Prior to this intangible peace treaty, 19th century imperialism drew clear lines of separation between these two great nations. Through it’s strict policy of isolation, Japan remained untouched by western ways until the Treaty of Amity (1854). Although, feelings of mistrust and resentment continued to ride due to early U.S. Naval Leaders gunboat diplomacy upon Japan. In order to lessen tensions and restore peace, mutual Cherry and Flowering Dogwood tree offerings were given.

DC Attractions include multiple festivals, museums, monuments, and more. The National Cherry Blossom Festival, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) organization that coordinates, produces, and supports creative and diverse activities promoting traditional and contemporary arts and culture, natural beauty and the environment, and community spirit and youth education. It’s also begins peak season for an influx of tourists to Washington, also brought in by the thousands of historical landmarks, museums, and other buildings. Some of the most popular DC Tours include Hop-On-Off Double-Decker Bus, Discover DC Segway Safari, & Arlington Cemetery, and Washington DC After Dark.

The National Museum of Crime & Punishment, located in Washington, D.C. contains excellent depictions of historically famous crime scenes along detailed information concerning past wars, forensics, organized crime, and more. Feel free to stop by our website and get a preview of some of the most notoriously famous crime scenes in U.S. History. There’s plenty of information on featured exhibits in our crime library along with a vast amount of Crime Data at our Forensic blog.

I graciously took out my wallet to pay for it, even though I know Kaiser’s medical billing process is terrible. They definitely need medical billing training fast.  So remembering all the billing hassles I’ve already faced, I decided to ask what labs were being processed for my son and if I could get a receipt to prove what I’m paying towards. I explained how Kaiser’s medical billing process has double charged us in the past for the same lab work and we would like some kind of receipt and written documentation of what was being done and what we are paying towards.

The lady behind the counter proceeded to tell me that she could not give me that information because my son was between the ages of 12 and 17 years old, due to the children’s medical privacy act that HIPAA has made law. How can that be possible? To be forced to pay for something without having any idea of what I’m paying for. My son even asked to know what he was being tested for and gave permission for the woman to share the information with us, because he wanted our advice about the tests before they were done. She still refused to even give my son the receipt and printout of what lab work was being performed on him. So frustrated and in dismay, I expressed how ridiculous that was and went to wait.

As I went to sit down, I thought to myself this is going to be a medical billing nightmare and I decided to re-approach the medical billing agent.  As I walked up to the counter with my wallet in hand, I slightly tripped and my wallet flew over the counter. She jumped in exaggerated horror and proceeded to call security, as if I deliberately threw my wallet at her to hurt her. This medical billing agent moved back so fast I almost thought she was a fouled NBA star.

The supervising medical billing agent came out and immediately proceeded to help me, by explaining to me their process of billing procedures and the medical privacy act from HIPAA. Realizing that my son gave permission to us, the Parents, to know what tests were taking place and recognizing he was asking for our advice. The supervisor helped us not only to understand the medical billing “bull s**t”, but she got the written documentation I requested and told all of us what the labs were for.

If Kaiser is out there listening, I suggest you get your Medial Billing Training done properly and be sure to clarify to your medical billing agents that the children’s privacy act is basically voided when the child gives permission to the parents to have the information and give the child advise. I would also consider providing documentation of what someone is paying for at the time of service, no matter what. I’m sure you’re breaking some kind of law by blindly billing a client and trying to claim they owe whatever amount you want to claim they owe, hiding behind HIPPA. I’m sick and tired of paying for charges and then months later you being charged again for the same items. Worse yet, Kaiser’s medical billing department isn’t able to provide me receipts for where my payments were applied either. There is definitely something wrong with this system.

Laser hair removal is pretty popular these days. The company was interested in doing some trade out work; I thought to myself should I have laser hair removal done on my face?  I thought about for a moment and decided against it. The laser hair removal process wasn’t my thing.

Laser hair removal seems to be a very interesting process. I searched the Internet to see what kind of information I could find on it. There is a lot of information out there.  If you’re interested in having laser hair removal, I suggest you do your research before selecting a laser hair removal company.

Laser hair removal companies are located all over the country, including Brooklyn, New York and California, just to name a few. Something to consider if you really want unsightly hairs removed through the laser hair removal process.

After verifying it was a true red ring of death and taking a picture, I immediately called Microsoft and was routed to an outsourced call center.  During this conversation, I started to talk with the outsourced support agent.  The agent kept telling me “Thank you for your problem” and then couldn’t stop telling me “thank you,” “Please be patient,” and “We will solve you”. Seemed really odd, but hilarious.

After 45 minutes of waiting on hold for the outsourced call center agent to find a solution, he finally came back on the line with an answer of “Thank you for your problem and I am glad to solve you.” Trying to hold back my laughter, I said, “How did you solve me?”

The outsourced call center agent said, “Your device is out of warranty, but we have extended it to solve your problem and will fix it.”  The only thing I would have to do is get my own box for shipping the system back to them.

I found myself relating this whole experience to a movie I recently watched called “Outsourced.” In the movie, a company outsourced their call center to India. Which seems to be exactly what Microsoft has done with their support.  One part of the call was extremely familiar, because I asked the support rep where he was located and he told me Chi…caaaaa..go. That was one of the classic scenes in the “Outsourced” movie itself.

Outsourcing is Bad for American business. Outsourced call centers are even worse for a hard American worker like myself to deal with. Just dealing with a rep about a broken product is difficult enough in itself, but add an extreme language barrier of an outsourced call center agent and you’ve created and instantly unbearable situation.

One company that I highly respect, Apple, hasn’t resorted to outsourcing their call centers to a foreign county. Apple seems to know that customer service and the ability to understand the representative your talking to is vitally important to keeping customers.

While working on a client site, I had the rare opportunity to familiarize myself with the use of VoIP phones; what they are and how they work. Much to my amazement, they are pretty simple devices that require some knowledge of the Internet in general to get them working. These devices are not for the faint of heart.

I started out trying Vonage. Vonage was a decent system, but at $24.99 a month they have almost priced themselves out of the phone market.  The Vonage service was easy to use, simple voicemail, and the ability to email .wav files of your voice mails to you, but it has no teleconferencing ability.

Then I decided to try Skype. It costs about $30.00 a year, which is very affordable. At first it seemed to work well using it on the computer. After buying Skype’s hardware device, it seemed to really throw off the system and all of a sudden I was dropping calls, echo sounding, and clients complained that it sounded like I was talking in an aquarium. Skype’s ability to teleconference was pretty seamless and easy to use through the computer, but through the hardware device the handset never could recognize the key commands or work efficiently. This was a major downside to the product and service.

Vocalocity costs about $39.99 a month, plus buying their phone that costs around $199.00.  Well all I can say is “if you have the money to throw away, then this is the system you want”. The system is really efficient, easy to use, with 24×7 support and great teleconferencing abilities built in. To me, it’s a bit pricier than I wanted to pay.

Finally there is Ooma, Ooma is a device that you plug-in to your current high speed Internet connection and instantly get phone service for free. The device at the time I purchased it was a $399.00 one-time fee, which covered the device and unlimited calling in the United States. The major plus side of this device was that Ooma’s system controlled the throttling of bandwidth allocated to the unit. For example, if you’re on the phone and everyone in your office or family is downloading YouTube videos, Ooma automatically recognizes the telephone is priority over other Internet usages. Another feature that Ooma offers is the ability to be notified via SMS or email sent to you directly when a new voicemail arrives. I really love this feature because I’m always on the move or out and about and I never miss a call. There is only one down side to Ooma, there are no real teleconferencing abilities.

After comparing all the devices for quality, ease of use, and reasonable expense, Ooma wins hands down. Especially with no monthly service fee required to make phone calls. 

When it comes to teleconferencing, there are always great services to use such as freeconference.com that really take the work out of needing a device that does teleconferencing at all.

Every Tuesday, they write a Risk Management Watch article that is very informative. When A.E. Feldman blogs, it’s worth reading because they sure do know what they’re talking about.  If you get a chance, head over to their blog and see for yourself.

A lot of executive recruiting firms like to call themselves “headhunters“, which is the term used for recruiters.  It seems as if a lot of executive recruiters are placing more of their efforts in to Search Engine Marketing space.  A.E. Feldman has the most knowledgeable staff I have ever seen when it comes to marketing, social media, and executive placement. They know what they are doing.

If you are an executive professional looking for a job or a company looking for a recruiting firm, I suggest you give A.E. Feldman a look. You won’t be disappointed.  Be sure to check out their Executive Recruiting Firm Blog as well. They provide a lot of great tips.

What’s new you ask?  Well not much, other then a new item on the sidebar called applications, at first I got excited and looked to see if the App Store was online, and disappointedly it was not!

Speaking of the app store I’m totally excited to see what’s there.  I’m really looking forward to a twitterriffic application or better yet a socialthing! application.

I’m curious as to whether or not Apple will release the new firmware for the iPhone tomorrow, or wait until the launch date of the iPhone 3G.

Well nothing to exciting to see tonight from Apple, Ill probably miss it all later tonight.

Apple likes to call it “Exchange for the rest of us”.  I call it plain cool.

Mobile me appears to be launching July 9th from 6 p.m until 12 a.m. PT,  Apple has just updated the .Mac status page with that date/time for the .Mac to MobileMe switch. So, for those of you wondering when Apple might start the switch, you will not have to wonder any longer.Apple says that during the switch, users will be unable to access www.mac.com or any .Mac services, with the exception of .Mac Mail accessed via a desktop application.

Apple also says it hopes to have mobile me available as soon possible during the maintenance times, lets all hope so.

For those of you looking to purchase a mobile me subscription, look to amazon.com they are offering mobile me for $89.99 a whole $10.00 cheaper then Apple.

I’ll try to stay on top of this launch but with all the excitement I might forget.

I hope this is a sign from the Mac Gods!

I was acutally quite taken back by a tweet from Evan Williams Co-founder and CPO of Twitter, as if Ariel was making this up.

I’m not a mobster or part of a mob nor is zeldman, or for that matter anyone else that has blogged about this.

I find Twitters responce to this actually has me rethinking my use of Twitter.

There are two sides to every story, only twitters side is very vague and seems almost like pleading the 5th in situation they should have addressed right from the start.