Those of you that know me know my ongoing battle with my phone. For the longest time I had this HUGE brick phone called the PPC-6700. It was functional it just wasn’t high in fashion. I have had the phone for a very long time and I decided I was going to upgrade when the newest version of the same phone came out.

HTC released the newest version called the HTC Touch Pro and I bought one the day it came out. I dropped a LOT of money on this phone. I do not have a lot of cash to throw around as a poor graduate student but nonetheless I figured I would keep it just as long as my PPC-6700 so it seemed worth it.

Well it has been a nightmare. I myself typically subscribe to the “wait for the kinks to be ironed out” on most things but I jumped the gun. To be fair, when the phone works it is AMAZING. I love it. It is feature rich, I can download tons of applications and program things to my liking.

However, there is a major flaw that is with the biggest reason I bought the phone. The keyboard just stops working. I am now on my 3rd one and I am about to take it back and exchange it. I stumbled across a thread on PPCGeeks.com that said the flaw is with the ribbon cable popping off. Even with reattaching the ribbon cable, my problem is not solved.

I am VERY disappointed. I am considering purchasing a Blackberry because I cant stand not having a true keyboard. They are making good progress with onscreen keyboards but I just cant stand to use them. I am a much faster typer when I have a true keyboard.

When I heard the American Academy of Advertising annual conference was schedule for Cincinnati, Ohio last year, I immediately wanted to attend. Both of my parents grew up in Cincinnati and I was born in Cincinnati. I moved to Orlando, Florida when I was a little over a year old. Growing up we visited Cincinnati occasionally and I can remember falling in love with the city. I moved to Columbus to attend Ohio State after I graduated high school. However, in the five years I was at Ohio State I never made it to Cincinnati.

My thesis and soon to be Ph.D. adviser has a terrible fear of flying. If it is absolutely necessary he will fly but close to against his will. Because of this, he asked me to drive with him. As some of you know, I love to drive. Dr. Bradley and I accumulated 2,515 miles over the course of 6 days. I had an amazing time both driving to the conference and at the conference itself.

During the second day of the conference I received word that I had been accepted to the Ph.D. program at Texas Tech complete with a scholarship and assistantship. The best news I have heard in a long time. My hard work is paying off and the news has served to encourage me to work even harder.

After hearing horror stories about the group trip from last year in Vermont, I was a little skeptical of the boat trip. My concerns were mirrored by a few of the conference attendees who had been bused about Vermont the year before. Despite the concern the boat trip up the Ohio river was probably the high-light of the conference. I met quite a few people and did some networking for myself on behalf of Texas Tech.

We also had an opportunity to tour the campus of Xavier University located around 4 miles from downtown Cincinnati. Wendy Maxian will be teaching at Xavier in the fall. I was definitely impressed with the campus and especially the basketball arena.

After the conference in Cincinnati, Dr. Bradley and I took a trip to Bloomington, Indiana. Although not technically on the way, this was the first time Sam had been remotely close to the city where he lived for over three years while getting his Ph.D. In the two nights I spent in Bloomington, it is possible I learned more than an entire semester of reading. Surrounding yourself with smart people is definitely the key to getting excited about your education.

Let me first establish that I am a self proclaimed car guy. I am no expert. However, I do have a lot of experience with cars such as building motors, installing suspension components, routine maintenance etc. I am also studying advertising, marketing, brand building and things of that nature. Because of this, I believe I have a unique view of General Motors’ plight. While I offer these rants and solutions, I am in no way stating that these “problems” or “solutions” are the entire way to fix the current economic status of the company. Obviously I am not an insider of the company. I do not work in the day-to-day financial negotiations and I am not a brand manager. All of my “insights” come from a consumer with marketing/advertising experience point of view.

In my opinion, the biggest error facing General Motors is ignoring brand leverage. As of January 2009 General Motors is the parent company of 8 automotive brands, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, Saab and Saturn. Looking at this large number of companies the first thing that comes to mind is that it is simply too many automotive “brands.” While there is a point to this, (currently Ford is selling off a lot of its brands) I do not think it is necessarily true. To use a loose fitting example, Cincinnati based Proctor and Gamble owns more brands than I can count. Despite this, P&G is not in danger of going bankrupt. Why is P&G so successful despite their large number of brands?

To put it simply, in some product categories, P&G owns two parts of the market share. For example, if you look at the product category of laundry detergent, if I buy premium I am buying Tide and therefore I am purchasing P&G. However, if I buy the cheap version there is a very good chance I am also buying P&G. While P&G does not necessarily hide the fact that they own both products, it is also not well known. This brings us to a side mistake that I think GM is currently making with their current campaign demonstrating the many vehicles of GM. Those consumers who were unaware GM made all these vehicles are now painfully aware of this fact. You are throwing brand equity and brand parody out the window.

Before I explain my solution of brand equity for GM it is important that I loosely define brand equity. If I wanted to buy Coca-Cola tomorrow JUST THE NAME, how much would it cost me? If I was not interested in all of Coke’s tangible assets, its trucks, bottles, plants, syrups etc. just the rights to own the name Coca-Cola how much would I pay? That figure would be astronomical if I could even place a value on the name. At this point with the history of Coca-Cola and the amount of customer base, just the name Coca-Cola carries may be priceless. That is brand equity, the value a brand has. This equity is not built over night. It takes years and years to create this equity and there are a variety of ways to do it. Obviously at some point in the history of General Motors, someone has brought this idea to their attention. There are numerous examples of General Motors attempting to build one of their many brands.

I will begin with Saturn. The reason I chose Saturn is because it sticks out most to me. General Motors was on the right track with Saturn. Do you remember the old Saturn commercials? They were marketed as dent-free econo-box cars. It was the ultimate first car. It was an extremely affordable car that would last. Saturn had a cult following. Saturn followed up these commercials positioning themselves as a low cost high longevity brand with commercials advertising their Saturn nation where people could come to the factory and take a tour and see how their car was made. A cult was born. People loved these cars, they were affordable, they were reliable and people rallied around the product. Saturn was a hit! General Motors was even experiencing some “free press” with their Saturn meets and plant tours. There were instances where local newspapers were running the story. There is no more efficient way to advertise than to do so for free.

So I have to ask GM, what the hell did you do? For a while the Saturn line stuck with this economy car concept and it was working well. Saturn was aimed squarely at the current Scion market. For those that do not know, Scion is Toyota’s low cost brand that is aimed at people who need a low priced affordable car and want to customize it to their needs. Scion has a HUGE cult following and is a big hit among the target consumer Saturn previously NAILED in the early 90s. So how did Saturn and ultimately General Motors lose those consumers? Saturn is now selling a sports car. Seriously? You want me to buy a Saturn sports car? General Motors just threw away millions of dollars in advertising spending. More than that, GM also threw away all that brand equity they created positioning Saturn as a low-cost, reliable, economically friendly car. GM’s current commercials feature a person asking if all these cars are Saturn. Yes, it is perplexing because General Motors and Saturn is going against their brand building efforts and destroying everything intangible asset they have built. Sure, the Saturn Sky is a slick looking car. As a matter of fact, I like it. I would buy one as a weekend play toy. I would be willing to bet GM might sell a few more if the car was simply renamed “Cadillac Sky.”

It seems like every New Years Eve is a little different for me. Last year my New Years Eve was spent with two of my friends, Sean and Becca at the waterfront in Jacksonville, Florida the night before the Gator Bowl. The year before that it was spent out with a bunch of my friends at Ohio State with a pre-party at my apartment. Two years before that I spent it in Orlando with my sister and some of her friends.

This year had all the same ingredients, lots of friends, a bar with televisions tuned to another stunt that will occur at midnight. Even with it seemingly the same as every other year, this year was different. For the first time in my life I was spending New Years Eve in the central time zone. In every other aspect the central time zone is no different from other time zones. Instead of turning on my favorite TV show at 8pm I tune in an hour early. Its not that big of a deal.

However, on New Years Ever everyone watches television to see the ball drop in New York City (someday I want to see it in person and this year two of my friends got to and I am pretty jealous). The problem with this is the ball drops at 11pm Central time and they don’t “re-drop it.” Now it may have just been the bar I was at but there was no countdown, and when it landed after the obligatory cheering there was no singing of Old Lang Syne. As a matter of fact it was arbitrary celebration, kissing and toasting somewhere around midnight according to everyone in the bar’s cell phone clocks. It just wasn’t the same.

I am not complaining about the night by any means, I still had a blast with all my friends and enjoyed every minute of it but I could tell something was missing. Maybe next year I will try to organize a countdown. Every year one of my resolutions is to learn the lyrics to Old Lang Syne and this year I still did not know the lyrics. I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t sing it in the bar.

Believe it or not my exposure to children lately has got me a little interested in developmental psychology. Rather than a genuine interest that would send me taking some classes I am more interested in a few questions I come up with on the fly.

My nephews are 7 years old and 2 years old respectively. When they are playing they are constantly screaming and yelling even though they are right next to each other. To them this is perfectly normal, to all of us standing around it makes no sense.

So I wanted to know if they would determine something was amiss if my sister and I began talking the way my nephews yell at each other in casual conversation. My sister and I began to yell and carry on with a normal conversation just at a significant volume. Sure enough both nephews came running in from the other room. The seven-year-old even said, “What is going on here?” I just laughed and my entire family got a kick out of it.

So apparently it is acceptable for them to carry on and yell but not acceptable for anyone else. This may be because they don’t even realize they are doing it. Maybe this question will drive me to read in a developmental psychology book. Probably not.

A few years ago I can remember seeing the advertising campaigns that Lexus had aired where a wife walks outside and in the driveway is a brand new Lexus. This year Lexus continues to push this campaign and now Audi has followed with its own similar campaign. What I have to wonder is who they are targeting here?

Now I know we all hope to one day have enough money to be able to own a luxury car of some kind. What I have to ask, is how rich do you have to be where a spouse can purchase you a luxury car without consulting you about the financial end of it. I would have to think you must be stupid rich to pick up a $50,000+ car for your spouse without consulting them first.

Don’t get me wrong, if my wife purchased me a $75,000 Audi I would be thrilled but I would have to wonder how WE could afford it. Purchases like this must be a collective decision.

Before I say anything I want to make it clear that I am still a Red Raider through and through just as much as I am still a Buckeye through and through. I am however, embarassed about the 65-21 THUMPING the Red Raiders took last night. Sitting at a friends house watching the game I could not help but remember exactly how this feels.

While I was spending the majority of the last 3 weeks talking about how cool it would be at the second school to win a national title and a heisman trophy I forgot that with a loss I would still be in good company. Ohio State has made it to the last two national championships and imploded in my presence. While it made for fun vacation weekends it always sucked going home. This year I was asked repeatedly to come with friends to watch the game in Norman, Oklahoma. I declined because I had too much going on but maybe my subconscious was trying to protect me.

So instead here I am in company of myself and my fellow Red Raider fans watching a good team implode when it really mattered remembering New Orleans and Glendale. I guess it’s not that bad. At least I am in good company. At least there are still bowl games. Go Buckeyes and Go Red Raiders!

Those of you that know me well have heard me complain that its unbelievable how young people get married here in Texas. I also think marriage is more prevalent here in Texas. I have lived in Florida for 17 years, Ohio for 5 and Texas for 1.5 years. In the 1.5 years I have lived in Texas it seemed to me that more people were getting married here than anywhere else.

I decided to look it up. I wanted to see the marriage and divorce rate by state. Now, it is true Lubbock is a little different but I wanted to see the state average. What I found was the marriage rates per 1,000 people by state. In 2004, Nevada was the highest marriage rate with 62.4 per 1,000. OBVIOUSLY this is because of Vegas. In second place was Hawaii with 22.8 and this is of course because people go to Hawaii to get married.

So to compare the states I have lived in, Ohio has 6.6; Florida has 9.0; and Texas has 7.9 marriages per 1,000 people. The divorce rate is Ohio 3.6; Florida, 4.8; and Texas 3.6 per 1,000 people.

Here is some more statistics for you:

Under 20 years old: 27.6% of women get divorced, 11.7% of men.
20-24 years old, 36.6% of women get divorced, 38.8% of men get divorced.

So I have to ask, if you are in love, what is the rush? I am nowhere near the same person I was when I was 18. I am not the same person I was when I was 21. If you all are going to be together anyway why do you need to have the marriage? Why not wait until you are done with school and are settled in a life. Just does not make sense to me. the odds are certainly against you.

My adviser, Dr. Bradley received a book last year for a gift. The book was titled, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” I had never heard of it. It peaked my interest as a book I wanted to read solely because I do a lot of motorcycle maintenance myself. I have two motorcycles, one off-road and one on-road. Because I am constantly busy with school I do not keep up with the maintenance as much as I would like. Today, I needed to get up from the computer and I decided to do some things I had been putting off on the bikes.

The dirt bike needed the air filter cleaned and replaced, the spark plug cleaned, and the gas tank drained. The tank needed to be drained due to my lack of math skills resulting in a miscalculation in the oil/fuel mix but that is another story. I went out to the garage and started removing the plastics and getting to work.

I have been a home mechanic for a long time now. I started wrenching on cars when I was 16 and I watched my brother work on bikes since I was 7 years old. I know a thing or two. Typically however, I am always rushed working on my cars and bikes and it is never a relaxing and fun time. This is why when I heard the title of the book I figured the author must be crazy. Today was different. I had no time pressures, and if I did not get the bike finished I could simply leave it in the garage and come back to it. It was extremely relaxing.

I kicked on some music, and got to work. I finished the necessary maintenance in just over an hour and it is amazing how relaxing it was. Even when I removed the air filter and discovered it was crumbling I was not angry at all. I simply made a note to remind myself to order a new filter.

I need to learn to set aside time to work on things I used to enjoy. I love my research and I love school work but I miss the bikes.