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A Night at the museum…Los Angeles County Natural History Museum that is
May 30th
On the Memorial Day weekend I took my daughter to the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. She had been there before, but she was much younger and didn’t remember everything, so it was a real treat to take her again.
Once we got there it became rather disappointing. Two of their rooms with the coolest animals, The African Mammal room, and the North American Mammals were only partially viewable. They had ½ of each room blocked off for Asian Heritage celebration.
In the North American room we were only able to view up close about 4 animals while we enjoyed headaches of drums pounding amplified by 100 from the enclosed wooden room. In the African Mammal room we were able to view about 6 of the animals because they had loud music and dancing occupying the other 2/3 of the room.
The mineral room was pretty cool. My daughter kept looking at all the “green†gems and minerals and saying it was Kryptonite. 
All I could do is laugh. It was the cutest thing that she was searching out all of the Kryptonite in the room. Most of the interactive computer screens in the mineral room were not functioning, so that was a let down for my daughter the button pusher.
We made our way to one of the dinosaur rooms. It was actually mostly cats, rhinos, and horse skeletons from millions and millions of years ago. They main dinosaur hall along with the Rotunda and Native American Cultures were closed for renovation.
When I asked an employee there they told me that the discovery room where the kids get all their hands on and get to look at live animals like snakes and fish were in the Rotunda and closed for renovation. After leaving there I found out that the discovery center was actually relocated to the basement and it was opened for child exploration. BUMMER!!!
The thing that ended up being most impressive to my daughter and me was the Night at the Museum exhibit. In this exhibit they have several costumes, wax figures, and props from the movie. Like the shrunk hummer that the cowboy (Owen Wilson) drive through central park. They also had the bone Ben Stiller used to play fetch with the T-Rex and his “instruction sheets†for taking care of the museum after closing. 
Although, the museum was still enjoyable for both of us it was simultaneously disappointing. When you go to the museum you want to see it in its entirety. Explore history and see things you don’t get to see everyday. In retrospect, the only thing we were prepared for was an Asian celebration at the museum. It did not disclose the closing of exhibits nor renovation. I guess sometimes maybe a phone call before you go is better than relying on a website to be current.
So now we’ll revisit once the renovation is complete and I’m sure the experience will be much more enjoyable when we go.
False Advertising at its finest Sears and Sears.com
May 18th
I’ve always been happy with the products, service, and price of things we’ve purchased from Sears in store and online. But I can’t say the same about our latest experience.
I got the Sears circular in the Sunday, May 13th newspaper. In there I found an awesome deal for a Hitachi 51F59 51″ rear projection TV for $599.99, with no interest financing for 18 months on purchases over $399. On Tuesday I printed out the ad from their website to take down to the store with me since my wife had the print ad. I didn’t have time to go down there Tuesday and decided I would do it the next day. When I went back to their site to look for a surround sound system I found that they had pulled that TV off of their website.
I went down to the store and asked about the TV and they said they had one floor model and one open box return in the back. The sales rep said I could purchase either one of them if I was interested, but they didn’t have any more new in box and the distribution center were out of stock.
After seeing the TV I really liked it, but I usually don’t buy floor models and returned merchandise. The sales representative said that he would sell me a Magnavox with the same specs for the same sale price, but he wanted to check with his manager. After a few minutes he came back and said that the returned TV had been sent back to the manufacturer already and that his manager wouldn’t allow him to sell the Magnavox for that price. I then asked for a rain check and was told that they don’t give rain checks.
I left the store and filled my wife in and discussed the possibility of buying the floor model. I explained to her that it was in mint condition and placed on a high shelf in the store where people haven’t touched it. She agreed that it might be a good idea to buy it, but wanted to check a few other local stores to see if they had any new ones in stock. She called 3 other stores with all of them saying they were out and that the distribution center was out and they were backordered.
She then called me and told me that she would go to the Sears I went to and would buy the floor model if she thought it was in mint condition too. When she got there the sales rep (same one that I dealt with before), told her that he couldn’t sell the floor model because the TV’s were on backorder with the manufacturer and when they came in they would be selling them again using that same TV as the floor model. He also told her that when the new ones come in she couldn’t buy it for that price because they would be for sale at the standard $999.99 price. She then asked them if she could get a rain check to purchase a TV when the new ones came in and the sales rep told her no they don’t do rain checks.
After coming home we both decided to call customer service and have them check inventory within a 65 mile radius and called 6 of the stores that supposedly had them in stock. Well, to our amusement NOBODY had them in stock! We finally gave up on calling, but found on their website a rain check policy. It states that they issue rain checks on all of their items for advertised prices, as long as the item wasn’t being discontinued. So why did the sales guy tell us they don’t do rain checks when the item we were after was backordered?
Looking around on the web, you can still see the Hitachi 51F59 offered on Google by Sears, but it’s unavailable on the Sears site once you click through a violation of the Google Base terms which state an item is required to show the price as well as be available for purchase online.
My question is this, why print out millions of ads insert them in newspapers for millions to read and not be able to follow through for your customers only 3 days after the ad began. How are all the stores and distribution center out of stock 4 days before the advertised ad expires? It seems like false advertising and unfair to consumers to say the least. Sears customer service is falling right in line with the worst of them (BEST BUY). And why do we get a different explanation in the store about their rain check policy then we seem to find online at their store? I can’t imagine Sears is going to win a lot of repeat business when their employees don’t follow their company policies. I don’t know for sure about my wife, but I know for sure that this whole thing has really left a bad taste in my mouth about Sears and the way that they handled the situation.
I’m also sending a letter to Sears corporate and including the link to this post explaining how frustrating this whole situation was. I mean why couldn’t they just offer me the rain check like their website says? I’ll update this post with any new news.
Images of the Sears ad, Froogle posting, My online print out of the catalog page, and Sears raincheck policy
Pay Per Post and paid reviews
May 11th
Well this will be my first post about Pay Per Post. A website that gives you the opportunity to get paid to blog. I’ve never done a paid post, or review before but I can see the value in it. And I don’t see anything wrong with paid posts as long as you aren’t being forced to write a review that isn’t based on your personal and true feelings of any particular product. Personally I’ve been very happy with the ease of finding products and services that are of interest to my wife and I to blog about on Pay Per Post. It’s not like you log into your account and have just one thing that you can blog about. You can log in and find over 100 different products and services that you can review, and then write your thoughts about the product and then you get paid for it. They don’t force you to have an opinion on things one way or another you write what you feel and put what you want and you get paid either way. In my opinion it’s really a great way to monetize your blog and if nothing else you can offset the cost of your hosting by just doing a paid review a month.
