I just noticed... The Photo Gallery now contains over 1,000 pictures. Admittedly, a lot of them are from the wedding, but it's still a huge milestone.

After many hours of work, I've got all the digitals cataloged into the photo album. Everything in indexed too, so you can search for yourself in the album, if you like.

If you follow the link below, you will see a complete course throughout the whole wedding day. Remember, if you really like a picture, use the download link to get a very high quality copy (if you want to make prints).

Enjoy.

Click here for the wedding album

We've received our digital originals from the wedding photographer. For those of you not familiar with professional digital photography, here's the big deal...

These files are huge, and very sharp. They are suitable to use in making framing-quality prints. Since I've got all the originals now, I'm going to post them to the site. It's several hundred photos, so it's going to take a lot of work to catalog them all.

So, what's the news this week?

Tomorrow, I fight the evil traffic mongers to keep my $$$.  JP Court #13, 2:00 PM.  Game On.

The photographer has posted a gallery of all our wedding pictures.  I have included some of them into the BarnyardBBS album; but the whole set (nearly 500) can be seen on his site.

I covered the VideoHouseLive event for WMPH.  Take a look at wmph.org to see what happened.

Well, the wedding festivities have completed.  Thanks to all that attended and helped to make our wedding special.

I have been posting some photos to the album section of the site; and more are to follow as I get them.

Thanks again to all of our friends, families, and guests.

So, other than playing with wheatgrass juicers, what have I been up to lately?

If you read my rant about the recent seatbelt ticket that I received; you know that I'm not about to let it go.  It's personal now.

Guess what?  It's been 12 days, and they still don't have the ticket "in their system".  Remarkable.  I think they might have lost it.  Or perhaps they made the mistake of using the USPS to send it to their offices.  Either way, the mind boggles at the efficiency of the state of Delaware.

Unjust laws aside, I've been up to a few other things.  For the moment, here's an interesting update.

I've got a wedding looming in the not-too-distant future.  For those of you that have known me for a while, you know that I'm a true Hill Boy.  I recently saw some of the graduation photos from this year's class.  I had an idea!

Since being a Hill graduate is one of my favorite accomplishments... And the two other fellows in the party are graduates also.  Why not wear the traditional Senior Blazer and Hill Tie?  It sounded like a great idea to me; and the guys were both on-board with it.  I hope we all fit into our jackets...

Papers Please!

Would you expect a store to give you a hassle when registering for your wedding?  I didn't.  I was wrong.  Take a look at this letter that I sent to Sears this morning...

Good day.  My name is Ben Yanis.  Myself, and my family have shopped at Sears since the days that the sign still said "Sears and Roebuck".

I am writing to you to express my concern over one of your store-level policies.

I am getting married this summer.  We thought that Sears would be a good place to start a wedding registry, as your products are of good quality, and your prices are reasonable.

We gave the event information and created the registry at one of the computer kiosks.  We then went to a customer service desk (as stated in the instructions) to obtain a scanning unit.  The associate at the desk was very rude.  She seemed inconvenienced by the request.  She also demanded my driver's license.  I asked why she needed my identification; as we were simply creating a wedding registry.  Her response was "So that you don't steal the scanner."

This offended me.  I will not be treated like a criminal under any circumstance; let alone when I am about to bring a store thousands of dollars worth of business.

I sought out a manager.  It turns out that a store manager was unavailable.  I was presented with an assistant manager.  He restated the store's apparent policy for me; but made no attempt to resolve the situation.  He also did not find any fault with the rude associate.  I reminded him that people do not like to be treated like criminals; especially when they are planning a wedding.

I received no resolution; and we went elsewhere to work on our registry.  I think it is a shame for both your company, and for my wedding plans that we could not be accommodated in a more satisfactory way.  No other store has demanded to hold my identification.  Other stores actually went out of their way to make us feel welcome.  One store even bought us dinner.

Just for reference, this incident occurred at the Concord Pike store, in Wilmington, DE.  The date and time was roughly 8:00 PM on 5/14/2005.  The rude associate was the only person at the cashier adjacent to the registry kiosk.

Please let me know your thoughts on this situation, and the policy in general.  Thanks for any help that you can provide.

-Ben Yanis

Updated!

Sears central customer service is obviously smarter than their local staff.  They gave me this thoughtful reply.  It looks as if a real human being realized that the local droids were in error.  I've got to give them credit for owning up to the mistake.  Hope remains.

Dear Mr. Yanis,

Thank you for contacting Sears.

We apologize once again for the troubling experience at the Concord Pike
Sears store. To our knowledge, this is a store policy. We can certainly
understand how you must feel and, we hope in the future you will receive
appropriate customer service. Once again, we are sorry for your
inconvenience and concern over a store-level policy and inappropriate
customer service.

Thank you for choosing Sears, we certainly appreciate your business.

Look for Great Ideas throughout the store and find Sears exclusive
innovations from great brands like Sony, Kenmore, NordicTrack, Craftsman
and Reebok to help you create the good life.

Shop sears.com now to pick up great products for the season.
http://www.sears.com/sr/entry.jsp?eid=1&sid=S0016300040000600081

Judy D.
Sears Customer Care
webcenter@sears.com