Good morning the day before Valentine’s Day.

In my quest to make my Valentine’s card for my wonderful Wife I always must do some research – isn’t that what the techie people do? Or the deep thinkers? Hmmm….

Anyway, I started off with Copilot, my new favorite digital assistant (next to Alexa) and asked Copilot the following question on the very sunny Tuesday at 11:30A.M.

Q: What does “Be my Valentine” mean

And my answer was (with links to follow up on).

“Be my Valentine” is a phrase that people use to ask someone to be their romantic partner for Valentine’s Day, which is a holiday celebrated on February 14th. It usually implies that the person wants to express their love or affection for the other person, and maybe give them some gifts, such as flowers, chocolates, or cards. The phrase comes from the tradition of sending valentines, which are love notes or tokens, to someone you admire or care for. The origin of the phrase is not very clear, but it may be related to the legend of Saint Valentine, who was a Christian martyr in ancient Rome. Some stories say that he healed the daughter of his jailer and wrote her a letter signed “your Valentine” before he was executed¹²

¹: Why We Ask Someone To Be Our “Valentine” | Dictionary.com ²: ‘Be My Valentine?’ What Does That Even Mean These Days - 101 Sex+Relationships The Notebook

Now the links were to; 1) Dictionary.com and 2) 101 Magazine and I checked out those links. The reading was fun and interesting.

I hoping this helps me in my endeavor to product the card of wonder and Love.

Happy Valentine’s Day

The Beginning of The Internet For Us - So Much Fun.

Not sure the exact date (1993?) but this is the disk that took me further down the road to the Internet. A conversation with a good friend in Cincinnatian, off to a store, and listened to a demo on Prodigy took the disc home.

This was ultimately followed by downloading Netscape at midnight - or sometime there after due to the crush. 

From there to building webpages for Netscape using the famous "Hot Dog Web Editor". What do you mean you have never heard of "Hot Dog"? "Hot Dog" was created by "Sausage Software" I think from Australia. 

I was led to "Hot Dog" by a disc in a book by "Que", "Creating Your Own Netscape Web Pages". Pages created all in code and so much fun. 

I wasn't the first, but we were right there. Many, many stories to tell 

I was laughed at for buying the computer in the early 80's and no one wil ever use the Internet, what a waste. :) I LOVE IT! How far we have come since these days. 

I remember the first night we downloaded a picture of a map from a library in France. Working with a 300 baud modem it took quite some time, but with each line we became more fascinated with the World Wide Web. 

And today I am still impressed with what we can do. 

I know, I need to take a better picture. 

UX of Buying Online and Its Problems.

 We recently purchased a product from Costco online and it was a big UX – User Experience.

We were looking at a specific trash can for our kitchen. We found one at Costco, which we thought looked good and would function for our needs. We debated and finally made the decision and the Warehouse we go to did not have anymore. It must have been a good seller as they had a bunch the week before, so, we went online at Costco.

Online, at Costco, we discovered a $20 increase in price, so we did a little search and found the same price at Amazon, where we normally shop, but being the customer’s we are, we bought from Costco. Product arrived and just what we wanted.

We were back at the Costco Warehouse not long after and what to my wandering eyes should appear, the Step can is back in stock but at $20 less – priced same as before.

I was going to write Costco, however, like many online businesses it is difficult to write and explain the issue, Customer Service has options, but this kind of feedback is not one of them. In their Warehouses there is someone to talk to but not online. 

I could have asked for a Price Adjustment, however, all I wanted to say was “Love your store but I just won’t buy from you online anymore.” I felt lucky this lesson only cost $20, much less than the one I learned from the Plumbing and Heating organization we recently used.

We shop at the Big Box Store, Costco, because it’s fun to go out and walk, look at all the ‘stuff’ and it is interesting and informational. Not sure how many times we have gone there and bought something we did not plan on buying because we saw it, became intrigued, and eventually purchased it. 

Not so sure with their online business.