As a business owner, I am acutely aware that I need to provide a great customer experience and meet their needs and expectations to insure their satisfaction.  The best marketing is your clients talking to their friends and family about how great you are to deal with.  Lately, some businesses I have dealt with are failing me in that department, which in turn has caused me to second guess doing any business with them.  The latest company is Cabelas and their Club Visa card.  I placed an order online for Jodi's inner fenders last night.  Immediately afterward, I receive an automate call asking if I had authorized this purchase, that it had been declined for fraud protection purposes.  I went ahead and advised them I indeed had made the purchase and then was told, by the automated caller, that I needed to contact the vendor I had tried to purchase from to get them to do something to make it go through.  Seriously?  This is the second time that Cabelas has declined a purchase of mine and the last time, I did not receive a call at all, they just declined the charge.  This now warranted a phone call to Cabelas and I expressed my frustration with the customer service rep.  I told them what is the point of having the card if when I go to use it, they decline my purchases.  None of my other cards auto decline even though once or twice in the past they called afterward to confirm I did make the purchase.  The reply I got was that they are a small company and can't afford to take the fraud hits.  The only thing they could do was set me up for text messages to alert me of a purchase and then I could text back whether or not I had made the purchase.  IT STILL WOULD AUTO DECLINE!  What is the point in that you idiots? Phone call or text, where is the improvement in my experience with your company?  I was passed to a senior adviser who couldn't do anything more for me either.  OK, say goodbye to a customer.

Even though my wire and connectors for my rock lights are arriving today, I won't be able to work on getting them installed as I have a photoshoot this evening.  Tomorrow, the only thing on the schedule is an ice cream meetup with the Northland jeep group.  I still should have some time to dedicate to getting the lights installed, or at least closer to being completed.

My intent was to get my rock lights wired and operational yesterday but I found finding 20 gauge weatherproof butt connectors at the local auto parts store difficult. I wound up ordering them on Amazon so that will delay things until later this week.  I called Lux Lighting about the length of the leads as well.  I mentioned that 10 feet is not long enough and he said they were having discussions about that.  I asked if they could be ordered with longer leads and he said that wasn't an option right now.  He said some people are using the extra from some of the shorter runs to splice in where needed.  (Still not enough) He did say that you can order extra bulk wire from them, which I replied I wish I had known that.  I wound up ordering 50 feet which should help complete the task and he paid for the shipping.  I guess I'll get back on the task Friday.

I guess we are going to go ahead and get Jodi's fenders finished up and installed next.  I need to order the inner fenders, which happen to be on sale right now, and then get everything to powdercoat.  Once that is completed, installation can take place.

My work is making me take some mandatory vacation over the shutdown period.  Normally I work the two weeks of downtime and then take my vacation whenever I want.  They are letting me work two days of each down week to do my required inspections but I will have to use 5 vacation days to cover the rest of the time with the July 4th holiday covering one of the days.  Apparently this saves them money somehow.

We had a photoshoot scheduled for yesterday but with 25-30 mph winds, that would be disaster for hair so we rescheduled.  All I have scheduled today is a consultation with a client and then I have a shoot tomorrow with rain in the forecast.  It has to get better.

We had a nice weekend that started when I decided to work a half day on Friday so I could go home and have plenty of time to install my trail doors prior to the cruise on Saturday.  The directions were not very good, as is the case with most products these days.  Figuring out the first door proved the most difficult as it took a few tries to figure out how the latch was suppose to be assembled and oriented but once that was done, the other three doors went pretty smooth.  They look really good and they will be easier to transport on trips where we travel with the full doors on but want to take them off when at our destination.

The Pets for Vets cruise was a lot of fun and a good amount of money was raised.  There were 90 Jeeps in attendance and there were a lot of dogs as well.  Jodi and I met a couple other Jeep owners at an area Quiktrip which gave us a small convoy to the event.  When we arrived, there were probably 15 Jeeps already there and it was fun to watch all of the others roll in and line up as the morning progressed.

When we started to line up for the cruise I pulled out first and had my group follow me so we would be at the very front.  We would be directly behind the two lead Jeeps at the start of the line.  We rolled out of the parking lot with a motorcycle police escort who would stop traffic at all intersections so that we could all stay together.  I shot some video of the parade of Jeeps as we snaked our way through the community and side roads leading to our final destination which was Bass Pro Shops.  Once there, we had lunch and visited with others waiting for the raffle drawings to commence.  Jodi won a Purina bag full of dog stuff but we didn't win the winch we were hoping to.  It was a fun time and we will likely do it again next year.

I spent some of yesterday working on my rock lights installation.  After routing the first couple lights, I quickly found that the wire leads for the lights that will be mounted at the rear of the Jeep are too short.  I'm going to have to add wire to increase the length so that will be my task this week.  I'm not sure if I should solder them together or use butt joints.  The latter would be less work.

We are suppose to have a photo shoot today but the wind is suppose to be gusting 25-30 miles per hour which makes for a bad hair day.  We will likely reschedule.  We have a busy remainder of the month with lots of sessions scheduled.  If we can fill up July a bit more, our summer will be looking really good as August is pretty full right now.  

Jeep Jam was a fun event last night as there were over 100 Jeeps in attendance and a big crowd.  They had some junk cars set up to drive over and I had intended to do it until two Jeeps popped tires on sharp metal.  That changed my mind pretty quickly.  Jodi got quite a few comments on her hood.

My trail doors showed up yesterday before we left.  No ship notice, no UPS tracking info, nothing.  While we were at Jeep Jam, I received an email from them that my doors had been shipped.  That company is turning into one big joke.  I even told the 4 Wheel Parts guy that was at the event that.

So, this evening I guess I will be installing my trail doors and maybe I'll get the rock lights done this weekend.  I think routing all of the wiring to the SPOD is going to be the most difficult part of that process.  The Pets for Vets cruise is tomorrow and I'd like to have the doors on for that.

Lots of photoshoots next week and the temps are going to be in the low 90's.  Looks like I'll be sweating a little.

We are looking forward to jeep Jam tonight.  There are going to be a lot of Jeeps there and plenty of food, music and other activities.  They are having some giveaways too so maybe we will get lucky.

I spent the better part of my evening on a shoot with a client at their private property.  They purchased a 3 acre lot in a gated community about 50 minutes from our home and wanted some images of their son there.  The community is almost like a nature sanctuary with a big lake, waterfalls, a creek that runs through it and has a walking path that winds it's way throughout.  Dad had borrowed a golf cart for us and we traveled all around taking advantage of the locations that provided good photo opportunities.  At the end of the shoot, we set up a  drum set lakeside and captured some incredible images with a beautiful sunset and sky.  Dad sent me this behind the scenes shot.

My rock lights are scheduled to be delivered but still no word on my trail doors.  In this day and age, there is no reason to not ship an item within a day of the order for in stock items.  They want you to pay $9.98 rush shipping to get the order out the door quicker.  That is total BS.  I've already left them negative reviews on Google over my gift card.  I'm pretty done with them after all of this.  

The Pets for Vets cruise is shaping up to be a good one.  Last I heard, there will be over 70 Jeeps participating.   

Today I have a photo shoot with a client who plays tennis, drums, has a BMW Z4 and the family owns private property in a gated community that we are going to shoot at.  I think this is really going to be a great session.

Yesterday, I ordered my trail doors. I got the Body Armor Gen III doors and they hopefully will arrive this week.  I got them from 4WheelParts, which I really didn't want to do after the trouble I'm having with my gift card, but they were the cheapest when using the 10% off discount code they have.  This will finish off my Jeep for awhile.  The only other things I want to do in the future is beef up the front end.

We were smart to take Jodi's Jeep out yesterday instead of mine as we rain into a pretty good thunderstorm on our excursion downtown. It rained pretty good for a solid 20 minutes.  The weather man said there was a slight chance for a pop up storm.  I always go against them when making my plans.  They are idiots.

Yesterday I went to the dealership and found a different style of washer fluid nozzle that looked to be a better fit for Jodi's hood.  While at the dealership, I was able to get one to snap into place with a little pressure but the other was not going to fit.  When I made it back home, I really had no choice but to alter the size of the hole with a file and that allowed it to fit.  I guess I could have done that to both holes to use the factory nozzles it came with but that would have required significantly more alteration, but it would have saved me $55 for these new nozzles!

After dinner, I went to Home Depot and bought some PVC pipe and fittings to construct a holder to store my full doors.  It took me about an hour to do all of the required cutting and then assemble the parts.  I finished it off with pipe insulation and then transferred my doors from the living room to their new home in the garage.  By coincidence, the supplies to build this was also $55.  I was on a roll of some sort.

I have a photo shoot this evening and then I have to work my day job tomorrow which will make for a short weekend.  I really do not want the overtime any more.