Hopefully this newsletter for December finds everyone in good health and safe. This last month was a real test for the Midwest, the month started with snow on the ground for a few days and then Mother Nature dropped a bomb Sunday morning on November 17th. While I don't know how many states actually had tornado's touch down, Illinois was hit fairly hard with 1000's of families with no place to stay after storms left miles of destruction. Washington IL was hit extremely hard with an EF-4 tornado that destroyed complete subdivisions of homes, new and old - nothing was safe. The amazing fact was there was only fatality in the Central Illinois storms of 9 tornados over a couple of hours. While you may have seen pictures, they are nothing compared to seeing the actually destruction in person - it's hard to explain and difficult to witness. It will take months to cleanup and years to rebuild but with the support being provided from around the world, it will get done.

We all have had good and bad customer service, usually you hear about the bad service. I have recently had both and thought I would share a few stories.

The bad - I recently need to purchase new tires for my car, they are a sport tire and not commonly stocked in my area. So I ordered them online and had them shipped to me, so I called a few locations requesting pricing for installation of the new tires, I confirmed a few items that most people might not think about to make sure I knew the total price. A few businesses were close in price, so I decided to use one that had a convenient location and has been in business for many years in Peoria. Arrived to their location with the car and they went to work right away, within 5 minutes I started getting questions about additional charges for their services. In the end, the total cost was double what I was told over the phone, I was not happy to say the least. The business was not sympathetic nor did they seem concerned about my questions about price increases after getting a verbal quote on the phone.

Another local photographer was having some work done to his home kitchen recently; they used a local supplier for all appliances asking for the same model/series to match in their brand new kitchen. The appliances arrived but all had different 'features' while being the same brand and same series. After some research he found the manufacturer had a few differences within the series. After contacting the local supplier, one of the biggest in the area and they promote their 'customer satisfaction' promises, the owner of the supplier said 'sorry but we are not going to help you, you get what you have'. That's some great customer relations from the top!

The good - During a recent camping trip, I took my wonderful Princeton Tec head lamp with me. I use it every camping trip and most photography trips near sunrise and/or sunset. The first night I had some problems, so I decided to replace the batteries - I failed to use the special tool for the battery door and you can guess what happened next. I broke the battery compartment door and it would not stay closed. This was a major problem since I was doing sunrise and sunset images for the next 3 days and really needed the head lamp. After returning home, I searched for a replacement battery door at local retailers - no one had one and I feared I would have to purchase a new head lamp. I decided to contact the manufacturer to see how much replacement parts would cost, I explained how I broke the door by not using the special tool. I received an email back asking for a mailing address so they could send me the parts required. I responded with a question for the amount needed to be paid and what forms of payment they would take - their response 'no charge'! I was totally surprised by Princeton Tec and will definitely purchase their brand in the future, even if it costs more than an equal from someone else.

The first image this month is from Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. If anyone likes history or geology, then southern Utah is a great place to visit. In just about 20 miles of driving in the park, there are 17 exposed layers of rock dating from 275 to 85 million years old, a few are visible in this image. There are also a few special area's to visit from the Mormon Pioneers traveling through the area over the past few hundred years.

The second image is from the latest professional hockey team in Peoria, still called the Peoria Rivermen. The image is goalie Eric Levine watching the puck into his glove; sharped eyed viewers should be able to locate the puck without any problems. Peoria is part of the Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL), it's been a struggle so far and they are currently in eighth place while they learn the league and how to maintain their roster - it's very different when comparing to other professional leagues.

Some good news for everyone who has read this entire newsletter (sorry for the length), coupon codes for use on my prints.timlesterimages.com website, use the codes during checkout.

Cyber Monday Discount deal - any online purchase over $100 is eligible for a 45% discount. Good until midnight December 2,2013 Code = CyberMonday2013

Holiday 2013 deal - any online purchase is eligible for a 30% discount. Good until January 1st,2013 Code = Holiday2013

As always, I welcome all comments to the Monthly Update and any suggestions for improvements you would like to see for future editions.

Here's a link to download the appropriate version of this month's image for your desktop, one for standard screens and one for wide-screens. Right click on the text for the format you need and select Save As, save to a location on your computer that you can remember and change the background as needed for your OS.

http://www.timlesterimages.com/calendar/december.html

Tim

Tim Lester 10129 North Voorhees Road Edwards, IL 61528

Phone - 309-243-9280

Webpage - http://www.timlesterimages.com

Additional Images - http://www.flickr.com/photos/timlester and http://www.sportsshooter.com/timlester

Shop - http://prints.timlesterimages.com