The day I should have called in sick.

Even before I had a chance to take my coat off as I walked into work this morning, I was shocked, angered, frustrated, and annoyed when I received a fax from Nobel Biocare.

The custom abutment on this particular case went fairly smoothly, with only a slight modification in its design to add more retention. The coping to be milled on top of the abutment was anything but smooth. Working within a tight schedule, I scanned and designed the zirconia framework and sent the file out to production on Friday evening, wishing and hoping that the finished product will arrive back in our lab on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. On Monday morning, I get a fax from Nobel's production facility in New Jersey requesting a re-scan as there was an error in the file transmission. Disappointed now that it's off schedule, I reluctantly called up tech support to ask if it was okay to simply send the same file again as a new order instead of going through the time-consuming labour-intensive task of designing the shape of the coping all over again. With the green light, I did, and hoped for the best.

Then today came rolling in and yet another fax came in from production requesting a re-scan. This time I lost it completely with a tech support representative. I was even more livid when the guy on the other end started giving me attitude. This from a person representing Nobel Biocare, a leader in advanced restorative dental solutions? Even DELL had more class when I had to deal with a number of CSRs regarding new computers being shipped defective out of the factory.

Now I had to call the doctor up and ask for an extension because of technical difficulty with production. This was the third time now and I wasn't in the mood nor had I the patience and tolerance of having to do it all over again. To make matters worse, those Americans down there are taking this time to close down for Thanksgiving and won't be back until December 1st! Why can't they have Thanksgiving like the rest of us did LAST MONTH?

I'd never had such a terrible experience working and dealing with Nobel Biocare in the years past. In fact, I was excited to hear of their new direction for 2009 with the acquisition of BioCad and forming an exclusive partnership with Optimet to deliver a new scanner.

The day just got worse when the technicians had issues with other cases being worked on. It was one of those days when anything that could go wrong, did. And because Sherry and I work in the main office, we had to deal with everyone's problems as we are essentially the front line staff, the first line of contact with the doctors and other labs giving the good news and the bad.

It was a painful day.

Iron Chefs II.

Our successful cook-off last week called for an encore performace, so this weekend, we made Thai food with the same helpful friends. Kathy and I went down to the Save-On-Foods across the street and brought a camera along to make a documentary. What we captured on video was just priceless. An employee of SOF asked me if I was doing a promotional special for SOF, to which I told her that I was in fact, doing a YouTube special. She then pointed us in the direction of a jolly display of Santa on the wall and above the refrigerated meats section. She was very proud of putting him up there and informed us that he came from Korea!

Our Thai dishes turned out pretty well, though it could have been a little more spicy. We'll take note for next time.

Shop Doc Part 1 of 5

Shop Doc Part 2 of 5

Shop Doc Part 3 of 5

Shop Doc Part 4 of 5

Shop Doc Part 5 of 5

Iron Chefs.

Kathy and I had made plans earlier this week to get together for lunch or dinner somewhere in town. After my visit to see a Genius at the Apple Store about Keychain issues on my PowerBook, I phoned up Kathy to make concrete plans as to where we should dine, but then a stroke of genius came to my mind (perhaps rubbed off from visiting the Genius at the Apple Store) when I suggested getting together for a home cook party instead of eating out and wondering how much to tip the server. She agreed and so the plan hatched. Sigrid, Leslie, and Andrea joined in on the fun in cooking pork chops, beef, smashed butternut squash, and a healthy bowl of fresh vegetable salad.

It was a roaring success and it only cost us $12 each. You can't get a delicious meal like this for that price, not to mention the tip on top of it.