Pear

Baby pears in the back yard!

Pear

I have some spare time before going to a school to drop my kids.  I found many baby pears on a tree when I was watering in the back yard.

I thought a season for pears is around summer to autumn.  So that I did not realize baby pears on a tree in spring.   I just remember that the flowers were blooming a month ago, that is almost the same time as cherry blossoms.

 Flowers of pear (shot on March 18th)

Pear flowers is not really gorgeous like cherry blossoms.  But it is really pretty white flowers.   Since blooming flowers a months ago, as a result it comes into bearing now and they will be glowing during spring and summer time.  It is not to easy to realize this fact...

A photo of a day

Since last year, I try to take a photo once a day, a photo of a day.  The photo would be something I found in my daily life.  It is not easy task for me.   I am looking into my daily life to find something interesting.

A typical day, I drop my kids at their school in the morning before going to work.  Then I usually work in the office all mode all day.   At the end of the day, I just go back home.  It is really routine and usually nothing new.   Some time like today, if I do something different from a typical days, then I might be able to find something different from my daily life.  I hope I can find something everyday.

It makes me happy, I feel it is something a new world.

This task is not easy, but I will try to look into my daily life from different angle to find out something new and / or something different.

Anyway, it was really nice day today.  I felt so happy since I found baby pears in my yard.   Maybe I will check them everyday, how they glow up!

I am looking forward to finding something different tomorrow!

Kids are in Spring break now!

California Poppy is getting blooming

Spring Break Now!

Kids are in Spring break this week.   We send kids to a spring camp during daytime.  This camp supposes to do various outdoor activities such as hiking.   However, due to rainy weather last a few days, they need to stay indoor.

The alternate location for the camping is near hills in the town.   Behind the building, there is hills and they are getting really green now.   One of symbol for spring in California is "California Poppy" that is an orange flower and we can see almost everywhere in the bay area in spring.

I started seeing the flowers a few weeks ago.  However, last a few days this week is getting back to cold weather with rain.   Today, I saw the flower is not blooming.

Mountains are getting much snow last a several days.  It is April, but it seems that all ski resorts in Tahoe area become really good condition, it could be one of the best this season.

Lassen Volcanic National Park is also getting much snow last a few days per a web cam.  If I have some time, I really want to go there one more time, it could be a day trip due to resuming Japanese school this weekend.....

Adobe Photoshop Element 12 ~ compatibility problem between a download version and DVD retail package version

I got a trouble again!

I was getting a several trouble since last year, I got another trouble again.

The problem this time is a problem for Adobe Photoshop Elements 12.

What’s happened?

We need to edit photos and we downloaded a trail version from Adobe web site in early January this year.  The trial period is 30 days and the expiring date was coming soon.  So that we decided to buy a license.   We just found a retail package in Costco that is lower price than the on-line download version price and we bought it in Costco.

We tried to put the serial number from the retail package since the software complained the expiring date is coming soon.   Unfortunately it did not work.   We gave up and uninstall the software and installed it again from scratch with the DVD in the retail package.   It seemed to be working all right in the beginning.

However, it was suddenly not working after a few days.  We did not know what was going on.  We did not change anything for Windows and did not install any other software to the PC.

 We tried to make it work and tried uninstall and install so many times.   The problem was only launch “PhotoEditor”.   “PhotoOrganizer” was working no problem.  Since we did not touch Windows including update and it seemed to be a problem in Adobe application.

When I uninstalled the application, it seemed to be everything was deleted.  However it seems that some information was still on the PC somewhere or it might check some information in a server in Adobe.   Since if I installed it from a trial image, it said the trail was expired even if I deleted all files in the Photoshop related folders.   I was not sure, but it seemed that it was a problem with the license management in the application.   The license information might not to be updated.  When I installed it from DVD.

The customer service was really USELESS!!!!

We did not have much choice.   As usual, we, I and my wife, tried to call customer service many times for this issue.   They did not help this at all.

First, the person on the phone could not do anything and they just transferred phone to the different section or person again and again.  Every time the call was transferred, we had to wait for a long time to get the next person.   Then, what they said was the customer support for Photoshop Elements 12 was not free.  It is really ridicules.

The end result was nothing we could do.   We decided to return the retail package to Costco.  The return was accepted.

Also, there was a big confusion with “trouble-shooting” function on Windows.   When I tried it, it says Windows found an incompatible application and it suggested to use some other compatible mode to run the application.   However, it was not true.   I did not believe it was a compatibility problem since it was working when we installed it for the first time and we did not touch Windows related configuration.   Also, we did not install any other application after install Photoshop Elements 12.   It was likely the license management problem between the download image and retail package.

Workaround

It was really simple.  When we bought another one from on-line and put a serial number, then it works.  We did not see any problem at all.   Somehow, Adobe makes some differentiation between the retail DVD package and the download image.  Once people install a trial version, the DVD installer could not override the license information.   Once the trail is expired, the software starts not working.  I guess it is really simple and basic thing they need to support.  

I guess it is better to do some research when people by a retail package after a trial.   It might happen a similar problem with other software.   It will waste your time to figure this out and make it work.

This experience was really bad and spent a lot of time to make this work.   Especially the due date to complete the photo editing was getting close.   We did not have much time to solve this case.

Be careful to proceed repair SONY product in the US!!

   In the end of last year, one of my camera lens was not functional.  After more than 1 months, the repair had been completed and sent it back.  Now I can shoot daily photos like before.

   However, I had a problem with SONY for this repair and I would like to share my experience.


Flat Rate Repair






   Whenever people make a repair request, they do care how much cost they need to spend.  A good thing for the process this time is "flat rate repair" when I placed the request on SONY USA web site.  The price was reasonable and I thought it was a great idea.

   There are seven exceptions not to apply the flat rate repair.  I do not believe anything can apply my case.  But actual cost is not the one showed when I place the order.

    Here is the exceptions:

• Replacement of display parts such as LCD
• Internal corrosion or moisture damage
• Cosmetic parts
• Any condition resulting from physical abuse, misuse or excessive wear
• Business and professional product or any product used commercially, or in a manner other than originally designed or intended.
• Devices older than seven years from last market date
• Damage resulting from any prior repairs

In my case, the problem was just stuck focus ling and I do not think anything above could be applied.

I am in a trouble!!




The initial process was very smooth.  The initiation was very easy on SONY USA web site.  SONY also called me when they receive the lens.

The operator for the first confirmation call told me they would evaluate the lens before proceeding the repair.  He also told me it might take a several days.  However, a status was changed suddenly, the process was pending and waiting for my approval to pay higher cost than the initial "flat rate price".  There was no phone call to explain this at all.  It was just web status.


What!  It was not flat rate!?

Once I saw that message on the web, I went SONY USA site to make sure the conditions again.  Yes, it clearly says, the device to qualify "the flat rate repair".  I also confirmed all exception cases.
I called SONY customer service to complain this.  The operator kept saying that the initial price was generated by the system and it was just a place holder.  I tried to explain about the flat rate I saw on the web.  But they did not listen to me at all.

My option could be dispose it or sending it back with my cost if I did not agree the new higher price.

After long time conversation with the operator, finally I agreed to pay the amount.  I did not have much choice and I like the lens and the price range was still below the maximum price I set.  After that, everything was smooth and the repair had been completed within 1 week and sent it back to me.

Overall, this thing was really bad.  What SONY did to me was really bad!!!!!!

SONY sent a survey today and I gave all my complaints to them, but nothing was happened.  I guess people need to be careful to buy SONY product or ask a repair to SONY.

I am not sure if people had a similar experience like this.  I am considering to post this experience somewhere on the internet.  If you have any suggestions / advice, please let me know.

School district

As I mentioned that we moved to Dublin from Pleasanton.  We knew many people who moved out from Pleasanton stay in the same school.  We thought we just need to tell the school we moved.  However the formal process is different.  We did not know this.  When we told the new address in Dublin, we were told that we need to go through a formal process and there could be a chance the request would be rejected.

The formal process is:

• Need to submit inter & intra district transfer request to Dublin unified school district first.  To submit the request, it requires some other documents such as report card.
• Once Dublin school district approves the request, the the form will be sent to Pleasanton school district.
• The board of Pleasanton unified school district reviews the request and will make final decision the request is accepted or not.  According to the district, there is a chance to reject the request.

In our case, we were still Pleasanton resident when enroll the new school year.  Therefore, our kids were able to go to the same school.  However, we moved to Dublin in the end of September.  Then, we need to go through the process above.   Since our kids were already in the school and we got an approval from the Pleasanton unified school district.  The process took more than one month and we did not know if the kids can stay or not.  It might be different if the moving is before the enrollment. 

I checked some people who could be a similar situation.  However, it seems they did not go through the process and they are just stay the school, probably without notifying their moving to the school.

When people move to the other school district, it might be better to check what needs to be done before moving.  Then everything could be smooth.  In our case, we did not know what needs to be done in advance and we needed to solve such process one by one.

I just want to share our experience in this blog!!

Christmas is coming!

Christmas tree in our home

 This year was really busy year for our family.   We did not really plan to move to other place early this year.  However, we took a look at some homes in April.  After checking the past sales price our old neighborhood, we decided to sell our previous residence and buy a bigger house.

 After the decision, it was sold in a very short time.  However, it was hard time to buy a house due to very hot real estate market.   We took a look at more than a few hundred houses and finally we bought one we really like.  That was a really big event for our family this year.

  Since we moved into a little bigger house and we bought a bigger Christmas tree this year.  This is not a real tree, but kids are very happy with the tree.  Kids spent their time for the decoration.   It looks nice especially balloon arts on the right side of the tree.  They made "Candies" with red/white balloons and they look really nice!  They really like bigger tree and waiting for Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Laundry washer installation

Laundry washer installation

We moved the current house the end of September this year, 2013.   Since the previous owner took laundry washer and dryer, we bought new one from Sears.

This moving was a lot of problems for appointments for delivery / installations.  This laundry stuff delivery installation was one of them.

Delivery:

Originally, we expected to have the washer and dryer before we moved in.  We bought them about 2 weeks before the actual moving in date and arrange their delivery.  We supposed to get a phone call to get 2 hours time window for the delivery a day before the delivery day, however, we did not get it.

We called Sears customer service number, it was busy day and we had to wait close to 30 minutes to get an operator.   It seemed the arrangement was really messed up and the call drops in the middle of the conversation and started over again a couple times.  Then, the first delivery was only washer and we needed to wait for the dryer another several days.

That was a story for the delivery.

Problems:

Anyway, we got the washer and dryer a few days after we moved in.   However, my wife found that a thing that closes after washing is always hot even if we set "cold".  We tried to check the water line connection, but it was too close to wall and it was not easy to read the characters on the back of the washer.  So that we just using the user's manual to check the hot / cold water location and we thought they were all right.

After a couple weeks, some of closes for my wife were sensitive and we tried to check the water line connection again.  This time, I used a digital camera to take some shot to read the characters on the back.  Finally we found that the water line connections were reversed.

Correction

I tried to loose the water connection just by hand, but it was too tight and I could not disconnect the water lines.  I did not want to damage the washer and tried to Sears to correct the installation.
So that I called the customer service again.

This time was really worse.   First of all, the call was transfer to the other department again and again more than a several times.  Also, the call dropped a couple times and started over again.  The problem is they did not have any record what we talked in my account.  Therefore, I had to explain the same thing again and again.  Finally one operator helped to arrange a service but it was about 2 weeks away.  I said we could not wait such long for the simple correction and I tried to push him to get it done earlier.  The person really helped to get a person who was actually scheduling the service, then she would give us a better day, but she needed to call me back after the arrangement.  She told me I would get a call with detail time slot within 48 hours and the call was hung up.  But I did not any thing.

I called the customer service again and it was the same the call was transferred again and again.  But it seemed there was no record for the arrangement.  But the last person arranged it a Friday in the same week.   A day before, I supposed to get  a phone call for the 2 hours time slot.  But I did not get it again.  The person gave me a phone number, I called that number, but the operator told me there was no record for the service.  Then asking to call a local store.  I called the local store but it was before the business hour and the call was transferred back to the central customer service again and actually no body helped me to arrange the correction service.

I was really frustrated and I did not want to go through such long customer call process again.  It took really long time and it does not help anything.  It is really wasting my time.  I decided to correct by myself.  I used a tool to loose the connection and swap the hot / cold water line.  It was done within 10 minutes.

That is the story for this installation.  I could not really believe what happened to us.  The professional people who deliver the washer and dryer could not install them correctly.  It was really simple mistake.  Then, the customer service is really bad.  They told me that there is no reference number or case number to check the record later.   They just gave us not right phone number for the service.  The call was always transferred to the other department.  Then, the call could drop in the middle.  Even I asked a number in case the call was dropped did not work.

This time, it was not really complicated thing and I could take care of it by myself.  But if I could not handle the case, I am not sure what I need to do.......

This is not only thing, but also I had a very bad experience with Comcast as well........

A good thing is everything fixed now and I do not have to worry about anything for now.....  But I do not want to go through such things again.