Long gone are the days where I used to know every matchup in the NHL and NBA playoffs when they start. About halfway through round one of both, I can probably get 75% of the matchups and maybe who is in the lead....but that's really asking too much. I only bring this up because I find it interesting that I am looking more into how well I can predict outcomes versus the spread in more and more sports, when I am paying less and less attention to them. Then again, my life has never been without contradictions.
Even with the NFL, which I absolutely love, I am paying less and less attention. The 2014 schedule was announced today, and I am yet to take a serious look at it. I took a cursory glance at the schedule for the Lions, but nothing else. I didn't even pay attention to who they play on Thanksgiving this year. I know the options were very limited though....when the list of 2014 opponents came out, I noticed we had very few home games versus AFC teams this year (I want to say 2) and they have to play an AFC opponent this year because we played GB last year. I dunno. I'm sure I'll check right after I post this, just to quell my curiosity.
Speaking of predicting sports outcomes, the last 7 have been very unkind to me. The Tigers have lost to the White Sox 2 out of the last three days, and I was on the Tigers (laying a pretty steep price) for both losses, but NOT on them for the win. This is the art of picking MLB games I need to pick up. I can get a decent feel for who will win how many out of each series, but if you guess wrong on two of the three days, that's not going to do you any good.
My last 7 picks went 2-5 for a total loss of 7.31 units, cutting my season total by more than half. Time to reassess my unit amounts for each game, as that seems to be doing me more harm than the actual losses. Totals are below.
Totals to date:
32-25, +5.63 units
On the non-sports front, a few things of note this week. Purchased new phones for Little Miss and I today. We are now the proud owners of Samsung Galaxy S5s....kind of. The store had no phones in stock, so they are being shipped to us and should be at the house by Friday, but we had to go into the store to get the buy one, get one promotion on the phone....kind of. Unbeknownst to us, the promotion had ended on Sunday. That also was unbeknownst to our salesman, Sean, until he tried to put the order in for us. You see, today was the third time we were in that store since Friday, when we took my parents in to upgrade their phones (which is a story in and of itself) and had seen the ad for the promotion each time, which is why we went to the store to buy them instead of just upgrading online like normal.
Anyway, after Sean walked away to place our order, he ended up talking to someone else in the store with a Verizon Edge t-shirt on, I'm assuming it was a manager, even though the t-shirt would have made me think otherwise. When he returns to talk to us, he informs us that the promotion had ended on Sunday, and that we'd have to pay the upgrade price of $200 for each phone instead of $200 for both. At first I was kinda bummed and all like "okay....I guess we'll do it because we want that particular phone", but when Little Miss pressed more about it and I found out the manager had come and actually pulled the posted BOGO price cards out from under the phones right behind me while Sean was breaking the news to us, I was resolute about getting that promotion.
At first I asked to see the cards, which were taken away less than 5 minutes before I asked, so I could take a picture of it and the fine print to make sure it didn't have an expiration date on it like some of the other cards there did. The manager had Sean tell us he had already placed them in the "burn box" and we were out of luck with that. That was #2 and #3 (with sneaking in behind me to get the cards #1) in terms of problems I was holding against the manager. First, I believed it to be BS that the cards were irretrievable and he just did that to stonewall us. Honestly, I might have done the very same thing....but I would have addressed it personally, and not made the salesman explain it.
Of course, that wasn't good enough for me. I asked Sean to have the manager to give us a signed statement that those promotion cards were out when we placed our order, because state law says that it would have to be honored, and I would contact the corporate office to try and get the difference back on our order. After a few minutes, Sean returned and let us know the manager would honor the BOGO offer for us, and showed it to me on the order screen. He also covered for the manager by saying he was on the phone with his supervisor working all this out. At that point it didn't really matter, I had already discounted the manager's effectiveness at that time and was completely unsurprised at that point that he wouldn't make contact with us at all. In my experience, it's always best to address things like this in person, no matter what the answer is going to be. But, again, it didn't matter at that point, and Sean was much better at handling the situation than we had any right to expect. Definitely an excellent salesman.
The other non-sports front I was referring to above is the fact that I am applying for a new job, not with my current company....and not in my current state of residence either. I won't go into detail about it, but I haven't been this excited for a job prospect in a long time. Whether I get the job or not, I know it is something I would excel at and a job I would like going to every day, and it's nice to know that opportunities like that still exist for me.
I think I've rambled on enough for one day, so it's off to check out a few things about the phone I forgot to look into before signing the dotted line today, no deal-breakers obviously, but a couple things I want to know about before I get the phone in my hand in a few days.
