Here and there, random thoughts on food, photos, marketing, & customer service

Update 4/15/11 I am happy to report that a kidney donor came forward for me and I am scheduled for a transplant early this summer. I want to thank all the people who were tested, those who supported me, the friends, family, doctors, transplant coordinators, MacMedics employees, 4H folks, and people I don’t even know who sent well wishes and good vibes my way and helped spread the word about the need for a donor (A special shout out to Mario Armstrong who did all he could to help get the word out). Most importantly, I’d like to thank my donor, who found me on the Internets and wanted to help. I’m very grateful to her and her willingness to donate one of her kidneys so that I can get my life back.

I plan to leave this page up, as it still attracts a good deal of traffic from my Vegan and Macintosh related posts. Perhaps, it will help someone else get the lifesaving donation that they have been waiting for. After I have my surgery, I’ll try to find a way to make this domain and it’s SEO score work for others who are waiting.

I know for a fact that you can step forward as an altruistic kidney and contact Johns Hopkins (you can call my donor coordinator listed below) and they will test you for free and if you pass the tests, they will match you to someone who needs a new lease on life. My donor and many others have come to donate via Johns Hopkins, as they are known world-wide for their amazing kidney program.

There are over 80,000 people waiting for a kidney transplant, so if this is something you’ve thought about, don’t delay.

Hi,

If you’ve found this page on my Blog, it might be because you’ve been invited to join the “A Kidney For Dana” Facebook page. I have been spreading the word about my kidney search via Facebook, Twitter, and my Blog since September ’09. At the suggestion of a friend I went ahead and created a Facebook “Group” to support my search.

Even if you’re NOT thinking about being a donor, please consider joining my groupanyways and posting something on your Facebook page about it. Someone you know might want to be a donor. Lots of organ donations occur because a friend of a friend passed on the word. There might be someone in your “network” that would like to be tested. If they turn out to be a match for me, imagine how good that would feel if you were able to make that connection?

For all the people (friends, family, AND people I don’t even know) who have posted something on their Facebook Wall about my situation – THANKS!

To all of my friends, family, employees, MacMedics clients, and colleagues, thank you so much for your support so far.

There are thousands of people waiting for a life saving kidney transplant, so if you’re willing to become a fan of “Can this poodle wearing a tinfoil hat get more fans than Glenn Beck?” (261,337 Fans) or the fan page for “Can the Baltimore Ravens get 1000000 fans before the Pittsburgh Steelers” (39,384 Fans), maybe you’d be willing to help spread the word about a life saving kidney donation by joining my page here.

BTW: The Facebook group for the National Kidney Foundation of Maryland only has 177 Fans, so if you’re supporting me or someone else with kidney issues here in the great state of Maryland, then please consider becoming a “Fan” of their page as well.

Since my kidney doctors have now charted my kidney decline based on the data from the last 2 years of blood tests, they are encouraging me to ramp up my donor search. Based on that recent “push” from them, I’m trying to let everyone in my network know. Maybe you would consider being tested? If so, that’s way more than I could ever ask. But really my goal here is just to get the message to as many people as possible to even up my odds as much as I can.

Update 12/24/10 My creatinine levels (what they use to judge kidney function) have pretty much doubled since last year. Also my phosphorus levels are also now out of whack as well. I’m now taking 800 MG phosphorus binder with every meal in order to push the phosphorus out of my system since my kidneys can’t fully regulate it any longer.

I’m extremely lucky to have the luxury of trying to find a “perfect match” since I’m not so sick, that they will just cram in any old kidney in order to save my life. They want me get a transplant now, while I’m healthy and try to avoid having to take a “deceased donor” kidney. I’ve been feeling pretty good, but I do get a little tired from time to time, but better take care of this issue before I have to go on dialysis. 

For those of you who know me well, you know asking for help is not easy for me. but, this is a case where I could really use some. By becoming a member of my Facebook group, you won’t get a knock on your door for a kidney in the middle of the night, but you can help spread the word about my story. The more folks that hear about it, the better my chances of someone taking action on it.

All of the recent kidney transplant “chains” have been started by one altruistic donor who read about a person in need of a kidney transplant in a newsletter or a church bulletin or something. One altruistic donor can save as many as 16 lives at once! Short of putting an ad in the paper (I’ve thought about it!), the more people who hear about my issue the better. A new variation in kidney paired donation (KPD) — pioneered and developed at Johns Hopkins — could theoretically generate an endless number of transplants.

There’s more info on this topic on my main page (which can be found here), but I often get asked what blood type are you? I’m extremely lucky to be able to accept a kidney from any blood type as I’m a “universal recipient” and I have the blood type AB-. So if you’ve been wondering if YOU can donate a kidney to me based on blood type, the answer is yes. Also, the testing is quick and FREE, but the paperwork and screening takes awhile. If you’ve thought about getting tested for me or someone else, please don’t put it off. The more time and data Johns hopkins has to work with, the better. It’s quick, and it’s free. Johns Hopkins will pay for all testing.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Dana 

You can join my Facebook group here.

You can read my whole story and get more information at http://www.AKidneyForDana.org

Worst domestic sales e-mail from a known local business that I’ve never dealt with before and never asked to be added to their e-mail list.

Yes, the title of this Blog post is a mouthful but it’s true. We’re at a loss to how we ended up on this business’s ill fated e-mail list. Since they are local, I can only assume they copied my wife’s e-mail address out of the PTA directory. Using the data from a school directory to sell something is one of the lowest things anyone could do, and it’s an e-mail marketing cardinal sin. Most directories of this type, including ours have a note right up front that say using the data in the PTA directory for commercial endeavors is strictly forbidden.

It’s one thing to SPAM an e-mail list that come from an unknown source and goes to millions of people. But here in the small community of Severna Park/Millersville/Arnold this kind of nonsense will earn you a one way ticket to a terrible reputation.

What’s worse is the misspelling of two separate significant and important holidays that this guy is obviously not familiar with. In fact, this may be the worst misspelling of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa ever. Ok, I get it, it’s a holiday themed e-mail that that is meant to be multi-cultural and gives shout outs to several religious holidays. If that is the case, why on earth would you just randomly sprinkle holiday greetings in the body of your e-mail. That has to be breaking some kind of e-mail or marketing rule

Let’s hope that atheists are not offended by the blessing at the end of the e-mail.

Here’s the e-mail with names redacted. Also, the formatting of this e-mail is exactly how it appeared in the original e-mail:

Christmas is tough for so many of us this year.  It is just the reality than we live in.
At XXXXXXXXXXXXX I am getting about 2 calls a day asking these questions.  What computer brand should I buy?  Are mini computers worth the money?  Are refurbished computer reliable.  It sounds like we just do not have as much money to spend on Christmas this year.
Let me ask you a question.  If I could get your computer back to the same condition it was in when you purchased it for less than half the price of a new mini computer, would you be interested.  I will also save all the music, pictures, and records you want to save.  (MERRY CHRISTMAS)  You do not have to pay a lot of money to get your computer back to peak performance. 
We are all in this thing together.  Therefore, I will give a $25 discount for any computer repair related to virus, spyware, or malware infections.
(HAPPY HANIKAH)  We will get your computer back to the functionality you need. 
Also if you get the computer to XXXXXXXXXXXXX by Sunday 12-20-09, I guarantee you will get your computer back by Christmas (barring ordering parts).  If you bring your computer in by 12-28-09, I guarantee your computer back by 1-3-10.  So if your child is having trouble with their computer in college, bring it in and we will clean it up before they return.  (HAPPY QUANZA)
Lastly, we always give a free diagnostic test for any computer repair.  You do not have to pay me a lot of money to look at your computer.  We will find out what is wrong, call you with the price, if you approve you get a fast computer again for less.  If you don’t’ approve, come pickup the computer and we part friends.  (HAPPY HOLIDAYS)
Remember all guarantees on repair completion are a case by case basis and are subject to approval. 
All of us at XXXXXXXXXXXXX hope we can help your family in this time of need.  Be safe, have fun, and love that family this Holiday Season.  Take care and may God bless.
 
P.S.  Remember, gift certificates to the gaming center make great last minute Christmas gifts for kids of all ages.
 

So while browsing the headlines at cnn.com I saw a side bar banner ad for Dockers pants pop up to the right of the news story I was reading.

Now, I’m not a banner-clicking guy generally speaking, but sometimes they really hit their mark, and something pops up that looks like it was a match for me. Good job banner marketing person! Okay, so the Dockers brand is not exactly exciting anymore, and to me it’s dead in terms of work pants. For more then ten years I bought only Dockers khakis and nothing else (w/ pleats no less). About 5 years ago I stopped and made a switch to LL Bean. More recently I’ve mixed in a few pairs of 5.11’s. (Both hold up great BTW)

I switched away from Dockers because their sizes and quality were all over the map. When I started with them they had good fit and good quality material. They seemed to hold up well, and when I bought them I would write the date I bought them on the label and note when they wore out. As time wore on, and the purchase date and the retirement date got closer and closer together it was easy to see that that quality was inconsistent, and I eventually gave up.

I also hate trying on pants in the store, I would take size measurements at home and had carefully noted the size of my other pairs of Dockers, and I’d buy the same size. I ended up with at least half a dozen pairs that I bought that did not fit, or ones I got for Christmas when someone had inquired about my pants size. No matter, the sizes were often wrong.

So why all this talk of pants? Well to be honest I really burn though them at work. I’m under desks running Ethernet, unloading trucks, making deliveries, trying to jam servers into racks, and most pants don’t hold up well. Trust me, I’ve tried all the brands. Dockers, for a long time was in my findings the best bang for the buck, in terms of an all around work clothing item.

So when I saw the Dockers banner ad stating that “Some Pants Go With Rolling Up Your Sleeves”, I was like cool, maybe they have a new type of pants or they improved their quality, or something. From the look of the photo, it looked like they might be a tad tougher, I don’t know. That’s why I clicked. Well, guess where the ad dumped me? http://www.dockers.com. No new news about new pants, no info that was related to the ad I clicked on, just you wanted Dockers, you got Dockers, all of it in fact, mens, ladies, pants, shirts, shorts, all of it. What’s up with that? I clicked on an ad for men’s pants, and you’re gonna’ dump me just at the front door? Take me inside, show me what you have that’s new and make it something that has something to do with the ad I clicked on.

I don’t have any more Dockers, and I guess there aren’t any in my near future. Nothing on the site is calling out to me. I will give them Brownie point for the 360-degree video clips for their four styles of pants. That’s cool, but still over priced (IMHO. To be honest I have not shopped for Dockers recently, but the last time I looked they were $40 to $50 a pair. LL Bean is at least $20 less If I recall and I can get a solid 2 years of wear of out of them when rotating thru my pants “inventory”), and no mention of an improvement in any department. Oh, and I had to click though to “Mens Pants” to find what the ad might have been talking about.

In terms of on-line marketing, when I click on something I’m looking for info, and I’m looking for something clever. At this point I almost expect it when I click. The stuff that’s cool. I talk about and often buy (or at least remember for later). When you’re marketing to potential clients, make sure you make an impact when they come visit, and especially if you’re paying per click.

Also, Dockers is running a sweepstakes. If you sign up for their newsletter you might win 5 pairs of Dockers pants. Wow, that’s really going to grab me, Not! Why not run an ad that’s like sign up for our newsletter and 1 in 100 will win a pair of pants of their choice. Or, everyone who signs up and remains a subscriber will be entered in our weekly/monthly drawing for cool Dockers apparel. I have to say this just stuns me. Maybe they know something about e-mail newsletter sign ups that I don’t. If I’m missing the point, please let me know.

Update: 8/19/09: Once I write about something on my Blog, I think about what I wrote for a few days after, and I usually come up with a few other things. This post was not really to bust on the Dockers brand, but more to talk about how they missed the mark on grabbing me again as part of their target market. I also failed to mention that in the case of Dockers and a number of other brands I tried, I would cut the nameplate designer label off the outside of the pants. To me, I thought the “brand” on my backside was kind of weird, and I’ve been cutting the labels off (at least the big ugly ones) off my jeans for years. Don’t get excited Levi’s folks, I have not bought a pair of jeans in quite a while, and I only wear them to the farm these days. My last three pairs are pretty much on their last “legs”, so I might be buying a new pair or two real soon.

So after waiting for the buzz to settle down, me and the family finally took a field trip to P.F. Chang’s in Annapolis. It’s located on the Route 2 side of the complex right up the street from Chevys. For those of you that don’t know the Parole shopping center that was once home to Sears and was promptly killed by the building of the Annapolis Mall. You can revel in the wonder that is now Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole. The extra “E” in Towne signals that this is an expensive place to hang out. One place that’s sure to attract the folks with extra dollars is the new Whole Foods Market. I’ll talk more about that later.

You can get all of the details on this troubled development at http://www.visitatc.com (Not a great domain name if you ask me.). It’s got a bunch of swanky places to shop like Brooks Brothers, Talbots, Origins, and Coldwater Creek.

I had taken a peek at the P.F. Chang’s menu on-line and and I already know that they had lots of vegan options. Nice! I also have VeganExpress on my iPhone which I highly recommend. It tells you who has vegan food choices and what they are. So unlike most places where there’s one or two things we might be able to eat, we have a large selection of stuff we could eat at P.F. Chang’s

I called at 4:45 PM to make reservations, and they said they could seat us at 7:30. I told them I would call right back to confirm. I waited too long, because when I called back they only had reservations available for 8:00. No biggie, I took it. I don’t know if it was true or not, but I suspect that that they “told” me that this was the “last” table for four they had. Right away they are creating buzz with an air of exclusivity. I’ll likely tell the rest of my party or friends that “I got the last table”. Wow! they must be packed all the time, so they must be really good. We’re programed to relish the hot spots with lots of buzz, so if they did this on purpose, then wow, what a great Jedi mind trick to create buzz about your brand! The other two things that I tuned into, was they had intelligent people on the phone, and when I called the first time, they answered on the first ring, and the nice lady that picked up was ready to help and there was no need to lead her in to the questions I had. She was smart, friendly, and ready to do her job. Refreshing. I was looking forward to calling her back, but when I rang back I spoke to a guy who was just about as nice. I made my reservation (he was the one that said this was the last one for 8:00 PM) and he asked if I had any special requests or needed anything special. I wish I had a request, but sadly no. I did tell him I was coming to get some vegan food. I don’t think he had an answer, but no matter.

I got there early and waited in the car for the rest of the family to walk over from Whole Foods. They ended going in before me as I was parked out back. When you walk in the “walk-in” hostess it front and center. When my wife said she had reservations she told our group to step around the corner where the “reservation” hostess whom she named by name would help us. They were going to seat us as a small table, and we asked for a booth instead. There was no fuss, and the nice person who seated us, had to run back to the hostess to check, and she said that we could sit where ever we wanted.

This is where we started to have some issues. It took awhile for our waitress to find us. It was obvious right away that she had too many tables. A little of the special feeling started to go away. The restaurant is very nicely decorated and it’s pain to see that they paid attention to how to build a free standing eatery. When she did show up, the first thing she wanted to know, if there was a special occasion, or if we were celebrating anything. We said no, and she replied that with Navy commissioning week there was alot going on. Too true. Maybe this was not the best time to come try them out??

It was after all 8:00 PM so we were all starving! We gave our drink orders and put in an order for the Crispy Green Beans, a favorite of ours from other places we’ve been. It took awhile for our drinks to arrive. Nothing hard, just a lemonade, two ginger ales, and a few waters. we’re pretty sure we saw our order of Crispy Green Beans delivered to another table, so we were worried about that. It took a while for our server to notice that we did not have our order. Here’s were she made a good move. I think she must have noticed on the way back to the kitchen, and when she game back she did not come empty handed. She showed up at the table with a free order of P.F. Chang’s Lettuce Wraps. Sadly, they are made with chicken, so the kids ate them, but our string beans arrived soon after. We also put in an order for spring rolls as we were still starving and we wanted to try them. they came out pretty quickly. Both the lettuce wraps and the sting beans were taken off of our check without us having to say anything. (The lettuce wraps were not on the check to begin with.)

Our dinner took longer to arrive than I would have expected, but everyone was happy with it. I’m guessing part of the P.F. Chang’s formula is to go with smaller portions. My son and daughter both ordered meat dishes as they on get non-vegan when we’re out. Both of them were smaller then I expected for the price. If you had not had appetizers, you would want to order desert. The vegan dishes were noticeably cheaper that the meat based ones. Nice! I got the Budda’s Feast “stir fried”. It’s a mix of veggies with tofu. I was looking forward to some good tofu, but my dish was noticeably light on it. I was a little sad about that. It was good, and it was a bit greasy and had a pretty strong peanut overtone. I did eat it all, so there were no problems. My wife got the Chow Fun, with tofu, and it too was a little greasy. Both of the vegan dishes were noticeably large portions than the meat based dishes.

The server was on her game, our waters and my lemonade where never empty. She did want to keep touching my wife on the shoulder, so that could be a small complaint. She also kept using terms of endearment like “sweetie” and “honey” on my kids. They are both teenagers, so that kind of talk might be better reserved for the kiddies.

She knew the service was not up to snuff, and she did the best should could under the circumstances. If you recall that I mentioned that we got the “last table” for 8:00 PM. I was looking around and either they want to keep tables open for walk-ins or the story about the last table was not entirely true. Shortly after 8:00 I did notice there were a number of empty tables. Also, I wondered how they could keep up with their reservations if the service was so slow. There is NO doubt, we cut into the next round of diners. I guess things might start to taper off after 8:00 PM?

You can read more about their business model here: http://consumerist.com/5262103/

It appears that when the economy started to slow down, they looked at everything they could do, and whatever they’re doing appears to be working.

Everyone I’ve spoken to, loves P.F. Chang’s, so I feel that they’ve figured something out. I think they’ve made the dining experience feel special, and found a way to trade on that. The article on Consumerist which quotes Newsweek in their coverage, says P.F. Chang’s is sort of the Applebee’s of Chinese food. I’m not sure if I agree with that. There’s nothing special about Applebee’s and with only Salad with fruits and veggies AND “oil” being the only two vegan food options on the menu, there’s certainly nothing there for me. I think P.F. Chang’s has captured what was the Outback Steakhouse sort of feeling from ten years ago, and NOT made it about price, but kept that special feeling. Outback is now trying to lure folks back on price with some meals as low as $10. My friends that have eaten at Outback recently say the food and the service was bad. Outback is now trying to recapture diners on price, and now they have diners that don’t suit their target audience, and pissed off servers because nobody is tipping.

P.F. Chang’s seems to have avoided all of this by being smart on price and totally with it on the atmosphere, menu, and overall dining experience. They are to be commended for having a number of vegan and gluten free menu items. In fact I’d have to say it’s more then any other main-stream restaurant. P.F. Chang’s is currently a hot ticket and P.T. Barnum would be proud.

Here’s what we had and how much it cost:

Spring Rolls (4) $5.95
Crispy String Beans $5.95 (Taken off bill for being late)
Chang’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps $7.95 (Free)

Buddha’s Feat $7.50 (I give it a 3 out of 5 light on tofu)
Veggie Chow Fun $7.95 (Wife gave it 4 out 5 said it was bit greasy)
Lemon Chicken $12.95 (Son gave it 4 out of 5)
Crispy Honey Shrimp $$14.95 (Daughter gave it 3 out of 5, sad it was “okay”)

All came with choice of white or brown rice.

Total bill with $11 tip $72

We agreed that we prefer Lemongrass in Crofton to P.F. Chang’s, but our bill there would have been over $100. I really like that the fact that the meat free dishes at P.F. Chang’s are reflected in their price. That is usually not the case at most places. Also, I think that if you’re ordering s menu item WITHOUT meat or cheese, they should give you a break on the price. At most places, they don’t. Ledo’s Pizza is vegan without the cheese, the most expensive ingredient, but if you order it without the cheese, they charge the same price. That’s alot of extra profit. How about a free extra topping if you hold the cheese or $1 off??

P.F. Chang’s can be found here: http://www.pfchangs.com.

Is it any wonder why Dell is so beleaguered?

So I ordered a Dell, yeah I know, I’m a Mac guy, why on earth would I be getting a Dell. Well the answer is they are practically giving them away. So basically it came down to them making me an offer I could not refuse. I got a “Netbook” with a 16 GB SSD for about $350. I need a PC laptop for a project I am working on, so this appeared to be the right time to add to my collection of over 25 computers. I do own a Dell tower that was supposed to be a Printer RIP for cheap, but the software sucked and I arranged to take it off my client’s hands. I also have another clone PC, but other than that they are Apples, Macs, and a few Ataris

The trouble I have with Dell is I ordered my new computer twice. My first attempt was on March 2nd ( I do have an order number and confirmation e-mail). I was was patiently waiting (this is a computer I DON’T really need) and then an e-mail from Dell arrived on March 10th saying “This order has been canceled.” What’s up with that?? I tried to order again on March 12th, and yeah they have to “tweak” the configuration some, but they say I won’t have it until April 7th. So it take more than a month to get Dell to send a laptop. Wow! How does a company that treats clients (especially an Apple follower) stay in business selling computers when they can get one sent out in under a week?

I can order a custom configured Apple MacBook Pro and have it shipped from China in three to four days. It seems to me that that would be more complex, then some Dell guys in Round Rock, Texas sticking in a 16 GB SSD drive, and slapping a camera into my new Dell Netbook.

I had a chance to stop into Home Depot this weekend. It had been awhile as the last time I was there, the store was dimly lit, there was nobody around to help me, and worse of all I could not find a thing I was looking for. All the while I was there it was non stop page after page over the public address system. Help here, help there, solve this problem, so forth and so on. I think I actually left the store empty handed. I don’t recall that ever happening before. This was in the Glen Burnie Home Depot near Price Club.

So I’ve been avoiding Home Depot, and going to Lowe’s for the last couple of years. We’re having some work done at home, and our contractor likes Home Depot, so we needed to pick out some ceramic tile for something he is working on. I wanted to go to Lowe’s but Home Depot it was. 

We went to the Home Depot in Pasadena, Maryland right next door to the defunct Circuit City. Where do they find the guys to wave the going out of business signs on the side of the road anyways? Circuit City = sad, but that’s another story.

First thing that stuck me was the fact that the store seemed pretty busy. I kind of thought that with the slow down in housing and the economy overall, the store would be slower, and we could park up in the front row. No, that was not the case toady. We had to park at the end of the row.

The next thing that caught my eye, was the fact that they had a cheerful greeter at the door. As we entered the store and started walking around, no less then 6 or 7 Home Depot guys and gals with the orange aprons said hello or asked if they could help. What is going on? They had a virtual army of people working the store. How on earth can they pay all of these people? This is baffling! One guy said hello once (he was pretty gritty looking, with a beat up baseball cap) and then asked if he could help later. I’m not sure if he remembered me or not, but I was wearing one of red and black MacMedics jackets.

Another item that I noticed was the store was lit up like day no matter where you were in the store. I looked up and in addition to the normal florescent lights you would expect, they also had what appears to be directional lights to illuminate the sales floor. 

I was also surprised to see a pretty clean store.

We did find some tile we like, but there was only one example of it, and there way no way to ID it. We had a guy help us figure out what it was, but after talking to someone else and looking everything over a second time, we found out he had incorrectly identified it. That could have been a disaster, but we got it figured it out.

So what’s going on? I suspect that Home Depot took a long hard look at what was going on and acted on it. I have to say I was surprised. I would see the Home Depot commercials on TV (especially during NASCAR) and it just felt wrong, since what they showed on TV in no way matched my in-store experiences.

I think I still prefer the new Lowes on Quarterfield Road in Severn, MD, but it’s nice to have a fall back.

I happened to be in Ocean City, Maryland this fourth of July (as well as last year). When I’ve been here for the holiday, I’ve been amazed at the amount of money that folks spend on contraband fireworks to set off on the beach. We end up getting a semi-pro firework display right in front of where we stay. The privately funded display seems to go on forever. So thank you to the people the illegally import fireworks and then set them off for everyone’s enjoyment. I am however saddened by the amount of trash that these fireworks generate, and the careless disregard to the beach and the people who enjoy it.

Today while we walked the beach, we picked up countless spent fireworks. I know it’s fun to shoot this stuff off, but how about some general clean up. On the topic of cleaning up why can’t the people staying in Ocean City pick up after themselves? Beer cans, water bottles, broken beach chairs and umbrellas, and countless amounts of everything else you can imagine littered the beach this morning.

I came across a group of guys standing on the beach drinking beer. I could not help but notice the shallow pit they had dug and filled with beer cans. I’m hoping that they did that to keep them from rolling away, and they were not buried later. What happened to the “No Drinking on the beach” rules anyways?

It’s a beach folks, can’t we just keep it clean? I’m not a freak for rules enforcement, but it appears that Ocean City is doing nothing to enforce any of the rules they have set forth. People should not have to pick their way though the trash that other people have left behind.