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Slate Blackcurrant Watermelon Strawberry Orange Banana Apple Emerald Chocolate Marble
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McDugan

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Posts posted by McDugan

  2. Posted · Edited by McDugan · Report reply

    I don't get why people are so fired up about both sides of this argument. I agree with both sides for the most part.

    On one hand people believe if you pay $800+ for skates you shouldn't have to clean up the glue, that should have been done by the manufacturer. On the other hand people are saying skates are made for performance, if the performance is great and the construction is great....who cares about the glue showing. its different strokes for different folks, no need to get angry at the opposing opinion.

    That's fine if it stays at that. Certainly any buyer is reasonably entitled to his/her opinion regarding stray glue streaks, but as has been pointed out, any dissatisfaction, with glue or anything else, would be most effectively addressed with the manufacturer directly than with the MSH community.

    However, it's gone a level beyond that - it's really unfair to Scott for people to make unfounded implications that the glue streaks are somehow the result of poor workmanship or an indication that the skates in question were a rush job. Not to mention the "subtle" (or not so much) attempts at mockery of those of us who said it wouldn't bother us.

    Junkyard made some very good points, but doesn't acknowledge that the materials and conditions he works with in his business are very obviously different from those used in making these skates. Easy for anyone to say, "Well, I wouldn't stand for that," when you aren't making skates by hand. Making skates by hand. Seriously, guys.

    It's been pretty well documented throughout this thread that the VH skates are handmade and show cosmetic signs of it. Minor cosmetic blemishes (I won't call them flaws because they aren't) shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's been paying attention. And frankly, anyone dropping that kind of money on custom skates without paying attention deserves disappointment.

  3. Posted · Report reply

    I agree. Just got the email that I made first "cuts"

    The only issue here is that I still very much want to go to Medical School. I figure I will let this play out and see what happens. I'm just worried what I am going to do if I actually do get the job.

    Better to have open options. And if you're looking at med school in your future and you're young now, it may be a good opportunity to save money while you're working (live at home or find a cheap situation that you can live with now but won't want to deal with when you're a few years older) so that you incur less debt in med school.

    • Like 1

  4. Posted · Report reply

    If they aren't going to make sure something as simple as wiping off excess glue is done properly then what other aspects are they treating as "good enough"?

    If, during the very finite amount of time the adhesive has to set, the maker is busy mopping up the small amounts that are squeezed out from between two layers of material, what aspect of the structural integrity is being compromised by the fact that he's worrying about the cosmetic effect of the glue rather than its primary purpose?

    Hey you're entitled to your opinion. Nobody's trying to get you to shell out $850 for these skates. But this is getting to the point where you're making implications against VH, based on... what, exactly?

  5. Posted · Report reply

    If you bought a hand made Italian sports car would you be fine with smears in the paint or excess glue on the windshield?

    Of course not, but I don't need to be concerned about corrosion on the sides of my skates due to a small amount of glue overflow, nor do I need a clear view out of the skate's quarter panel.

    When you pay a premium for a hand made product then you expect them to take the care that there are not imperfections, cosmetic or otherwise.

    You might consider using the first person to express a personal opinion. It's already clear that these are your expectations, but they're not everyone's.

  6. Posted · Report reply

    When they are purely cosmetic and obviously the inevitable result of the hand-manufacturing process, yes.

    I think the sum of my previous post was clear. On any pair of skates getting enough use to justify the VH price tag, those glues spots, one can expect those glue spots to be obscured by the marks of normal wear pretty damn quickly.

    Pick nits if you wish.

  7. Posted · Report reply

    If VH gets successful enough with this to expand their operation and include a final glue-scrape quality check, I'll be sad if I can't afford a pair before that happens. There's something of a relic aura to that glue left on the boot: evidence that SVH was here.

    i totally agree. not that i need or will ever be at a level/in a position to justify custom skates of any kind, but if i were to buy them, i'd embrace the imperfection. to me it's a comforting sign of the care that goes into the process of manufacturing by hand. i'd rather know that each stitch was made by hand and checked by a human being as it was done than have a super clean pair of skates (which of course is going to end up all scuffed up anyway).

  10. Posted · Report reply

    It's obvious that he could easily have borrowed sunscreen from another player, and played, having already made the trip and all.

    that tells me that there was more to the "need for discipline" than this one incident, and the forgotten sunscreen was simply a catalyst for the provision of consequences.

    • Like 1

  11. Posted · Edited by McDugan · Report reply

    Or maybe because no one else at Tron is aware of this issue yet. Perhaps we should be a little more patient with them. I mean, after all, wouldn't we expect the same in kind?

    I'm not saying that either party is right or wrong. I'm just saying that we could exorcise a little more patience before we release the hounds of hell.

    Let's set aside the bullying tactics, the childish behavior, and sheer stupidity of not only treating a customer so poorly but making a concerted effort to do so publicly on what is probably the largest relevant online forum. Let's forget, for the sake of argument, that this very thread undoubtedly drove a lot of site traffic and business to HockeyTron early on and that for every person commenting, there are plenty more just reading this in disbelief.

    The biggest issue here, in my mind anyway, is this:

    We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

    - from http://www.hockeytron.com/Privacy-Policy/

    To take someone's personal info (I know, names and not addresses, etc. but still.. really??!!) and post it to another website is beyond the pale and probably illegal - and it's happened multiple times!! I've bought from Tron before, but certainly not again. I wouldn't entrust my information with these people after seeing this.

    • Like 1

  12. Posted · Report reply

    It seems safe to conclude at this point that Ben's friendly and engaging posts - which really made a compelling case for HockeyTron and whose posts here convinced me to give them a second look - constitute the exception rather than the rule. I'd guess that Ben is either outranked by whoever Hockeycrazy is (funny that this guy calls others out re: anonymity yet hasn't stated his own name) or that he has wisely moved on from what is clearly not a good work environment for a sane and well-meaning person. That there has been no damage-control from Tron after 48+ hours says more than any of Hockeycrazy's posts have. It's funny, I was just thinking of a DIY project that would require some spare performance fabric to wrap around some padding. Now I know that between my Tron jersey and socks, I've got plenty fabric to sacrifice, because I don't have any other use for them anymore.

    • Like 2

  13. Posted · Edited by McDugan · Report reply

    My buddy was able to recover the vast majority of the family pictures we had lost (It's a long story, the gist of which is in the vent thread). There's a gap of maybe 3 months, but luckily it's a period in which there weren't really any major events or occasions. Whew.

    Edit to add: Holy crap!!! It looks like I'm going to be able to recover pretty much everything! Maybe not every last picture, but at least not any gaping holes.

    We had two copies of everything (three if you count the DVD backups that we can't find anywhere - I'm convinced my wife brought them with her somewhere but she was so pissed at me over the whole situation that I dare not "accuse" her of misplacing them. Maybe some other year...) - one on an old laptop hard drive that I had put in an external USB enclosure and one on her work computer, where she would take the files of the camera. She erased the work computer's hard drive when it was replaced with another machine, and I erased the external hard drive and sold it on eBay in a lot of spare/semi-functional laptop parts, thinking that another drive that I did keep had all the pictures on it.

    Well, besides our friend being able to recover a ton of stuff from her computer, I was luckily able to get the drives I sold back from the ebay buyer (refunded his money and let him keep everything else, so he was perfectly happy). I've been running Recuva on the one drive over the course of today, and it got back a whole bunch more stuff!

    So many things had to go wrong for this to happen in the first place, and so many things had to go right in order to recover. I'm still processing it all.

    • Like 4

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Was going to fly out today to visit my brother, SIL, and my nephews for my littler nephew's 1st birthday - big deal, as I haven't seen the older one since he was 8 months old, never met the little one, and haven't flown anywhere since before 9-11.

    But the weather came, the flight is cancelled, and there aren't any free seats (with this airline) til the 18th. So, no flight, no trip, no mini-nephew's birthday. Ticked off, frustrated, and sad. :angry:

    That absolutely sucks. I'm sorry. I hate this Winter.

    • Like 1

  19. Posted · Report reply

    So I decided to sell of a bunch of semi-operable old laptops for parts. I threw in a couple hard drives that were laying around unused. Of course I formatted them and did a secure delete so that all my data was off them.

    Last night we discovered that one of the drives I had erased and sent out had the backups of all our family pictures. Turns out those backups were, for about a year's worth of pics and video (Sept '12 to June '13) the only copies. And, oh, right, that's most of my son's 1-2 yr. old year. We have some pics in different places, but mostly lower res (uploaded to social media, etc.) and not nearly the full load.

    My wife had them on her old work computer but had deleted her personal folder. Here's hoping our friend with access to fancy file recovery tools can help us out, or else I'm really going to be in a world of shit with the wife.

  20. Posted · Edited by McDugan · Report reply

    Home early from work due to the snow. Finally, after 5+ years, they have gotten it together to tell us where we can access our email from the web (i.e. in order to get some work done at home). Get home and try to log in, and my IP address is inexplicably blacklisted and can't access the company's domain. And now I am reminded why I want a new job.

  24. Posted · Report reply

    I agree, but neither should be a detriment to the other. Students should learn to write in high school. They should also learn some vocational skills. Their critical thinking and leadership skills should be honed in postsecondary studies. I had college professors who were trying to teach students to be just like them (academics), instead of promoting well-rounded, marketable individuals with diverse skill sets.

    Example: My professors wouldn't approve any construction engineering internships where the interns would be doing manual labor. They would only approve internships where students were in an office setting. This was an opportunity to broaden their skillset while not being a detriment to their academic experience. This is a huge disservice; if students had no prior experience, they were far less marketable than students who had independently started "from the bottom up". When I need to go in the field to communicate tasks to the carpenters and laborers doing them, it makes a big difference that I can speak their language.

    I don't disagree with any of this, but I do encourage students to take it upon themselves to recognize (or find someone who can show them) what they need to learn and find a way to make it happen.

    Now, to really vent - woke up sick today (at 5:00am, thank you 2 yr. old!), felt just enough better to go to work after 3 hours of kid duty, and have gotten progressively worse all day. Luckily most of my office is out of town at a conference today and I took a 2-hour nap. Now I have to go run a volunteer board meeting instead of going home. I'm the President, so I really should be there I might have to just show up and leave my notes and things with the VP and head home.

  25. Posted · Edited by McDugan · Report reply

    As are my Construction Engineering degrees. I work in my degree field, but that doesn't change the fact that for the most part, college professors live in a small bubble and do not prepare students for the real world.

    True, and certainly there are problems with college curricula and faculty being in many ways disconnected from the worlds their students will be entering, but I would argue that it's not the responsibility of a college professor to prepare students for the "real world." Truth be told, a bachelor's program (at least in music, I've given this a lot of thought before, and I would think that this would translate to most fields) that really comprehensively prepares students for the "real world" would require 6-7 years of study.

    And, really, it would require students to be better equipped to carry out college-level study and work upon entrance. I've read way too many papers by undergrad, and shockingly, grad students that shouldn't have received passing grades in high school, let alone college or grad school.

    Edited to correct spelling error in my rant about bad writing.

    • Like 2
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