Zappos.com part 2, Rockies and South Dakota

Received my shoes 25 hours after ordering them.  I was very, very impressed.  Overnight delivery up here in the mountain (or even in Alamosa, for that matter) usually takes 2 or even 3 days as we are some 170 miles from the nearest major airport – in Pueblo.

I had seen an interview with Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) on a TV show a while back and mentioned to zappos.com rep how much I admired his business philosophy and how he treated his employees as well as his care of his customers.  Brooke, the rep, said that Tony had just written a book called “Delivering Happiness” and offered to send me a copy also with overnight shipment.  I accepted the offer and finished reading the book this morning – took me two days. 

I can honestly say it is one of the most inspiring books I have ever, ever read!!!!!!!!!!!!  I would highly recommend this book to anybody as it is truly life changing if taken to heart. His Core Values to running a business, or your life, is very good. Having a goal of striving for and bringing happiness to your customers, employees, vendors and investors and in the end wanting to change the world through trust, caring and being a little weird is refreshing!

I want to see zappos.com continue to grow and succeed so I will be checking with them first for my online purchasing needs.  They are now a wholly owned subsidiary of amazon.com as of July, 2009, so it’s all in the family now, so to speak.

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For those of you who have followed this blog for a while – remember back in March when I wrote about going to Spring Training (click on that link to see the blog post) in Tucson and the rookie pitcher named Matt Reynolds that we had met and spent some time with, who was trying out with the Colorado Rockies baseball team? (Man, that was a long sentence!).

Well, last night we were watching the Rockies play ball in Los Angeles and all of a sudden they were talking about the departure of outfielder Brad Hawp (pronounced Hop) and “bringing up” a new pitcher named Matt Reynolds!  Boy, were we surprised! 

They then showed a short interview they had with him that afternoon and commented on what a nice fellow he was.  I felt like a proud mother myself…Matt had made it to the major league.  He pitched to two Dodgers in the eighth inning and struck them both out…good first showing. We are so anxious to see him play again.

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Went to the bank the company uses to buy cashier checks to pay for our South Dakota license plates and were told they don’t take cash.  I think it is that stupid Homeland Security stuff that they have to have a paper trail for any cashier checks….for $24.15 for gosh sakes????

Anyway that necessitated a trip down to Del Norte where our bank has a branch office and we were able to use a check to purchase our cashier checks.  Then back to South Fork to visit Rich and Terri and use their campgrounds copier to copy all the necessary paperwork to get the plates.  We celebrated sending off the packet by having a hamburger and fries at the Malt Shoppe – whose sign says they are opened “till Dark 30” … cute, huh?

So we’re all done being Colorado residents except for the shouting….or maybe except for the driver’s licenses, which we’ll get around Sept 14th.  Our buddies, Rich and Terri, are leaving Tuesday to take a fast 3 day trip up and back to Rapid City, South Dakota, to get their driver’s licenses….they already have their plates.

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Our daughter, Beth, (the one on the right---that’s our other daughter, Christine, on the left) is coming up to visit us from Santa Fe tomorrow (did I tell you she broke her engagement? well now you know she did).  So Jim went over to Big Meadows Reservoir to fish for some rainbow trout to feed her tomorrow. Jim will have to make her some biscuits and gravy for breakfast Sunday as it is her favorite!  We’ll make a trip to Santa Fe before we leave the area to see Christine, our grands and great-grands, as it will be next April before we see them again.

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Well, that’s enough babbling for today, folks! Thanks for sticking around to read it all.

Remember, you are loved and buy from zappos.com!