>>>Blue Horseshoe Loves Endicott Steel :)
>>>
>>>Just watched that movie for what must have been the hundredth time....what a film!
>>
>>And not even the most famous line in the movie. Along with "Bonfire in the Vanities" (classic book, so-so movie) it captured the flavor of the times.
>>
>>What a great name for Michael Douglas's character, Gordon Gekko. A gecko is a predatory lizard.
>
>But could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

LOL

I get offers like that all the time. Sometimes I check them out and invariably they can't offer me a better deal than the one I already have. I have had the same insurance agent for over 20 years and he does right by me. Combo discounts, good driver discounts. He even does the little things that make small businesses successful, like sending me a card every year on my birthday.

The way we came together as businessman and customer is also illustrative IMO. In my young working days I was with State Farm. Who knows why, probably on reputation alone. It was going along fine. Then I had two claims in a short period of time -- two removable roofs removed from a Corvette -- and they dumped me. My State Farm agent, who was just down Addison on the way to Wrigley Field, said he fought it with the faceless underwriters at HQ, but didn't fight very hard. At one point it looked like I was going to have to unload the car because no one would insure it. At the time I was working in Cincinnati. A guy I worked with there had an uncle in the insurance business and tried to intercede on my behalf. The uncle asked what kind of car. Tim told him and Unc said tell him thanks but no thanks. I don't need magnets on my refrigerator.

Somehow I found Farmers Insurance and they agreed to insure my car. When I moved to Chicago a few months later I found the local agent, Al Friello, and have been with him ever since. Every time I receive one of his cornball Happy Birthday cards in the mail it reminds me how to treat customers.