The Good List:

AAA - Yes, Triple A. I was pretty so-so on them before. They occasionally save me a few bucks on plane tickets or hotel and take a lot of the legwork out of booking complicated international trips. But when I got a nail in my tire causing a slow leak and funny noises when driving at 5pm on a Saturday when I had to drive someone to LAX for an international flight that very night I hit every tire shop in the area and they all told me no chance. I finally called AAA. The guy got ahold of a San Diego phone book and started calling around and found me a Pep Boys that was open until 8, had the tire in stock, and could replace it for me that evening. Saved me a ton of hassle and expense on renting a car to make the drive to LA!

Mission Bay Vacation Rentals - If you need property management services call these guys. Jason does a great job renting out my property.

Bears Used Tires - 7023 Carroll Road Suite A, San Diego, CA 92121. I bought some good cheap tires from these guys and they installed them very fast.

Tim Johnson, Handyman - When my place in San Diego needs some fixing and I'm not up to the job I call Tim. He has some creative solutions to getting things done right and inexpensively. You can call Tim at 619-444-3020

The Naughty List:

DVIG (Data Voice Integration Group), Michael Jennings, Paul Epstein - These guys claim to be VOIP and telecommunications providers but seem to promise things they cannot deliver. They caused me serious problems with my clients when I depended on them and they just fell off the face of the earth. Didn't return phone calls, emails, etc. I also worked on a project for them for a couple of weeks and they disappeared without paying. If you run into these schmucks tell them to at least say goodbye when they are going to stiff you.

Telepacket, Hostingpacket, Loudpacket, whoever they call themselves this week. Including Luan "Frank" Kim, An "Alan" Ngo, Jeff Richey - They make promises to clients they can't keep and sell expensive products which do not yet exist. They stiff suppliers on their bills. They were 3 months behind on payroll with me, refused to cash out vacation pay when I left, tried to lie to the California Division of Labor about why they didn't have to pay it, and wrecklessly threw a bunch of poor Vietnamese programmers out of work when they had to close their Ho Chi Minh City office (where I spent 6 months as Director of Software Development) due to very poor management on Luan "Frank" Kim's part. Real sleezebags in my opinion. I have heard that Luan Kim has fled Southern California and gone to build a new life in Perry, IA.