The Soapbox Archives:
One of the memorable lines from dance Dave Samanen: "If I can't say 'triple-step' [to the music], I can't triple-step' ". I think that's probably a good one to remember. I think that teachers should make sure that their new students understand that so the students won't feel obligated to force their triple-step into music that's going at 212 beats per minute.
I had a couple of chroming kits so I pulled one of them out and started tracing out the shoe outline.
Let me take a quick break here for a public service announcement.
There are two ways to cut/trim the leather for your sneakers:
If you do the latter, there's a good chance you'll slip and cut yourself. I've heard plenty of stories of people hurting themselves this way. Even if you use scissors, it's harder to cut off the excess where it would look good.
If you cut out the leather beforehand, you can trim it so the fit is perfect before you commit to the glue.
Where were we?
After I cut out the leather and was satisfied with the fit, I slathered contact cement from the tube included in the kit, waited 10 minutes and then fitted the leather to the respective sneakers and then used a hammer on them to make sure all of the leather made contact with the sneaker. After waiting overnight, the shoes were ready.
Now all that was to prepare for what I really wanted to say.
One of the leather soles came off during Beantown. At that late hour on a Sunday, I couldn't find the contact cement; went to CVS, Walmart, and some random convenience store. I guess I hadn't put enough contact cement on the sneaker. The one-ounce tub wasn't enough; I even used the extra tube I happened to have in my basement but I still didn't put enough on. I was going to go to Home Depot the next day to get some of that contact cement.
At some point I saw a tube of Shoe Goo on a table during the evening dance and chased down the owner (Pasquale) to borrow it. It was clearly the 3.7-ounce tube; I used a lot of the glue and didn't even put a dent in the tube. The glue was clear unlike the yellowish contact cement and best yet, the odor was minimal. I used to make fun of the people chroming their dance shoes at Beantown because everyone must have been getting high on the glue fumes; just walk by them and you would get a good dose.
The glue must be a new product; I also found it at Lowe's and one of my local hardware stores. If you're chroming a new pair of sneakers, definitely buy the big tube. Get the small one you wanted something for an emergency.
One more thing: On Monday the other sneaker's chrome sole came off; what a terrible chroming job I did. The guy with the Shoe Goo wasn't around and we were only going to be around until that night. Someone gave me some...costume tape? It's double-sided tap for wearing wigs or keeping clothes in place. I put it between the bottom of my dance sneakers and the chrome leather and it stayed in place until I could fix it properly at home.
After I first had FIOS for 5 years, I complained that they were raising the rental fee on their set box, even though the box was obsolete (I could never get the same one if it broke) and I had more than paid for the box with the rental fee. They basically said that they couldn't/wouldn't help me. They seemed willing to risk losing a long-time customer so they lost me.
The local Comcast salesperson had come by and showed me their deals and gave me a good "new customer" package. Of course, right after I changed services, Verizon sent me the offer that I would have taken if they had given it to me *before* I cancelled my service. All that did was piss me off.
After a couple of years or more, my rates at Comcast went up as expected, but I wasn't happy about it because I knew they'd be willing to give way better rates to new customers. I probably should have called their customer retention department but was too annoyed to do so.
Of course, I went to sign up with FIOS again. That was a mistake because I didn't wait for one of those new customer deals. I ended up paying close to what I had been paying to Comcast. And the FIOS UI wasn't that good on my old CRT TV (not that long ago) so we started out on the wrong foot. We couldn't wait until the 2-year contract ended. They did switch out my old Verizon installation with new equipment.
Meanwhile the same Comcast salesguy come through again (how do they know?) and spent three months chasing me down to switch services. He kept calling with updated deals and offered to cover the cost of cancelling my existing FIOS contract. After a while I switched services and got a new Comcast system. I wonder if I would have gotten that automatically if I had stayed with Comcast in the first place. My download speed was twice what I was paying FIOS for. He also said to call him or customer retention when the contract expires; he would try to arrange for something to keep me a Comcast customer.
When I went to return my Verizon equipment, the agent asked me if I had cancelled my service. They gave me a number to call. Why couldn't that person do it? There wasn't anyone else in the store and at least I would have left Verizon with a better attitude. But no, I had to go home and call them myself to cancel.
And when I called the number to discontinue the service, the guy went into his pre-prepared speech about why FIOS was better than Comcast. Problem was, I had heard it 10 years ago so it was outdated. When I was a field sales engineer, I found that selling technology is not enough; you have to sell satisfaction. You have to tell the customer how much better their life will be when they buy your product. The Comcast sales made me feel like my business was important to him and he had a vested interest in making me a customer (well, that's true anyway but you get my drift). I haven't talked to a Verizon salesperson since I first switched from Covad DSL. Verizon told me that they had sent me an email from their customer retention department; I don't remember ever getting it. After I switched, I got an email from Verizon offering me a discount of $25 a month for a year if I stayed with Verizon. Why wasn't I worth that deal *before* I decided to switch? Pissed me off again.
Bottom line: