Life is very short. There are many important things in this life that deserve your attention. I have only a few rules that I live by.


1) I worship God. I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the son of God and was sent to this Earth to die on the cross for our sins so that we may have eternal salvation. I do not believe in election or pre-destination. I believe in free will.
2) Love each other like every day is your last day.
3) I vote. I did not vote for Obama. You have your opinion, I have mine.
4) I genuinely treat people with respect.
5) I won’t tolerate any form of child abuse.
6) I won’t tolerate bad customer service, period. Your tip is a direct reflection on the service.
7) I won’t tolerate someone using a cell phone in a movie theater. I didn’t pay $20 to watch you text.
8) I don’t stop at yield signs (unless absolutely necessary). That’s what stop signs are for.
9) I don’t do drugs.
10) I laugh. I laugh hard. You can’t go through life without laughter.


Now that we have the ground rules out of the way, let’s get to “The List“. “The List” is something I came up with a few years ago. It comprises of a list of establishments that have either performed above and beyond the call of normal customer service or have failed miserably at it. The List exist so you can possibly learn from our mistakes and maybe it will save you some aggravation. I don’t put something on The List based off one good or bad experience, it’s based off multiple good or bad experiences. I’ve broken the list down into three categories; The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Just before I get to The List, I want to talk about tipping. The amount of a tip you leave should be a direct reflection on the service that was rendered. The standard tip rate is 15% (or twice the tax). For poor service, I sometimes don’t leave a tip at all. Here’s a word of advice, if you get poor service and you don’t leave a tip, don’t write the number “0” on the bill. It’s very easy for unethical waiters to change the zero to a ten or some other number. We’ve had this happen to us before and called the restaurant back and the person got fired over it. The best thing to do is to write out the word “zero” or “on table” on the bill. It’s very difficult to change words into numbers. If the service was bad enough for you not to leave a tip, that’s a strong indicator to call over the manager and let them know about the poor service. Don’t argue with the waiter, it’s best to go straight for the manager. I have a friend that will always leave a tip. I jump on him about it every time. The waiter could come over and spit in his food and he’d still leave a tip. That frustrates me to no end. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll leave a tip, but I leave it in proportion to the service that was rendered. I once left a $40 tip on a $20 bill. The service was the best I had ever had.

The Good

1 – USAA Insurance – If you’re blessed enough to be able to use USAA Insurance, consider yourself very fortunate. Having subscribed to many insurance agencies over the years, I can’t find one that has better customer service than USAA. It’s not only an insurance company, but a banking institution as well. In my opinion, this is one of the best financial institutions around today. I support them 100%.

2 – Consumer Reports – I’ve been subscribing to Consumer Reports for years now. I also have an online account with them. We recently purchased a new vehicle. I paid the extra $14 to get a detailed “invoice” price sheet and vehicle report for the vehicle we wanted. It saved me thousands of dollars. It’s something when you can walk into a dealership and show the dealer how much they paid for the vehicle. We also routinely use Consumer Reports as a reference for when we purchase anything they review or compare to other products. You can’t go wrong with Consumer Reports.

3 – Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse- This is absolutely one of the best places you’ll ever eat. The customer service is top notch and the food is excellent. I had the best dessert I’ve ever had in my life at Del Frisco’s. It was a seven-layer lemon cake that was so moist you almost needed a spoon to eat it. Of course, the prices are not for the weak at heart. But you get what you pay for. This is one of our favorite places to eat for special occasions.

4 – Uncle Julio’s – I don’t know of many places where you can go and get excellent food for two for under $20. Plus, you’ll get more than you can eat as well. We love going to Uncle Julio’s every chance we get. We love Mexican food and their salsa is some of the best around. The tortillas are made fresh right there on the spot. The fajitas are heavenly. This is the staple of Mexican cuisine. I loves me some Uncle Julio’s!

5 – The Keg Steakhouse and Bar – I hang out at The Keg every August. That’s when the Lobster season is in session at The Keg. It’s a good atmosphere and the prices are not bad for the quality of food you get. I don’t know where you can go and get a full Atlantic Lobster for under $37. The steaks are good as well.

The Bad

1 – Boston Market – I’ve been in this restaurant many times. It seems like every time I go in, I get sick from the food. I’ve tried to like this place but the quality of food is not the best. I just don’t think I’ll go here anymore.

2 – Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in Gatlinburg, TN – We recently took a vacation to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We stopped off at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. to get a bite to eat for lunch. After placing our order, we sat there for 30 minutes and my son still didn’t have his drink. The restaurant wasn’t full by any stretch of the imagination. They have a sign system at Bubba Gump’s. One sign says, “Run Forrest Run”, which indicates you don’t need any service. The other sign says, “Stop Forrest Stop” which indicates you need service. We turned the sign over to Stop Forrest Stop and the waiter asked us to turn it back around because we had already been waited on. Also, the waiter waited on some people that came in after us for take out long after he worked on taking on our order. They got their order fulfilled before we got all our drinks. We paid the drink tab and left. In addition, Forrest Gump’s favorite drink is Dr. Pepper. They don’t serve Dr. Pepper (or Mr. Pibb) at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in Gatlinburg TN. Strike three!

3 – Warner Brothers Blu-Ray Disks with Digital Copy should be used as coasters. I recently bought a extended edition of the movie Inception that contained a digital copy. I bought this version explicitly because it had a digital copy. When I went to download it (WB doesn’t supply a digital copy on a disk, you have to download from their site) the WB site said that it had expired. Why would a digital copy expire? It’s horse crap. It’s a digital copy people. I contacted Warner Brothers customer service for resolution. Their reply, “Sorry your digital copy has expired.” Yeah, thanks Einsteins. Thanks for saving me money as I won’t have to spend any more on your worthless disks. You would think that in this economy, they would have thrown me a bone.

The Ugly

1 – Ashley Furniture – If Ashley Furniture called me today and told me I could come pick out anything in the showroom for free, I’d hang up the phone on them. I’ll never buy another piece of furniture from them. Last year, we bought a new dining room table and a breakfast nook table from them. They had a promotional sale going on at the time which was “36 months – same as cash”. Which means, you have 36 months to pay the first payment on the items purchased. It also means no interest. That doesn’t apply to Ashley Furniture. If you ever buy anything from them, make sure you read EVERYTHING before you sign your name to any agreement/contract. According to Ashley Furniture, “36-months – same as cash” literally means, “36 months – same as cash – and you will pay 3% per month interest on the remainder of your account until the account is paid in full, starting immediately”. After we got the first bill, I called their finance company and they literally told me, “We understand your frustration, we hear this all the time because we don’t disclose this information up front.” You’ve got to be kidding me! I immediately paid the balance in full and closed the account. After many phone calls and correspondence to the Ashley Furniture management, we finally gave up. They were extremely rude, deceitful, didn’t care, and didn’t want to help us. They know they lied to us up front. I have a good mind to take the furniture over to their showroom and burn it in front of them right there in the parking lot. Needless to say, my rear end will never cast a shadow on an Ashley Furniture showroom again.

2 – Pilot Travel Centers – A few years ago, Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast and all of the oil refineries near Houston were preemptively shut down in preparation for the storm’s landfall. At the time, gasoline was a bit on the high side (around $3 per gallon). As soon as the refineries were shut down, the Pilot Travel Center’s unleaded gasoline in our area shot up to $4.79 per gallon. During the exact same time, the gas station across the highway (Chevron) had unleaded gas for $3.29 per gallon. Talk about price hike! We called a local news station and they came out and did a evening news piece on how high the Pilot Travel Center’s gas was. We don’t stop at Pilot anymore.