User:Wonderhecki

Hello World
I am a native German who now lives in Corpus Christi, Texas, USA where, besides running an on line memorial products store, I spend a lot of time with my beautiful 4-year-old daughter. That's the basics about me. Now, so that you can adequately judge my participation on Wikipedia, here are some more relevant details.

My Main Wikipedia Interest
I spend my professional life running Prestige Memorials, and have been selling memorial products since 1999. In my time in this business, I have become well read on things like cremation, funeral traditions, burial practices and in general about the death care industry. Most of my activity on Wikipedia will be in those areas. In particular, I plan to watch closely for articles that have what I consider to be an anti-consumer bias. See, our industry is notorious for engaging in un-competitive activity designed to keep prices artificially high and discourage customers from "shopping around" for the best deals. Funeral homes and cemeteries will often use aggressive sales methods against grieving customers who, understandably, are in no position for tough negotiations. One common (but illegal) tactic is to imply that customers may not buy their urns, headstones, caskets, etc from "outside" dealers such as mine (who generally sell for much less than cemeteries and funeral homes). Another tactic is to insinuate in PR materials that products purchased from "outside" dealers are of risky quality (when, often, they are the exact same as those offered by the funeral home or cemetery). I spend a good deal of time in my business advocating for customers against these sales methods. And, because our industry is dominated by large funeral home and cemetery chains that have made these tactics part of their standard procedures, I've noticed that much industry literature is biased against companies such as mine. So, while I have not yet noticed any glaring examples of this on Wikipedia to date, I will be on the look-out for it and will edit it accordingly. Please don't worry: I have a great respect for Wikipedia's "no original research" policy. While I may contribute "consumer tips" type articles from time to time, I will always be careful to cite other sources (of which there are plenty).

Other Wikipedia Interests
Because there is more to life than work, I am interested in a number of other topics on which Wikipedia has much to offer. You may just find my hand in articles about the following:

Parenting; Padre Island, Texas; E-commerce; Real Estate; Water sports; World Travel; Reality Television; German and Eureopean Immigration to the United States

I have plenty of real-world experience, and am widely read, in them all. Therefore, I believe I can contribute competently to articles in these fields on occassion.