DirtyWaterGeek - Andy Collins about all things digital, social media, and news

Eugene Valcourt, Father, Grandfather, Great-Grandfather. 89 Years old...

Andy — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:27:00 +0000

I was asked by my aunts and uncles to deliver the Eulogy at my Grandfather's Funeral. 4 days later, here is what I came up with.

Eugene Valcourt, Father, Grandfather, Great-grandfather. 89 Years old. Born September 15th, 1919, Passed Away April 20th, 2009. Of the 6.7 Billion inhabitants on the planet, most would hear that statement and say "I'm sure he lived a good life". But for the people here today, both physically and spiritually, I say "He lived a extraordinary life".

For the short time I have been on this earth, I've had my share of role models,

Eugene Valcourt of Groton, formerly of Westford; 89, Groton, MA

Andy — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:11:06 +0000

Eugene Valcourt, 89, husband of Adrienne (Gervais) Valcourt, of Groton, formerly of Westford, died April 20th in Westford. He was born in St. Rose du Degele, Canada September 15, 1919, a son of Baptiste J. Valcourt and Marie L. (Beaulieu) Valcourt.

He served in the United States Army, in the 3606th Ordnance Heavy Automotive Maintenance Company, in ground combat in Iwo Jima and received the Good Conduct Medal, the American Defense Service Medal and the Asiatic Pacific Theater Campaign Ribbon. He was honorably discharged October 31, 1945.

Prior to his retirement, he worked for the Abbot Worsted Company in Westford, the Custance Brothers Painting Company in Lexington and Florian Woitowicz Carpentry in Westford. Mr. Valcourt was a member of the Franco American Club and the VFW Mattawanakee Post 6539, having served as a Past Commander. He enjoyed woodworking, gardening and caning chairs.

Besides his wife Adrienne, with whom he would have celebrated their 65th Wedding Anniversary, he is survived by five children; Dennis Valcourt and his wife Rebecca, Jane Lamy and her husband Leo, George Valcourt and his wife Paula, Suzanne Ricard and her husband Garry, Margaret Collins and her husband Alvin, ten grandchildren; Cynthia Phelps and Brian Lamy, Michael and Matthew Ricard, Jeffrey, Jamie and Ryan Valcourt, Lisa Aho and Heather Picariello, and Andrew Collins, eight grandchildren, Jacob Ricard, Nicholas and Olivia Valcourt, Abigail Phelps, Caleb and Brody Lamy, and Arianna and Anthony Picariello. 2 Step Grandchildren, Alvin Collins and his wife Jennifer, Karen Madden and her husband Thomas, 2 Step Great Grandchildren Kayla and Tyler Duarte. He was pre-deceased by ten brothers and sisters.

VALCOURT visiting hours will be on Thursday, April 23rd from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the HEALY FUNERAL HOME, 57 NORTH MAIN ST., WESTFORD. His funeral mass will be celebrated Friday, at 10:00 a.m. at St. Catherine's Church, 107 North Main St. Westford., followed by burial in St. Catherine's Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, friends may make memorial contributions in his name to the Alzheimer's Association , 311 Arsenal St., Watertown, MA 02472. or the Groton Ambulance Fund 173 Main St. Groton MA 01450 FUNERAL DIRECTOR J.A. HEALY SON, WESTFORD. 978.692.6502.

An online guest book has been created to share memories.

A Technical Approach to Decision Making

Andy — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:30:31 +0000

Yesterday as I departed from work, I sent out a simple message on Twitter to my followers:

This morning as I signed on line, a number of replies had come in with regards to my message. Most people suggested doing all three. This of course got me nowhere in my decision making process. I’m sure it’s possible, but I can’t begin to imaging buying a house, going to graduate school, and starting a business all at the same time.

One reply though came out of the blue from

The 25 Random Things About Me

Andy — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:07:18 +0000

So over on Facebook, a new meme has been brewing for a few weeks now. Someone creates a list of 25 random things about themselves, posts it to their profile as a note, and tags 25 of their friends in the note. Those 25 people are suppose to do the same. I figured I would post it to my blog for all to see, but it's being cross-posted to my Facebook profile as a note. Here are the 25 random things about myself...

I have been a Boy Scout since I was 6, and can't imagine what the last 17 years would have been like if it were not for the adventures and people I have met in that time. Life long friendships have been forged in this time, and the person I am today is a result of my involvement in the Boy Scouts.
I realized while writing this, that I will be 23 this year. This absolutely scares the crap out of me to no end.
Going into college, I had no clue what I wanted to major in. My family all but pushed me towards majoring in Business. Looking back, I still have no clue what I want to do.
I have never really failed in life at anything to the point of needing help to be picked back up. For this, I am not grateful. I wish to fail at least once in the next 2.5 years so I know what it feels like, and get a greater appreciation of things in general.
My immediate family is far from being normal, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I am home brewing beer in my spare time. I've found it to be an interesting, yet challenging skill.
In my final year of college, I contemplated relocating to the SF Bay area, or the Raleigh-Durham, NC area. In the end, I decided that New England was the place for me, and I'll probably keep it that way.

Yeah, Yeah….So It has been a while

Andy — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:19:20 +0000

Alright, I admit it. I haven’t exactly updated this blog of mine in the past month. It has been a busy month though. Between the extra commuting for work, an out of town weekend to New Jersey, and good ol’ Turkey Day, there hasn’t exactly been a lot of spare time. Good news is I’m beginning to have a bit more time on my hands since December has begun.

The biggest thing has been my relocation of offices for work. The re-organization at work finally finished up, and I’m now officially working for Schneider Electric directly. I was able to move back to my old office building in Billerica the Monday after Thanksgiving, so my commute has officially been cut to 20 minutes (from 2 hours) one way. I’ve been able to see a bunch of old friends who I use to work with when I was in IT, so all and all it’s been a much less stressful time since I’m not driving 4+ hours a day.

That’s it for now. I’ve got a new hobby up my sleeves that I’ll fill everyone in on in the coming days. Let’s just say that I’ve just joined the ranks of a number of our founding fathers of this country. If you think you might have a guess of what the hobby might be, shoot me an e-mail.

Customer Service is What It’s All About

Andy — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:08:34 +0000

I have the standard small group of shoes when it comes to being a guy….

1 pair of sneakers
1 retired pair of sneakers for dirty work (digging in dirt, painting, etc.)
1 pair of brown dress shoes
1 pair of black dress shoes
2 pairs of hiking boots (1 winter, 1 summer)
2 pair sandals (1 summer, 1 water)

So after this past weekend of forgetting my retired sneakers when I was painting up at Camp, and getting lots of white paint on my almost 2 year old Sambas, I decided it was time to retire those and get a new pair. Besides getting paint all over them, the insides were well worn, and they lost their “bounce” as far as support goes.

I had head about Zappos for awhile now, and had wondered multiple times “how do you buy shoes online, but not try them on”? I tend to need a shoe with a wide foot and narrow heal or else my foot slips out the back when walking, so I usually have to try on multiple pairs of shoes before I find one that fits.

I decided to give the service a try and said “What the heck? I can always either return them or sell them online for the same as I paid for them.” I was pleasantly surprised how easy the site was, how simple the order process was to navigate, and that Zappos had a 365 day original condition return/exchange policy (with free return shipping!) for either Zappos credit, or origional payment refund.

The bigger surprise came when it came to shipping my order out. Not only do they offer free standard shipping on their orders, but the day after the order, I received an e-mail that said the shipping on my order was upgraded to priority shipping. Next thing I knew, I had a UPS tracking number and the package was waiting for me upon my return home from work Thursday night. From order creation, to delivery, the whole process only took 1 day 18 hours. Shoes fit, I was a happy customer, and will now highly recommend the site to all my friends.

Moral of the story…provide good customer service, and you will keep a customer for their lifetime. Better yet, they will spread the good word about your product service for free to others, and you get to spend less money on marketing. Even if something happens to an order, being in constant communication with your customer, and helping them through an issue will make them feel better about using you service in the future.

At least one online retailer gets this new world of marketing.

"STOP watching fu*king Lost, and you will kill it"

Andy — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:25:57 +0000

I know I'm a bit late in seeing this keynote from this year's Web 2.0 Expo NY conference, but wow. What a motivational keynote from Gary Vaynerchuk.

He explains that people who don't like what they do, need to work their 9-to-5 then come home, enjoy their family for a few hours then 7-to-2 is plenty of time to "kill it". He concludes his keynote by telling people to "STOP watching fu*king Lost" and they will kill it in whatever space they put themselves to work in.

Don't Forget to Register to Vote

Andy — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:43:12 +0000

Just a friendly reminder to everyone out there…

Register to Vote

If you don’t register to vote, you aren’t eligible to vote in the upcoming election in November; and if you don't vote in November, don't complain about the outcome.

The deadline to register to vote in the state of Massachusetts is the end of the day today (Other states deadlines have already passed, while others are still upcoming). More info about voting in Massachusetts can be found at the Secretary of State’s Elections Division Website. For people not in Massachusetts, check out http://maps.google.com/vote to find out how to register to vote.

Town clerks offices in MA will be open tonight until 8PM, and there are registration locations at North and South Station for those who take the train to commute to work. You can also register to vote via the mail, but make sure you have the postal worker hand cancel the mailing with today’s date, or it will not be considered eligible.

Political Round up

Andy — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:20:20 +0000

Four things to end the day on a political note.

The Dow ended 348 points down for the day (a drop of 3.2% for the day), despite the senate approval for the Wall Street Bail Out plan last night. This begs the question, if the markets go down when the plan is voted for (The Senate) and against (The House), when is it going to level off and rebound? Hopefully the markets don't slide again tomorrow if the second House vote fails.
The first, and only, VP debate for the 2008 election is tonight. 9PM EDT. Go print out your Sarah Palin and Joe Biden Bingo Cards, grab your drink of choice, and get ready to enjoy the debate!
The Obama camp has released an iPhone app which gives you a one stop shop to local events, media, issues, and a place to organize how your friends are voting when making volunteer calls. Question is, does this app send back any data to the campaign, related to your tally of contacts voting for/against Obama? The app speaks of a feature which compares your call stats to everyone else nationwide. No mention of a privacy policy on the webpage though.
The new league of Fantasy Congress starts tomorrow. Hopefully my team (Credit Crunchers) can beat out the rest of the teams in the league (The Henry Paulson Fan Club). If you enjoy politics, I'd highly recommend getting a group of your friends to create teams. It has proved to be a point of conversation starters for months now.

Since When did Rhode Island gain Cape Cod?

Andy — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:35:45 +0000

I was scrolling through my Picasa library earlier today looking for a picture, and came across the photo set of my trip to San Diego this past Memorial Day weekend. While I was there, I visited the San Diego Air & Space Museum. At first it looked like a good way to spend an hour out of the rain, but after spending 3.5 hours there, I found myself overwhelmed by the amount of exhibits at the museum.

One photo that caught my eye was this one showing the location of all the Apollo Command Modules around the world. While I'm sure the locations were accurate, the map itself was horribly drawn. It looked like something a 4th grader would draw for history class. Rhode Island gained Cape Cod, Maryland gained both New Jersey, and Long Island, and Delaware just disappeared off the map.

Can a museum, whose main point of pride should be their exhibits, really just let a map like this get passed over by the curator? Let’s hope the next time I travel to San Diego this map is fixed.