HP, HP, HP...oy

So I've sent my laptop in earlier this week for a repair. As I've said before, this will be the last time I give HP a chance to repair it. Last night I got an email from Derrick, who had commented on my blog before. I suggested he go through HP's normal customer service and asked him to update me. Well, HP gave him a new laptop. A 14.1" dv4t. So yeah, I'm annoyed. So annoyed I emailed the PR guy that emailed me. I want a refund. Let's see what they do.




Hello J.P.,

I obtained your email address from a comment you left on my blog (http://truparad0x.blogspot.com/search/label/hp%20stinks). When I first received your comment, I was surprised at how my blog was able to reach HP's PR firm. At the time, I received a response and thought things would be fine. When I did speak with executive support they pushed me back to a case manager.

The case manager was pretty helpful at first and arranged for a free repair plus the stick of memory that HP had taken from me. After waiting two weeks and still not seeing my RAM, I called the case manager again. This time, I just told him I wasn't pleased with the service nor the two-month time frame without my sole computer (that I do my finances on, my budgeting, my emailing, ...pretty much my life). I asked for a refund and told him I would send the laptop to him. He told me blankly that HP was not responsible for loss of data and time and that a system buyback was not an option at that point. I asked him how he would've felt if he was out of a computer for two months. He repeated coldly that HP was not responsible for loss of data or time. He can only offer a repair.

As you can see, I was pretty frustrated and annoyed. But seeing how he won't give me a refund, I conceded to the repair. I asked him what would happen if after the repair my laptop's issue resurfaced (on my blog, I was able to connect to other HP customers who had issues resurface several months after a repair). He told me the repair was guaranteed for 90 days; after that it would be considered an out-of-warranty laptop. I was surprised at how incapable HP saw their own repair team to guarantee their own repairs for a measly 90-days. Three months? I was out of a laptop for 2/3 that time.

To make matters a little more unbearable for me, one of the people who read my blogs had the same issue with the same model. He thinks HP made a defective product. Anyway, I suggested he contact a case manager before writing to the CEO (even with my bad view of HP, I wanted him to go through the normal chain of customer service before escalating). He just wrote to me to let me know that HP replaced his laptop with a different 14.1" model. But here I am, two and a half months without a workable, dependable machine.

As I told my case manager, even if they do repair my laptop, I'm not confident enough in HP to believe my laptop will continue to work. And apparently after 90 days, I would be sh*t out of luck. That's why I asked for a refund. Why keep repairing it? This is the third repair. Either the repair center can't do their job or the machine is obviously defective.

Anyway, I wrote to you because I feel you might actually care about this and could help me in some way to get my refund. My laptop is currently with HP repair.


Sincerely,




[Dan]

Know your limits

This past week, I had been "resting" my tweaked right shoulder. I determined that it probably is my rotator cuff as certain rotations hurt, while "normal" shoulder movements just felt weird. Having come from a background of lifting and working out, I knew that in my compromised state, I would risk further injury by working out. So I opted to avoid all upper body workouts last week. Here were my mini-workouts:

Tuesday: squats (30), lunges (10 each)
Wednesday: calf raises (45)
Thursday: squats (30), lunges (10 each)
Friday: side kicks (10 each), front kicks (10 each)

I did some rotations Saturday night to see how my shoulder felt, and I could hear clicking in my shoulder. So it seems like that whole joint is kinda loose. Normally, for any pulls or other types of "major" soft tissue injury, I wait a minimum of 2 - 3 weeks before attempting to workout again. But besides the clicking, the shoulder feels decent. I decided that this week, I would do heavily shortened versions of my normal workouts and see how it goes (instead of 3 sets of 10, I would try 3 sets of 3). I'll probably start on my chest workout first since it's not as involved as my BBS workout. The BBS workout can come later in the week.

I haven't been able to fit any cardio in last week. I've been trying to get some biking in, but scheduling got in the way. Hoping to do better this week. We'll see how it all goes.

American or Chinese?

With all this hubbub of the Beijing Olympics, I can't help but contemplate my nationality and ethnicity. Being born and raised in Boston, the law and myself considers me an American. But with parents and grandparents that still heavily associate and identify with the Chinese people, things get...tricky, especially when issues involve USA and China.

For example, I was watching the men's and women's gymnastics. I rooted for the USA team. But I can't help but feel this nagging feeling that quite a bit of Chinese people in American were rooting for the Chinese team. This reminded me of the time I went to a Celtics game many years back. It just so happened my brother bought tickets to a Boston-Houston game. As we were going up the stairs to our seats, people passing by would ask if we were rooting for the Celtics. We were pretty confused. Who else would we root for? However, by the time we took our seats and the game started, I saw exactly why we were asked that. Half the center was filled with Chinese people. They were rooting for Yao Ming.

Every Olympics, the press invariably focuses on the medal count. These Summer Games were about how many medals USA would get versus China. Again, I would root for USA to get more. But when I went home for dinner this past weekend, I heard my family saying that China got quite a bit and they were pretty happy about it. I know I'm Chinese, but I just don't see the point of rooting for or siding with someone just because of their blood. I mean, these same athletes are part of a country where a lot of controversy had surfaced (faking performances, possibly violating the age requirement, protests). I like Chinese people and all, but I'm not a big fan of China. I was born American, and I feel great pride when the National Anthem comes on. Heck, I would think even nationalized citizens should feel that way. Why else be nationalized and swear an oath of loyalty?

I guess everything boils down to race and the issues that still surround it. Most of the time I forget I'm Chinese. I forget that to bigoted people that I am different. They see a yellow face and they think, "Oh, he's not American." But America shouldn't have a single face. To me America is a pot of stew. Many different ingredients, but together, very delicious. I don't like to choose between my nationality and my ethnicity. I like to think that as an Asian American, I add a diversity and different strength to all that is America.

But I guess if it ever comes down to it, I would bleed red, white, and blue.

HP Makes Money, Leaves Customers in the Dust

So apparently, HP's profit rose to $2 billion. Too bad they scrimped on customer service along the way. My situation with my laptop hasn't improved much. After waiting 12 days for my stick of 512MB RAM to come, I called my case manager last night. He looked up my case and told me to send in my laptop; he will let the repair team know to put in the RAM there.

I'm up to my neck with this HP crap. So I told Steven that I want to forget the repair and want HP to refund my money. He tells me that the repair is the only option at the moment and that buying back the laptop is not on the table. I explain that I have been out of a computer for two months. I ask him to consider what it would feel to have his computer out of commission for two months. He tells me blankly that HP is not responsible for lost time, data, etc. He reminds me that the repair is the only option right now. I ask him what would happen if they do manage to repair my laptop, but it fails again. He tells me that there will be a 90-day warranty on the repair. That's how confident they are in their repair. Ninety days.

While sitting on the phone fuming. I decided I should follow the standard protocol for now. Then when I escalate the issue to a third party (*cough* BBB *cough*), I can say that I've tried all I could with HP's support system. I really am not confident in their repair center, but I tell Steven that I will send in the laptop and see what happens. My system booted for a bit early this week, but last night it stopped again. Sometimes it boots again with the how discharging static buildup crap.

So what's the lesson, class? Buy Dell. Buy IBM. Heck, convert and buy Mac. But don't, DON'T buy HP/Compaq.

And make that snappy!

So last week, my friend and I made it into Davis Square to try out Snappy Sushi, a chain of sushi restaurants. We walked in and I was a bit weirded out by the giant wood table to the right where they serve customers. I opted for the bar hoping for a sushi bar experience. We ordered a tuna tartare (recommended by my friend), some nigiri, and a chirashi that I'd been craving for a couple years (pretty long time, but other places were charging $13-20 for a bowl of rice and fish while Snappy charged $9.99).

The decor of the place was pretty nice. It was modern colors and had a zen-like atmosphere. Wait/host staff was young and diverse. I looked behind the bar and was pleased with what appeared to be a Japanese head chef. His assistants were Hispanic, but what do you expect in Davis Square. Sitting at the bar, I was hoping the head sushi chef would at least acknowledge me, but no such luck. It was pure show to have the chefs there. They were just part of the assembly line and did not provide the sushi bar experience that I like at Chung Ki Wa in Medford Square. No biggie, I've only been to a couple of places where you can get that experience, so I don't expect it.

Anyhoot, the quality of the sushi was very nice for the price. I didn't get any makis, but the nigiris were well done. The tartare was interesting for a sushi place. It was pretty much tuna on top of tempura crumbs on top of avocado. It was a good play on texture, but I got most of the flavor from the crumbs. The chirashi was good, but you can't really mess up chirashi. It's sashimi on rice. The one big difference in this place was that they use brown rice for their sushi rice. It gave the sushi a slightly different taste, but the texture wasn't different at all. They cooked the brown rice very well; I would've preferred a little bit more sushi vinegar, but it was still enjoyable.

Overall, the sushi was presentable, tasty, and a pretty good deal. I would definitely come here again for pretty decent sushi for a good deal.

Gotta keep an eye on my shoulder

I had a pretty good week last week in terms of fitting workouts in. I did mostly mini-workouts at work, but they were pretty effective:

Monday: Squats (30), lunges (5 each)
Tuesday: Pullups (8, 6), calf raises (30)
Wednesday: Squats (30), lunges (5 each)
Thursday: Pushups (40)

At home I managed to do some railing chest dips (20, 10), heating pipe chinups (10, 10), and heating pipe pullups (3) on Wednesday. I also did a BBS workout at home while watching the Olympics Thursday night. Only problem is I tweaked my shoulder during my improvised chest/triceps workout last Sunday, August 10. I thought I was fine, but during my BBS workout I felt something in my right shoulder. Don't know how to describe as it's not a pull or a sprain. I guess I would call it a nagging. So I decided to rest up over the weekend and not do anything till at least today or tomorrow. Didn't really succeed in that because I wound up playing some games and tossing a football around during a friend's birthday BBQ.

So with this tweaked shoulder, I have to be very careful with my workouts. Well, that's if I want to risk it this week at all. With it tweaked, it is a lot easier to pull it. I had this feeling before. I could probably just skip BBS workouts until it feels better, but then again chest workouts include shoulder exertion too. We'll see.

I also have to watch my diet. I ate pretty badly over the weekend. Need to be more controlled there. Need to cook more and eat out less. Tough to change body composition if I'm only working out.

Mob mentality blows

Apparently, people in Montreal hates the police as much as some people in the US does. A fatal shooting by the Montreal Police sparked riots where dozens of people were arrested and an officer was hot in the leg. Too bad the neighborhood where all this happened is called the "Bronx of Montreal". Now I don't know exactly what happened when the fatal shooting occurred. And I don't think anyone will except for the people involved, the officers, and witnesses. And I know there are police officers that abuse they're power a bit much. But what I hate about hearing things like this are the people who take advantage of certain situations and do certain bold things that they wouldn't do otherwise.

Say this guy is stepping up to you. What are the chances you will start something? Probably slim, unless he crosses the line. Now say you were with 5-10 of your buddies. Makes it much easier to say something you normally wouldn't right? What annoys me about this is when people take it to extreme. People who think they are really tough because they got their "crew" with them. Or people who do things because no one is looking. I really hate that. If you are not brave enough to things alone, don't do them otherwise.

Take the riots in Montreal. It sure is easy to attack police officers when you grossly outnumber them. And I am so sure that the mob takes advantage of the fact that the officers won't use lethal force on mobs because THEY have to be the responsible ones. I mean, have you ever seen those police videos on TV where hundreds of people attack dozens of police officers? It's insane. Sure, the Montreal Police MIGHT have acted out of line with the fatal shooting. But we don't know what happened. Let the board investigate. Let due process take place. These people have this skewed view of police and brutality that they jump at anything to punish them. And if any civilians are hurt, guess what happens? "Police use excessive force" or "Police brutality injures civilians" It's really bullsh*t. We give so much crap to the people who risk their lives serving the public. Then when something happens, we run to them for help.

I hate it when a group of people mug someone. I mean, they're such cowards for outnumbering someone. You can't be tough if you can't do it alone. I hate it when people do things when they know they can get away with it. You know, the people on internet forums who are so tough. Or the people who shout insults at you from a moving vehicle. Or kids who throw Gatorade on your car because they think no one is looking only to sheepishly apologize when I run out and confront them for it. Oy!

I'm not even sure if this post is coherent anymore...

Another war coming?

Don't know if anybody else has been following the Russia-Georgia conflict, but it is not ending anytime soon. There's supposedly a cease-fire agreement, and Russia has claimed they have ordered a halt to military operations. However, Georgia is still reporting attacks inside their country. I just saw a headline for three sunken ships too. This is pretty crazy.

The US and Europe are continuing telling Russia to stop, but reports indicate we don't have much to threaten them with. Russia apparently is pretty self-sufficient, so most we can do politically is take them out of G8 and boycott their events. But you never know, next thing you know, the superpowers are going to butt in with military forces. It's not looking too good.

I also just read an article stating how this might jeopardize our access to the International Space Station (ISS). If you don't know already, NASA is grounding the space shuttle fleet in 2010. We have an agreement to allow us access to ISS via Russian Soyuz spacecrafts, but that expires in 2011. After that, the ISS will be in sole control of the Russians. That doesn't sound good either.

Oy...

How long can you hold on?

On Pandora:
Radiohead - "True Love Waits"


Ever press the palm of your hand to the faucet and then turn the water on? Most times you can stop the water for a brief second before it sprays in your face. Even if the water flow was just a trickle. Ever grab a handful of sand at the beach and hold on really really tight? You can never keep it all in huh?

I feel like things are like that in life. You can try to get a hold of things, try to keep them the way you want to. But you can't stop an unyielding force, no matter how small. It just eventually builds up and goes everywhere. Try as you might to control things, to correct things. It never works if you're pushing against the flow. Take having too many people in one living space. Friction will occur. It's inevitable. What can you do? Keep being the middleman and mediate things? It may be natural to keep solving problems, to keep fixing things. But sometimes it's just plain broken. Or take someone that is leaving. Can't hold them back. No way. Just gotta let them go.

Blegh. Mindless rambling...

What RAM?

I went home briefly last night to pickup my sister for dinner. As I walked in to say hi to everyone, I looked through my mail. I saw the box for my HP repair shipment, but I didn't see anything else. No sign of my 512 RAM. To be fair, my case manager did say the box might show up first. And I didn't check with anyone at home to see if there was something else that came. So when I go home again, I'll check the house to be sure. That RAM better show up!

The longer this HP case goes, the more I'm finding out how HP's technical support is lacking for a lot of customers. I wrote earlier that Googling "HP Sucks" will give you quite a bit of reading material for bit. There's even a guy that went so far as to "review" sales of HP laptops with "HP Sucks". He must have had a horrible experience. I also got a comment on my previous HP post from a guy that's having a similar issue with his laptop. Apparently, he will be asking for a refund.

Where does my laptop stand? Well, I spoke too soon last time. I thought it was sporadic and booted once in a awhile. But now it doesn't boot at all again. Nothing. I've tried charging the laptop. I've tried HP's "discharging static buildup" method. Doesn't work. So I've already decided that this repair will be the last. If HP can't repair it, I will ask for a new laptop or a refund (with HP's reliability, I think I want the refund). I know the case manager said he will keep repairing it until it's fixed, but economically it's more efficient for HP to just refund me my $700 (they're lucky I bought it on sale). I mean, how much is it to keep sending a laptop back and forth? How much is it to send me the boxes to ship my laptop to them? How much is it to have their repair guys keep looking at it and not repairing my laptop? HP can refund my money, and they don't have to deal with this laptop anymore. Case closed.

But let's just see what happens with this repair. Then again, who's to say how long this repair will last? What if it breaks down later on? Oy. Why can't we buy a laptop and have the faith that it will last until it becomes obsolete? Oh right, you can if you bought a Dell...

Dumbbells are a man's best friend

I haven't been back to the gym since I went with my brother. It's silly, but I do try. I have a gym bag that's packed with all the gym essentials. To be fair, I did try one day, but I wanted to buy a lock first so I can change there. I have a lock already, but I forgot the combo. Don't you hate when that happens? Anyhoot, I wound up spending an hour looking for a lock (I wanted the spinning rings type from Master Lock). By the time I got a lock, it was late and I went home to prepare for work the next day.

Last week was much better. I had a swimming lesson on Monday. That went pretty well, but I learned that goggles are really nice to have. I like keeping my eyes open, but for the rest of the night after the lesson, I couldn't see farther than 5 feet. It was either the chemicals from the pool water or that my eyes tried to hard to focus underwater so it was stuck that way. Thursday night, I couldn't make it to the gym, but I have some nice dumbbells at home that I can set to up to 40lbs each. I did a BBS workout at 30lbs. That was actually quite nice. I did three sets each of side raises, bent over raises, front raises, bent over rows, shoulder presses, biceps curls, and shrugs. I could do more with for the rows, presses, and shrugs, but I hate adjusting the weight mid-workout. Those screw thingys bug me.

Last night while watching the US womens team qualify at the Olympics, I was motivated to work out so I did an improvised chest work out. Did some elevated dynamic pushups, pushups, diamond pushups, and wide set pushups. Then I did some chest flies, triceps extensions, and threw in some situps. I took it easier near the end, because I started too hard with the elevated dynamic pushups and irritated my right shoulder. But it's fine now.

Overall it was an okay week. I didn't make it to the gym, but because I had dumbbells at home, I was able to get some decent workouts in. Also, I was able to fit some mini-workouts during my bathroom breaks at work. Obviously, I didn't do any cardio, so I need to focus on that a bit more this week if I could. I also need to hit the gym more so I can get heavier weights for my chest and back workouts. Ever since starting to workout around early high school, I favored my arms more, so my arm size is a bit disproportionate to my torso.

In other related fitness topics, ski season is coming up (I know that's not until end of November, but if you know me I think way ahead for skiing). I'm pretty excited about that. I had a decent run last season with four trips, but I'm hoping to make it out to the slopes a bit more this season. Trying to save some money now so I don't have to stretch myself to buy lift tickets. Fitness-wise, I'm going to do a lot more leg work during my mini-workouts at work. At this point I usually do body weight jumping squats, lunges, and calf raises for the next few months. This way by the time ski season starts, my legs are kinda ready for all those ski turns. If you don't ski, going down a long trail is like doing squats nonstop for a few minutes. Pretty exhausting.

In general, I'm hoping I'll be down to "fighting" weight by November 1, 2008. I currently hover around 187lb; I was as high as 189lb at one point. I'd like to get back to 172-177lb. That's about 10-15lb weight loss. I think that will come naturally as I increase my workouts and tweak my eating habits a bit. I should get back to doing chinups and pullups too. I used to do sets of 10 every other day when I had a pullup bar. Now I have a heating pipe in my living room that gets quite hot during the winter. Haha. But no pain, no gain!

HP actually called me

Believe it or not, I got a message from a Hewlett-Packard (her words) representative. She was calling from the Executive support area. I called her back with the order # she gave and she transferred me to a Case Manager. After speaking with him for a bit, he ordered a stick of 512MB RAM and asked if I needed anything else. I told him that I want my laptop looked at again as it decides when it wants to boot. I told him it appeared to not boot when it's plugged in. He arranged that and gave me his contact info. I expressed my concerns about the system being out of warranty, but he assured me that he will keep repairing it until it is fixed for no charge.

So far, this emailing the CEO thing was a good idea. Not to speak ill about off-shoring resources, but it was nice to speak to a representative that sounded like he was in the United States. Customer support is very important to consumers and I hope manufacturers in general understand this and stop off-shoring or outsourcing customer/technical support. As I've said earlier, Googling "HP Sucks" shows you how many people would not buy HP because of horrible customer/technical support.

Speaking of calling technical support, Woot.com was selling an HP Compaq laptop today. Clicking on the comments showed how many people are not pleased with HP/Compaq support. One of the posters even stated that systems shipped to retailers are considered "disposable" and support for these machines are directed to off-shore resources. For HP, you can tell when they have you call 1-800-HP INVENT. The poster goes on to say that the commercial systems have in-state support, as commercial systems are usually for businesses and manufacturers cannot afford to lose any business because support drove them away. I'm not sure if what the poster said is true, but it does make sense. If I were to piss someone off, I rather piss off one lonely guy than a guy or corporation that purchases in bulk. But it would make even more business sense to not piss anyone off at all!

Anyway, let's see where this next step goes. I just want my computer to work like it did when I bought it one short year ago. And yes, it was on sale when I bought it.

HP saga continues

Logged into Blogger today and saw a comment from some HP PR agency. They offered to connect me to the appropriate personnel to help with my issue. It's nice to know it's attracting people who seem to care. On the other hand, I still have not heard from a real person from HP regarding my email to the HP CEO.

Last night, while using my laptop, the power ran low. I plugged in the AC adapter and continued. Soon after it froze and wouldn't boot up. I tried it again this morning with the AC adapter unplugged but still no go. I'll let it sit till tonight and see what happens, but I'm not confident at all about it. You know what sucks though? I am out of warranty now. So even though I started with this in late June when I was still in warranty, HP never fixed my problem and won't fix it now without payment for services. How nice. I would think this is still the same issue, but who knows how they do business. But the one-year warranty worked out for them, didn't it?

Wanna know something else that's interesting? Google "HP sucks". Have you ever seen that many forums and comments about HP's technical support? Wow. And they're not good either.

Hey look, a response from the "CEO"

Got a response to my email to the CEO of HP:


On behalf of Hewlett-Packard we apologize for the difficulties you are experiencing.Your message has been forwarded to our Customer Escalation team who will review your case.
If there is more you would like to add, do not hesitate to call the HP Executive office in Palo Alto, California, Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM pacific time by dialing 1-800-756-XXXX, option #X

Sincerely,



CEO Customer Relations



I feel so loved...

Letter to HP CEO, Mark Hurd

I found an "Email the CEO" section on the HP website. Here's my email:


To Mr. Mark Hurd:

I am writing to express my frustrations with the support I have received in regards to my HP Pavilion DV2415NR laptop.

Around June 18, 2008, my laptop ceased to boot up. I located technical support on the HP website and submitted a repair request. Arrangements were made and I shipped my laptop to the HP repair center. There was a delay, but I received my laptop July 14. After taking it out of the box, my laptop still did not function. In fact, it was as if nothing was performed. I tried to read the paper that was included, but all it said was "replaced mlb" followed by gibberish which I assumed HP support would understand.

I located the number for support and called. I spent an hour on the phone explaining my situation to three HP representatives. Each seemed only specialized in one area, so I spend much of the time on hold for someone that could help me. Eventually, another trip to the repair center was arranged and my laptop went out again.

I received my laptop pretty quick this time on July 25. To my surprise, it booted up. However, it was slow. After it finished booting, I clicked on computer properties out of curiosity and noticed I now had 512MB of RAM. I shipped it to HP with 1GB! I reluctantly called HP support again and explained myself to three separate HP representatives again. This time I spent less time on hold. I spent a total of 10 minutes on hold, 2-5 minutes of talking, and 43 minutes of listening to silence while the representative "documented my case". I'm not quite sure how long it takes to type out "customer laptop was shipped to HP with 1GB RAM, but was returned with 512MB RAM", but I think 43 minutes is unreasonably long.

At the end of the call the representative told me a supervisor would call me within 24 hours, even though he told me earlier he would have a hardware representative to ship out the RAM. The call was on July 28, 2008. It is now August 5. I have not received a call, nor have I received my 512MB of RAM. This experience has left me with a slower system, and an overall lack of confidence in HP or my HP laptop.

It is to the point where I will no longer recommend HP to any of my friends and family anymore. I came from Dell systems thinking that HP is good too. I liked what HP did with they laptops and their emphasis on the entertainment experience. I even defended HP when my company IT consultant stated that "HP sucks...except for their printers...and maybe their servers". Now I'm not so sure I would do the same anymore. How can I recommend a company whose systems fail so much in one year? My friends' Dell systems are 3+ years old with no issues! How can I defend a company whose support is horrendous and slow? Each time I call, I reference the case number on the paper that was shipped with my laptop only to be chastised by the staff that it was not a case number. I spend an hour on each call and speak with multiple representatives. Why can't a technical support representative serve more than one area?

All I ask now is to be made whole. I want my 512MB of RAM back. I want another year of product support as I don't trust my laptop to survive another year. That's it. I won't ask for a refund, though my friends have suggested I do. I made a mistake in purchasing an HP, I will live with it. But I won't sit idle if something has been taken from me.

I hope other HP consumers have had better experience.

Sincerely,


[Dan]




I even had to shorten it because the form would only allow 3500 characters. I wonder if this would even do anything?

For all posts relating to this wonderful HP experience, go here.

Will I be a good father?

I think about life a lot, as I'm sure everyone else does. And naturally, I think about who I am as a person and how I'm doing. Specifically, I wonder if I'll be a good father.

Having been raised in a household where my parents worked most of the time and my grandparents taught me most of what I know, I didn't exactly grow up in a conventional American way. In fact, I would think this is how most first-generation Asian Americans were raised. My parents immigrated here and worked their butts off to provide my siblings and me with the best opportunities. It was a tremendous sacrifice on their parts to uproot their lives and work menial jobs in the US. Take my father. He leaves home no later than 8AM and doesn't arrive back at home till 9:30PM or later. My mother still works six days a week. They showed their parental love for us kids by working and making sure we have a roof over our heads and food on the table. To compensate for their absense, my grandparents took care of us and taught us the basics of life.

When I was 11, my mother had my sister. The difference in our age made my relationship with my sister different. Early on, it was mostly a sibling relationship. I enjoyed helping take care of my baby sister. We'd watch tv together, played together, and ate instant ramen together. But as years went by and I went from middle school to high school to college and to adult life, I found myself more and more in a parental role. My grandparents were getting older and didn't have the patience to raise another child. My parents were still in their work-and-make-money mentality, and they didn't really have a lot of parental experience. That left a lot of the teaching and raising to me. It was tough. It wasn't exactly a parent-child relationship, and that made it very difficult. When should I be a brother and listen or hang out? When should I be a "parent" and teach her lessons in life? The line was very blurry and I found myself going back and forth. It even caused friction at times. The only saving grace is that she is getting older (she turned 16 recently). I'm going from telling her what to do to guiding her. With age, she becomes closer to being a peer, a truer sibling.

But going back to my original thoughts. This little foray into parenting got me thinking. How will I fare when I have a child? I would be fully responsible (hopefully with a partner) for the upbringing of a child. How would things turn out? Will they rebel and turn into punks? Or will they appreciate my efforts and sacrifices as a parent? Then I think about Richard E. Hoyt Jr. and his father. Now that is an amazing story.

Rick has cerebral palsy and cannot speak or walk. But after entering a charity race with his father pushing him in a wheelchair for five miles, they've been in over 950 races including 25 marathons. Here is a link to an article Rick "wrote". There's also a video of their experiences. Now if that doesn't bring a tear to your eye. I don't know what will.

In the end, I don't know if I would have the courage and strength that Rick's father had. But I hope I would be a balanced father. Someone who would make sacrifices like my parents to provide for my children, someone who would teach and raise them, and someone who would take time to be there for them. Whether I'm out rolling in the grass or reading "The Little Engine that Could" for the hundredth time. Whether I'm teaching them how to ride a bicycle or yelling at them for little mishaps, I want to be there.