Jimmy Mancusi Dot Com

Home Remodelers Group - Customer Service, or lack there of

2008-11-16T15:10:22Z

A few months back we decided to get new windows in our house. Our house was built in the 1950s and the windows in the house were still original, so as you can imagine they were a bit drafty and inefficient. So we began the process of getting estimates and had some really poor experiences, and a few fair ones. First of all our worst experience was with Castle Windows. They seem to like to use guilt as their main selling tool, and would recommend you look elsewhere if you are looking for new windows. I could go into this estimate in great detail with a lot of ranting and raving... perhaps another day... Come to think of it though, I don't have a recommendation for you since the company we decided to go with, Home Remodelers Group seemed like a good choice at the time, and the windows are nice, but their customer service is absolutely horrendous. For anyone that has been lucky enough not to have a window estimate, let me fill you in on one thing. They all take 3-4 hours. Seriously. These sales guys come into your house and want to put on a complete show. They go into detail about their competitors, how great their windows are and why their competitors are no good, warranties, service and so on. My first consultation ran close to 4 hours, and 2 family members of mine received consultations from separate companies and also ran over 3 hours each. So after our first horrible experience we would tell the sales guy we already knew all of those things and wanted to get right down to it, and were able to get through our next couple of estimates in under an hour. ]]> The Home Remodelers Group sent a sales person out to our house we were ready and willing to buy windows and just wanted to get a fair price. The sales guy was very nice and extremely helpful, and the company was painted in a very good light. With a little haggling we got to a price that we liked and we ordered new windows. We were very excited and in only a few weeks we would have new great windows... right? In the beginning of September the installers came out and in 1 day they installed our new bay window and 12 double hung windows. Thankfully for us only 9 of those 12 double hung windows would have to be later replaced. Actually only 8 frames were replaced, it should have been 9 and depending on who you listened to at the company it could have been as many as 12. Let me explain... Amanda is at home with Emily while they are installing things so by the time the day is over Emily is getting restless and we don't really get a good chance to look over all the windows and we take their word that everything is done. So when I get home from work I start checking the windows and it turns out that most of the windows are having issues locking correctly, and just about every window has the screen holes drilled completely wrong so the screens don't close properly. At this point we are a bit upset, but everyone makes mistakes and the windows have a lifetime warranty, so it should be a cinch to fix right? Well if you want to call a cinch countless phone calls and 2 months of waiting, then it was a cinch. Here is a quick time line of what happened following the install: *Several phone calls were placed to The Home Remodelers Group in between each of these steps. 1. Placed calls to project manager about complaints. 2. Company sent someone out to inspect the windows, who said they all had to be replaced. 3. Company sent another person out who really just wanted to ask us which windows were bad instead of inspecting them himself and we ended up with 10 of 12. 4. Same guy had to come back out again because apparently he didn't keep track of the serial numbers of the windows. 5. Window company gets upset with such a large reorder and sends their rep, who says "all but 1 would need to be replaced". 6. Several phone calls are made to find out when the reinstall is going to happen because we seemed to be lost in the cracks. 7. I took a day off from work and the installers show up with 8 frames to reinstall (no idea where the 8 came from, and no one else seemed to know either). 8. 8 Frames were reinstalled and a 9th was modified so the screen would lock properly. 9. More phone calls are placed about a discount because this is getting a little ridiculous. 10. A whopping offer of 2.2% is offered. 11. The whopping offer is countered with a huge increase to 2.7% And that is where I currently stand. I am really upset with the The Home Remodelers Group overall, and they have definitely lost repeat business since we will soon be looking at redoing our kitchen, but there really isn't much I can do in this situation. I have thought of bringing the BBB into the mix to try and get what I would consider a more fair discount, but that would require more time and energy from us. So at this point I feel a bird in the hand is definitely worth 2 in the bush, and I will take the 2.7% and run.

Long Time No Blog

2008-10-14T18:16:16Z

It has been a very long time since I blogged about anything, over 2 months. The problem isn't that I have nothing to blog about, its that I have too much to blog about! To many things are keeping me way too busy and I haven't had any time to update this site. I think I am going to try to post much shorter to the point things for a while and see if that can get me going again. I have a lot to say so hopefully getting the juices flowing again will help! Anyway... I am back! At least for a couple of blog entries :)

Houston Update

2008-08-02T02:10:24Z

The title of the picture to the right is "Houston Has A Big Heart", and I find that very fitting with everything that has transpired over the past week. As I mentioned in an early post, my parents flew out to Houston so my dad could have a "procedure" to fix a leak in his heart. As with most things in life, there were a few speed bumps in the process. Once my dad got out there, they ran some tests to get an idea of what they were dealing with before they jump into his heart. When they did these tests they found what turned out to be tissue from one of his original valves that was removed years ago. With this tissue in the heart, the doctors weren't sure if they could preform the procedure as they planned and it looked like we were heading toward another open heart surgery...]]> So all of the doctors and surgeons out there got together and went over all the results.... and they determined that they could do the original procedure. This was a big relief for us all since we were looking at a couple of days of recovery time vs a couple of months. So they preformed the procedure on Friday afternoon and the doctor was very happy with the results. The leak in my dad's heart was so big that they had to put 2 patches in, and the doctor was thinking about putting in a 3rd, but he didn't want to risk dislodging the first 2 patches. Overall 75% of the leak was blocked by these 2 patches. As my dad's heart accepts the patches they will be coated with blood and actually get a little bigger, so the doctor was very optimistic about the patch blocking even more over the next few weeks. My dad came home from Houston on Monday, and I am very happy to say that he has been doing extremely well. He sounds better, looks better, and feels better. He is more optimistic about everything, which is really refreshing. I am happy to say that my dad, and Emily's Super Pop will be around for a long time to come...

Houston has a solution

2008-07-24T00:09:14Z

Many of you that have known me for a long time know my father has had some heart issues over the past 6 years. For anyone who hasn't known this here is a quick recap of what has happened so far. About 6 years ago (not exactly sure on dates) my dad wasn't feeling well and ended up going to the hospital. They ran tests and found out that there was bacteria growing on one of the valves in my father's heart. Since there was risk that the bacteria could break off and cause a major stroke, he needed open heart surgery the next day. Everything went well and we were out of the hospital and on to recovery. Then a year or so later they found that he had bacteria on another valve, so once again we were off to the hospital for a second open heart surgery. My father has had a few issues or side effects from the two surgeries, including some memory problems and fatigue. The fatigue continues to get worse since one of the valves in his heart is leaking. This leak is a condition that normally only people who have multiple heart surgeries get, or as we like to call them, the lucky ones.]]> For the last few months, or even longer, my father has been going back and forth to the doctor, undergoing tests and taking medication to help control the leak in his heart. The medications may be helping a bit, but no where near enough as he still feels tired all the time, which makes him frustrated (and if you know my family, a frustrated Mancusi male is not one you want to be around) so it trickles down and everyone has a tough time with it. Now my mother has never been very computer savvy, but she had been doing her research on the internet about my father's conditions (he is lucky, she is one of the best nurses in CT, so he is in good hands) and she found information on a hospital in Houston that is specializing in procedures to fix these types of leaks. They have 3 different procedures I believe, and I think it is something like 1000 successful surgeries since 2007. There are so many numbers and dates floating around that I am sure I am getting all of this wrong, but at least you get the general idea. So armed with this new information my parents head back to their doctor's office. My father's doctor had never heard of these procedures and everyone was very optimistic. That was last week. A couple of days ago they heard back from Houston and my parents are currently sitting at the airport, because their 1pm flight ended up canceled and now they are shooting for an 8pm flight, which is delayed to 9pm. Eventually they will get to Houston and my father will have one of these procedures, which is very non-evasive compared to open heart surgery, and only has a couple of day recovery period. So he will be flying home by the end of the weekend. Anyway that's where we are now and hopefully the plane will be in the air soon. Please keep my father in your thoughts and prayers this weekend (and always for that matter). Thank you Houston!

Plurk!

2008-07-10T17:46:31Z

For all of you who are loyal, die hard readers, you obviously noticed the new addition to the site since the last time you visited. OK, I am not fooling anyone I really don't have any die hard loyal fans.... yet :) I just signed up for Plurk a couple of days ago because Barry wanted another friend sign up to help him get a red star in his profile. Anyway, after joining I figured I would give it a go for a little while to see if I could understand the fascination behind it. Applications like Plurk and Twitter have become very popular lately. For anyone who is unfamiliar with either of these services, they are basically away messages (think aol instant messanger) on steroids, or another way of thinking would be its like mini blogging. You can update what you are doing at any time during the day and other people see it comment on it and so on. Yet another form of communication to reach all of your friends that are sitting behind computers all day long. Since most of my family and friends don't spend their entire day behind their computer, I don't have a lot of friends on Plurk yet, maybe I will make some new ones... But anyway, I figured I would add it here so that anyone is interested can see what random things I do or what random thoughts I have throughout the day. As long as I am plurking, might as well blog the plurks. Did anyone catch that?

All work and no play

2008-07-10T01:52:35Z

Lately work has been taking up most of my time. Thankfully I enjoy what I do, most of the time. For anyone that doesn't know I am a PHP and MySQL engineer. Say what? Just a fancy way to say I am a Web Developer, or a Web Programmer. One great thing about my occupation is there is no need to be in a specific location to do work. Everything is done with computers, and therefore you can be anywhere as long as you have internet access. This also provides plenty of opportunities for side work, which is a great thing and a horrible thing all at the same time :) ]]> Office Space? If not, come out from under your rock, but if you have that would so be me if I didn't have to work. Sleeping and relaxing constantly. Not only does it cut down on my personal free time, but it also cuts into quality time I get to spend with my wife. She will let you know that I still play too many video games, even though I don't play nearly as much as I did even a few months ago.... I digress. One thing I would never let it come in the way of is my time with Emily. Everyday when I get home I hang out with Emily until she goes to sleep, which is currently around 7 so its only an hour and a half at most per day, but I cherish that time, and I know she does too. Anyway, what I am trying to say is there is definitely a fine line on the work life balance, I have always preferred to be more on the life side, but with more benefits (house, family, etc...) comes more responsibility...

Surprise! Happy Birthday Sheryl

2008-07-07T17:30:41Z

Surprise!

This weekend we had a surprise birthday party for my sister in law Sheryl. The party went really well and we think she was surprised but I haven't heard the verdict on whether or not we really got her. I wont tell you how old Sheryl is, that wouldn't be nice, but if you were to say take 20 and double it, you would be on the money ;) The surprise plan went off pretty seamlessly but I think she may have been onto something. One of her friends was suppose to get her out of the house around noon, and return around 2. We left our house with the intention of getting there to help set up around noon, but we ended up circling random neighborhoods in the area waiting for a text message letting us know she had left the house. As soon as she left the house we had to circle a bit more to make sure she passed us on her way out. This is when Amanda got a call from Sheryl asking what she was up to today. We found out later that she had placed a few of these calls to different friends trying to figure out what they were doing today/tonight, which is why I think she might have been onto us. Even if she was onto us, I still think she was surprised. We had all the cars parked off site, and shuttled everyone to the house. So when she pulled up there were no cars. She opened the garage to park, and we were all standing there waiting for her. Either way we all had a blast so it was a success. Happy Birthday Sheryl.

New Look for JuicedMooseLax.com

2008-07-04T03:18:14Z

Over a year ago now I put up a site for the lacrosse team I play for every summer, Juiced Moose. The team was started almost 10 years ago now and I have played in the Glastonbury CT summer tournament every year. When I put up the site, I did so very quickly with intentions of making things prettier and more functional as I went along, but life has been so hectic lately that I really haven't had much time to do anything with it. Well finally I took the first step toward making it the site I want it to be. Thanks to Mabe, our fantastic designer at RustyBrick, the site got a much needed make over. If you had seen the site before you know it was UGLY. Now it actually looks like a real website. I even left out a few of the touches that Mabe added, so as soon as I can add those the site will look even better. I wanted to get the information out there since the tournament is at the end of this month, so I had to rush a bit. I also have plans to redo the entire picture section (which I left out for this rush launch) and add a content management system so that I am not the only one with the ability to update the website. Hopefully these changes will come over the next couple of weeks but between RustyBrick and a few side projects I am working on including JuicedMooseLax and a site I am building for the Edison Cares charity, I certainly do have my hands full.

Belly Flop 101

2008-07-02T19:15:58Z

So at some point during Emily's party I started jumping into the pool with my niece Cady, at first mimicking the jumps that she would do and somehow it lead to me doing belly flops for the amusement of my family and friends. Last year I tried a couple of times to get the perfect picture right before impact on a belly flop and came up a bit short, so I figured I would try again. After 2 or 3 flops with my dad trying to snap a picture with his camera (I will add this pictures to flickr soon), I remembered that my camera had a multi-burst mode which takes 16 pictures in a couple of seconds. It was still really hard to get the perfect picture since it was normally to early or to late to get everything, but I think they came out pretty well. You can see in the picture above I had pretty good form on that one, unfortunately the 16 frames wasn't near enough. Another picture after the break and a little more after math...]]> In that picture obviously we have impact, but I wasn't really happy with my form. My left leg is really off and I am sure the Russian judge would have given me a 1 or a 2. Try as I may to keep the form all the way into the pool its a bit of human nature to brace for impact, and apparently I always turn a bit to my right side, which left me with a few bruises on the right side of my stomach from the impacts. I guess thats the price to pay for a dozen or so belly flops. However my brother in law did end up owing me 10 bucks because I did hold my form pretty damn well on a few when he said I wouldn't. Easiest money I have ever made! :)

Emily's First Birthday Party

2008-07-02T19:06:38Z

Emily, my daughter, had her first birthday on June 26th, and we celebrated with a party this past Saturday (28th). We had the party at my brother and sister in law's house, which turned out to be a fantastic idea since it was over 90 degrees and they have a pool. Even though they have a very well heated pool (maybe I will get into that later, my brother in law thinks the pool is too cold if its under 88!) it was extremely refreshing and I spent most of the day in the pool. This was made possible simply because of my nieces, since watching them in the pool was considered helping I got away with this scott free! We had a very good turn out, and most of my extended family made it down even though they had to drive an extra hour or so past my house, so thank you for making it out. I am still in the process of collecting pictures, we actually didn't get that many with our camera but my father and my mother in law were busy with their as always, so I will have more at a later date. For now you can head over to my flickr page and check out what we have. We even have a few pictures up there form the day after, enjoying some of the new toys Emily got. Thanks again to everyone that came and to my in laws for letting us host the party at their place!

Busy Busy Busy

2008-07-01T15:12:56Z

I haven't had much time to post anything over the last few days because my weekend was EXTREMELY busy. I will get into each of these things in greater detail, but here is a quick recap of what happened since Friday: 1. Went sky diving with my sister in law as a surprise for her birthday. 2. Took a Limo into NYC for dinner at Tao with all my in laws for my sister in laws birthday. 3. Celebrated Emily's first birthday with 40 of our closest friends and family. That all took place on Friday and Saturday so I spent all day Sunday trying to recoup.

Keep Your Family Safe For The Season

2008-06-25T15:58:27Z

I saw an image over at http://www.photobasement.com and while the image it self is funny, the second comment is what put me over the edge. Have a look for yourself.... Keep Your Family Safe For The Season

Teenage Pregnancy... blame movies!

2008-06-24T01:07:12Z

*Note: This picture is my wife and new born daughter, my wife may look young but she is 25 in this picture. I saw this article, Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High on Time.com this morning, and so many things jump out at me as absolutely crazy. This article is one of the reasons that fathers of daughters everywhere lose sleep. Lets start at the top of the article and work our way down.

Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers.

I don't even know where to start with that quote. The media, and in this case some of these parents, always look for something to blame other than the parents of the children. Usually its video games, which I will get into in depth at some point, but I don't think there are any pregnant teens in GTA IV, so they are off the hook here. So they want to blame Knocked Up and Juno. Instead of looking in the mirror and saying did I teach my daughter about sex? Did I teach her about how much responsibility and work a child is? Have I provided a good example of how my child should act? They would rather say movies glamorous unwed mothers which is why a group of teens have decided to all have babies. ]]> In Gloucester, perched on scenic Cape Ann, the economy has always depended on a strong fishing industry. But in recent years, such jobs have all but disappeared overseas, and with them much of the community's wherewithal. "Families are broken," says school superintendent Christopher Farmer. "Many of our young people are growing up directionless." I have to highlight this, because at least someone is pointing to the probable root of this problem. If the majority of these children are coming from homes that have issues and their parent(s) aren't there for them bad things, like pregnancy pacts, happen.

Ireland, 18, gave birth her freshman year and says some of her now pregnant schoolmates regularly approached her in the hall, remarking how lucky she was to have a baby. "They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," Ireland says. "I try to explain it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m."

I wish this girl could have sat down and talked with everyone of these teens before they got pregnant. Maybe thats a way that schools can try to get through to kids more, bring in actual teenage girls that are either still in school, or just graduated that had babies in high school. The idea that these girls had babies so that someone that would love them unconditionally is extremely sad and extremely misguided all at the same time. Having recently had my first child (pictured in one of her first crying moments) they have that thought completely backwards. Children aren't the ones who are suppose to dish out an unlimited supply of unconditional love, thats the parents job. There are a lot of times, especially early on, that anyone, even prepared parents, will be ready to pull out their hair because their child is crying or sick or 1,000 other moments that you have no control over, which is when the responsible parent needs to show the unconditional love to the child, not the other way around. The fact that these teens may have that idea in their mind and be rationalizing getting pregnant for this reason is just scary. I really feel sorry for these girls, their parents have failed them and so has the education system to some extent. I place way more blame on the parents, but the school system needs to do a better job of teaching these children. I am not one to say how they should do it, but I think something needs to be done to help curb teenage pregnancy across the board.

Gloucester's elected school committee plans to vote later this summer on whether to provide contraceptives. But that won't do much to solve the issue of teens wanting to get pregnant.

Contraceptives being handed out in schools is a reality this day and age, and will only continue to be more common I imagine, but as this states it would only hope those not looking to get pregnant. There is no way you can stop a girl from getting pregnant if she wants to, case in point:

"We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy,"

Really a sad story. Children should not have children, adults should. Actually make that responsible adults should. There are plenty of adults that shouldn't be having babies having them everyday, we don't need 15 year olds having them. These girls need to experience life a bit before they bring a child into it. How are they going to be able to provide for their children? How can they teach their children when they haven't learned anything themselves. High school diploma or not, teenagers don't have the slightest idea about life and really shouldn't create one. Or maybe I am wrong, maybe when teenagers know everything they should have children so they can pass all that information along to the next generation.

The Turtle Man

2008-06-23T20:51:51Z

This guy is a true American treasure. I happen to love his victory yell, and he really should have a Gatorade endorsement. "Not just for football, Gatorade is for the Turtle-man!" I found this video via the Elliot in the morning radio show that I still listen to even though I have moved away from the DC area. Enjoy!

Giese Pitches Heart out, Yanks Lose

2008-06-22T04:30:28Z

Both Amanda and I have been to a couple of Yankees games this year, but we hadn't been to one together until today. Before today's game, when I was in attendance the Yanks were 0-2, and when Amanda has been there they are 2-0, and sadly the record did not improve today. I am now 0-3 this year and really can't remember the last time I was at the stadium and they won. I am pretty sure they won at least 1 game I went to last year, but it's starting to get depressing, and my mother in law is threatening not to invite me to any more games. Anyway, on to a recap of the game. Dan Giese made his first start in the major after a long grind in the minor leagues. Giese is 31 years old and before his time this year with the Yankees only pitched in a 8 games with the San Fransico Giants in 2007. I wanted to find out more information about him so I headed over to baseball-reference.com, a fantastic site for baseball stats, and they don't even have an entry for him yet. The reason he finally got an opportunity to make a start on the big league stage is because of the recent injury to Chien-Ming Wang, and I am happy to say he took full advantage of it. Giese may have ended up with the lose, but it certainly wasn't his fault. Giese went 6 and 2/3 scoreless innings before running into trouble in the 7th. Giese had 2 outs when he committed a throwing error which extended the inning and eventually lead to a 2 run double which ended his day. He ended up being charged for 3 runs, none of them earned. I am pretty sure that I can speak for all Yankees fans when I say, sign me up for that any day of the week. Any time you can get 6 or more innings of quality pitching from your starter you are in great position to win, and that's all you can really ask for. I am very happy for Dan Giese, his work ethic and perseverance paid off and he got his chance on the big stage, and I was among the fans that gave him a standing ovation as he left the field.]]> Daryl Thompson who went 5 innings with 4 hits and 4 walks in his major league debut. While Thompson pitched fairly well, especially for a rookie making his debut in the bright lights of Yankee stadium, the Yankees had several opportunities early in the game. In the second inning the Yankees loaded the bases with no outs on the strength of 2 hits and a walk. They were then quickly dispatched as Posada struck out, Cano fouled out, and Cabrera struck out. Not getting any runs in a situation like that can be devastating, not only do you come away empty handed, but you give a young pitcher more confidence. Obviously there is no way to say how a few runs in this early situation would have changed the game, but taking a lead early on a young pitcher could have gotten you deep into the Reds bullpen early and dramatically changed the tone of the game. All in all it was an off day for the offense and the bullpen, which gave up 4 runs in 2 1/3 innings. The Yankees have won 7 of their last 9, winning 7 in a row prior to the series with Cincinnati, but with this 2 game slide they are now 5 games out of the division and 4.5 out of the wild card. We aren't even at the half way point of the season, so there is plenty of baseball to be played, but the Yankees have to capitalize on the softer schedule over the next week before they get back into playing the AL East.