Michael Roebuck's Blog

Grand Bear Lodge & Indoor Water Park opened last year and I took my wife and in-laws out to dinner at Grand Bear Lodge - Jack's Place last summer. We all swore we'd never go back. The food was terrible and the service was worse. I ordered a $23 Filet Steak and it was tough and tasted like Worcester sauce. After I complained, they made me another that tasted the same. Now, I understand restaurants have bad days and bad meals, I'm not unreasonable. But after a customer complains, wouldn't you at least come back and check on him? We were completely ignored the rest of the night. (Probably a good thing, because I would have complained again) The waitress was avoiding us and the manager never came back. The only person who gave a damn was the hostess; Marianne. I basically paid for $95 worth of crap. My mother in law even called the cook the next day. He told her that's how he prepared the food. The Worcester sauce was some secret recipe I guess. By the way, my mother in law had the Walleye which had more bones than fish and my wife had the same. The only good meal was the Italian Beef sandwich my father in law had. I must say though, I thought the iced tea was very good. Regardless, we've never been back and we have no plans to either.

What has happened to customer service nowadays? Where has it gone and why do businesses feel they can crap on the customers? I guess because it's the only amusement park in the area, they can get away with it. If any of my employees treated a client like we were treated, I'd be horrified. And I hope I don't treat people that way.

Well, I kind of broke my promise never to return. Grand Bear Lodge recently opened an indoor amusement park called Grizzly Jack's Enchanted Forest. They have wristband nights every Thursday night through April so I took my kids there last night and had a really nice time. Now, I didn't eat anything, because I'll never eat there again. However the service from the ride attendants was excellent. We rode rides from about 5:30pm to 9:00pm. Since they only have about 9 rides, we rode them over and over and over again but we had a great time. My 5 year old, Malcolm, was not ready to come home and wanted to stay longer. It's all about the kids and for what they offered; I'd say they did a great job. It's no Six Flags Great America, but we knew that and there really isn't any comparison. In fact, it's probably not fair to even bring six flags into this discussion.

My only concern with Grizzly Jack's Enchanted Forest would be the sense of safety. I'm not saying the park is unsafe, but we are conditioned by other amusement parks that ride attendants walk around the ride before it begins and they physically check safety harnesses by giving them a "tug." Once the ride ends, the attendant announces to raise your hands away from the safety bar as it releases to avoid getting your hand pinched.

Many of the Grizzly Jack's Enchanted Forest attendants would simply glance around to get a general look that all looked ok. Very rarely did they actually check the harness, even on my kids. (One attendant however, was extra cautious. Kudos’ to him!) And one ride in particular has a rather forceful automatic safety bar release. If you aren't ready for it, it gets your attention and could certainly pinch a hand. It just didn't give me, the Dad, an overall impression that safety was a primary consideration. Maybe that's because I'm a Dad now and think of that stuff. But remember, I'm not a safety expert and we had a great time! If ever in the area, I recommend you check it out. (The amusement park, not the restaurant!)

I think the managers of Grizzly Jack's Enchanted Forest should give the managers of Jack's Place lessons in customer service!

I'll go back to the amusement park. Not the restaurant.

I had baby duty last night. My oldest son and daughter had a band concert and I really wanted to get a jump on reading Rob Snell's new book, "Starting a Yahoo! Business for Dummies." Rather than attend the concert, I volunteered to stay home with the baby and read my book. How hard could that be?

My wife runs a daycare out of the house and she is an absolute goddess when it comes to children. She's definately the nurturing one of the family. The two older kids are also great with the younger ones and are quick to babysit and watch over them (for a price of course). Because of this, I get to avoid many (all) of the duties that other fathers might have to contend with. Case in point, I had never been left completely alone with the baby before.

Anyway, my wife takes all the kids to the concert except Zoe, our 1 yr. old. I give Zoe a snack and she crawls around at my feet while I start reading. All is good. Then I smell it.

No sooner have I gotten comfortable when Zoe stands up, giggles and smells awful. As if on cue from my wife, who just left, she determines it's time for me finally change one of her diapers. As I said before, I've been extremely lucky so far with the kids and maybe changed a dozen or so diapers in my life. Now, Zoe doesn't just stand there and wait for me to change it, she has to stand up and fall down on her butt a few times as if to make sure she makes a nice mess for me.

No fear though. A box of baby wipes later, she's as good as new. I'm not afraid to change diapers, I just don't have to.

But that's not the problem I was left with. Since she was so messy, I couldn't put her sleeper back on. And since I couldn't find where mommy puts her sleepers, I had to make an executive decision. I found a pair of pants and a onesie. This would do until mommy comes home and finds another sleeper. Zoe and I have a little game we play when I dress her. It's called, "Wiggle around as much as you can and make Daddy really frustrated while he tries to dress you." Basically, the more she wiggles and moves around, the happier she is. I manage to get her clothes on and eventually realize she has a onesie on backwards and snapped over her pants. You think that worried me? Heck No! as far as I was concerened, she was dressed!

We played for a few minutes and then she put me to bed. Rob's book will have to wait a little while longer. A 10 minute job took about an hour.

No regrets though. Kids are pretty cool.

Remember the old Virginia Slims cigarette ads? The slogan was, "You've come a long way, baby." I feel this slogan is a good reference to the search engines.

The Search Engines have certainly come a long way since the early years. Most of my clients sell products and we certainly understand the benefits of a top position and "being found" when a potential customer could be looking for your product. Without search engines, many of these companies wouldn't exist.

But there is a whole other side of the Internet. The information side. I obtained my Master's Degree with the majority of the research found on the Internet so I'm not saying information doesn't exist at all, but sometimes it can be damn hard to find. For example, with the recent adoption of our 5th child, our house has all of a sudden gotten very small. Quite amazing actually. One day it was fine, the next day it's too small and before I knew what was happening, we have a for sale sign outside.

I'm pretty high maintenance so I don't want to be house poor and I like having access to a little cash to go out to eat or buy a new washing machine when the current one breaks. My wife has found several beautiful homes to move into, and my job is to decide what we can afford. I'm not a seasoned home buyer as I only bought one house in my lifetime and it's a pretty daunting task. The realty Web Sites makes it easy to determine the house payment with a handy mortgage calculator. What could be easier than that? We find a beautiful house and it's within our budget. I talk to a few co-workers about our find and slowly realize there is something wrong. Taxes, Homeowners insurance and PMI insurance. I better do some research. Since I work for a living, I do my research at night.

A quick search ought to give me tax rates right? Wrong. I couldn't find anything about the tax rates or how to calculate them. A call to the county assessor told me the tax rates in my area range from 6 to over 9%. That can add up to a lot of money every month and it will only get higher. We also thought of building so I needed information on a well. Not much relevant information on my area found at all. And don't get me started on house plans. Lots of companies selling house plans, but don't expect to find one based upon a proposed house budget.

After a couple weeks of house hunting with our new tax and insurance information, we thought about just adding on to the house we currently own. You think the Internet was helpful in giving me ideas on the cost to re-build a bigger garage? What about adding a shower to an existing bathroom? The Internet just told me a bathroom would cost somewhere between $9 to $11,000.

To sum up my rambling, you can find lots of information on the Internet and many comparison sites if you are looking for a specific product. But if it's specific information you want, sometimes a phone call during business hours is the way to go.

I was reading Charles Mangin's blog about how he has redesigned hotel soap to be more user friendly. I agree with him and encourage you all to read his blog. It can be found here: (http://www.mentalhygiene.com)

He got me thinking about my own hotel questions. I travel fairly frequently and tend to stay at hotels for mutiple nights. I don't know the statistics of multiple stays vesus one night stays but perhaps if I got a full size bar of soap and the maid didn't replace it every day, it would end up being just as cost effective as the maid replacing my tiny bar of soap daily.

Also, what's the deal with the signs hotels place on the beds asking us to conserve water by re-using my towel? I currently have 5 kids. To save my wife time, I use my towel multiple times at home. However I refuse to pay for a hotel room and live by the same standards. I want a clean towl for every shower, night and day. In fact, I even opt for clean sheets daily when I can. I also turn the heat or AC on high because I'm not trying to cut my cost down. A hotel to me is a mini vacation. Even if it's a business trip. I will not scrimp and save in my hotel room.

Lastly, the ultimate hotel mystery. Where do all the half used rolls of toilet paper go? You know, the maid replaces the toilet paper roll when it gets low, not empty. Where does the roll go?

It's time for me to get with the times. I've been a regular reader of several blogs now and sometimes I agree wholeheartedly, and other times I cringe. I figurerd it was time for me to start my own blog. I'm not going to try to compete or reinvent the wheel, but I will give everyone my 2 cents worth.

So sit back, grab a drink and get ready for yet another blog to subscribe to!