As Staci mentioned in her latest blog post, the third annual Angie’s List Soapbox Derby took place last week.

Both aping and lampooning the Indianapolis 500, my team christened itself “Victorious Secret.” The grill of our vehicle was a pink cardboard brassiere with a matching thong as the spoiler.

That doesn’t adequately explain how I ended up posing on the starting ramp like Tyra Banks and rolling my shirt up over my mid-section to resemble a push-up bra. I crave attention; let’s leave it at that.

The photos came back today and I’m in full damage-control mode. Not for my wrecked reputation, but rather my enormous belly. Honestly, I thought I looked kind of sexy, but the photos don’t flatter.

So, it’s Angie’s List to the rescue. My first task is to look up barbers and hair salons. I’m told that a buzz cut can make you look 20 pounds slimmer. And I’m dialing fitness centers, where I’ll be skipping right to the 100-degree hot yoga class. Even if I can’t repair my reputation, I can at least renovate my look.

We recently added a category for tattoos and piercings on Angie’s List and now we’re working on a podcast to help people learn more about them. The podcast will give you the low-down on how to choose the right tattoo artist. It will also describe the process of getting a tattoo from design to finish.

This is right up my alley because I’ve been interested in tattoos since I was a small child. I’ve got three so far and I’m sure I’ll get more because they’re something that represents me.

I often daydream about adding another meaningful piece of artwork to my body. I think about what would it look like … and where I would put it so my grandmother can’t see it.
 
More and more, tattoos are easing their way into the mainstream culture – even if my grandmother does not approve. The tattoos of mine she has seen have given her heart palpitations and endless disapproving looks, but I am going to be who I am anyway. I know she loves me no less. It’s a generational thing.
 
I like the fact that tattoos and piercings are becoming more and more a part of “normal” life. I also like that they're becoming a part of Angie's List. We humans evolve in so many ways.

I just got back from the second visit to my new dentist. The first time I went, it was just for a cleaning and a thorough check-up. I was so impressed by that experience that I couldn’t stop telling people about it.

The actual dentist did the cleaning and they had high-tech devices to explore every crevice and cranny of my mouth. Unfortunately, they found I had cracked a tooth and that some old fillings were peeling away, causing additional cavities.

My old dentist used to tell me I had cavities, but I never got to SEE them. My mouth was just a mystery and I had to accept what the expert told me. Not so with my new dentist.

He has a fancy camera that takes pictures of the problem areas, then he shows me – in high resolution – what areas need to be fixed. How cool is that? Even though I don’t have a dental degree, I can still spot a cavity when I see it and it makes me feel better to be able to know what’s going on in there.

Instead of just telling everyone I know about this great dentist, I plan on submitting reports on him and the staff on Angie’s List. I want to make sure that everyone in Indianapolis can hear about my experience. I think it’s a good thing to be able to share this information with others. Who wouldn’t want to see their choppers on the big screen?

Friday was the third annual Angie’s List Soap Box Derby and it was quite an event. The entire company divided into teams of 12. Each team constructed a soap box derby car to race down a hay-bale strewn course.

The primary objective was to get to the bottom of the course (hill) the fastest. The not-so-thought-about-but-just-as-important objective was to get to the bottom of the hill in one piece. No serious incidents occurred this year or in years past, but it’s fortunate we have a list of A-rated doctors to call in case of emergency.

With more than 300 Angie’s List employees, the soap box derby is always a fun and unique way to meet colleagues from different departments. Everyone gets into the spirit by dressing in costume, developing themes for the “pit crew” and decorating the cars. It’s quite a sight to see!

As an added bonus, Indianapolis 500 driver Sarah Fisher – whose in-car camera Angie’s List sponsored – made a guest appearance at Friday’s festivities. Nothing like a little celebrity to spice up your day!

My husband and I love our cozy Broad Ripple bungalow almost as much as the resident arthropods.
 
I’m not a bug hater by any means. I happily cohabit with spiders and centipedes, so long as they limit their wanderings to the basement, the ceiling or the far reaches of a room’s corners. But I draw the line when it comes to invading species like ants, termites, beetles – or worse, the contemptible cockroach.
 
When we purchased our home two years ago, our house inspector pointed out evidence of a termite infestation. A few of the wood beams near the foundation and a floor joist were pocked with tiny holes and crumbled when poked.

We were assured this was old damage, and learned a previous owner got rid of the unwelcome tenants by hiring an exterminator. We still use the company to do yearly inspections to make sure the termites haven’t returned.

Another insect that likes to munch on our house is the carpenter bee. Several have taken up residence in our cedar window frames. While many homeowners would find these wood-boring insects to be a nuisance and kill them with poison, I’m taking another approach: I’m trying to evict them.

One way to deter them is to paint wood surfaces. That’s an option I’m considering and have searched Angie’s List for highly rated painters.

In the meantime, I’ve tacked screening over the windows. As far as I can tell, the screens have deterred the bees everywhere except one window, where a determined squatter chewed right through. 

If her brood doesn’t survive, maybe I won’t have to call that painter after all.

As we have a few dust allergies in my household, my last post was about how we were planning to do some spring cleaning to clear out the house in time for allergy season. At the time, we were planning on doing it ourselves.

Things have changed just a little bit, as my son has come down with an illness that’s going to make him a little more susceptible to germs for a while. Not forever, but certainly for some months to come.

So we’re going to turn to the professionals for some guidance on how to scrub down the house and keep it clean enough for the duration of his illness.

When your health is on the line, you don’t want to trust the job to just anybody. We’ll be turning to Angie’s List for all our needs and making sure we hire the absolute best people to do the job. 

We already know Angie’s List is good for this sort of thing. One of our recent Wishmakers projects saw several service providers pitching in to help a child with severe combined immunodeficiency.

My son’s troubles aren’t as serious, but it’s comforting to know that there are people in Indianapolis that can get the job done right when there’s no margin for error.  Information, as we like to say, is power. And for this sort of thing, there’s no better resource than Angie’s List.

After a few months of house hunting, I’ve found a home I really like. Taking the next steps toward (hopefully) making it mine means tackling the many things on my to-do list.

One of these is a home inspection. While I’ve never considered not having one done, I’ve heard stories of people who skipped that step (and usually regretted it in the end). I’ve also heard the horror stories of people who did get inspections but still had problems later.

For example, a co-worker’s friend got an inspection, but later found mold behind their built-in bookshelves. And, according to a 2007 Angie’s List poll, 30 percent of respondents said their home inspectors had missed something that became a bigger problem down the road.

As far as I’m concerned, not only do I need to get an inspection, but I also need to do my homework and make sure I find a good inspector.

I’ve already checked Angie’s List and found a highly rated company. They’re licensed, they have a good BBB rating and they even do mold and radon testing. I might be giving them a call soon. I just hope they don’t find anything behind the bookshelves….

Did you know you can use Angie's List in more than one location?

That is, you don’t have to be in your home city to have all the power Angie's List has to offer. I was thinking about this recently as I drove my motorcycle some 300 miles from Indianapolis to Red River Gorge in Kentucky.

This was a big trip for me, the longest I’ve ever taken on a motorcycle. With my bike being built the same year my 26-year-old brother was born, one of my biggest concerns was developing a contingency plan for if or when my motorcycle broke down.

Thankfully, whether I was traveling through Columbus, Ind., Madison, Ind. or Lexington, Ky., I had Angie's List to back me up. If something did go wrong, Angie’s List and the “add another chapter” option was just a phone call away.

Broken motorcycle? Call a highly rated motorcycle service shop nearby – wherever “nearby” may be.

Motorcycle broken beyond repair? Call a highly rated car rental company.

And with health categories on Angie's List, if the worst of the worst happened and I crashed my motorcycle, I could call ahead and make sure I’m going to a highly rated hospital or emergency clinic – but I think I’d trust the ambulance to get me to the closest possible location.

I love being a Dad. I get to be a big, goofy kid and do fun things like build Lego towers, make funny faces and sing silly songs.

I also “love” when one of the kids says something outrageous in public. The other day we went to a baseball game where our 6-year-old son announced to the nice family behind us, “I’m the smartest person in the family!” As you can tell, he’s the humble one in the clan.

Of course, being a Dad also brings feelings of helplessness, like when my 3-year-old daughter ran a 104-degree fever and nothing my wife or I tried seemed to work. We’ve had our share of illnesses lately as our children played “Tag, you’re it” with strep throat.

These recent bouts have been stressful because we’re new in town and we’ve procrastinated in finding a pediatrician.  We really miss the pediatric practice our kids had gone to since the day they were born. The friendly doctors knew our kids by name and took the time to get to know them. The staff gave us great advice during those crucial early years and someone was always available on weekends for those sudden sicknesses.

Now, it’s time for our children’s annual checkups. We’ve earnestly begun searching for a pediatrician who will hopefully deliver the same stellar care we’ve grown accustomed to.

Thankfully, the growing medical database at Angie’s List has helped us narrow the search to two highly rated practices. Based on dozens of member reports, it looks like we can’t go wrong with either one. Hopefully, my wife and I will make the right decision, so we can give our son a run at the “smartest” title.

As an update to my last post, I contacted a highly rated organic lawn company on Angie’s List to give me a quote for my yard, but I didn’t end up hiring them.

To make a long story short, the person who came out to make the estimate for my lawn showed no interest in helping me understand his company’s process.  Based on his body language and three-word answers, the guy really just wanted to hand me the quote and be on his way.

As a person who likes to ask a lot of questions before committing to spend his hard-earned money, I was put off by his unwillingness to communicate with me.

I considered writing a scathing report on Angie’s List, but decided to wait. It dawned on me that writing a bad report wasn’t going to do me or the offending company any good without talking to them first.

Of the handful of bad reports I’ve written in the past, I addressed my issues with the companies before berating them on Angie’s List. I provided them an opportunity to correct their mistake – usually customer service related – before sharing my experience.

It’s your prerogative to lambaste a company without getting their side of the story, but I think a lot of issues can be resolved with a simple phone call or email. I just dropped the owner of the lawn care company a line, so I’ll see what they say before writing my report.