Category Archives: History

Verizon

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My day was poisoned by Verizon and Asurion, one of them is a nationwide wireless carrier, the other is an insurance company. They are the Reese’s Cup to my wasted blown-out day. Thanks guys.

Situation: Coworker breaks iPhone, takes it to a Verizon store, nothing comes of it. Coworker gives me the dead phone and I try to make heads or tails out of the knotwork that is Verizon and Asurion.

Email 1: (me writing to Verizon Rep, upset at being lead on a wild goose chase for most of the day, MIKGOVTEAM is an email to a bunch of people who are supposed to help me, a part of Verizon’s Customer Care … Team.)

Hello,
Thanks for the resolution on this problem. I have contacted Asurion and completed the affidavit. My client indicated that the report that the device was exposed to water is incorrect, it fell face-first onto a concrete surface. Because this is the word of our coworker versus a Verizon store we have issued new policies for our clients to not approach Verizon ever again because of these miscommunications. Instead all of our clients will route their phone issues through my office and we will contact Verizon directly where the conditions of the events can be exchanged clearly and without any of this miscommunication. We are unused to how Verizon conducts it’s business because of our previous relationship with Sprint and Asurion when it came to handling insurance. Sprint acted as our representative to Asurion, which differs fundamentally to how Verizon manages the three-party relationship. This too has changed our policies and procedures when dealing with your company and when dealing with Asurion. It is rather upsetting as a customer to know that Verizon stores cannot be trusted, cannot provide services, and that our only contact is MIKGOVTEAM.
The only thing keeping us as your customers is your network.
Pray for the health of that network.

Response from Verizon:
Andy, I am sorry to hear that you don’t seem to value the service my team and I provide. There are many reasons for VZW Government contracted customers to only be able to work directly through the Government team, the main one being security. The stores are restricted on what they can see, they can’t see government accounts.
I would be happy to meet with you to discuss the many other reason for our decision to not allow retail environments access to your account, I can assure you it is to your benefit.

My final email to Verizon:

The entire reason for us having a mobile infrastructure is first and foremost for our major gift directors and engagement team to have as much of a reliable wireless connection as I can provide for them. Verizon was selected because Verizon’s network is the largest in the United States and therefore won by default. Verizon wasn’t selected initially in the past because of a difference in toolsets provided by Verizon and Sprint. Sprint has proven themselves to be grossly incompetent when it comes to managing a network and right before I migrated everyone to Verizon, Sprint was “Circling the Toilet Drain”. I have yet to be actually pleased by any wireless carrier as they all try to be more than what they really are. Verizon fought against this tooth and nail, doing everything in their power to refute being a “commodity carrier” but in the end, that’s all the customers really want. The value-added components I’m sure gratify other wireless customers and they’ve expressed their thanks to you. I do admit that it comes in handy, when it works as designed. Verizon provides the network and Apple provides the devices. It was 8/10ths the iPhone and 2/10ths the Network. I informed Sprint of this and they sent a fool to me and actually dared to argue with me about Droid. It was that meeting in which my Sprint contract died, because they sent a fool to actually pick a fight with their customer. I was paying a three-grand-a-month contract and they lost it because they sent a fool.

My attitude about mobile carriers in the United States is pretty much identical. Every company is pretty much all the same. Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The networks are different, the frequencies are different and the rest is a dart board of bullshit that the customers have to put up with in order to get work done. I’d like to say that any one company is better than their competitors, but they aren’t. Verizon has the network but the stores are chock full of slime-balls trying to sell as much accessory junk as possible. Sprint is incompetent but the stores are reliable. I don’t regard AT&T as even a mobile carrier as they are just Cingular wearing the Death Star’s face. It’s macabre and it fools nobody. Cingular was incompetent on their own and their only singular saving grace was the iPhone, as AT&T. So in the end it doesn’t really matter how much I like any one company. Sprint screwed me with a $6000 billing error and I had to go through at least four wireless field reps and even still not getting anywhere as they continuously screw up billing.

So now we’re predominantly with your company and we just have to face some rather grim realities. It’s a compromise that we make. We trade a really quite excellent network for pretty much everything else. I have yet to visit a single Verizon store here in Kalamazoo (and man, are there a lot!) where I’m not either a used-car-shopper or in one case mistakenly thrown out of a store because looking for an iPhone bumper case is something AT&T can help me with… :~|

This entire interaction with Trish’s iPhone really had to come about eventually. It exposed a situation that we were not expecting to happen. One of my clients broke her phone, this was eventually going to happen. It’s why we bought the TEP Insurance because I know my clients have butterfingers and these devices would eventually start getting damaged. I made a mistake, so did Andy M, my assistant. We wrongly assumed that if Trish walked into any Verizon store that she could lay her dearly departed phone on the counter, that the Verizon store representatives would look up her phone number, see that it was a Verizon account, and then offer to replace her iPhone. What I was really hoping for was that the Verizon rep could then help her program the Exchange information on her iPhone and she could limp along with her device until she came back to WMU to get it polished off. If there was any costs associated with this entire hypothetical event, that they would be simply posted to the account. At best I was hoping for Verizon to offer her a warranty replacement free of charge and at worst replace the phone and ding us our insurance deductible. All of this so that I could tell all my clients that they could, if out in the big wide world, spy a Verizon store and know that they were covered, because a helpful person from Verizon was in any one of the multitude of Verizon stores and that they, in a manner of speaking, had my back.

What turned out to be was not that. Trish went to a Verizon store, they erroneously noted water damage (for which I know both Apple and Verizon have it in their best interests to push as hard as possible, since water damage isn’t covered by warranties) and they indeed proved the device was shot. They told Trish that they couldn’t do anything at all. And then Trish had to bring her dead device to me. I started with MIKGOVTEAM and was told that I had to go to Asurion. What really got me was the vicious circle that the both of you created. Verizon pointing to Asurion, Asurion pointing to Verizon and I’m in the middle, with a broken phone, and no way to resolve the circle. The advice from MIKGOVTEAM was useless. Being told to “Call Asurion” when I have a page from Asurion that says “Call Verizon” is just stupid. That’s when I reached out for you and Kim, since I was obviously getting nowhere in a big hurry. The process with Asurion wasn’t pleasant either, when I got to that. I had to cover everything all over again with them, get yet another claim number, and fill out an affidavit proving I am who I say I am and then faxing it to them.

So where we stand now is we can’t really trust any Verizon store. They run the gamut from used-car-salesmen to barely verbal thugs. They “note” water damage when there really isn’t any just to weasel out of having to put up with a warranty issue and then all of this that happened. If we invalidate all the Verizon stores and all I get from MIKGOVTEAM is “Call Asurion, 888-888-8888. Talk to them.” messages, then where exactly is the customer care, because I certainly don’t see it. So… to cope with all of this I’ve told my iPhone-using coworkers to just avoid Verizon stores altogether and bring their phone issues to me directly so I can corral all our dealings with your company through my office. It’s just another compromise. I am trading all that I wanted, the idea that even if my clients are in Houston, Texas, with a dead iPhone, that they will be able to get it fixed quickly for Verizon’s nationwide network. In the end, that’s what Verizon is to me. It’s the network. What I was really after isn’t possible and really all I need to know is that is how it’s going to be. I lower my expectations to match and we’re back to being happy customers.

When my clients get to Houston, Texas and realize their phones are dead they’ll have to find a Kinko’s and ship their phones to me so I can initiate an insurance claim, wait the days for Asurion to get to whatever they have to do, get the phone back to me and then FedEx it overnight to my clients. It’s messy and inconvenient and painfully expensive, but this is what we have to do in order to compromise.

If Verizon decides to make any of this better, I’ll be first in line with a smile and ready gratitude. I will admit that the website, when it works, works well. But Steve, you have to also know that it took Verizon nearly a month before I could reliably purchase iPhones through my website portal. The first half dozen iPhones I had to order manually through Kim. I’m sure there are other things that you and your team can do for us, but how much of it will be actually needed beyond ordering new devices, dealing with damaged devices, and the assumed-it’s-coming billing fiascos? Most of which I can already do through the website, and the billing fiascos, well, those will certainly be treasured moments yet to come. I don’t expect much and really all I’m after is the network, so don’t feel bad. It’s the best we can do with this compromise.

After my numerous experiences with Verizon stores, I certainly understand why you’ve established a walled garden around us all. I certainly don’t expect Verizon to change, but it will help you to understand that what we’ve lost stings quite badly. I can hope that we’ll never have another broken iPhone to deal with, but we both know it’s just a matter of time. At least now I know not to expect anything from the stores and I can skip MIKGOVTEAM and just contact Asurion directly. The only other reason I would need to contact you would be to help resolve problems with Verizon. The only eventuality I can think of is when Verizon screws up billing, and that might never happen, so if the world works out for the best, I won’t need to contact you or your team at all. If that isn’t the definition of a happy customer, I don’t know what is.

Now all we have to wait for is the other shoe to drop and witness the three-ring-circus that is Asurion. I fully expect that they’ll screw up and send us an empty box full of shredded newspaper and a $9000 bill, 60 days late with a collection notice rubber-banded to the box. My professional expectations start out at raging incompetence and there is nowhere to go but up!

State Of The Ocean: 'Shocking' Report Warns Of Mass Extinction From Current Rate Of Marine Distress

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State Of The Ocean: ‘Shocking’ Report Warns Of Mass Extinction From Current Rate Of Marine Distress.

It’s funny to me to see people throwing fits now. It’s far too late to turn the tide. Sorry for the pun. We had our chance in 1982 and we missed it. Now we’re on a rollercoaster that has as one little hill this particular outcome. Just wait until the big drop at the end. That will be something to behold.

And just what will we do then? At the end. I’m sure we’ll complain to our elected officials and we’ll fret and we’ll end up doing absolutely nothing. Why? Not because we lack the willpower, but because there is no solution, the planet will correct the imbalance all on it’s own.

It’ll just have to include a rather nasty inhospitality to human beings. Life will go on, it just won’t be us. We’ve helped the planet select against us and it’s just getting started.

And save your breath about the children. If anyone really spent any time thinking about their world that they’ll inherit we wouldn’t be wasting our time and energy on bullshit wars, stupid religious aggression and turning the climate inside out. All that’s left is a grim acceptance and to make your best effort to avoid what is coming.

Good Luck!

SUNY Buffalo

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Talk about a blast from the past! I noticed a few weeks ago @GenerationSUNY’s twitter feed talking about the SUNY report card being presented by Chancellor Zimpher and that reminded me about @ub_alumni. It’s a curious condition I’m in. I work for WMU’s Development and Alumni Relations department and here I am talking to my alma mater’s Alumni department. The things I’ve learned here at Western, things I never thought I’d actively use in pleasant conversation all of a sudden are now directly relevant.

So of course the nice people who staff the @ub_alumni account gave me a link to their Alumni connect website. This is exceptionally comic since the system I tried to get into is the same, at least thematically, that we are attempting to bring to WMU alums right here and now. So on I go. I know a few things, mostly my UB Person Number, when your grades are in a list and it’s sorted by this number, you know it. It’s a number that’s as with-me as my Social Security Number is. And I dimly remember my username that used to be on UB’s computer system, which as I remember was a Solaris Unix system. Ah, the geeky stuff you remember. And then I made contact with @ub_alumni on Twitter. They helped me remember my password to the UB Connect site and once I got in I remembered that many many months, maybe even years, yikes, I got a letter in the mail from UB offering UBMail, their email account they offered all alums through Google. This letter, as I remember, came hot on the heels of WMU’s decision to either go with Merit’s hosted Zimbra infrastructure or to go with Google’s infrastructure for email services for higher ed. There was something very deeply satisfying to know that my alma mater elected to go with Google, and that my arguments for Google and against Zimbra were at least backed up by my alma mater’s choice. I remember laughing heartily because my alma mater is nearly the same size, at least when it comes to students, as WMU is. Golly, if it works for Buffalo, maybe it’d work for Western?!? Bah, it’s all water under the bridge.

This left-field connection did get me to wander around SUNY Buffalo’s website, and I even looked at the Giving site and YES, I did think about giving. Before anyone gets all hot and bothered, I’ve given the last two times UB’s Annual Fund called me, my basic $35 donation, so keep your knickers on people. Jeesh. 🙂 But while I was looking at the site my mind started to wander and then I started to remember. At first it was funny odd little stories, things about South Campus, about the goofy city trolley that didn’t go all the way to North Campus because the rich, well-heeled slobs in Amherst couldn’t stand the idea of poor homeless people taking a trolley from the city up into their palatial bedroom community and reminding them about how hard life is, especially in Buffalo. Other memories too, from my house that I rented on Stockbridge Ave in Buffalo, with the people who I lived with, and regretted, it’s one of the few decisions that I made that was honestly really bad. And then the sillier stuff. Like being too drunk to drive, rather too drunk to walk even, and taking a cab from somewhere in the Red Jacket Quadrangle in Legoland all the way back to Clement Hall on South Campus and telling the cabbie that I didn’t have any cash. Then discovering that I had over $40 in quarters in my jeans pocket. That I couldn’t remember that little fact or the giant bulge of coinage in my pocket while the upset cabbie drove away was a memory that did stand out, and still does to this day. I also remember my classes, the halls, and as I continued to let my mind wander I realized just how much fun I had at UB. I met some of my best friends there, and at least one I still am friends with to this day. We met when I was 18, and now I’m almost 36. Oddly enough the funny memories are really quite embarrassing really. Like the rude knowledge of what the LGBT SA offices couch must have witnessed, to how many power tools were confiscated out of that office. Ahem. That sort of thing really stays with you. At least I can say that none of those drills, jigs, or saws were mine. And if you were wondering why such things were contraband, you are too pure and innocent to read any further. 🙂

After I graduated from UB I eventually ended up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and working for Western Michigan University. I couldn’t help but compare the two. One had a covered walkway system from one hall all the way across campus to the other end that kept you out of the weather. The other did not. Now that I look back, one of the smallest things that someone can remember really sticks out. Not having to trudge through a downpour or a blizzard as you walked the Spine really dwells quite prominently in my memory. But as much as WMU has foibles and shortcomings, at least both schools had some rather lame similarities. As you approach UB’s North Campus you see Cook and Hochstetter Halls, they look big and bold and grand and then… the rest of the campus. The two Universities look very much alike. Squat little brick buildings, most starting to age rather poorly. The one thing I do remember quite clearly, and why this sticks out does humor me, is that the chairs at UB were really really good. The chairs at Western are actually impossible to use, at least some of them in the very oldest of our buildings. It’s funny how the little things stick out in your memory like big sore thumbs.

So after I cleared up from my walk down memory lane I tried my hand at the UBMail thing again. That was just as impenetrable as it was the first time I tried to get into it, it’s one thing that UB really didn’t make easy, especially for alums who were out of contact for a good long while and forgot bits like usernames and passwords to student accounts the student didn’t think they’d ever need again. But all is not lost, I was able to contact the UB IT Help Desk and asked for a password reset. I have to admit to feeling quite awkward calling CIT’s Help Desk, only because contacting our own OIT is a fools errand and contacting the Help Desk here isn’t something that is done, really, ever. Oh well, what the hell, so I called the CIT Help Desk at my alma mater and talked to a nice fellow who asked me to scan and email some photo ID verifying my identity and to call back in half an hour. That was fine, and I was impressed, at least they knew what to ask for and used the phonetic alphabet when it was relevant. I wonder if the people who got my email at buffalo.edu notice the wmich.edu address. Yeah yeah yeah, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. 🙂 One thing I did notice was that the music on-hold was promotional material for UB and was designed to make you feel proud to have attended UB. Again I can’t help but compare…

All that’s old is new again. Maybe some day when I head back east to visit family in CNY I might make a stop or two on South Campus and North Campus and do a little wandering around. See what UB has done to itself in the intervening years that I’ve been away. Once I get free of my obligations, I’ll likely start giving to UB, at least more than the $35 hush-money I currently give them. *shrug* This is how it happens. Alums graduate and think nothing of where they came from until years and years later and all the good or funny things stick out in your memory while all the unpleasantness is forgotten. You get caught up in so much of those memories that you start to romanticize those memories, and before you know it, you’re writing $2000 checks to your alma mater without giving it a single thought. Huh.

Genesee Cream Ale

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Driving through Kalamazoo I can’t help but notice the billboards that creep around town and breed. They spawn clusters of baby billboards and before you know it every square inch of boring natural imagery is obliterated by a billboard. On these billboards is a new ad campaign for of all things, now, hold on to your butts… Genesee Beer.

For those that aren’t laughing right now, you have no idea the inside joke that is Genesee Beer. I grew up in Upstate New York and one of the little breweries nearby was one in Rochester. The plant was located on the Genesee River and sucked up water, brewed beer, and just a touch downriver it would dump its waste back into the river. Genesee is cheap beer. What’s more, it’s got a funny “Andy” story attached to it. When I was very very young I used to retain gas and end up crying a lot and being rather fussy about it. My father, who at the time enjoyed Genesee Beer was trying to rock me to sleep and I was just having none of it. So he gave me just a little sip of Genesee Cream Ale. Down it went. The massive quantity of bubbles (for a little babies body, it did the trick) helped bring on a burp, and then that was that. Problem solved. Now every time I see an ad or a case of Genesee Beer I’m half tempted to buy some and enjoy it.

Now, for you Michiganders who might waddle into Genesee Beer, you should know, it’s profoundly low-brow. If you are okay with that, knock your socks off.

Genesee Beer. Indeed. 🙂

Back Away Slowly…

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People never stay the same.

I allowed myself to get a little lost in Facebook just a few moments ago and ended up looking through the “People You Might Know” list. I found a few people who I work with that I requested to add as friends on Facebook, nothing really remarkable, and then I started to just let the names and faces slide on by. I wasn’t trying to find anyone in particular.

Then I ran into a gaggle of names I dimly remember from my quite unpleasant teen years in high school. Most of those memories have been collected up and burned to ash, and in a way, I vowed that for most of it I would never again contact anyone from that period of my life. Apparently fate has other designs, but at least it has a very weak hand.

People get older, they change, they drift from the fixed memory you have of them. Whether they were monsters, assholes, annoying prats, or just names you dimly remember, there they are, like a rogues gallery in Facebook. All lined up, one after another. Youth seen through the lens of a very foggy memory and then all realized in their current form is unspeakably shocking and breathtaking. It’s a lot like watching a car crash in super slow motion. You know it’s going to be horrible and gory but you just can’t tear your attention away from the horror. Every single one of them followed a path that if I knew then as I know now, I would have spent way more of my teenage years laughing at these horrible human beings as I endured their constant abuse. Imagine a box, it’s filled with memories and it’s got tape covering the seams. The tape is printed with “Assholes and Monsters — Burn Immediately” so for a lot of these people, I just end up scrolling on by. Every once in a long while one of them will notice me and send me a friend request on Facebook. I stand a-stunned and almost always I click ignore. I have accepted a few, mostly people I dimly remember and names that seem familiar somehow, but I suspect that their photographs-in-memory are in that box. I just lack the motivation and interest to engage with them, so they continue to float on the periphery. Let sleeping dogs lie I suppose.

What does strike me, and what I wish my 35 year old self could send to my 17 year old self are these pictures, of these horrible nasty monstrous human beings. They all went bald, they all went fat, they all wear time like some sort of abrasion. Everyone goes this way, and the photographs in your memory, they remain. I’m not going to mention names lest it attract their attention, which I absolutely do not want, but it is worth remarking upon.

Another thing worth marveling at is how provincial they remain. They never got anywhere, never progressed. They’ve just waddled in tight little sad circles. They got as far as Cortland, Buffalo, and for some really unfortunates, Binghamton. They never explored, never set out and dispersed. I think above all else I am grateful that I escaped New York State. If I was still stuck in that place the regret would be unbearable.

It’s probably best for me, in a therapeutic sense to not return to the “People You Might Know” page on Facebook for quite some time. If that box full of Assholes and Monsters should pop open and I regain the memories that I buried oh so long ago, I would definitely be worse for the experience. The past really should remain in its shallow grave where it’s been whacked with a shovel and buried. I’m far happier not remembering.

St. Patricks Day

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It’s good to be Irish today. The button nose, the freckles, the ungainly elbows and kneecaps all add up to feeling very special on a day like this one. Of course, we are a proud nationality. Proud of being rough, loud, drunk, and violent. Every other group out there still despises us and the Chinese just shrug. Everyone should keep in mind that when you make Corned Beef and Cabbage don’t thank the Irish, thank the Jews. They were the ones that took pity on us and our Pamphlet of Irish Cuisine and taught us how to feed ourselves on this day. Remember, the Irish only understand one kind of meat, that is, dark and tough, and only one method of cooking, which is boiling until everything tastes like tough tap water. The fact that we immigrated at all, that we built canals and railroads is less a testament to our cultures nutrition and more to our stubbornness in not dying easily.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Oh, and P.S. The snakes were the druids and pagans, so in a way the Church did to them what we did to the Native Americans. Glory days, all. 🙂

Metapost: MyWMU.com

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I’m creating a new category called Metapost. I think of it as a “behind the scenes” post where I share some of the details of what goes on behind the scenes. There won’t be any dirty laundry for these posts, but there are some things that I will discuss that might make some people feel awkward and uncomfortable. If this is the case, then you are free to ignore my squawking. Nobody is forcing you to Clockwork Orange my blog.

The development of MyWMU.com started really last year when we had a change of leadership. Our new VP arrived and brought a whirlwind of change in his wake. We kind of already knew that there were some of us in the rank and file who were fond of technology and especially clever with social media. The nature of social media pretty much guaranteed that we’d discover each other and our strengths and expertise. Originally there were three, then we acquired some consultants and the group grew to five. This core group of five started to brainstorm some pretty great ideas. A lot of the power I found was always there but viciously muted by a culture that didn’t understand and didn’t care to understand what possibilities lay before it. Once that culture evaporated, like so much fog in a stiff breeze, the past, the negativity, the railing complaints all fell away and all that was left was a group of very creative people who could finally enjoy the blessings of evaporating negativity and a massive new influx of empowerment. Once given power we took it and marched forward. Some would say we progressed at a breakneck speed, but as far as my perceptions go, it was brisk and refreshing, not an onerous pressure as some would assume. I can remember when “Western Express” came to me. I was driving on Interstate 94 from Paw Paw to Kalamazoo after a wonderful celebratory meal at Bistro 120. As we were making our way towards the I-94 on ramp we started to brainstorm titles for this new blog we were thinking of. I knew it had to feature Western in it somehow, so that was obviously going to be in the title and I had a firm grasp on what we wanted to accomplish with this new blog. Right after we joined the flow of traffic on I-94, headed back to Kalamazoo it was if the title for the blog emerged from the tangle of thoughts in my head and solidified. It felt a lot like how a super-chilled glass of water can freeze if you agitate it, that progressive and fantastic freezing as the liquid acts surprised that it’s still a liquid and quickly marches into order and becomes a solid. Just like that the title fell into my mind, “Western Express” – and then I marveled at it. It was perfect. Express as in fast, Express as in News (Pony Express of old…) it was a title that was short, not schlocky, it had a pleasing multiplicity of meanings and I championed the hell out of it once I got back to work.

The blog took shape shortly thereafter as Western Express. The title was also handy in that it had a delightful initialism, “WE”. Not only “Western Express” but also “Together”. I still softly chuckle at how great it all turned out.

We had selected a host of different technologies to help us with our goal. The biggest technology we saw before us was WordPress itself. It was almost Kismet. A perfect superstructure with which to publish our message. An external entity, a different network, a company that was responsible for 17 million voices. It had everything including a breathtaking cost-efficiency that we could not possibly beat any other way. Twenty bucks to turn off ads, ten bucks for custom CSS adjustments, twelve bucks for custom domains. Such low sums in trade for stability, accountability, and professionalism was totally irresistible. Truth to be told, I didn’t even consider any other path to take. WordPress was so utterly PERFECT, such a great fit, so elegant that any further considerations were thoughtlessly abandoned.

We progressed, establishing our new voice in popular consciousness using this new approach and I felt it vital that certain qualities were branded with fire into this new thing we had created. That it be a refuge of positivity, that it be regarded as a safe place where people won’t be seen as opportunities to be taken advantage of, but rather as guests standing around the bonfire of positivity, feeling welcome without a single worry that there were any traps anywhere near any of them. This was when I realized a truism that I’ve heard many times in the past – “Be that which you wish to see in the world”. So in a way, this “Western Express” was a kind of philanthropy. We express philanthropy into the world so we can reap philanthropy from the world. Is it a waste of money and resources? Absolutely not. The time and money and loving attention that we are giving this entire effort is how we can express our affections for everyone. Western loves our Alumni, we love our Students, we love everyone and we hope that what we put out into the world is reflected back at us. In many ways, it’s quite karmic. Finally we can put our collective humanity, our collective philanthropy into action and undo some of the damage that Western has endured in popular consciousness since I’ve been in attendance with this institution. That’s my personal goal, and as long as I have a role to play, this is what I bring to the table.

Things progressed from there, people think that we actively advertised this new resource but actually, the truth of the matter is that we made an embarrassing mistake. We failed to make this entire thing private and before we knew it we had people poking around this new thing and it became a socialized meme and spread like wildfire. It’s proof positive that social media is damn near a miracle. Without any action on our behalf the blog took off and started to spread. The fact that people regard it that we intentionally spread it always brings a chuckle. We didn’t do anything, you all did it yourselves – and we thank you.

After that, the entire project started to expand. We acquired two more staff members in our team and our technology increased. We turned to WordPress again for more help with hosting and WMYou was born. We purged the notion that what we were doing was blogging, that we had blogs. What we really had was an “Engagement” and we were “Engaging”. Truth to be told this slight change in verbiage is actually more accurate. What we’re after is engagement so instead of “blogging” we’re “engaging”. Perhaps you have to be where I am to see it completely. We also picked up GoDaddy as our Internet domain registrar. After that we also picked up iPage for the glue that is holding what you see how all together. No other technology really entered our minds and it wasn’t out of spite, it was just simpler to do it this way. In many regards some of the people who might feel awkward about what we did should consider themselves the unintentional victims of Occam’s Razor. The simplest path was pretty much all we spent any time on. C’est la vie.

Now we have a full presence, MyWMU.com. The response we received from our audience was absolutely intoxicating. What makes me blush is when I learned that other “bigger” institutions commented that we must have had a huge budget and a sprawling staff to pull off what we did. Truth here is that we did it all for about a hundred bucks and the raw passion of seven very dedicated and talented people.

Some people who went to our new site accidentally fell victim to a GoDaddy landing page. I had to make a last-moment change to our Domain Name System setting for the site and it took about 48 hours for that change to propagate throughout all of the Internet. People who had ISP’s who were lucky to get the “most fresh” DNS information experienced the site without a single hiccup, while others who either had an ISP with not-so-fresh DNS data or had DNS Cache staleness problems ended up seeing the GoDaddy landing page. For those people who fell into the later camp, I offer my apologies and I hope that you try the site again, that problem should no longer affect anyone on the Internet.

Now that we have expended a rather prodigious amount of energy to get MyWMU.com aloft, we are still very active and we’re really looking forward to see just how far all this positivity can take us as an institution. Our story has just begun, to say “Stay Tuned To This Bat Channel” is a massive understatement. I hope everyone enjoys what we’ve brought to our little corner of the Internet. It means a lot to all of us on our team and we’re always seeking feedback and fresh ideas, so don’t be shy. 🙂

Where'd you come from Louis?

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What a mystery! Genealogically I’m stuck on Scott’s Great Grandfather. Louis Lazarus was born (we think) near Vilnius in Lithuania on 13 Feb 1890 or 13 Feb 1891. When he was 17 or 18 he immigrated to the United States, so that would peg his arrival between 1908-1910, we have it on good authority that it’s 1909.

He married a woman named Tillie or Trinka and she followed after him and immigrated in 1910-1912.

They show up very nicely in the 1930 Census, so they must have completed their naturalization process by then. The family was Louis, Tillie, Herman, and Alexander. Herman is Scott’s maternal grandfather. They lived in 1930 in 712-718 W. 176th Street in Manhattan, New York.

I scanned all of Ancestry.com and I’ve found numerous Louis Lazarus’s but they don’t have Louis’s profession of Upholsterer. Louis taught his profession to his son Herman, and he taught his son, Steven. There is a Bricklayer and a Tailor Louis, but those families don’t have any members like the one we need.

Of course, everyone who knows anything has died. They’ve taken the names and the locations with them, however we have it on good authority from what information leaked out before they died that it’s Lithuania or popularly declared “Russia”, that they were either Russian or Hebrew, and that Louis and Tillie’s original language was Yiddish.

I’ve searched Ancestry.com with +/- 5 years on birth and arrival with names and family and the only real lead I’ve been able to find is the 1930 Census. Possibly they weren’t citizens in the 1920 Census because they don’t show up. I imagine they would have stayed in the environs of NYC because they were in Manhattan in 1930. After that the entire family migrated to the Capital District in New York, ending up clustered around Glens Falls, New York.

There is a big family who would give anything to break through this information blockage and find real names and real histories in the Old World. If anyone knows anything I know there would be a lot of very thankful people. I’m pretty much running out of options without flying to NYC myself, which I can’t do because I can’t afford it. :/

Ancestry.com

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I finally got most of Scott’s family over to the new family tree on Ancestry.com. Unfortunately I can’t add any real details as I don’t pay for Ancestry.com’s data – I just use the free bits from their website. So, I will have to do my research the old-fashioned way. There are several websites that might have the information I’m looking for, but it’s going to be a slow and bloody import procedure with a lot of manual hand-entry. It’s what you get when you can’t really afford to fork over $200 to the Mormons. 😉

Rebuilding Family Trees

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I’ve started to rebuild Scott’s family tree in my Ancestry.com account from the research I did over the last holiday break when we were all in Mankato. I’ve got a lot of information and have to re-hand-enter all the relevant members of his family. I’ve just gotten started and it’s going to take quite some time to get all the information in. What really burns is that I have the entire structure exported as a GEDCOM file, but I can’t simply pull a section of tree out and plop it somewhere else. This task is going to take a very long time to complete.

I’m going to start with the family members that we have actual memories for. My overarching goal is to find Scott’s grandfather’s origin story. He came over from Ellis Island in 1906 and crafted a whole new identity for himself. This is a daunting challenge. Before I can take it seriously, I have to get some sleep.

Baby Steps…