I like to set up appointments with my clients when I go to visit them. This way, they know when I’m coming and they know how much time I have to spend talking about their website needs. Last week, I set up a meeting at 2:00pm to meet with one of my clients. Now, generally when I set up a meeting with a client, I try to get there five to ten minutes early.

So I get the to the meeting five minutes early and find that there is no one at the building. That’s okay, though. I can sit outside and wait for the clients to arrive. No big problem. Then 2:00pm comes around and I’m still the only one there…2:05pm, 2:10pm, 2:15pm…

Now at this point I’ve been sitting there for twenty minutes on my own. I sent a text to my client that we would have to reschedule because I had to get to another meeting and then I left. About twenty minutes later the client texted me back and said that he had to go out to the store to get something to eat before our meeting, but that he would be back at the store in ten minutes if I wanted to meet then.

Follow the timeline here, folks. I left at 2:15pm and was texted back at 2:35pm at which time the client said they could meet at 2:45pm. That’s a full 45 minutes after our original meeting was scheduled for!!! Obviously, I said that we would have to stick with rescheduling because I couldn’t put off the 3:00pm meeting.

Can you imagine? After not showing up for a meeting at your own office (because you had to get something to eat) and saying that you’ll be around 45 minutes after the start time, you would expect the vendor to come back and think nothing of it?!

Some people are just amazing in their lack of concern about the cost of other people’s time.

On Monday of last week, my Sirius XM unit started showing a message saying, “Antenna Not Detected.” I hadn’t moved the unit or the antenna in many months so I wondered what the problem could possibly be. After some fiddling, the message went away and the unit worked fine. Then Tuesday came around and the message popped back up on the radio. I figured that some more fiddling would fix it – nope. I didn’t get mad, but I wondered what the issue was that was causing the problem.

I tried to self-diagnose the problem. On the one hand, I have a Sportster Replay, which is one the older, discontinued models and there was a chance that the unit was shot. On other other hand, though, I’ve only owned the radio for three years so for it to be busted after three years of use is unacceptable. I did some Googling and the information online wasn’t really clear about what the problem was (it could be the unit or it could be the satellite receiver or it could be something else – great). As it turns out, the satellite receiver was shot and I needed a new one, which was provided free of charge via a spare receiver that one of my roommates had (thank you!).

However, in the few days where I didn’t have Sirius XM I had to listen to terrestrial radio on my two-hour daily commutes plus my driving around town. It was mostly miserable. You really forget just how many commercials there are on terrestrial radio until you have prolonged exposure to the endless drones of car, lawyer, and doctor commercials. And they don’t stop. Two minutes goes by, three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes – sometimes even more! It was horrible.

To avoid the commercials on Howard Stern’s channels on Sirius XM, I flip to one of the music channels. Easy enough, right? Well, with terrestrial radio when the talk show hosts would hit their ten to fifteen minute non-live content breaks I was essentially screwed! First, I had to find a channel with music on it that I actually wanted to hear. Second, I had to hope that the channel came in clear (my commute takes me across state and I generally heard more static than anything else). What aggravation!

When one goes a few days without Sirius XM satellite radio, they begin to really appreciate how great of a service this really is for those who have long commutes. I’m so glad that Sirius XM exists because other than NJ 101.5 (when it’s not on another ridiculously long commercial break) there is absolutely nothing to listen to on terrestrial radio.

Anyway, I was a fan of Carlin, though I didn’t necessarily agree with his uber-hippie point of view on government and religion. Doesn’t matter, though, the man was still hilarious and someone who could tell a joke that was five minutes long and the audience would be with him every step of the way. When you look at today’s comedians most of the good ones are sharp witted and able to make a biting, hilarious point in a few seconds. None of them are as adept as Carlin was at telling an intelligent story and bringing the entire audience along for the ride.

Comedic brilliance.