SeanPiotrowski.net

John,

Few people knew what I felt on on Friday July 18th, 2008. That day was one of great sadness and great excitement. Excitement, because I knew that upcoming Monday I would begin working for one of the World’s BEST Institutions of Higher Education, Princeton University. Great sadness, because I was leaving a place that was truly a second home for me. It was a place that taught me to be an adult, a professional, & a scholar. I made many friends during my years there and learned many valuable lessons. But the most important lesson Rider University ever taught me is that no matter how much we love a particular place, you have to move on when you’re not realizing your full potential.

The path you walked at Rider was not very different from my own. We’ve talked at great length over the years about how much Rider University means to us and how grateful we are for the time we have spent there. As you leave Moore Library tomorrow for the last time; think not about how much you will miss Rider, but about all the valuable lessons you learned from it, that you will carry with you to Princeton. You will learn, as I did, that those Rider lessons give you valuable insight and perspective even at a place such as Princeton.

Enjoy your final hours at Rider tomorrow and know that in spirit I am with you.

I look forward to seeing you reunited with your transplanted Rider Brothers & Sister at Princeton University on Monday.

Thank you for your knowledge and your friendship.

Until Monday,

Sean

I doubt any of you that read my blog still even recall what I am about to reminisce about. Shortly after I started SeanPiotrowski.net in its current form of a blog, two friends of mine, Greg Coleman & Ryan Christie embarked on their own blog journey. Their blog was called TheWard. It was a professionally coded, constantly updated, and it was the central hub of a blogging community that in my opinion has never been duplicated. The posts were hilarious, controversial, & they often featured the graphical talents of Greg Coleman. The height of this Universe was in the years 2002 and 2003. There were a lot of memories made and I always felt that TheWard deserved to be archived and preserved for its accomplishments. However TheWard never got its shrine and it all but faded into obscurity…

Today, Greg and I were chatting on Google Talk and he asked me if I ever heard of Archive.org. Of course I had! He just discovered it. During our conversation I went and plugged in the old URL: www.theward.net Greg had already beaten me to this idea as he had told me he spent a considerable amount of time with it yesterday. As I began clicking through I realized that they had captured a sizable chunk of what TheWard was all about, especially during its most important years. Like catching up with an old friend, I was reminded of things I had completely forgotten about. It was a wonderful experience for me.
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Today I announced I was leaving Comcast’s Cable TV service behind for good. Turbo and I decided we have had enough of Comcast’s horrible service and we got our lease renewed for another year so we figured now’s the time to switch. I posted the fact that I was leaving on Twitter today and then the following occurred:

seannyfunco: Good Bye Comcast and on Tuesday Hello DirecTV.

ComcastSteve: @seannyfunco don’t go

seannyfunco: @ComcastSteve I’ll be keeping you for Internet but I’ve had enough of your terrible signal quality when it comes to TV.

ComcastSherri: @seannyfunco @comcaststeve sorry to hear that. Are you sure you don’t want us to try to help?

seannyfunco: @ComcastSherri I’ve had about 4 24hr+ outages over the last year in my neighborhood for both Cable and Internet at the same time.
I was w/ Cablevision for 3 years in another town & had ZERO outages not to mention I never had OnDemand or Digital Ch. issues

ComcastSherri: @seannyfunco ouch..

seannyfunco: @ComcastSherri Its your infrastructure’s unreliability that made me switch. I also loath your Internet usage cap too. But you got me there.

ComcastSherri: @seannyfunco Bummer

So I think that for the most part concludes my Twitter experience with Comcast. I will say this, the fact that Comcast is actively seeking out customer issues on Twitter is pretty awesome. The fact that they’re addressing customer concerns via Twitter is incredible. I really give Comcast a lot of credit for what they’re doing there but unfortunately it’s not enough to make me stay a Comcast TV customer. The issues that are making me leave are far bigger then anything a person in Customer Service can handle. Their infrastructure problems and their Internet usage policies are really the breaking points for me. If I was able to go to another provider who could give me Cable modem or faster speed for Internet, I’d switch in a second. But given the nature of that industry and my location in NJ, Comcast is my only option. So you will have my business there Comcast but only until I have another option.

On that note I’d still like to thank ComcastSteve and ComcastSherri for attempting to stop my departure. I wish you guys the best and keep doing what you’re doing. I hope more companies follow your lead when it comes to Twitter & customer relations.

So I’ve been secretly reading Meghan McCain’s blog for like the past few weeks and I think its time for me to let Meghan know a few things that have been floating around in my mind since I started. I always knew Meghan was blogged during her father’s campaign but I wasn’t interested really in reading what she had to say at the time. You see, like many other Republicans, I just didn’t feel her Dad was the way to go Presidentially. In my old age I see that my ideals float more and more towards a radical libertarian slant. In my mind, the Republican party has historically always stood for many of my most important of libertarian principals, but that hasn’t been the case the past 8 years. Anyway, I digress, so I missed out on Meghan’s blogging prowess during the campaign because I was disinterested in hearing from what I deemed the “McCain political machine”. Then on Feb. 19th everything changed for me… Read more…