Rants

Goodbye Motorola

Jeromey Balderrama

Nearly four years ago I entered the world of Android with the original Motorola Droid. Two years later, I was eager to upgrade to one of the most early anticipated Android phones: the Droid Bionic.  Like many, I was led to believe that this was going to be Motorola’s next flagship phone, ushering an error of dual-core processors and 4G LTE.  After months of delays, I stood in an (albeit small) line on release day to get the phone, only to find out that this wasn’t the flagship device I was looking for. 

driodbionic

A month later Motorola released their revamped Razr line, a phone that learned all of the lessons from the mistakes that caused the Bionic to become so delayed.  As quickly as the Bionic flashed onto the scene, the phone seemed to have fizzled out from Motorola’s roadmap.  Soon it became apparent that I bet on the wrong horse, that this phone was the red-headed step-child that Motorola conveniently ignored.  The device had some pretty gaping holes, from a crappy camera to unstable Bluetooth.  I realize that every phone has its problems, there isn’t a perfect one out there – but the issue came with how Motorola addressed Bionic problems: they ignored them.

The phone shipped with Gingerbread installed, with a promise to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich soon.  As the months passed, the promises of the upgrade grew more ambiguous, as we watched more and more phones released after the Bionic get upgraded.  Over a year after its release, with Jelly Bean on the horizon, Motorola and Verizon finally gave us our coveted upgrade.  Again more empty promises were made about the Jelly Bean upgrade, and of course the Bionic’s younger cousins got first dibs on the new bits, with the Bionic not being updated until last month.

Don’t think Bionic owners got a raw deal? Just ask Motorola’s VP of Product: he admitted as much last September.  Nothing changed however, Motorola has got bigger problems to deal with.  Google has all but cast them out from the product party, there doesn’t seem to be any worthwhile products in their pipeline.  The rumored “X Phone” is all but vaporware, with Google reportedly pulling out of the device’s development.

Here we are in May, when I become eligible for an upgrade, and not only has Motorola not given me any incentive to stay, but they’ve justified my resentment of their products, to the point where I won’t even own a Motorola device ever again.  Now that the Galaxy S4 is out, I’m more than happy to buy a product from a company that hasn’t ignored their products the way Motorola does.  Thanks for introducing me to the world of Android, Motorola – but I’m happy to leave you for greener pastures.

New Drumming Pet Peeve: Backline Sharing

Jeromey Balderrama

drumset

When it comes to drumming, I’ve had a busy couple of months.  At one time I was juggling four steady drumming gigs, and was looking at the possibility of adding another one.  Now with the baby coming, I’m taking a bit of a sabbatical from drumming – at least as far as gigging projects are concerned – to get ready for the new parent adventure.  Given that I’m going to have a little bit of musical downtime, I wanted to share some reflections from the road.

First and foremost, I’ve uncovered my new drumming pet peeve: backline sharing. Like most things on the road to Hell, this is based on the good intention (usually made by people who are not drummers).  For those that don’t know, backline sharing is when drummers, bass players (and any other instruments with bulky gear) are asked (or in my case, volun-told) to share their gear for a multi-band bill.  Whether you’re on the one doing the sharing, or taking part in someone’s shared gear – this is a lose-lose situation.  Like I said, this decision is usually made by someone who doesn’t play any of these instruments, thinking only of how they can cut corners and minimize the transition time between bands.

The bottom line is that as a drummer, I have spent a considerable amount of time and money to get the sounds that I feel best compliment my playing style, as well as the type of music that I’m playing that evening.  This was culminated from many hours spent in the drum shop finding that perfect cymbal or snare drum head, then going home and determining the exact placement of each part of your kit.  When you’re asking your drummer to backline share on someone else’s kit, you’re unknowingly saying a big “Efff you” to their musicianship and the time they spent to getting their instrument to sound the best for your music. 

I understand there are certain exceptions (like school drum sets) where you’re not playing on your own kit, but I often equate that to driving a car: I can drive someone else’s car and get around for the most part, but when it comes to understanding how the car corners, brakes and maneuver in tight spaces – you want your own vehicle. The same goes for drumming. If you’re asking me to give my best (often to help us earn money), let me cook with my own ingredients.

It’s bad enough to be asked to share someone else’s instrument, but when you’re asked to do the sharing: you’ve taken it to a completely worse level.  All that I said about putting in the time and effort to get the perfect sound out of your kit, is not a cheap process – and now you’re asking me to entrust my kit to someone who I’ve never met before and likely won’t see ever again?  Seriously? In one of my first bands, one of my band-mates was goofing around on my kit and busted up my brand new Pearl Eliminator pedal, with no offer to help rectifying the situation (luckily the pedal was under warranty and Pearl was great about fixing it), but from that point on I decided to go against the lessons my parents taught me – (when it comes to my drums,) NO SHARING!  Now while I’m watching the opening act, rather than mentally preparing for the music I’m going to play, I’m now fixated on the stranger playing my drums and cringing at the possible damage that’s being inflicted on a prized possession.

So memo to band-leaders: you’re thinking that you’re doing us a favor with us lugging less gear, but lugging gear is part of drumming – I’m more than happy to deal with it.

Enough with the tape delay, CBS!

Jeromey Balderrama

For someone who loves technology, especially the convenience that the DVR brings, I definitely watch a lot of live television.  An addict of Twitter, I love watching events and watching my stream light up with comments, jokes and discussion around what we just saw.  Broncos games in particular have me hitting “refresh” on my laptop frantically during the whole game.

On last week’s Vergecast, they had a fascinating discussion on this very topic: the relationship between social networks (particularly Twitter) and TV.  They both need each other: Twitter needs to be validated by other businesses, while TV Networks need to give viewers an incentive for people to watch live and immediately participate in the conversation.  It seems that every TV program (or commercial for that matter) is flashing a hashtag or a Twitter name of a personality.

So why the hell does CBS still insist to tape delay live broadcasts?  Two nights ago they aired the Grammys, and while I was watching 60 MInutes my Twitter stream started blowing up with reactions from those watching it in the Eastern and Central time zones.  When the Grammys finally started at 7pm in Mountain Time, my stream became a complete mess, with people reacting to stuff taking place live, now with us in Mountain time reacting to our events.  By the time our friends in the west join in, Twitter is just a cluster at this point.

This wouldn’t bother me so much, except for the fact that CBS and the Grammys disingenuously feature Tweets as a part of their show. Every time LL Cool J came back from a commercial he would read some random (and often crappy) Tweets, with the half the country being denied the opportunity to participate.

I don’t understand why the Grammys and CBS don’t get it.  The Oscars are broadcast live and everyone manages to watch it.  Aside from the Olympics (which still don’t get it), sports are always carried live and people manage to watch them.  Don’t sit there and pretend you’re inviting us to be part of the social media conversation, then turn around and slam the door on half of your viewers.  CBS: why don’t you join us in the 21st century and get with the program?

Inspections: Sale Negotiations 2.0

Jeromey Balderrama

I mentioned in my birthday post, our house is now under contract for the second time, so once again we’re treated to the home inspection.

When people buy new cars they often think that once they finished with the salesman the hard part is over , which they then go to the financing department where half of the dealership’s profit comes from. Usually at this point people are relaxed and lulled into a false sense of security, and are no longer thinking about deals about costs like warranty and certain forms of insurance. I feel like home inspections are becoming the same way. It seems like people look at their reports and think of what “big ticket” item they’ll ask to have fixed, and figure out what else will get them the best deal.

This was our first home, so back when we went through the buying process, we were young, naive and had no idea what to expect.  Our inspector steered us away from doing a radon test, and we thought we were going to make the sellers walk away by asking them to patch a hole in the wall and put screens back on the windows.  Little did we know how much we let them off the hook compared to the grief we’ve gotten.

In our first contract we got as far as the Inspection Objection point, which meant we got a list of things that was wrong with our house and commit to fixing them.  Unfortunately our inspection brought back a high Radon level, which meant we had to drop some pretty pennies to install a radon system.  As much as it sucked to cut that check, it’s a valid safety issue and a justifiable request – we’d ask the same thing.  We also understand that during this process buyers try to weigh the balance of asking for valid repairs without nickel and diming the sellers too much – so we fixed their shortlist of items just in time for the contract to fall through.

After the excitement of going under contract again, our next thought was “I wonder what this inspection will find.”  We figured that after fixing items 1, 2 & 3 in the previous contract, this buyer would come back asking us to fix items 4,5 & 6 on the report.  The objection document came in today, and rather than items 4, 5 & 6 (or even 7, 8 & 9), they brought us a list of entirely new items that weren’t on our radar.  These items included things like not having proper upstairs vents in our HVAC system and our fans not turning in reverse. Missing from this inspectors report was virtually all the issues that the last inspector found. Missing from both reports were things that we predicted the inspector would highlight (as well as some things our inspector found when we were buying the house).

A house is a physically large purchase and I don’t expect that even the most talented inspector would be able to find everything wrong, but I just don’t understand how all of these reports could be so different in the things they’d find. There’s also a fine line between something that is a safety or damage concern, and something that’s simply the condition of what you’re buying. This is the point I start to wonder if the inspection starts to becomes less about fixing damages and more about squeezing more out of your contract.

Here’s what’s not clear to me: What makes a good home inspection and what should warrant a valid demand in your Inspection Objections report? I had always thought that it would be significant safety and functionality defects – especially if it was a direct result of the sellers. I’m not sure if all inspectors see this the same way. In the most recent inspection, they highlighted things like ventilation efficiency, as if the difference of a few degrees between floors is a major safety issue. Really??

The worst part about this process is that now we feel the need to extract the same amount of pain when we’re the buyers.

HOA’s prove that apathy can make you miserable

Jeromey Balderrama

Given that we’re currently showing our house, it’s probably not the best time to write about our Home Owners Association. However the issues I experience with my HOA are simply an example of the problem with the institution of HOA’s as a whole.

As you know, we’re selling our house, and like most sellers we put up a sign in the grass next to the sidewalk and our front steps on Friday.  Apparently it took all of three days before we got a letter in the mail from the HOA management, informing us that our “For Sale” sign is three feet out too far and cannot be in the grass.  For the grave offense I may be fined for causing all of this trouble, unless I go through the pain-staking process of moving this sign the three feet it will take to restore balance in the universe.

Yes, I guess we technically broke the rules, but the worst part about this is that rather than our neighbor actually being neighborly and saying something to us, they go to the trouble of tattling to the HOA management company that has to get someone to draft the letter, buy a stamp and mail the letter us.  This typical “hall monitor” stuff is gutless.

While this is the first time we’ve been held in contempt, this is not the first time I’ve been infuriated by the actions of our dear leaders in the HOA board.  We have a swimming pool in our neighborhood, and last summer the dear board decided to cut the funding for having a lifeguard, and instead divert that money to getting a card-access security system for the gates.  The problem there: the system didn’t work for most of the summer, and the times you were there, people just left the gate open anyway.  So much for security.  When it became apparent these state-of-the-art measures weren’t working, the HOA board decided to then increase the height of the gates – but guess what – we’ll put some cool looking sculptures at the top of these fence posts.

The problem is that these examples aren’t isolated to our own HOA, and I’m sure many of you have dealt with some form of absurdity.  Virtually every HOA has asinine rules and ridiculous decisions.  Unfortunately there is only one person to blame for the irrelevance of the HOA: me.

My problem: I don’t care. I don’t go to any of the meetings, I proxy my vote on issues.  My apathy stems from my schedule and priorities – I simply have too much going on to help decide what kind of shrubbery people should put in their yard.  I think My apathy has given way for two kinds of people – people who have a specific agenda (or special interests), or people who simply have too much time on their hands and want to feel important – rise to leadership positions.  Since the majority of people can’t be bothered to attend the meetings, these crazy policies get passed with little opposition.

In thinking about HOA struggles, it helps me explain why we end up scratching our heads about governing bodies like Congress.  The collective masses are too apathetic to be involved in monitoring the day-to-day operations, and it takes something as crazy as SOPA & PIPA to wake the sleeping giant.  Given the amount of expense and grief we give candidates, no reasonably-minded person wants to go through that experience, once again giving way to special interests and people with a sense of self-importance.

The moral of the story: as mundane as it may be, we need more people with common sense to step up and play a role in decisions that impact everyone – otherwise you may find yourself 3 feet inside “crazy”.