Speed and Strength Customer Service Review

Nobody wants to read a long boring post about customer service, so I'll keep this as short as I can:

- Tuesday at work, I went on Speed and Strength's website and sent a message to customer service saying that the thumb of my left glove (their white Seven Sins gloves) was falling apart after only about 2000 miles on it (while the right was still perfectly fine). Keep in mind, I was just writing to inform them that I was a little disappointed that they didn't last longer.

- Within an hour, I got a reply to my email asking me for a copy of my receipt and some pictures of the glove.

- Tuesday night after work (maybe 8:30pm), I took some pictures and sent them to the lady along with a copy of the receipt.

- At 9:30am Wednesday morning, I had an email telling me that there were new gloves that were shipped out already that morning. And today (Thursday) when I got home from work, they were waiting for me at my door.

Like I said above, I only wrote to tell them that I was a little disappointed with the lifespan of the gloves and that I'm not sure why the left one started falling apart before the right. I asked for absolutely nothing and was honestly not expecting to get anything at all - I was just providing some feedback to the company. But within 2 days of writing to them on the website the first time, there were brand new gloves at my door - that's absolutely incredible customer service!

Moral of the story: Speed and Strength has excellent customer service and I'll certainly be purchasing their products again given how strongly they stand behind them!

Motorcycle on Wheels

There's really no writing going into this, but I needed to share this photo. I pulled this off an add for a car I was looking at online a couple days ago and it is still making me laugh:

Motorcycle Helmet Law and Seatbelt Law

Dear readers,
It's time for another rant. Today's topic: Michigan's change to the motorcycle helmet law and the comparison to our seat belt law.

For those of you who don't know me personally, I enjoy having fun and I enjoy somewhat dangerous activities now and then. However, I always partake in these ventures in the safest way possible. For instance, I ride my motorcycle quite often in the summer, but in addition to always wearing my helmet, I also always wear full riding gear (armored pants and jacket, gloves, boots...). I also always buckle my seat belt, never drive if I can feel any effects of alcohol, and think if you do anything other than that, you're an idiot. However, that doesn't mean I think you shouldn't be allowed to do (some of) those things (I do think it should be illegal to drive after drinking).

This is maybe a little different from how most people look at these sorts of things, but then, I'm not most people. In my (humble) opinion, one of the best things about this country is our liberty. The Oxford dictionary defines  liberty as "the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's behavior or political views." It is, in short, our freedom from having other people's opinions forced upon us. Now, the obvious and necessary restriction on that liberty is if we are endangering other people with our behaviors - hence the law against drinking and driving.

Michigan voters seem to think (and I agree) that the requirement for motorcyclists to wear helmets was infringing upon their liberty - it was an oppressive restriction on motorcyclists' behavior. The issue, for me, comes in when we start to also consider Michigan's seat belt law.

If someone can help me understand why we are spending gobs of money on the "Click it or Ticket" advertising campaign for our seatbelt law and, at the same time, getting rid of the helmet law, I'd appreciate it. Personally, I'd rather have them just get rid of both laws, but it's honestly the apparent inconsistency that bothers me more than anything else.

I was planning on writing more, but I've now thought better of it. As always, please feel free to comment and let me know where we disagree.