to your office.”

“Well, it says the address was corrected and that they will try to re-deliver it.”

“So what time will USP come by tomorrow?”

I thought about it for a second and said, “Dad, it’s Friday. UPS doesn’t deliver on Saturdays. So I guess it’ll have to wait until Monday.”

“Shit.” he said again, “Well, let me know when you’ve received it.”

So Monday came around and I looked up the tracking number on the UPS site. There was no change in status. I hunted around the Internet and found a support number.

“Your tracking number?” a lady asked in a strong New York accent.

I gave her my tracking number and asked about the status.

“Your package will be delivered today. There was a wrong address on the box.”

“Oh, okay. Well my dad didn’t include the full address because he wanted the package delivered to my apartment office instead of my door.”

The lady scoffed, “I can assure you that UPS doesn’t leave packages at doors. Especially at apartments.”

“Okay, but can you just leave a note for the driver to not leave it at the door?”

“Sure, I can do that.” the lady replied.

I hung up.

After work, I raced home to intercept the package. And there, neatly “hidden” under my welcome mat (at my door) was my package.

What was the contents of the package? Only “Adobe Creative Suite 3″. And to think that the same apartment was broken into only 3 months earlier.

Shame, shame UPS.

Blogging Goals for 2008

To be honest, I don’t see how I can outdo myself in 2008 for the blogging accomplishments I’ve accomplished in 2007. In no particular order, here are some of my major blogging accomplishments in 2007:

• Release of popular WordPress Plugin Ajax Edit Comments
• Successful group project for Peeve Week 2
• Wrote a popular series/e-book: How to Write a WordPress Plugin
• Started contributing to WeblogToolsCollection
• Launched RAProject.com with a friend to much fanfare.

With all that accomplished, let’s hope I can do something perhaps a little better for 2008. Here are my goals:

Start a Spanish Blog

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog with the Spanish language for a while now. I have had trouble thinking of a niche though. I hope to get over my fears and plunge into this project and improve my Spanish at the same time.

Re-design and Modernization of Madison Bible Church Website

I’m one of the project leads for MadisonBibleChurch.org. One of my goals for the site is to modernize it and make posting and finding information a lot easier.

Re-design of RA Project

I did the initial re-design of RA Project, but it’s become apparent that the website is due for a new theme that is not from my own hand. Let’s just say that I don’t want to attempt another redesign with me being spread so thin.

A Peeve Week 3

I have to admit that after Peeve Week 2, I kinda just stopped posting to this blog as much as I used to. I have a bunch of excuses, but none of them matter. I hope to start posting to this blog regularly again and hopefully have a Peeve Week 3 in June (the one year anniversary of Peeve Week 2). A lot of the articles have become extremely popular and hopefully continue to drive traffic to the websites of everyone that participated.

If anything, I’ll host Peeve Week 3 on another blog, which will save me the admin headache

Attend WordPress Related Meetups

I plan to attend my first WordPress related meetup in two weeks in Nashville, Tennessee. I also will try to make it to WordCamp Dallas in March.

Jeff (from Jeffro2pt0) has also invited me to be part of his podcast called WordPress Weekly. I’ve already done a few shows.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading my blogging goals. I just hope I can accomplish some of them. Thank you for reading