It has been a trying couple of months for me – needing things I had no idea how to find and all of these issues fraught with stress. But I have two success stories to relay of two Cleveland companies that really came through with flying colors.

Al’s and Mel’s Movers

Earlier this month I found myself confronted with the arduous task of moving a majority of my deceased brother’s one-of-a-kind handcrafted furniture pieces here to Cleveland in a one-way UHaul rental. My son and I flew to Florida and hired movers via e-move to pack the truck with these dear pieces as well as old school photographic enlargers and my brother’s original art work. We drove carefully north through the countryside of Georgia before locking into the interstate highway north to Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Lexington, Cincinnati, Columbus and finally Cleveland. Through rain and dark we hoped that nothing was breaking back in the truck. As we drove toward Cleveland snow began to fall, and we finally crawled into Cleveland on a snowy Sunday afternoon going about 15 miles per hour tops. We heaved a huge sigh of relief as we pulled into the driveway of our home.  The next day we began to remove small items and boxes from the truck in the remaining snowy conditions, but the large heavy pieces remained. E-move supplied no movers available to help with this and on the morning that we had to return the truck my son managed to hire Al’s and Mel’s Movers of Cleveland. I was stupefied at the skill of these guys. They handled everything with kid gloves and had definite strategies for each piece. They worked quickly and efficiently careful to complete the move in the time we could afford. When the truck was empty they asked if we had anything else they might move for us – “Do you want us to move anything else? You have about 15 more minutes”, Mel said. I was so pleasantly surprised and grateful to these guys for being so careful with the furniture and respectful of my home. I would recommend this company of movers anytime. Mel said (and I have confirmed) that this small business has no web presence, but now it does. So here is a plug for Al’s and Mel’s Movers – a family business that spans two generations here in Cleveland: if you need something moved, call Al’s and Mel’s Movers at 216.851.1906. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Computer Guy

We had had an electrical storm, the power had failed and the computer had shut down as a result. But actually the old, pegged-together desktop had been running noisily for a while. I knew it was time to get new fans or clean the ones that were running in there, but hadn’t had the time. The thing had been making this sort of low groan, and on that stormy day, it shut down for the last time. The next morning when I pressed the button to launch the thing nothing happened. Was it a broken switch? Did I burn up the motherboard and fry the data? My son and I began dismantling the thing's contents to see what we could see inside the old tower of info. Nothing we could see to do was working so I phoned Martha to see if she had a suggestion as to whom to call; I needed a computer guy. It was funny that she suggested “Computer Guy”. I thought this was just Martha not remembering the guy’s name, but in fact his business is Computer Guy. I made the call and a very nice man on the other end of the line said he could be here to take a look at the tower later that afternoon. Really?!? Wow, I was impressed; I might not be fretting for days waiting for an appointment. He offered options – I could bring it to him or he could come to me, we could do it today or tomorrow. Wow! Well, Rick Chadwell showed up, black computer doctor’s bag in hand just when he had predicted he would arrive. He quickly diagnosed the problem as a dead power supply and copied all the data from the desktop to the laptop just for safe keeping. He viewed what my son had done with the tower and suggested that if we purchased a new power supply surely my son was mechanically and electrically savvy enough to install it. There would be no need for him to return to perform that simple task. As we sat in the light of the monitor waiting for files to be copied, we chatted (with the occasional interruption of a phone call for him from his kids and wife – they were working out rides to and from basketball practice for his daughter and his son had dinosaur questions). We covered many topics, but one we touched upon was social networking. I spoke about how I knew Martha and he spoke about knowing her through Heights Youth Club. I said how pleased I was that he was able to come on short notice and how nice it was to get such a good referral from a friend. He said he was working on building a network for his business. I mentioned Valdis Krebs and he wrote down the name. A couple of weeks later he phoned to ask how the insertion of the power supply had worked out and mentioned that he was appreciative of the connection to Valdis. He had looked him up and phoned him to have a conversation. He’d be networked in no time. So this is a shameless plug for a servicer who has done me right in the past month. Pleasant to chat with, knows what he is doing, careful and respectful and curious – Richard Chadwell, otherwise known as Computer Guy. If your machine is on the fritz or you need a bigger better idea for your technology, click on the link and hire a smart, nice local guy to help. Let’s get the Computer Guy networked here! He’s worth it.