Jake and Lee were on time (maybe even a few minutes early) and were very professional. They’re fully self contained with water and everything else they need to detail and wash the car interior and exterior. Jake asked me if there was anything special I was looking for when they arrived and I told him just to pay attention to details in the nooks and crannies.

The best part is they come out to the car location to perform their detailing services which is I should point out,  included in their price. I got the full monty which is called “the complete detail” including waxing, windows, vacuuming, shining up the tire rims…you know the whole shebang. It cost me $140 which I thought was reasonable.

Oh, and in case you have a leather car interior and are wondering what product to use, they recommend and use Lexol. It’s commonly used in the car cleaning industry. Leather in cars, unlike furniture at home can get a lot of sun and heat exposure especially in the hot Raleigh summers. Especially with the windows rolled up, this can cause cracking issues which would be a huge bummer. So using the right products can make a big difference.

Inside my computer

I spent a good part of my weekend getting my new computer setup properly with the help of my friends from Raleigh’s Tech Wizard. ‘Properly’ is the key word here. Anyone can turn on a computer and get it going. But getting it running optimally is a different story. I can honestly say I have a love/hate relationship with computers.  Is it just me?
I wasn’t born with computers around… but mid way through schooling, students back then like me dabbled in these can’t-live-without-machines. And somewhere along the way, the internet was born. For me that was in college. And sadly, no where along the way did I learn about how to operate a computer. Instead I was offered and took classes on HTML and outdated QBasic programming (what is that?). I mean, what good are those skills if you can’t get the computer to work?

And, I’ll admit I’m pretty impatient when it comes to waiting for internet pages to load up. In our fast paced society we’re used to instant access, things moving quickly…it’s all about speed. But I’ve learned to slow down! Because when you move too quick, you run into trouble if you don’t know what you’re doing. I know just enough of my computer to be dangerous but not enough to troubleshoot strange issues that come up. I mean how many updates are there out there? It’s not like there’s one manual to go through. Every application has its own and our technology world is a ‘moving part’ …and to make it more confusing, everything computers is a work in progress…  Like we’re part of an computer experiment and generations later, the people then (maybe our kids’ kids) will look back and see how much we had to figure out on our own.

But for now, the challenge we face is if you get to know how to do a computer process, don’t get comfortable with it because it’ll change for sure. That’s something you can be certain about. And how do you know which pop up messages on your screen are legit and which decisions you should make when setting up the computer and maintaining your computer? When you sign up to own and use a computer, you’ve decided to make your life more complicated with its many benefits… and it’s ugly world of issues (especially if you’re not a techie). That’s where tech support wizards can help us novice computer users. Lemme just pay someone to make my life easy.
Apparently I had a virus on my old computer which recently got cleaned up with the help of my friends at Tech Wizards. They’re Raleigh computer guys (and gals I suppose but I haven’t run into one). I’ve used them a few times. Here’s Josh working on my old computer. Trust me that computer had never been opened before so we found some dust and a few cobwebs… but luckily no spiders (web crawlers maybe).

Tech Wizard's Josh and my old computer

Josh at Tech Wizards installed everything I needed and gave me a computer education so I could rid of my bad practices and start using best practices. I’m living proof…it’s never too late. By the way, how often do you cleanup and maintain your computer? I ‘surf the net’ quite a bit, so for me, monthly maintenance seems reasonable.
But anyway, the lesson Josh provided ny answering my questions while he was doing installation, took away some of the uncertainty that I had of what I was doing on a regular basis. A computer “tech support” service like Tech Wizard is different then say Geek Squad at Best Buy that I’ve used before too.

At Geek Squad and similar computer help desks, they don’t come out to your site and they don’t sit side by side with you and go over things. They just have a sales counter to accept computers and then they do everything in the back. You just basically drop off your computer and they’ll recover your hard drive or do what you need with the computer. That’s fine if that’s what you’re looking for, but it doesn’t help you with preventing future computer issues from happening because you don’t learn anything that way.

And things always crop up for me.  Sometimes I think the computer knows I’m not a techie and tries to play tricks on me.  When I get technical help, that’s when it starts behaving again.  That’s why it’s good to have a tech support service handy.  And, I’m not talking about spending a few hours on the phone with Dell either.  That’s a whole ‘nother story.  Just a quick tip: if you get a Dell business grade computer instead of a Dell home use computer, you’ll be able to talk with an American or a tech whose first language is English.  But that brings up another point…do Mac users run into many issues?

When you pull up, that’s where the ‘red carpet’ treatment begins.  You should have everything ready to go ‘cause there’s someone attentively waiting for you. Then you get escorted to the waiting room. Lemme clarify…there’s the TV waiting room and the quiet waiting room. Both have ample plush leather seats. And there’s a lounge where you can get your complimentary sweets…like biscotti and cookie assortment. There’s also complimentary coffee, sodas, and apples. The bathroom is like a hotel bathroom – well kept.

TV Lounge Next to Quiet Lounge

You forget where you are. One time I watched a good part of the Wimbledon match on a TV bigger than mine at home.

The technician/customer service rep. tells you what is going to happen and how long it should take so that if you don’t wanna wait, you can get hooked up with a loner car. What convenience! If you choose to stay and wait, someone will come get you in the timeframe they originally quoted you. Then you go home and your car is all washed on the outside and vacuumed on the inside. Now, that’s service!

Now how does that compare to sitting for well over an hour or a two at a shop where there’s barely enough plastic chairs to sit on that are hard as rocks on your butt? There’s maybe a small TV that’s almost always on a generic news station ‘cause there’s usually more than a few people waiting. The shop smells like rubber tires and they do offer complimentary coffee as a self-service station…but it’s been sitting there for who knows how long and tastes like a hint of cigarette. …The bathroom is just a ‘lil better than a gas station bathroom. And to top it off, no one comes to provide an update until they call you to checkout after what seems to be eternity. Sounds like an incredible waste of half a day. Remember, you still have to drive back to where you need to go and did you count the time it took you to get to the shop? Oh, and if you don’t wait for your car, then you’ll have to find your own ride to and fro. Sound fun? Not to me, and I’m sure not fun for anyone.

I’m not saying get a Lexus. But I am saying, look at the entire package including maintenance when you consider a car. Me, I look for the “Lexus Experience”. Not the lemon experience.

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