Jimmy Mancusi Dot Com

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.

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.

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...

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.

This is old news by now, but it was something that riled me up a while ago so I created a post for it and never got around to it. Obviously the economy is not doing well, and many companies, if not most companies are having to lay off employees and cut costs. It bothers me though when companies use the down turned economy as an excuse to be able to cut costs and stream line things. For instance The NFL is cutting 14% of its staff . Really? The NFL, a multi-billion dollar business has to lay off some staff members because of this economy? The NFL's revenue last year was 7 billion dollars. I realize that is revenue and not profit, but do you really think they need to cut 150 jobs because they may only make 6.9 billion in revenue this year?

I feel bad for the people that got laid off and their families. The layoffs were early - mid December, perfect timing for the holidays. I am sure the top execs in the NFL were happy though, no better way to cut costs than to cut people. Business as usual I suppose....

I know that I haven't written anything here in a while, so I finally opened it up today and saw that the last entry was from January. Time really flies, I really didn't think it was 6 months already since my last blog entry.

I really need to try to get into some kind of rhythm with this blog thing, lunch time updates or weekend updates or something.... Anyway, a lot of stuff has been going on recently, so let me give quick updates to anyone interested:

1. Just went on vacation with my whole family (my side) to Williamsburg VA. Emily's first amusement park, and first water park. Was a blast! Thanks Mom and Dad!

2. A lot of people know, but not everyone since I wasn't as diligent calling everyone I know, so if you don't know and this is how you find out you can call and yell at me if you want. Amanda is pregnant, so we are expecting our second child in December.

#2 should really be #2 - #50 since keeping up with Emily and taking care of my pregnant wife is taking up much of my time :)

51. Video games! Anyone that knows me knows I have a problem when it comes to video games and lately they have taken lots of sleep away from me :) I will get into this more later with some video game review posts....

Well thats just a quick update, hoping to get some more up later, and try to actually use this blog for a while... So maybe I will update later, or in 6 months....

Over the last couple of days I have been dealing with my insurance company, State Farm regarding a mold issue in my basement.

A bit of brief background information:

1. We have had a mold issue for the past few months (maybe 4-6) and it has recently gotten worse.

2. I have never really thought about what caused this issue (until I had to deal with State Farm), just know that it is there.

3. We recently had it analyzed by MASLabs , who we have been very happy with, and it turns out to be black mold, which is not good and we need to get it out of there.

4. Treating the mold is not going to be cheap

So on June 24th I got the new iPhone4. I waiting in line at Tice's corner, even though I had a reservation for the phone. There were a few reasons I choose to do that, 1. I was traveling all weekend so I wouldn't have gotten the phone for a few more days (Horrible right?), 2. I went with a bunch of my co-workers at RustyBrick, so it was a good time.

After having the phone for a few weeks now I can say it is a fantastic phone. I love the huge improvement in speed (I had a 3G) and the video camera is awesome. I have already shot a couple hours of video between a few weddings and some home movies. The quality of the video is much better than any other camera I currently have, and considering it is part of my phone which is always on me is a great plus.

However after only having the phone for about 4 days and really babying it for those 4 days, I noticed that there were a few nicks on the screen. 2 on the front and 2 on the back. After my boss Barry dropped his phone and got it replaced due to the damage, I figured I would head over to a local apple store and take my shot. After quickly being dismissed as cosmetic damage (not sure what other type it would have been), I left the store and immediately had a Zagg Invisible Shield put on my phone.

So far I would say I am happy with the shield, it defenitly protects the device but there are a few draw backs.

1. Has a much more plastic feel, and is pretty sticky, so dust and lint etc.. stick to the phone constantly
2. If the install isn't perfect, you can end up with small rainbow lines (most likely from the adhesive solution) on the phone

The second point there has caused me a lot of trouble. I have actually had the screen reinstalled by the kiosk at the Palisades mall 4 times (so have a couple of my co-workers), and I still have a few rainbow lines on the phone. At this point I have given up and need to accept it for what it is. Under normal use it is pretty hard to see the rainbow lines, but they show up pretty clear on white back grounds (Mail/Safari/SMS). One of my other coworkers ended up going to a different mall and the installer there did a near perfect job, so I guess it really depends on the installer.

The main reason I gave up in the quest to get it perfect is the shield already has a couple of small impressions on it (from what I have no idea, I still have yet to put the phone in my pocket with my keys or anything) so I realize that in a few months I will probably be requesting a replacement shield and be installing it myself. Hopefully I have more luck with that since I am obviously a little obsessive when it comes to things like this. I have also thought about trying a Clear Coat shield instead, since they claim to have the easiest install, guarantee the install, and appear to have free shipping on replacements.