Hoarding. I watch the show - sometimes. It's purely gross. The show is called: Hoarding: Buried Alive.
The reason I am so fascinated with this show is because I have been in numerous homes that look JUST like any and all of those homes.
I have walked into more than one home whose floors are littered with cat feces. I don't mean 1 or 2 piles, I mean it's EVERYWHERE. That and the smell of cat piss. I had gone into these homes as a leader of a church on a mission that was, actually, requested by the person: please help me clean up my house.
To walk into a house that is filled with animal droppings and urine - well, it's indescribable. I simply can't describe the repulsiveness of it. You want to turn around and run out of that house. To walk into a house with all of that plus MOUNDS of trash and junk laying around everywhere to the point there are "paths" going through it? No way to describe the horror. You can see it on those shows, but those shows do NOT give the
incredible sick feeling that comes to mind, soul and body. The nostrils are reeling, even breathing can become labored.
I did not, however, have the sympathies that those experts/psychologists on that show have. I mean, I didn't diss the person, but I didn't play games. Like, gee, let's wait around for days and weeks for this person to go through every single thing. No. We went in and took out the garbage. Get the cat crap out. Throw the piles of junk - out. Carry out the furniture.
We didn't have a company showing up with giant trash containers. We took the stuff away if we had to. It's just nasty. We would bring in donated furniture, even replace carpeting and that would be it. I knew that these people had a problem that THEY would have to deal with and I figured if I came back at a later date, I would find the place in the same condition as when we first showed up. I did that, too. One place? Piles of trash were "freshly placed".
I will not go into a place a second time to help someone out. I consider it the same as addictive behavior: you are either really ready to get out of it or you are not. If you are not, then putting a band aid on it doesn't work.
Really, not pleasant thoughts. The effort it takes to keep a clean home is WELL worth it. Well beyond hoarding, just doing daily cleaning makes it FEEL better in the house.
Ahh, whatever. Just commenting about my experiences with such people. I don't consider them BAD people per se, just people that need help - but usually - the help needed is in the mind. "Fix" that and you can go in, clean house and probably? You will come back a month later and it will still be - relatively - clean.
Onto other things. One tenant told me last month that on the 2cd of this month, I would receive an entire month's rent from that individual. The 2cd, 3rd, 4th and almost 5th passed. 5th would be today. I was just now handed that full month's rent, cash.
I figured I would be going out on a limb to build this new computer and I didn't let myself down. However, the light at the end of the tunnel is almost here already. It was do it or never do it, that was my feeling about it and I do NOT regret doing it. It's just that that old Buick kept having problems - that were costing money to fix. More to go? Yes, but nothing I have to have done TODAY. The point? I spent all the money. The money from insurance, the bonus money, tenant money, paycheck money. I spent it down to as low as I have seen it in a while. A bit scary, really. You don't think about it until you lose that cushion.
I have lived without the cushion most of my adult life. The loss of that cushion got me to thinking about my benefits at work - it's open enrollment right now until Monday. I'm increasing a few things and starting a few others. If something happens? I have as much as I can get through it. 60% of my salary short and long term. It WAS at 50%, I'm guessing it might go up as you gain tenure.
Well, anyway, a paycheck today, a full month's rent and a week's worth of rent times 2 in the next coming days from the other tenants means bills paid and the stops are in place. I have a week off during Thanksgiving week, I want to have a little money to spend for Black Friday - IF I feel like getting up that early and waiting in the cold - I haven't done it in years now. That, also, being if there is anything that I need that is worth that kind of time and duress.
Umm, btw, cold hasn't arrived here yet. In fact, it's still low-level summer heat. High was 92 today. It was hot in my car going home. That old Buick? Just needs some freon pumped into it. The AC will work. I'm looking at the forecast and telling myself it isn't worth it. The high next week, starting Tuesday, will be 79 degrees. That's what I'm looking for, any day that the high is lower than 80 degrees.
I digress. The eternal summer is, hopefully, almost over. My plans for the weekend are not clear yet. I haven't made up my mind. Projects, yes. Around the house. I need to get out. I want to get out. Out of here, work and do something different. Dunno what. Lack of a significant other makes it kinda - lame - but, I still want to go somewhere new, different and just do something - different. I have revisited the thought of joining one of the clubs around here that put together activities for singles - you show up - you do whatever it is - maybe you connect with someone. Hiking, camping, movies, all kinds of stuff they offer. Free? Absolutely not. But, I think I'm the kind of person that needs to have in-person stuff versus totally internet interaction. It works for some, I don't think it's going to work for me.
Regardless, I am typed out and soon, I am going to bed for early rise.
G'day/nite.
ben
Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Car - Part (How many parts have there been to this car story, now?)
So, I took the car in yet again today. Yesterday, they simply didn't have time to get to it. Today? I just said I would wait after getting there at 2:30 and they still hadn't had a chance to look at it. To their credit, they were down 2 technicians to illness.
I think I was there about 3-1/2 hours. Well, I wasn't going to try to drive that thing home again the way it was acting up. In fact, it was doing some really strange things. The worst of which, however, is dying out at lights, dying while driving on the freeway, lights coming on and off, fuel gauge jumping around all over the place.
So, we get into all kinds of discussions - just like the last 2 times, we sort of think alike and look at things pretty much the same way. I waited quite a while before they even got to my car, but, this shop has one of the best reputations around the valley, in fact, their reputation spreads to all parts of Arizona and beyond. In other words, no sense in getting cranky about it, I had resolved to spend the rest of the afternoon when I got there and saw they hadn't done anything to it, anyway.
This story goes on with us bantering back and forth, but, the deciding moment came. I knew what that tech was checking and I started feeling sick. He was banging on the computer. I have come to learn that - as primordial as it may sound - this is how they figure out of the computer is bad. Have the car running, diagnostic computer hooked up and start banging on the thing. He banged, the car started coughing and choking. Back and forth, on and on.
The owner - the guy I was chatting with - came to the verdict before the tech - his son - could say it: bad computer. I knew what that meant: a LOT of money. At least, I thought so. I had a car 10 or more years ago whose computer went out - it was priced out at $500. I told him my thoughts, he shook his head, no. I thought, even MORE than that? No, he said, they don't cost that much.
He made a phone call, got off, told me his price was $179 and that he normally would have charged $300, but he would give it to me at cost plus labor. Labor at $80, which included the diagnostics AND the installation. He gave me the cost - easily less than half of what any other shop would have charged me. I don't know why he was being so generous, maybe cause I had the car in there twice already in the past month, maybe because we get along so well, dunno, but I jumped all over it: yes, get that thing and put it in there.
Here's the embarassing and bad part, for me anyway. I deposited a check in the bank this afternoon. They always give me $100 credit instantly on a check, they have never not done that. I have never deposited a bad check or money order, either. With that credit plus what I had in there already that would cover it. If not, I had cash on me as well. I told him to put $220 on the card and the rest I would pay in cash. He goes to do that and it comes back - declined.
Under the "old" bank rules, the card would have gone through and then, if I didn't have the money in the account before bank closure that day, that night I would be assessed an overdraft fee and owe the money left. New rules? Well, this is the first time I have been subjected to it. No go, Joe.
Well, I said, put less on it, I should have that covered. Otherwise, I guess I'll leave the car and will be taking a taxi home. I hated to say that, but I felt pretty - lame - having a card declined. He looked at me and said: "well why don't you do that". I thought he meant take a taxi - I wouldn't expect any repair shop to just let me take the car home without paying for it and I didn't expect it here, either. I said, okay, I'll take a taxi and tomorrow afternoon I'll pay for the car.
No, no, he said, just take the car, I know where you live. You want to talk about genuine shock, I was there. Here's the owner of a shop telling me I can take my car without paying for it. He didn't just start in this business yesterday, I'm sure he's had more than his share of deadbeats, and that's exactly what I felt like: a deadbeat. Yet, he smiled, we shook hands and yes, I left with my car. And yes, I will be over there first thing in the morning, cause that check will definitely clear by then and I can pay that bill.
I haven't heard of anything like that in a long, long, long, long time, much less be on the receiving end of it.
I must say here that I did not expect this car to get into the price range it has in getting it operational. New tires (2); harmonic balancer; crank sensor; new battery; new computer; major tune-up; emissions testing; registration. My son definitely got the ball rolling with the initial $435 he gave me to get it fixed, I figured it would go a little over, I will admit here it went well over that. There is still a leaking valve cover gasket that needs to be replaced and it sounds like it has an exhaust leak.
If I am lucky, that will be the end of it.
Whatever the case, this is the end of this one.
ben
I think I was there about 3-1/2 hours. Well, I wasn't going to try to drive that thing home again the way it was acting up. In fact, it was doing some really strange things. The worst of which, however, is dying out at lights, dying while driving on the freeway, lights coming on and off, fuel gauge jumping around all over the place.
So, we get into all kinds of discussions - just like the last 2 times, we sort of think alike and look at things pretty much the same way. I waited quite a while before they even got to my car, but, this shop has one of the best reputations around the valley, in fact, their reputation spreads to all parts of Arizona and beyond. In other words, no sense in getting cranky about it, I had resolved to spend the rest of the afternoon when I got there and saw they hadn't done anything to it, anyway.
This story goes on with us bantering back and forth, but, the deciding moment came. I knew what that tech was checking and I started feeling sick. He was banging on the computer. I have come to learn that - as primordial as it may sound - this is how they figure out of the computer is bad. Have the car running, diagnostic computer hooked up and start banging on the thing. He banged, the car started coughing and choking. Back and forth, on and on.
The owner - the guy I was chatting with - came to the verdict before the tech - his son - could say it: bad computer. I knew what that meant: a LOT of money. At least, I thought so. I had a car 10 or more years ago whose computer went out - it was priced out at $500. I told him my thoughts, he shook his head, no. I thought, even MORE than that? No, he said, they don't cost that much.
He made a phone call, got off, told me his price was $179 and that he normally would have charged $300, but he would give it to me at cost plus labor. Labor at $80, which included the diagnostics AND the installation. He gave me the cost - easily less than half of what any other shop would have charged me. I don't know why he was being so generous, maybe cause I had the car in there twice already in the past month, maybe because we get along so well, dunno, but I jumped all over it: yes, get that thing and put it in there.
Here's the embarassing and bad part, for me anyway. I deposited a check in the bank this afternoon. They always give me $100 credit instantly on a check, they have never not done that. I have never deposited a bad check or money order, either. With that credit plus what I had in there already that would cover it. If not, I had cash on me as well. I told him to put $220 on the card and the rest I would pay in cash. He goes to do that and it comes back - declined.
Under the "old" bank rules, the card would have gone through and then, if I didn't have the money in the account before bank closure that day, that night I would be assessed an overdraft fee and owe the money left. New rules? Well, this is the first time I have been subjected to it. No go, Joe.
Well, I said, put less on it, I should have that covered. Otherwise, I guess I'll leave the car and will be taking a taxi home. I hated to say that, but I felt pretty - lame - having a card declined. He looked at me and said: "well why don't you do that". I thought he meant take a taxi - I wouldn't expect any repair shop to just let me take the car home without paying for it and I didn't expect it here, either. I said, okay, I'll take a taxi and tomorrow afternoon I'll pay for the car.
No, no, he said, just take the car, I know where you live. You want to talk about genuine shock, I was there. Here's the owner of a shop telling me I can take my car without paying for it. He didn't just start in this business yesterday, I'm sure he's had more than his share of deadbeats, and that's exactly what I felt like: a deadbeat. Yet, he smiled, we shook hands and yes, I left with my car. And yes, I will be over there first thing in the morning, cause that check will definitely clear by then and I can pay that bill.
I haven't heard of anything like that in a long, long, long, long time, much less be on the receiving end of it.
I must say here that I did not expect this car to get into the price range it has in getting it operational. New tires (2); harmonic balancer; crank sensor; new battery; new computer; major tune-up; emissions testing; registration. My son definitely got the ball rolling with the initial $435 he gave me to get it fixed, I figured it would go a little over, I will admit here it went well over that. There is still a leaking valve cover gasket that needs to be replaced and it sounds like it has an exhaust leak.
If I am lucky, that will be the end of it.
Whatever the case, this is the end of this one.
ben
Thursday 11/4/2010
Thursday
Didn't sleep well last night. Another one of those wake up at midnight and get back to sleep - whenever it was - hours later - deals. Plus, my car wasn't fixed yesterday, they didn't have time to get to it so, driving to work was a barrel of fun. I think I might be just a wee bit cranky this morning.
I have a huge delivery to make first thing, fortunately it isn't far away and I hope they get it unloaded quickly because I want my car in that shop first thing this morning.
Pretty much throws off the day when I haven't slept well enough to feel good in the morning. Get the work day over with, go home and take a nap. Or, more likely, get the work day over with, go to the mechanics shop and wait. Actually, if I don't get out of here until around 7:00 am this morning, the gates will be opened to that shop and I can just leave it there.
Whatever. Just that once that delivery is over, I am supposed to go pick up some clay pipe and then return the stuff. That's in west Phoenix. I have a pretty good driving day now that I think about it.
I was listening to Obama's speech yesterday, pretty pukish stuff. Now, suddenly, he's willing to talk to the "other side". His campaign promise included that CNN would be allowed to see the open door meetings that would transpire with the health care bill, we all know NONE of that EVER happened. It was a partisan thing all the way down the line. There was no "reaching out to the other side of the aisle" as Obama said he would do - over and over he continued to say that - now what? The Senate minorty leader - whatever his name is Mitchell I think - is saying they should vote to repeal the bill and do it over and over and over if necessary.
Obama's free ride is over, that's what I can say about it. He also refused to admit yesterday that the voting was just about the economy, it was also specifically about the health care bill. There was some exit poll that asked that question and a large percentage of Americans had shown up to vote against the Dems and that bill, not for Republicans. The GOP has it's opportunity. They can act on behalf of the majority of American voters or they can blow it again. If they blow it again, the next election will undoubtedly have even more dramatic and vast changes being doled out.
My staycation looms nearer and nearer. No, I don't plan on going anywhere unless I go to my dad's for Thanksgiving. I would rather, for once, just stay home and cook a big turkey. The trailer tenants can help cook it and we can have a big feast. They're pretty good cooks, those people, both of them actually. I suppose I could call it disconcerting, but neither of them go out hunting for jobs at this point.
Perhaps it just seems futile to even look, I don't know. The guy is 62 and has some health issues, but the lady is 49 I think she said and probably could start thinking about getting a job somewhere. I am not saying I don't want them there, but are they seriously considering living in that old thing for - ever? I guess that's up to them. They were asking me about finishing the project we started before they moved in there - cutting out the rest of the wall panelling and installing it.
I'm attempting to motivate myself to do such as I really don't want to. It's a lot of work. But, I did buy the materials and it's just sitting out there in my shed, a nice project to get over with. They did install the carpet that I secured - for free- in it and it made a huge difference in there. Really, a simple thing such as carpet on the floor - instead of bare, playwood floors - really makes it far more livable.
Well, anyway, work day approaches and today? Plenty to do. I think I've read enough political "news" this morning, the political forecast, at least from my viewpoint, for the next 2 years: gridlock. Nothing will get done. At least, nothing of any major importance. I don't know how they are going to repeal the health care bill unless they get some folks on the Dem side of things in the house to vote against it. But, since the President would block it, it would need a majority of both houses and I don't see that happening, certainly not in the Senate. Still, it's the best route for GOP if they want to look good 2 years from now. They will be able to say: "See, we tried to get rid of this thing, "they" said no". If the same majority of Americans are still opposed to it 2 years from now as they are now, voting could be very interesting, especially in the Presidential race.
Well, have a great day.
ben
Didn't sleep well last night. Another one of those wake up at midnight and get back to sleep - whenever it was - hours later - deals. Plus, my car wasn't fixed yesterday, they didn't have time to get to it so, driving to work was a barrel of fun. I think I might be just a wee bit cranky this morning.
I have a huge delivery to make first thing, fortunately it isn't far away and I hope they get it unloaded quickly because I want my car in that shop first thing this morning.
Pretty much throws off the day when I haven't slept well enough to feel good in the morning. Get the work day over with, go home and take a nap. Or, more likely, get the work day over with, go to the mechanics shop and wait. Actually, if I don't get out of here until around 7:00 am this morning, the gates will be opened to that shop and I can just leave it there.
Whatever. Just that once that delivery is over, I am supposed to go pick up some clay pipe and then return the stuff. That's in west Phoenix. I have a pretty good driving day now that I think about it.
I was listening to Obama's speech yesterday, pretty pukish stuff. Now, suddenly, he's willing to talk to the "other side". His campaign promise included that CNN would be allowed to see the open door meetings that would transpire with the health care bill, we all know NONE of that EVER happened. It was a partisan thing all the way down the line. There was no "reaching out to the other side of the aisle" as Obama said he would do - over and over he continued to say that - now what? The Senate minorty leader - whatever his name is Mitchell I think - is saying they should vote to repeal the bill and do it over and over and over if necessary.
Obama's free ride is over, that's what I can say about it. He also refused to admit yesterday that the voting was just about the economy, it was also specifically about the health care bill. There was some exit poll that asked that question and a large percentage of Americans had shown up to vote against the Dems and that bill, not for Republicans. The GOP has it's opportunity. They can act on behalf of the majority of American voters or they can blow it again. If they blow it again, the next election will undoubtedly have even more dramatic and vast changes being doled out.
My staycation looms nearer and nearer. No, I don't plan on going anywhere unless I go to my dad's for Thanksgiving. I would rather, for once, just stay home and cook a big turkey. The trailer tenants can help cook it and we can have a big feast. They're pretty good cooks, those people, both of them actually. I suppose I could call it disconcerting, but neither of them go out hunting for jobs at this point.
Perhaps it just seems futile to even look, I don't know. The guy is 62 and has some health issues, but the lady is 49 I think she said and probably could start thinking about getting a job somewhere. I am not saying I don't want them there, but are they seriously considering living in that old thing for - ever? I guess that's up to them. They were asking me about finishing the project we started before they moved in there - cutting out the rest of the wall panelling and installing it.
I'm attempting to motivate myself to do such as I really don't want to. It's a lot of work. But, I did buy the materials and it's just sitting out there in my shed, a nice project to get over with. They did install the carpet that I secured - for free- in it and it made a huge difference in there. Really, a simple thing such as carpet on the floor - instead of bare, playwood floors - really makes it far more livable.
Well, anyway, work day approaches and today? Plenty to do. I think I've read enough political "news" this morning, the political forecast, at least from my viewpoint, for the next 2 years: gridlock. Nothing will get done. At least, nothing of any major importance. I don't know how they are going to repeal the health care bill unless they get some folks on the Dem side of things in the house to vote against it. But, since the President would block it, it would need a majority of both houses and I don't see that happening, certainly not in the Senate. Still, it's the best route for GOP if they want to look good 2 years from now. They will be able to say: "See, we tried to get rid of this thing, "they" said no". If the same majority of Americans are still opposed to it 2 years from now as they are now, voting could be very interesting, especially in the Presidential race.
Well, have a great day.
ben
Wednesday 11/3/2010
Wednesday
Lost an entire entry : (
Ummm, anyway, I'll just put it this way: I'm VERY glad to see that Pelosi is going by the wayside, I wish Reid were going with her.
IF the GOP does what it says it will do, then if nothing else, the bloodlet of outrageous spending in Washington should be stemmed. I don't see how the GOP is going to be able to DO anything without a president to back them and the Senate controlled by Dems.
However, they CAN make proposals, send them through to the Senate and if the Senate rejects it, make themselves look good if it's something the American people want. We, the voters, tend to remember, not forget as many of these arrogant, obnoxious politicians seem to think we do.
I did vote for one Democrat in this election: South Phoenix Justice of the Peace Cody Williams. I have been in his court room several times with tenant issues, he's always there, always doing his thing, always following the law. He hasn't always been so "nice" to me, but that doesn't matter to me. I don't know if he won or not.
Brewer won - pretty much figured that, McCain won, pretty much figured that too. Brewer's opponent - Terry Goddard, well, I remember when he was the Mayor of Phoenix. A blithering.......let's say that my view of him and how he acted in public was that of a circus clown. I'm totally serious. It was a long time ago, I can't remember the issue he took a stand against as Mayor which made him look very, VERY bad, but whatever it was, it's still sitting there in my fading memory banks, telling me this guy was a nutcase.
I actually would have rather seen the Independent candidate go into McCain's position, but I voted for McCain because I'll take him over the Dem opponent that was running against him ANY day. Regardless of what anyone thinks of McCain, he did serve our nation in war, he was a prisoner of war, he has paid for it with skin cancers for the exposure of being left outside and I have great respect for the man for that if nothing else.
Oh, and they wanted to pass the Medical Marijuana law. Gimme a break. I've seen what happens in other states - docs give a prescription for it if you claim to have a freaking headache. I smoked massive quantities of marijuana when I was a teenager - the stuff isn't any worse than drinking. That's my take on it, not that it's a GOOD thing, just that if you are going to allow people to get drunk/high legally, you might as well allow them to get pot/high and get the tax revenues while you're at it. Too many people of all ages think pot smoking is just aye okay. I hate the stuff, personally.
Anyway, work day approaches. Car is dying again. I mean, how many times am I going to have to take it into that shop before they get this right? One more time. If they don't get it right this time, I'm going to have to find somewhere else to take it. There isn't much to do in the truck routing system, just a pickup for a delivery tomorrow. The delivery tomorrow is a pretty good sized order, so I will have a couple hours of work to get that pulled, palletized, shrink wrapped and ready to go.
Whatever the case, c'ya later and have a great day!
ben
Lost an entire entry : (
Ummm, anyway, I'll just put it this way: I'm VERY glad to see that Pelosi is going by the wayside, I wish Reid were going with her.
IF the GOP does what it says it will do, then if nothing else, the bloodlet of outrageous spending in Washington should be stemmed. I don't see how the GOP is going to be able to DO anything without a president to back them and the Senate controlled by Dems.
However, they CAN make proposals, send them through to the Senate and if the Senate rejects it, make themselves look good if it's something the American people want. We, the voters, tend to remember, not forget as many of these arrogant, obnoxious politicians seem to think we do.
I did vote for one Democrat in this election: South Phoenix Justice of the Peace Cody Williams. I have been in his court room several times with tenant issues, he's always there, always doing his thing, always following the law. He hasn't always been so "nice" to me, but that doesn't matter to me. I don't know if he won or not.
Brewer won - pretty much figured that, McCain won, pretty much figured that too. Brewer's opponent - Terry Goddard, well, I remember when he was the Mayor of Phoenix. A blithering.......let's say that my view of him and how he acted in public was that of a circus clown. I'm totally serious. It was a long time ago, I can't remember the issue he took a stand against as Mayor which made him look very, VERY bad, but whatever it was, it's still sitting there in my fading memory banks, telling me this guy was a nutcase.
I actually would have rather seen the Independent candidate go into McCain's position, but I voted for McCain because I'll take him over the Dem opponent that was running against him ANY day. Regardless of what anyone thinks of McCain, he did serve our nation in war, he was a prisoner of war, he has paid for it with skin cancers for the exposure of being left outside and I have great respect for the man for that if nothing else.
Oh, and they wanted to pass the Medical Marijuana law. Gimme a break. I've seen what happens in other states - docs give a prescription for it if you claim to have a freaking headache. I smoked massive quantities of marijuana when I was a teenager - the stuff isn't any worse than drinking. That's my take on it, not that it's a GOOD thing, just that if you are going to allow people to get drunk/high legally, you might as well allow them to get pot/high and get the tax revenues while you're at it. Too many people of all ages think pot smoking is just aye okay. I hate the stuff, personally.
Anyway, work day approaches. Car is dying again. I mean, how many times am I going to have to take it into that shop before they get this right? One more time. If they don't get it right this time, I'm going to have to find somewhere else to take it. There isn't much to do in the truck routing system, just a pickup for a delivery tomorrow. The delivery tomorrow is a pretty good sized order, so I will have a couple hours of work to get that pulled, palletized, shrink wrapped and ready to go.
Whatever the case, c'ya later and have a great day!
ben
Monday, November 1, 2010
Monday 11/1/2010
Monday
Well, I couldn't resist this morning to take another test drive on the new machine - so - I sorta ended up getting here, work that is, late. Not late is in clocking in late, just later than normal for my pre-work rituals, which are, btw, quite important to me.
I also can't seem to wake up. I slept a straight 6 hours, woke up at 3:00am in shock that I had even slept that long without waking up, then fell right back asleep. I'm just plain out of it right now, like I'm half awake and half asleep.
I hadn't driven the old car all weekend long so it was a nice development to find that the car's battery wasn't dead and it fired right up. Plus, with the new tires I can cruise on the freeway at the same speed everyone else is going.
The computer was the project of the weekend and it is - not done but it's up and running. I have to open it up and install the video graphics card today - no big deal. In fact, now that I have tried building a computer once, I can say that it is a pretty easy thing to do. The hardest part of building a computer is decided what to put into it - which is usually dictated by how much money you have to spend on it. Mine has 4 gigs of ram but this weekend I will be upping that to 8. I don't have any speakers for it yet, either. It also needs a computer table. Point? I have a few things left to go with it. I have a table that will work for it for now.
A new face of political - more junk undoubtedly - will be upon the horizon after tomorrow. This Reid v Angle thing is quite entertaining if nothing else. If Angle doesn't win it, you can't say it's because she didn't put forth one helluva effort.
Ummm, well I'm just sort of moving all over the place here. There is a giant fusion machine with accompanying generator that has to be delivered to a site way out east today. That will consume most of the morning if not all of it. The machine is downtown, takes an hour to load it and chain it down, it's at last an hour's drive out there, plus another 45 minutes to get it off the truck and an hour back - at least.
It's better than having nothing to do, let me tell ya. They are installing some HUGE pipe that will feed into the CAP - Central Arizona Project - canal. That's the giant canal that goes from the Colorado River all the way into the metro Phoenix area to supply this area with water. It doesn't supply all the water here, but it's quite a chunk of it, supposedly anyway. I haven't quite gotten the story as to WHY they are installing this pipe and where the water is either going to or coming from, but I'll try to get that information again today.
As for now? Read some more of the democrats and their finger-pointing back and forth as to who is to blame for what appears to be their power to do anything - anything that is except turn the economy around.
Lol.
G'day.
ben
Well, I couldn't resist this morning to take another test drive on the new machine - so - I sorta ended up getting here, work that is, late. Not late is in clocking in late, just later than normal for my pre-work rituals, which are, btw, quite important to me.
I also can't seem to wake up. I slept a straight 6 hours, woke up at 3:00am in shock that I had even slept that long without waking up, then fell right back asleep. I'm just plain out of it right now, like I'm half awake and half asleep.
I hadn't driven the old car all weekend long so it was a nice development to find that the car's battery wasn't dead and it fired right up. Plus, with the new tires I can cruise on the freeway at the same speed everyone else is going.
The computer was the project of the weekend and it is - not done but it's up and running. I have to open it up and install the video graphics card today - no big deal. In fact, now that I have tried building a computer once, I can say that it is a pretty easy thing to do. The hardest part of building a computer is decided what to put into it - which is usually dictated by how much money you have to spend on it. Mine has 4 gigs of ram but this weekend I will be upping that to 8. I don't have any speakers for it yet, either. It also needs a computer table. Point? I have a few things left to go with it. I have a table that will work for it for now.
A new face of political - more junk undoubtedly - will be upon the horizon after tomorrow. This Reid v Angle thing is quite entertaining if nothing else. If Angle doesn't win it, you can't say it's because she didn't put forth one helluva effort.
Ummm, well I'm just sort of moving all over the place here. There is a giant fusion machine with accompanying generator that has to be delivered to a site way out east today. That will consume most of the morning if not all of it. The machine is downtown, takes an hour to load it and chain it down, it's at last an hour's drive out there, plus another 45 minutes to get it off the truck and an hour back - at least.
It's better than having nothing to do, let me tell ya. They are installing some HUGE pipe that will feed into the CAP - Central Arizona Project - canal. That's the giant canal that goes from the Colorado River all the way into the metro Phoenix area to supply this area with water. It doesn't supply all the water here, but it's quite a chunk of it, supposedly anyway. I haven't quite gotten the story as to WHY they are installing this pipe and where the water is either going to or coming from, but I'll try to get that information again today.
As for now? Read some more of the democrats and their finger-pointing back and forth as to who is to blame for what appears to be their power to do anything - anything that is except turn the economy around.
Lol.
G'day.
ben
Sunday, October 31, 2010
New Computer
This entry is being written on my new computer.
I did not have extra funds to buy Windows 7, so, I am still using Windows XP.
The thing is moving around the internet so much faster than my other computer, it is unbelievable.
Using an "unbranded" machine is a whole new world for me. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't access the internet - Qwest gave me a clue: ethernet driver isn't working, isn't installed, isn't.
They couldn't help me, but the did suggest it is the ethernet driver.
Great, please tell me where to find this driver and I'll be quite happy.
My thoughts turned to the motherboard. If it's already in there, then the motherboard has to be responsible for it, could it be that the disc that came with the motherboard would help me along?
Ahhh, but yes, it could. Plugged that sucker into the DVD drive and there is was - the entire computer lit up with internet this, that and the other thing. It took quite a while. I will be playing with this computer for a while before I call it "done". In fact, I am going to reformat this thing and try installing "The Last XP" version 17 tomorrow.
BTW, I now SEE why I have such troubles whenever I have to buy a new keyboard. This one is giving me heck. My keyboard on the old computer is perfect for me, this new one is ridiculous. There is an extra key on the ASDF line making the Enter key further to the left. A completely different design and I am having trouble with it because it's setup is so much different than the other keyboard. I had no idea these companies were doing this stuff and I wouldn't have unless I were able to have 2 live keyboards sitting next to each other.
Well, anyway, I am running on "late" and frankly, the kids can have this keyboard and I will switch the other one over to this computer - when I have this thing dialed in, that is.
G'nite.
ben
I did not have extra funds to buy Windows 7, so, I am still using Windows XP.
The thing is moving around the internet so much faster than my other computer, it is unbelievable.
Using an "unbranded" machine is a whole new world for me. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't access the internet - Qwest gave me a clue: ethernet driver isn't working, isn't installed, isn't.
They couldn't help me, but the did suggest it is the ethernet driver.
Great, please tell me where to find this driver and I'll be quite happy.
My thoughts turned to the motherboard. If it's already in there, then the motherboard has to be responsible for it, could it be that the disc that came with the motherboard would help me along?
Ahhh, but yes, it could. Plugged that sucker into the DVD drive and there is was - the entire computer lit up with internet this, that and the other thing. It took quite a while. I will be playing with this computer for a while before I call it "done". In fact, I am going to reformat this thing and try installing "The Last XP" version 17 tomorrow.
BTW, I now SEE why I have such troubles whenever I have to buy a new keyboard. This one is giving me heck. My keyboard on the old computer is perfect for me, this new one is ridiculous. There is an extra key on the ASDF line making the Enter key further to the left. A completely different design and I am having trouble with it because it's setup is so much different than the other keyboard. I had no idea these companies were doing this stuff and I wouldn't have unless I were able to have 2 live keyboards sitting next to each other.
Well, anyway, I am running on "late" and frankly, the kids can have this keyboard and I will switch the other one over to this computer - when I have this thing dialed in, that is.
G'nite.
ben
$60 To Fix A Computer That Shouldn't Be Broken
I put that machine together and it wouldn't bring up anything. I mean, I followed the instructions plus watched some videos on YouTube on how to put these things together. It's not that hard. I toyed with it last night and then played with it again this morning. Nothing.
Loaded that sucker up into the car, took it to Fry's Electronics. The guy hooked it up, tried to turn it on, nothing. He took the panels off the casing, checked my work, said it looks like it's set up properly. Great, I said, I bought all of this stuff here, please fix it.
Of course it isn't going to be free. The guy tells me I need to have them do a System Build. It's already built. Yes, but we take it apart and install on component at a time until we find the problem. Right. $59.95 plus tax. What am I going to do? Say no? Have a bunch of parts that don't work? The manager I was dealing with yesterday who told me to bring it in isn't in today and won't be back in until Tuesday. I agreed to it very reluctantly, no choice in the matter. I'll take a guess: defective motherboard. They do get damaged sometimes in transit or otherwise simply refuse to work. Who knows, who cares, I have a 3 year warranty on the thing, that's all I need to know.
So, I go pay the fee and then come back with the receipt. It's pay in advance, apparently. The guy that was dealing with me had to go on a delivery call, so another dude took over. He wants me to sign a paper and explains that if they have to do diagnostics, it would be another $69.99. NOW I had something to say. WHAT did I JUST pay for? "You are paying for a system build". NO, sir, that's NOT what that other guy said. Why on earth would I pay you to build the thing? It's already built! I want to find out what's wrong with the blooming thing!! I flatly refused. The guy went to the copier and got another paper, apparently he didn't want to deal with it. The first person told me they would check each component as they put it back together to find out what's wrong with it, there was no mention of even MORE money. Ridiculous. He removed the "potential" fee from the paper.
Thank you and left.
Good grief. One thing's for sure, I am definitely glad I didn't buy all this stuff on line. It has certainly been a learning experience and I haven't even got the thing running yet. They wanted to charge even more money to install the OP system. No thanks, I have ample experience in that - find out what's wrong with it, get it booted and get the bios info on the screen, I will deal with it from there. I have Windows XP and The Last XP version 17 on discs, I don't need to pay them to do that stuff.
That's it. 2 days was their quoted time. Whatever. All I know is I better not get hosed for replacing some defective part.
And that's that for right now. I have pond stuff to tend to and I want to get it done while it's still early.
ben
Loaded that sucker up into the car, took it to Fry's Electronics. The guy hooked it up, tried to turn it on, nothing. He took the panels off the casing, checked my work, said it looks like it's set up properly. Great, I said, I bought all of this stuff here, please fix it.
Of course it isn't going to be free. The guy tells me I need to have them do a System Build. It's already built. Yes, but we take it apart and install on component at a time until we find the problem. Right. $59.95 plus tax. What am I going to do? Say no? Have a bunch of parts that don't work? The manager I was dealing with yesterday who told me to bring it in isn't in today and won't be back in until Tuesday. I agreed to it very reluctantly, no choice in the matter. I'll take a guess: defective motherboard. They do get damaged sometimes in transit or otherwise simply refuse to work. Who knows, who cares, I have a 3 year warranty on the thing, that's all I need to know.
So, I go pay the fee and then come back with the receipt. It's pay in advance, apparently. The guy that was dealing with me had to go on a delivery call, so another dude took over. He wants me to sign a paper and explains that if they have to do diagnostics, it would be another $69.99. NOW I had something to say. WHAT did I JUST pay for? "You are paying for a system build". NO, sir, that's NOT what that other guy said. Why on earth would I pay you to build the thing? It's already built! I want to find out what's wrong with the blooming thing!! I flatly refused. The guy went to the copier and got another paper, apparently he didn't want to deal with it. The first person told me they would check each component as they put it back together to find out what's wrong with it, there was no mention of even MORE money. Ridiculous. He removed the "potential" fee from the paper.
Thank you and left.
Good grief. One thing's for sure, I am definitely glad I didn't buy all this stuff on line. It has certainly been a learning experience and I haven't even got the thing running yet. They wanted to charge even more money to install the OP system. No thanks, I have ample experience in that - find out what's wrong with it, get it booted and get the bios info on the screen, I will deal with it from there. I have Windows XP and The Last XP version 17 on discs, I don't need to pay them to do that stuff.
That's it. 2 days was their quoted time. Whatever. All I know is I better not get hosed for replacing some defective part.
And that's that for right now. I have pond stuff to tend to and I want to get it done while it's still early.
ben
Saturday, October 30, 2010
My 2 Trips To Fry's Electronics in Tempe, Arizona - Piss Poor Customer Service
So, I sat here for a couple of hours playing around on the computer - putting up with the thing shutting itself off, coming up with repeated "serious error recover" messages and other stuf - trying to talk myself into get the components to put the new computer together.
When I finally got that past me, I took off for Fry's Electronics. Walked in, got a cart, walked to the appropriate portion of the store. The salesman - of whom I had discussed this with last week when I bought the 1 tg hard drive - was busy. I stood next to him and patiently waited. About 20 minutes he was dealing with this guy. No biggies - not yet anyway. He takes off to get the guy some paperwork, comes back, then they go to get something else. He knows I'm there.
He finally gets done with that guy and comes walking towards me, I was about get this thing going - when another customer asked for help. Instead of helping me, he goes and helps that customer. That other customer had JUST showed up, he didn't have to wait as I did. This is a BIG no-no in my "how to treat customers" book. I mean, I had waited a LONG time already. Well, this other guy is taking him back and forth between motherboards and processors. I decided to leave. I didn't get far until I thought, hmmm, maybe I'll just buy all of this stuff online - I'm going to need the make and models of all of this stuff here. I went back and started jotting all of that down.
The salesman was with yet another customer, but at that point, I wanted nothing to do with him. I spent some time looking at the stuff and decided to leave yet again. This time, though, I stopped at the deli counter and got a sandwich - their deli has great sandwiches, I'll say that much. I decided to go back after I had waited for the sandwich for a while and try again. I had already committed to myself to getting the thing today, that's really what I wanted to do. So, I go back. He's at the center where all the associates congregate to deal with customers and print out order requests for the cage up front.
I stood next to him again, just waiting. He got done with that guy and walks off again!! He turns around, goes back to the counter on the other side, looks at me and leaves. I'm scratching my head, WHAT did I do to get this guy all riled up? The last time I had spoken to him was last week and we left on good terms. Today, I didn't even HAVE a chance to speak to him, I was just waiting. He had acknowledged seeing me there waiting, so I knew he knew I wanted to get some help.
I didn't know, but this time I DID leave, went to Home Depot instead. Needed another electrical outlet for outside - the other one broke. Those GFCI outlets are worthless for outside use. Get a drop of water on them and this spring thing pops out of it, breaks the button and you now have a useless, $15 to $20 part that has to be replaced. I did not get GFCI this time, it's the 4th time I've had to replace it. The whole setup has a plastic cover on it to keep it from getting wet in the rain.
Back home. I decided not to let this go, I just never do. A fault, whatever you want to call it, I don't take well being treated poorly by associates who have whatever cranked up their rear. Maybe he was just having a bad day, I don't know, but when I have a bad day at work, I don't take it out on customers. I bite my tongue and grin and bear it.
I called, the store's general manager was on the floor, leave my name and number. Okay, I did. 30 minutes later, the manager for the computer components portion of the store returns my call instead of the general manager. Oh well, who cares, maybe this guy is more appropriate to talk to, anyway. Told him the story. Don't have a clue what was up in his crawl, but there must be something in there. This manager offers me $50 off if I come back in today and buy what I originally was going to buy - I had told him I was going to drop 4 to 5 hundred today getting a new computer setup.
Too good a deal to pass up. I go back. The sales associate that had ignored me earlier was REALLY ignoring me now - he took off and was out of sight. I waited for quite a while for this guy to show up. But, I was being patient, I figured $50 off was a good deal. I ended up with more than that off, in reality.
We went around to all the components, he suggested a few different setups than the guy had last week. He fully explained why and I was good with that. A little more money, but a better setup. He said a 500 watt power supply probably was not going to be enough, I would need a bit larger, so I ended up with a 700 watt power supply, a nice case, the motherboard I was originally looking at and the processor I was looking at. He suggested a graphics card, I got 4 gigs of memory to start out with - would have loved to get 8, but, 4 would be a good start and double what my current machine is.
We get to the computer to checkout. He throws in a 3 year warranty on the motherboard and processor for free - normally $40. He takes off another $50 on the purchase price of the system. I've got $90 worth of stuff, free. Yes, I would have bought the extended warranty on the board, it was only a 15 day warranty otherwise. He comes up with a total price, less than what I had expected, we shook hands, I said thank you very much, have a great day. I go up to pay for the stuff. I wanted to put $100 of it on a credit card and $50 on another to make sure I have enough in my bank account after paying for the rest of it to be able to deal with any emergencies that might come up. The first card worked,the second did not.
He couldn't get it to take the swipe. I said, well, just enter the numbers manually. Can't do that. Why not? Company policy. Why? Didn't understand it, I've never had a place tell me they wouldn't enter numbers manually off of a card - OUR company does it and so does every other company I have ever encountered where I needed it done or saw other people have it done for them. He said, well, you can ask the manager. It was the general manager, I asked him some questions about why they wouldn't do that - calm, cool, collected, not hyper at all, just wanting to understand why and also if he could bypass this policy that the employee could not.
His reply? Sir, we aren't getting anywhere with this, I don't want to argue with you, is there anything else I can help you with? I replied that I wasn't arguing, I had only asked questions, what's the big deal? I then said no thank, there is nothing else I want to do with you, thanks. Curt and short, I didn't appreciate that man's attitude, either. I pay for the rest of it, I'm not going through all of that trouble and getting those discounts to end up with nothing, plus spending all that time in there. I leave. I have bypassed the "checkers" at the stand at the door many times who want to check your items many times before, even have refused to allow them to look. This time, a woman jumps in front of my cart demanding to see my receipt.
Note that I was not trying to leave without them checking it, in fact, I hadn't even got past those stands. I've already had enough problems in this store today, I just handed her the paperwork. She goes through it, again, and again. Says I didn't pay for an item. Excuse me, are you calling me a thief? Now I was getting hyper. I didn't print up that paperwork, I didn't check myself out, it was all done for me. She took a few steps back. I had had enough of the attitudes at this place. WHAT, exactly, ARE you saying to me? You didn't pay for the computer case. Well WHOSE problem is that? I didn't fill out this paperwork - YOUR employees did.
She asks me to step to the side, I wasn't budging. MORE trouble? I told her I want to speak to the store's general manager, again. She goes and gets a manager, but not the general manager. She demands that I step to the side. I wasn't blocking anything and I refused to move. She said she would take care of me. No thanks, get the general manager, I'll wait HERE. She insists that SHE will take care of me, I crossed my arms at that point and said nothing. A few minutes later, the general manager comes out. He is just as curt and short with me as he was before. This time, I wasn't taking it. HOW can YOUR management forget to write up this case on here? I have already been treated very rudely by one of your store's associates, had the card issue with YOU, now I am being detained at the exit and veritably accused of attempting to STEAL this computer case.
His apology was worthless, he obviously didn't mean it (his name, for those looking for junk on this store, is David Keith). He didn't offer anything. I said that I couldn't afford this case, it was out of budget, I had the understanding that I was paying for EVERYTHING here, by one of YOUR managers who wrote up this contract. His only offer was to void the whole sale! After all of this, his offer was of no value to me. We stared each other in the eyes for several seconds, I was starting to get mad. He said he could get the manager that did this, but "I don't know what good that is going to do". I said if your company is going to waste as much of my time as it already has, then I'm going to waste your time as well. He started laughing, we WORK here, getting paid, what difference does it make to us?
The callousness of this man? Well, you begin to understand why the associates take the stance they do when you understand what kind of stance the store's highest level manager takes against his own customers. The trickle down effect. However, the manager that is over the computer components section is a totally different kind of person. He comes up, says, oh, I guess I forgot to put this on the ticket. I said yes, and it's out of my budget. I had thought I had this deal done at what we had discussed. He said, no worries, I can cut a deal with you. Well, I replied, this case is $70, I mean, I can't afford much more here. He offered it to me for half off. $35 for a $70 case. I took the deal. I won't get a bargain like that again - anywhere - I had spent a total of at least 2 hours on this deal, more really, but who's keeping count. Started at 9:00 am, ended at 1:00 pm between the 2 trips.
I'm not saying I didn't get a great deal today. Not at all. Definitely got a huge discount on all of this stuff. But, I did pay for it. I know, I could just eat the rude service like most people do, they say nothing, leave and either never come back or - they come back anyway and avoid the people that treated them like s***.
Will I go back to Fry's Electronics? Probably, definitely if there is a problem with any of this, I have warranties and I intend on getting this thing running as fast as I can - though - I am going to have to read some material online about how to put it together. There is one tutorial that takes you step by step through the whole process.
Apparently, however, Mr. David Keith lied to me. He is NOT that store's general manager, even though I asked him twice about that considering his attitude, the manager's name is Dave Birt, at least according to the BBB - and yes, Keith's name is on there is a manager, but not the store's manager. I'll have to look into that, perhaps info has changed and BBB doesn't have it current.
You know, I never did get a good reason WHY they wouldn't input the numbers manually off of the credit card?!!
Well, that's over. For now, anyway. I have a mess to put together here and I am going to start reading that tutorial. I also changed my mind, I wasn't going to have a cigar this weekend, but after this? Yes, I think I'll go get me a nice cigar, sit out next to my ponds, enjoy my water plants, Koi and goldfish and put this junk out of my mind.
When I finally got that past me, I took off for Fry's Electronics. Walked in, got a cart, walked to the appropriate portion of the store. The salesman - of whom I had discussed this with last week when I bought the 1 tg hard drive - was busy. I stood next to him and patiently waited. About 20 minutes he was dealing with this guy. No biggies - not yet anyway. He takes off to get the guy some paperwork, comes back, then they go to get something else. He knows I'm there.
He finally gets done with that guy and comes walking towards me, I was about get this thing going - when another customer asked for help. Instead of helping me, he goes and helps that customer. That other customer had JUST showed up, he didn't have to wait as I did. This is a BIG no-no in my "how to treat customers" book. I mean, I had waited a LONG time already. Well, this other guy is taking him back and forth between motherboards and processors. I decided to leave. I didn't get far until I thought, hmmm, maybe I'll just buy all of this stuff online - I'm going to need the make and models of all of this stuff here. I went back and started jotting all of that down.
The salesman was with yet another customer, but at that point, I wanted nothing to do with him. I spent some time looking at the stuff and decided to leave yet again. This time, though, I stopped at the deli counter and got a sandwich - their deli has great sandwiches, I'll say that much. I decided to go back after I had waited for the sandwich for a while and try again. I had already committed to myself to getting the thing today, that's really what I wanted to do. So, I go back. He's at the center where all the associates congregate to deal with customers and print out order requests for the cage up front.
I stood next to him again, just waiting. He got done with that guy and walks off again!! He turns around, goes back to the counter on the other side, looks at me and leaves. I'm scratching my head, WHAT did I do to get this guy all riled up? The last time I had spoken to him was last week and we left on good terms. Today, I didn't even HAVE a chance to speak to him, I was just waiting. He had acknowledged seeing me there waiting, so I knew he knew I wanted to get some help.
I didn't know, but this time I DID leave, went to Home Depot instead. Needed another electrical outlet for outside - the other one broke. Those GFCI outlets are worthless for outside use. Get a drop of water on them and this spring thing pops out of it, breaks the button and you now have a useless, $15 to $20 part that has to be replaced. I did not get GFCI this time, it's the 4th time I've had to replace it. The whole setup has a plastic cover on it to keep it from getting wet in the rain.
Back home. I decided not to let this go, I just never do. A fault, whatever you want to call it, I don't take well being treated poorly by associates who have whatever cranked up their rear. Maybe he was just having a bad day, I don't know, but when I have a bad day at work, I don't take it out on customers. I bite my tongue and grin and bear it.
I called, the store's general manager was on the floor, leave my name and number. Okay, I did. 30 minutes later, the manager for the computer components portion of the store returns my call instead of the general manager. Oh well, who cares, maybe this guy is more appropriate to talk to, anyway. Told him the story. Don't have a clue what was up in his crawl, but there must be something in there. This manager offers me $50 off if I come back in today and buy what I originally was going to buy - I had told him I was going to drop 4 to 5 hundred today getting a new computer setup.
Too good a deal to pass up. I go back. The sales associate that had ignored me earlier was REALLY ignoring me now - he took off and was out of sight. I waited for quite a while for this guy to show up. But, I was being patient, I figured $50 off was a good deal. I ended up with more than that off, in reality.
We went around to all the components, he suggested a few different setups than the guy had last week. He fully explained why and I was good with that. A little more money, but a better setup. He said a 500 watt power supply probably was not going to be enough, I would need a bit larger, so I ended up with a 700 watt power supply, a nice case, the motherboard I was originally looking at and the processor I was looking at. He suggested a graphics card, I got 4 gigs of memory to start out with - would have loved to get 8, but, 4 would be a good start and double what my current machine is.
We get to the computer to checkout. He throws in a 3 year warranty on the motherboard and processor for free - normally $40. He takes off another $50 on the purchase price of the system. I've got $90 worth of stuff, free. Yes, I would have bought the extended warranty on the board, it was only a 15 day warranty otherwise. He comes up with a total price, less than what I had expected, we shook hands, I said thank you very much, have a great day. I go up to pay for the stuff. I wanted to put $100 of it on a credit card and $50 on another to make sure I have enough in my bank account after paying for the rest of it to be able to deal with any emergencies that might come up. The first card worked,the second did not.
He couldn't get it to take the swipe. I said, well, just enter the numbers manually. Can't do that. Why not? Company policy. Why? Didn't understand it, I've never had a place tell me they wouldn't enter numbers manually off of a card - OUR company does it and so does every other company I have ever encountered where I needed it done or saw other people have it done for them. He said, well, you can ask the manager. It was the general manager, I asked him some questions about why they wouldn't do that - calm, cool, collected, not hyper at all, just wanting to understand why and also if he could bypass this policy that the employee could not.
His reply? Sir, we aren't getting anywhere with this, I don't want to argue with you, is there anything else I can help you with? I replied that I wasn't arguing, I had only asked questions, what's the big deal? I then said no thank, there is nothing else I want to do with you, thanks. Curt and short, I didn't appreciate that man's attitude, either. I pay for the rest of it, I'm not going through all of that trouble and getting those discounts to end up with nothing, plus spending all that time in there. I leave. I have bypassed the "checkers" at the stand at the door many times who want to check your items many times before, even have refused to allow them to look. This time, a woman jumps in front of my cart demanding to see my receipt.
Note that I was not trying to leave without them checking it, in fact, I hadn't even got past those stands. I've already had enough problems in this store today, I just handed her the paperwork. She goes through it, again, and again. Says I didn't pay for an item. Excuse me, are you calling me a thief? Now I was getting hyper. I didn't print up that paperwork, I didn't check myself out, it was all done for me. She took a few steps back. I had had enough of the attitudes at this place. WHAT, exactly, ARE you saying to me? You didn't pay for the computer case. Well WHOSE problem is that? I didn't fill out this paperwork - YOUR employees did.
She asks me to step to the side, I wasn't budging. MORE trouble? I told her I want to speak to the store's general manager, again. She goes and gets a manager, but not the general manager. She demands that I step to the side. I wasn't blocking anything and I refused to move. She said she would take care of me. No thanks, get the general manager, I'll wait HERE. She insists that SHE will take care of me, I crossed my arms at that point and said nothing. A few minutes later, the general manager comes out. He is just as curt and short with me as he was before. This time, I wasn't taking it. HOW can YOUR management forget to write up this case on here? I have already been treated very rudely by one of your store's associates, had the card issue with YOU, now I am being detained at the exit and veritably accused of attempting to STEAL this computer case.
His apology was worthless, he obviously didn't mean it (his name, for those looking for junk on this store, is David Keith). He didn't offer anything. I said that I couldn't afford this case, it was out of budget, I had the understanding that I was paying for EVERYTHING here, by one of YOUR managers who wrote up this contract. His only offer was to void the whole sale! After all of this, his offer was of no value to me. We stared each other in the eyes for several seconds, I was starting to get mad. He said he could get the manager that did this, but "I don't know what good that is going to do". I said if your company is going to waste as much of my time as it already has, then I'm going to waste your time as well. He started laughing, we WORK here, getting paid, what difference does it make to us?
The callousness of this man? Well, you begin to understand why the associates take the stance they do when you understand what kind of stance the store's highest level manager takes against his own customers. The trickle down effect. However, the manager that is over the computer components section is a totally different kind of person. He comes up, says, oh, I guess I forgot to put this on the ticket. I said yes, and it's out of my budget. I had thought I had this deal done at what we had discussed. He said, no worries, I can cut a deal with you. Well, I replied, this case is $70, I mean, I can't afford much more here. He offered it to me for half off. $35 for a $70 case. I took the deal. I won't get a bargain like that again - anywhere - I had spent a total of at least 2 hours on this deal, more really, but who's keeping count. Started at 9:00 am, ended at 1:00 pm between the 2 trips.
I'm not saying I didn't get a great deal today. Not at all. Definitely got a huge discount on all of this stuff. But, I did pay for it. I know, I could just eat the rude service like most people do, they say nothing, leave and either never come back or - they come back anyway and avoid the people that treated them like s***.
Will I go back to Fry's Electronics? Probably, definitely if there is a problem with any of this, I have warranties and I intend on getting this thing running as fast as I can - though - I am going to have to read some material online about how to put it together. There is one tutorial that takes you step by step through the whole process.
Apparently, however, Mr. David Keith lied to me. He is NOT that store's general manager, even though I asked him twice about that considering his attitude, the manager's name is Dave Birt, at least according to the BBB - and yes, Keith's name is on there is a manager, but not the store's manager. I'll have to look into that, perhaps info has changed and BBB doesn't have it current.
You know, I never did get a good reason WHY they wouldn't input the numbers manually off of the credit card?!!
Well, that's over. For now, anyway. I have a mess to put together here and I am going to start reading that tutorial. I also changed my mind, I wasn't going to have a cigar this weekend, but after this? Yes, I think I'll go get me a nice cigar, sit out next to my ponds, enjoy my water plants, Koi and goldfish and put this junk out of my mind.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Tires
I started calling around today, looking for good, used tires - 2 of them - for the old Buick.
I gave up on it. I called a Discount Tire company - several of them actually - but one of them had a guy who said he could help me out with 2 new ones. I told him I already tried that route, your company wanted $185 for 2 tires out the door. I said I might be comfortable with $120, but no way am I spending that much money on tires for an old car.
He "did the math". Came back and told me $135 out the door. Well, that's $50 better than the first time around. I just decided to bite the bullet, get the tires and hope to high heaven that that takes care of the vibration problem. I am going to be driving this thing for a while longer while I'm whittling down the problems, I don't want a blowout on the way to work. I don't have a spare - yet.
Got out of there and headed directly for the freeway. I did break some speed laws, yes I did. I pushed her up to 80mph with no problems whatsoever. No vibration, just smooth gliding down the freeway. I remember what I did as a teenager - my parents couldn't possibly know I was driving the old Ford Galaxy 500 to the maximum speed on the speedometer - which was 130 mph. Lucky I didn't kill myself. Regardless, I don't really get that my son wants to come anywhere near 130mph, he doesn't even like getting ON the freeways, but in case he "tries"something that I don't approve of, at least having good rubber on it can make all the difference.
That - the lack of vibration - made me very happy. Seeing that money go bye-bye did not. I still have left an exhaust leak and it idles rough. The idling? One of my roommates has a car identical to mine, only it's 1 year newer. She has a friend that knows how to get those babies purring. He has already offered to help me - not free obviously but certainly nothing as expensive as taking it into a shop, so I have asked her to ask him to come back over and take a look. The exhaust problem - well, unfortunately that's going to have to be dealt with at a muffler shop. UNLESS, of course, they tell me some unbelievable price to fix it, then I'm going to find some other way to get it done. After those 2 things left to go, then there's a bit of body work and a cheap paint job. I'm figuring another month - at least - before I call it done. My son's money ran out for repairs on it quite a while back, I'm eating the rest of it, though, he is paying his own insurance and I am going to require extra on top of that for some time to come to help pay some of this back.
I pretty much intend on giving him the car - if I see that he will treat it well and take care of it. However, that isn't going to happen right now. I intend on keeping that car as my own until we are out of this recession nonsense, I know (or at least hope) that I'm not going to lose my job and my ability to make the car payments on my newer car. That's the point: I own this old thing outright and no financing company is going to be taking it away from me. It's so old, no-one would ever want to steal it, I'm pretty safe. I AM feeling better about it now that I have dumped the money into it and it IS working out pretty well, albeit the little detour when it broke down and I had to have it towed and have it fixed.
So, does that mean the new computer is down the drain? Not at all. I still have enough to do that and pay my bills. So, cool. This weekend - I don't know. Next weekend, probably unless I decide to wait for Black Friday and see if there any great deals on components to build it with.
I will say this: this machine is getting worse. I keep getting "This system has recovered from a serious error" messages; I keep getting the thing shutting itself off and it keeps putting up yet another message: "Internet Explorer has experienced and problem and needs to shut down". This is happening quite frequently, which may be the motivating factor that I go out and buy the rest of the stuff tomorrow, versus a week or two weeks from now.
The weekend - is here. I am glad this work week is done. Normally I don't care about work weeks - working is good for you - just this week for whatever reason is a good one to get behind me. I have the entire week of Thanksgiving off, thankfully - haven't decided what to do with it yet.
Anyway, I'm off to go visit my ponds and enjoy.
G'day.
ben
I gave up on it. I called a Discount Tire company - several of them actually - but one of them had a guy who said he could help me out with 2 new ones. I told him I already tried that route, your company wanted $185 for 2 tires out the door. I said I might be comfortable with $120, but no way am I spending that much money on tires for an old car.
He "did the math". Came back and told me $135 out the door. Well, that's $50 better than the first time around. I just decided to bite the bullet, get the tires and hope to high heaven that that takes care of the vibration problem. I am going to be driving this thing for a while longer while I'm whittling down the problems, I don't want a blowout on the way to work. I don't have a spare - yet.
Got out of there and headed directly for the freeway. I did break some speed laws, yes I did. I pushed her up to 80mph with no problems whatsoever. No vibration, just smooth gliding down the freeway. I remember what I did as a teenager - my parents couldn't possibly know I was driving the old Ford Galaxy 500 to the maximum speed on the speedometer - which was 130 mph. Lucky I didn't kill myself. Regardless, I don't really get that my son wants to come anywhere near 130mph, he doesn't even like getting ON the freeways, but in case he "tries"something that I don't approve of, at least having good rubber on it can make all the difference.
That - the lack of vibration - made me very happy. Seeing that money go bye-bye did not. I still have left an exhaust leak and it idles rough. The idling? One of my roommates has a car identical to mine, only it's 1 year newer. She has a friend that knows how to get those babies purring. He has already offered to help me - not free obviously but certainly nothing as expensive as taking it into a shop, so I have asked her to ask him to come back over and take a look. The exhaust problem - well, unfortunately that's going to have to be dealt with at a muffler shop. UNLESS, of course, they tell me some unbelievable price to fix it, then I'm going to find some other way to get it done. After those 2 things left to go, then there's a bit of body work and a cheap paint job. I'm figuring another month - at least - before I call it done. My son's money ran out for repairs on it quite a while back, I'm eating the rest of it, though, he is paying his own insurance and I am going to require extra on top of that for some time to come to help pay some of this back.
I pretty much intend on giving him the car - if I see that he will treat it well and take care of it. However, that isn't going to happen right now. I intend on keeping that car as my own until we are out of this recession nonsense, I know (or at least hope) that I'm not going to lose my job and my ability to make the car payments on my newer car. That's the point: I own this old thing outright and no financing company is going to be taking it away from me. It's so old, no-one would ever want to steal it, I'm pretty safe. I AM feeling better about it now that I have dumped the money into it and it IS working out pretty well, albeit the little detour when it broke down and I had to have it towed and have it fixed.
So, does that mean the new computer is down the drain? Not at all. I still have enough to do that and pay my bills. So, cool. This weekend - I don't know. Next weekend, probably unless I decide to wait for Black Friday and see if there any great deals on components to build it with.
I will say this: this machine is getting worse. I keep getting "This system has recovered from a serious error" messages; I keep getting the thing shutting itself off and it keeps putting up yet another message: "Internet Explorer has experienced and problem and needs to shut down". This is happening quite frequently, which may be the motivating factor that I go out and buy the rest of the stuff tomorrow, versus a week or two weeks from now.
The weekend - is here. I am glad this work week is done. Normally I don't care about work weeks - working is good for you - just this week for whatever reason is a good one to get behind me. I have the entire week of Thanksgiving off, thankfully - haven't decided what to do with it yet.
Anyway, I'm off to go visit my ponds and enjoy.
G'day.
ben
Friday 10/29/2010
Friday
Ugliness this morning. A return. I hate doing returns. The salesman just dump this stuff on drivers and leave it to us to figure it all out. They take a list over the phone, print it out and then give it to us. It's never that simple. Go to the jobsite and start trying to find all the stuff on the list that the salesman never actually went out and verified whether it's there or not.
Then, start writing in by hand a bunch of other stuff that wasn't on the list but the contractor wants to send back. Then, deal with whatever crew is available to help load the stuff - they are in a hurry, always and don't care if it's safely loaded or not. I DO care and I almost always have to tell them to STOP what they are doing. I've taken over crews whose boss's weren't even paying attention to what was going on - they're sitting in their pickup truck doing whatever.
Not really looking forward to that, not at all. On the flip side, I am 2 hours over my allotted time and I am either getting off early today or I am getting 2 extra hours on my paycheck. I'll gladly take the 2 extra hours, of course, but I somehow suspect that won't happen.
How would you like to be a police officer in Mexico right now, in one of these towns with all the drug violence going on? And now Chandler police are investigating whether the beheading of a mexican national (illegal) was the work of a drug cartel as well. How far is this going to have to go before the federal government/Obama says, oh, gee, we have a problem down there on the border, maybe we should do something about it.
It is widely recognized that the amount of National Guard they recently deployed is not near enough. November 2 is almost here, I'll be in one of those lines to vote, oh, yes I will. I am going to spend this weekend going over the local propositions as well to make an informed vote on those.
Yup, that's my self-induced "thing" to do this weekend. Pore through all the material on these propositions, I determined who I was going to vote for in the bigger races long ago. Why these parties are dumping so much money into a "last minute" effort, I'll never know. It's a huge WASTE of money if you ask me, I rather suspect that most people make up their minds on specific candidates and the offices they are running for well before the election day actually arrives.
Propositions? Don't know. Oh gee and gads, the DC truck is here. 17 minutes early. I almost always forget to lock that front door on Fridays - they always think I am going to start work early and get them taken care of. NOT. We have let them know many many times over that we start at 6:00, but they don't care. Neither do it, I won't do anything until 6:00 and that is the way it is. I WILL take care of a customer early, that's a fact, but not truck drivers and their impatience. Being and impatient truck driver? Sorry, Charlie, you're in the WRONG business cause you have to wait just about everywhere you go.
Anyway, I have several news tidbits I want to read with my last 15 minutes before work, c'yall
later.
ben
Ugliness this morning. A return. I hate doing returns. The salesman just dump this stuff on drivers and leave it to us to figure it all out. They take a list over the phone, print it out and then give it to us. It's never that simple. Go to the jobsite and start trying to find all the stuff on the list that the salesman never actually went out and verified whether it's there or not.
Then, start writing in by hand a bunch of other stuff that wasn't on the list but the contractor wants to send back. Then, deal with whatever crew is available to help load the stuff - they are in a hurry, always and don't care if it's safely loaded or not. I DO care and I almost always have to tell them to STOP what they are doing. I've taken over crews whose boss's weren't even paying attention to what was going on - they're sitting in their pickup truck doing whatever.
Not really looking forward to that, not at all. On the flip side, I am 2 hours over my allotted time and I am either getting off early today or I am getting 2 extra hours on my paycheck. I'll gladly take the 2 extra hours, of course, but I somehow suspect that won't happen.
How would you like to be a police officer in Mexico right now, in one of these towns with all the drug violence going on? And now Chandler police are investigating whether the beheading of a mexican national (illegal) was the work of a drug cartel as well. How far is this going to have to go before the federal government/Obama says, oh, gee, we have a problem down there on the border, maybe we should do something about it.
It is widely recognized that the amount of National Guard they recently deployed is not near enough. November 2 is almost here, I'll be in one of those lines to vote, oh, yes I will. I am going to spend this weekend going over the local propositions as well to make an informed vote on those.
Yup, that's my self-induced "thing" to do this weekend. Pore through all the material on these propositions, I determined who I was going to vote for in the bigger races long ago. Why these parties are dumping so much money into a "last minute" effort, I'll never know. It's a huge WASTE of money if you ask me, I rather suspect that most people make up their minds on specific candidates and the offices they are running for well before the election day actually arrives.
Propositions? Don't know. Oh gee and gads, the DC truck is here. 17 minutes early. I almost always forget to lock that front door on Fridays - they always think I am going to start work early and get them taken care of. NOT. We have let them know many many times over that we start at 6:00, but they don't care. Neither do it, I won't do anything until 6:00 and that is the way it is. I WILL take care of a customer early, that's a fact, but not truck drivers and their impatience. Being and impatient truck driver? Sorry, Charlie, you're in the WRONG business cause you have to wait just about everywhere you go.
Anyway, I have several news tidbits I want to read with my last 15 minutes before work, c'yall
later.
ben
Thursday, October 28, 2010
CDL A Licences Versus CDL B
Do you know what delineates a CDL A driver from a CDL B driver?
It is the source of much confusion, opinion and a lot of misinformation.
Our local Ops Manager was at our store today - he has been sick and didn't want to be far from home, I guess, in case he needed to leave.
We're all busy about our duties - though I wasn't driving, stuck at the store with no deliveries but plenty to do there anyway - when he asks me about the difference. A manager at one of our stores in New Mexico had hired a driver for an International 7600 series, 10 wheel-dual drive axle truck mounted with flatbed.
He had not checked whether this driver was actually qualified to drive that truck. This driver has a CDL B license. Ummmm, I'm sorry, hiring drivers without checking whether they are qualified to drive the vehicle they will be driving? Especially in the world of trucking? Are you crazy?!!! What kind liability would the put the company under in case of any accident. If an unqualified driver was caught - well - he would definitely not be driving that vehicle from the point of being stopped by the law enforcement officer.
Back to my store, well, I knew the answer but I told him I needed to check. Why? They change stuff with CDL regulations so much, you never know if your information is good or not. I got on the FMCSA site and found the information in very short order. The difference is a tractor-trailer rig, basically, versus a single vehicle with no trailer attached - or is it? No, it isn't that. A Class A CDL (Commercial Driver's License) is required for combination vehicles.
Ahhh, it's easier just to copy and paste, the info is readily available:
Classes of License:
The Federal standard requires States to issue a CDL to drivers according to the following license classifications:
Class A -- Any combination of vehicles with a GCWR of 26,001 or more pounds provided the GVWR of the vehicle(s) being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
Class B -- Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing a vehicle not in excess of 10,000 pounds GVWR.
Pretty simple, yes? Clearly understood, yes? Then why all the confusion? I had a manager tell me today at the main warehouse that I was wrong, if a truck has 2 axles on the rear, it also needs a CDL A . Not right. Sorry, thanks for playing, please go home now. The number of axles is irrelevant. I explained it to the Ops manager - but yes - I also printed out a sheet and gave it to him. Well why not? Management SHOULD know the requirements of what amounts to federally licensed drivers that is GREATLY regulated.
The difference? The vehicle being towed, if there is such. Mostly, 10 wheelers aren't towing trailers. I'm just saying that in general terms, there are plenty of dump trucks out there towing heavy trailers and many other scenarios as well.
The manager also argued that a DOT officer had told one of our drivers that the setup he had required a CDL-A license. I simply replied that if it was that trailer out there with tandems on it (two axles), it's probably rated WELL above 10,000 pounds and that's why that officer said that. It took a while, but this manager finally let up.
So, after reading that, can you tell me what the difference is? It's really only about trailers, to get to brass tacks. If the vehicle is pulling a trailer that has a gross vehicle weight under 10,000 pounds, you only need a CDL B license. If the vehicle is pulling a trailer that has a gross vehicle weight over 10,000 pounds, need a Class A license. ANY semi trailer out there is going to be WELL over 10,000 pounds. If it's a single vehicle rated at over 26,001 pounds, then it's a Class B. If it's under that, it's not a commercial license - unless it has air brakes.
You want to talk regulations, just go to the government's site - FMSCA - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration - you're going to read a long, long, long, long time if you want to go through ALL of that.
Good luck with that.
It is the source of much confusion, opinion and a lot of misinformation.
Our local Ops Manager was at our store today - he has been sick and didn't want to be far from home, I guess, in case he needed to leave.
We're all busy about our duties - though I wasn't driving, stuck at the store with no deliveries but plenty to do there anyway - when he asks me about the difference. A manager at one of our stores in New Mexico had hired a driver for an International 7600 series, 10 wheel-dual drive axle truck mounted with flatbed.
He had not checked whether this driver was actually qualified to drive that truck. This driver has a CDL B license. Ummmm, I'm sorry, hiring drivers without checking whether they are qualified to drive the vehicle they will be driving? Especially in the world of trucking? Are you crazy?!!! What kind liability would the put the company under in case of any accident. If an unqualified driver was caught - well - he would definitely not be driving that vehicle from the point of being stopped by the law enforcement officer.
Back to my store, well, I knew the answer but I told him I needed to check. Why? They change stuff with CDL regulations so much, you never know if your information is good or not. I got on the FMCSA site and found the information in very short order. The difference is a tractor-trailer rig, basically, versus a single vehicle with no trailer attached - or is it? No, it isn't that. A Class A CDL (Commercial Driver's License) is required for combination vehicles.
Ahhh, it's easier just to copy and paste, the info is readily available:
Classes of License:
The Federal standard requires States to issue a CDL to drivers according to the following license classifications:
Class A -- Any combination of vehicles with a GCWR of 26,001 or more pounds provided the GVWR of the vehicle(s) being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
Class B -- Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing a vehicle not in excess of 10,000 pounds GVWR.
Pretty simple, yes? Clearly understood, yes? Then why all the confusion? I had a manager tell me today at the main warehouse that I was wrong, if a truck has 2 axles on the rear, it also needs a CDL A . Not right. Sorry, thanks for playing, please go home now. The number of axles is irrelevant. I explained it to the Ops manager - but yes - I also printed out a sheet and gave it to him. Well why not? Management SHOULD know the requirements of what amounts to federally licensed drivers that is GREATLY regulated.
The difference? The vehicle being towed, if there is such. Mostly, 10 wheelers aren't towing trailers. I'm just saying that in general terms, there are plenty of dump trucks out there towing heavy trailers and many other scenarios as well.
The manager also argued that a DOT officer had told one of our drivers that the setup he had required a CDL-A license. I simply replied that if it was that trailer out there with tandems on it (two axles), it's probably rated WELL above 10,000 pounds and that's why that officer said that. It took a while, but this manager finally let up.
So, after reading that, can you tell me what the difference is? It's really only about trailers, to get to brass tacks. If the vehicle is pulling a trailer that has a gross vehicle weight under 10,000 pounds, you only need a CDL B license. If the vehicle is pulling a trailer that has a gross vehicle weight over 10,000 pounds, need a Class A license. ANY semi trailer out there is going to be WELL over 10,000 pounds. If it's a single vehicle rated at over 26,001 pounds, then it's a Class B. If it's under that, it's not a commercial license - unless it has air brakes.
You want to talk regulations, just go to the government's site - FMSCA - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration - you're going to read a long, long, long, long time if you want to go through ALL of that.
Good luck with that.
FaceBook Friends/Discount Tire
So, whoever wants to be Facebook friends - as was talked about in a previous post - that would be cool. I am not giving out my personal info on here, but I'm sure there's some way to identify who is who through other means so that Facebook friend requests can be sent.
Okay, so, the old Buick has a pretty bad vibration. I figure tires, what else could it be? It could be a lot of things, but that car sat for what - 1-1/2 years? I take it to Discount Tire. The guy points at both front tires and says they are sun rotted and is probably the issue. Yes, I have driven semis with rotted tires, the tires come apart, actually, they blow up.
Case in point: JB Hunt. I was doing that local job for them here in Phoenix. They had just started a new contract so all of us drivers were new to the company. They gave us OLD tractors. I mean, they were 8 or 10 years old. The tractor I ended up with had severely dry-rotted tires. I pointed it out to several individuals that could do anything about it within the company - nothing. I informed them that driving that truck on the freeway, fully loaded at 40 tons in 115 degree heat? They are going to come apart.
They didn't want to listen. I'm driving down the Superstition 60 at 65 MPH - the speed limit. One of those tires literally exploded. took out the quarter panel. It didn't cause any steering problems, but the cars around me were sliding SIDEWAYS on the freeway. The explosion sounded like a bomb going off, these people were not expecting that and it caught them by surprise. Fortunately, no crashes. This occured 3 times before - yes - they replaced the tires on the truck. It cost them far more money to not put on new tires than it did to hold out.
However, Discount Tire quoted me $185 for 2 tires. My gosh!!! What is THAT all about? The cheapest tire they had was $65. That means $55 for taxes, fees and whatever else. Unbelievable. No thanks. I asked if they had any used tires, no. Okay, well sorry to waste your time, I am not spending that much more money on this car.
Tomorrow I will call every Discount Tire within 15 miles and see if any of them have a couple of good, used versions. I have gotten some very nice used tires from Discount in the past.
So, whatever. Tomorrow is Friday. I was not able to leave work early today (I am 2 hours over my allotted amount per week) so, maybe tomorrow. But, tomorrow is month end, I think. Month end as in business days left in the month, not actually the 31st. They are pretty rigid about the hours, only if it is completely unavoidable will I ever get any "OT", which it really isn't because it still wouldn't go over 40 hours.
So, that's it. I have nothing more. Computer is on hold - til' I decide that I can really unload the much money and be comfortable with it. Or, of course, this computer shuts down permanently. This machine actually turns itself off now without warning. I mean, I will be doing something on the internet and kabaam, it's done. It turns itself back on, but, it isn't a good sign and yes, that's a new one on me.
G'day.
ben
Okay, so, the old Buick has a pretty bad vibration. I figure tires, what else could it be? It could be a lot of things, but that car sat for what - 1-1/2 years? I take it to Discount Tire. The guy points at both front tires and says they are sun rotted and is probably the issue. Yes, I have driven semis with rotted tires, the tires come apart, actually, they blow up.
Case in point: JB Hunt. I was doing that local job for them here in Phoenix. They had just started a new contract so all of us drivers were new to the company. They gave us OLD tractors. I mean, they were 8 or 10 years old. The tractor I ended up with had severely dry-rotted tires. I pointed it out to several individuals that could do anything about it within the company - nothing. I informed them that driving that truck on the freeway, fully loaded at 40 tons in 115 degree heat? They are going to come apart.
They didn't want to listen. I'm driving down the Superstition 60 at 65 MPH - the speed limit. One of those tires literally exploded. took out the quarter panel. It didn't cause any steering problems, but the cars around me were sliding SIDEWAYS on the freeway. The explosion sounded like a bomb going off, these people were not expecting that and it caught them by surprise. Fortunately, no crashes. This occured 3 times before - yes - they replaced the tires on the truck. It cost them far more money to not put on new tires than it did to hold out.
However, Discount Tire quoted me $185 for 2 tires. My gosh!!! What is THAT all about? The cheapest tire they had was $65. That means $55 for taxes, fees and whatever else. Unbelievable. No thanks. I asked if they had any used tires, no. Okay, well sorry to waste your time, I am not spending that much more money on this car.
Tomorrow I will call every Discount Tire within 15 miles and see if any of them have a couple of good, used versions. I have gotten some very nice used tires from Discount in the past.
So, whatever. Tomorrow is Friday. I was not able to leave work early today (I am 2 hours over my allotted amount per week) so, maybe tomorrow. But, tomorrow is month end, I think. Month end as in business days left in the month, not actually the 31st. They are pretty rigid about the hours, only if it is completely unavoidable will I ever get any "OT", which it really isn't because it still wouldn't go over 40 hours.
So, that's it. I have nothing more. Computer is on hold - til' I decide that I can really unload the much money and be comfortable with it. Or, of course, this computer shuts down permanently. This machine actually turns itself off now without warning. I mean, I will be doing something on the internet and kabaam, it's done. It turns itself back on, but, it isn't a good sign and yes, that's a new one on me.
G'day.
ben
Thursday October 28, 2010
Thursday
The Beggar Bashers. That's what I'm calling them. They are people who go on certain Craigslist boards and just REAM - ANYONE - that goes on there asking for help, even if it's only asking for food. I decided to take a stand against these "people" and got reamed for doing so. Lol. But now, the beggar bashers branding is taking hold and others are catching onto it. If people want to ask for help, let them! If no-one helps them, oh well!
Just thought I'd throw that in there. I occasionally help people with food - not money - but haven't really been doing it in the last several months as my electric bills soared and water usage also went through the roof.
I had thoughts of doing something for Thanksgiving, undecided on that one. Some years I have cooked a couple of turkeys and all the fixings and given it out to the poor people who are living in my own community - there are PLENTY of poor folks around there. I'm as of yet undecided about tripping down to dad's place for Thanksgiving or going down there for Christmas. Caleb is the key factor here- I would rather he go with, he doesn't get to see his grandpa much, he's growing up and soon, he simply won't have time for it. Get out of high school and go into college, plus working? Free time will be very limited.
I've pretty much given in to the fact that I won't even be seeing him that much, let alone anyone else. He's growing up, he's a good kid, his life seems to be taking a good course, that's all I can ask, the rest I have to pray and ask God for.
Umm, well I got off track there, now didn't I? I tend to do that, lol. Anyway, get closer to Thanksgiving and I will be forced to make a decision.
Which also poses another "problem". I have been hearing that Black Friday might just net some crazy deals on computer components. That's quite a ways off, though, like almost a month. I'm not sure I want to wait that long, number one and number two, even if I do, will they have what I want on sale?
That kind of threw my plans into chaos as I started wondering if I was going to miss some incredible deals.
Whatever the case, the work day approaches and I must be offa here.
G'day.
ben
The Beggar Bashers. That's what I'm calling them. They are people who go on certain Craigslist boards and just REAM - ANYONE - that goes on there asking for help, even if it's only asking for food. I decided to take a stand against these "people" and got reamed for doing so. Lol. But now, the beggar bashers branding is taking hold and others are catching onto it. If people want to ask for help, let them! If no-one helps them, oh well!
Just thought I'd throw that in there. I occasionally help people with food - not money - but haven't really been doing it in the last several months as my electric bills soared and water usage also went through the roof.
I had thoughts of doing something for Thanksgiving, undecided on that one. Some years I have cooked a couple of turkeys and all the fixings and given it out to the poor people who are living in my own community - there are PLENTY of poor folks around there. I'm as of yet undecided about tripping down to dad's place for Thanksgiving or going down there for Christmas. Caleb is the key factor here- I would rather he go with, he doesn't get to see his grandpa much, he's growing up and soon, he simply won't have time for it. Get out of high school and go into college, plus working? Free time will be very limited.
I've pretty much given in to the fact that I won't even be seeing him that much, let alone anyone else. He's growing up, he's a good kid, his life seems to be taking a good course, that's all I can ask, the rest I have to pray and ask God for.
Umm, well I got off track there, now didn't I? I tend to do that, lol. Anyway, get closer to Thanksgiving and I will be forced to make a decision.
Which also poses another "problem". I have been hearing that Black Friday might just net some crazy deals on computer components. That's quite a ways off, though, like almost a month. I'm not sure I want to wait that long, number one and number two, even if I do, will they have what I want on sale?
That kind of threw my plans into chaos as I started wondering if I was going to miss some incredible deals.
Whatever the case, the work day approaches and I must be offa here.
G'day.
ben
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday 10/27/2010
Wednesday
I went to bed last night at 7:08.
Unusual even for me to go to bed THAT early. Fortunately, I slept better than the 2 nights preceding it and I think I got at least 7 hours of sleep out of it.
I don't have a lot this morning. I mean, politics is something that has captured my attention as we wind down to voting day. Reid is looking worse and worse, I'm guessing he's losing his "job" and if he does, good riddance to him. Pelosi as well. Too bad it isn't a presidential vote, I seriously doubt Obama will get a second chance at the White House, but, who knows what will happen in the 2 years that he has left to - attempt to wreck our economy even further.
More on my mind is the computer situation. In 6 days, the Army reservist has promised to pay up an entire month's rent in advance. I'm sorta juggling whether to wait and see if that actually comes to pass or not. I'm not screwed if it doesn't happen and she pays as she normally does, I just have less padding if she doesn't and I do go ahead with this computer purchase. I've already committed myself to it in buying the 1 TB hard drive yesterday. It was on sale and it was going off sale in a few days, I figured I wouldn't be as happy with a 500 Gig hard drive as I would be with a hard drive that has twice that capacity.
Halloween. I usually do nothing on Halloween, it doesn't really excite me. I have no plans on this one, either. I don't even give out candy. The lights are darkened and I just stay home. I figure I do enough for people and spending $50 on stuff to make kids even fatter than they already are doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Plus, I'm not a big fan of witches, witchcraft, sorcery and the like. No, Christmas is the holiday I look forward to.
Anyway, work day approaches, there is nothing to do in the truck routing system, I sincerely hope that something comes up to do before work day's end.
ben
I went to bed last night at 7:08.
Unusual even for me to go to bed THAT early. Fortunately, I slept better than the 2 nights preceding it and I think I got at least 7 hours of sleep out of it.
I don't have a lot this morning. I mean, politics is something that has captured my attention as we wind down to voting day. Reid is looking worse and worse, I'm guessing he's losing his "job" and if he does, good riddance to him. Pelosi as well. Too bad it isn't a presidential vote, I seriously doubt Obama will get a second chance at the White House, but, who knows what will happen in the 2 years that he has left to - attempt to wreck our economy even further.
More on my mind is the computer situation. In 6 days, the Army reservist has promised to pay up an entire month's rent in advance. I'm sorta juggling whether to wait and see if that actually comes to pass or not. I'm not screwed if it doesn't happen and she pays as she normally does, I just have less padding if she doesn't and I do go ahead with this computer purchase. I've already committed myself to it in buying the 1 TB hard drive yesterday. It was on sale and it was going off sale in a few days, I figured I wouldn't be as happy with a 500 Gig hard drive as I would be with a hard drive that has twice that capacity.
Halloween. I usually do nothing on Halloween, it doesn't really excite me. I have no plans on this one, either. I don't even give out candy. The lights are darkened and I just stay home. I figure I do enough for people and spending $50 on stuff to make kids even fatter than they already are doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Plus, I'm not a big fan of witches, witchcraft, sorcery and the like. No, Christmas is the holiday I look forward to.
Anyway, work day approaches, there is nothing to do in the truck routing system, I sincerely hope that something comes up to do before work day's end.
ben
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The Trailer Tenants
I'll just lay it on the line, up front, all out: If I could keep these people here forever, I would.
If I could pay them a salary for the work that is done around here, I would.
If I could not charge them anything, at the very least, I would do that, too.
Call me selfish, call me whatever you want, but these people are jewels in human form.
Excellent cooks. Clean. Moved from doing things outside to doing things inside - well both is what I'm saying.
If I could get a nice travel trailer for them, yup, I would do it.
If I could put them in one of the rooms without feeling the punch of the loss of income, yup, I would do that, too.
I can only say that what they are living in is far better than a tin shed in the back of someone's house with a bunch of pot smokers inside.
Onto other things. I was back at Fry's Electronics again today. I'm nudging myself to make the "investment". Investment - in a computer? Well, yes, I would call it an investment. Not that I could get the money back out of the thing I want to build that I am going to dump into it, no.
But making money off of it isn't even in the equation. Nope. It's mostly enterainment. News, Cafe World, Ebay, Craigslist, my blogs, all kinds of stuff. The investment is in my entertainment. I rarely go to movies, I rarely - do much of anything anymore. Not that I don't want to, but, I'm watching the pennies.
My bonus money went to more fixes on the old Buick and trying to get caught up on bills. The insurance payoff? That's what I'm using here plus some on top of that.
They had the 1 Terabyte harddrive in stock that they didn't have they other day. I got that while it was on sale. The minimum you get nowadays for a new computer setup - at least IMO - is a 1 TB. I bought nothing else. I was very tempted, but, I keep putting on the stops. I can't say for sure why, just this thing - been there done that. In, spending money on something and then some "thing" comes up and you are left scrambling. But, I imagine that by this weekend, I will dive into it, buy all the components and get this done. I do reserve the right to not buy a new monitor. People are selling those things on Craigslist all the time for cheap.
I was questioning yet another salesman - what is this slot for, what is the purpose of that. I didn't understand the 2 slots for PCI Express, so I kept asking until I got it. While that was happening, ANOTHER older gentleman, just like the other day at Fry's, stepped in. In fact, he cut us off to ask a question because he was intrigued by our conversation. I can't say why I didn't find his intrusion offensive, so I can't explain it, but I just stood silent and listened to another conversation unfold. I have a lot to learn about computers, that's all I can say about it.
I got the paperwork to get my new harddrive and headed to the line. That gentleman was, by chance, in front of me. He profusely apologized for interrupting our conversation but he had found it so intriguing that he was compelled to get in on it. I told him he was a jerkoff, shove it up his @$$ - that's what most of the world around me does. I did no such thing, actually. Instead, it was no problem, have a great day.
So, how does my spending money on a new computer and these trailer tenants equate to what I started this entry with? I can't tell you that I'm going to end my life and keep a hold on doing ANYTHING in order to help other people out. I have given consideration to giving them next month's rent free. After the extreme amount of water money shelled out a few days ago and the fact that electric usage is WAY down now, I can probably afford it. But I am not telling them that. I won't make that decision until we're there.
I would love to build a garage with loft on top of it. If it were built the way I wanted it, I would move out of this house, they could have my master bedroom and I would move up there. I have seen layouts - a totally open design - that are awesome. It's sort of a giant kitchenette - but MUCH nicer. One can always dream : )
I was also thinking that, if I found a way to afford it, to take their monthly payment and dump it into a savings account. For a couple thousand bucks, I could buy a much nicer travel trailer than that thing out there.
They told me the other day that my ponds are my "pondering" place. Lol, isn't that true? I ponder these things and much more while watching all of these fish go crazy when I throw the Koi pellets in. Well, that and that flakes - the smaller fish have to have ground up flakes or they ain't eating, at least not the pellets.
Hmmm, I have lots of pondering to do. A great lack in my life rears it's ugly head here and there.
Ain't going into that here.
G'nite.
ben
If I could pay them a salary for the work that is done around here, I would.
If I could not charge them anything, at the very least, I would do that, too.
Call me selfish, call me whatever you want, but these people are jewels in human form.
Excellent cooks. Clean. Moved from doing things outside to doing things inside - well both is what I'm saying.
If I could get a nice travel trailer for them, yup, I would do it.
If I could put them in one of the rooms without feeling the punch of the loss of income, yup, I would do that, too.
I can only say that what they are living in is far better than a tin shed in the back of someone's house with a bunch of pot smokers inside.
Onto other things. I was back at Fry's Electronics again today. I'm nudging myself to make the "investment". Investment - in a computer? Well, yes, I would call it an investment. Not that I could get the money back out of the thing I want to build that I am going to dump into it, no.
But making money off of it isn't even in the equation. Nope. It's mostly enterainment. News, Cafe World, Ebay, Craigslist, my blogs, all kinds of stuff. The investment is in my entertainment. I rarely go to movies, I rarely - do much of anything anymore. Not that I don't want to, but, I'm watching the pennies.
My bonus money went to more fixes on the old Buick and trying to get caught up on bills. The insurance payoff? That's what I'm using here plus some on top of that.
They had the 1 Terabyte harddrive in stock that they didn't have they other day. I got that while it was on sale. The minimum you get nowadays for a new computer setup - at least IMO - is a 1 TB. I bought nothing else. I was very tempted, but, I keep putting on the stops. I can't say for sure why, just this thing - been there done that. In, spending money on something and then some "thing" comes up and you are left scrambling. But, I imagine that by this weekend, I will dive into it, buy all the components and get this done. I do reserve the right to not buy a new monitor. People are selling those things on Craigslist all the time for cheap.
I was questioning yet another salesman - what is this slot for, what is the purpose of that. I didn't understand the 2 slots for PCI Express, so I kept asking until I got it. While that was happening, ANOTHER older gentleman, just like the other day at Fry's, stepped in. In fact, he cut us off to ask a question because he was intrigued by our conversation. I can't say why I didn't find his intrusion offensive, so I can't explain it, but I just stood silent and listened to another conversation unfold. I have a lot to learn about computers, that's all I can say about it.
I got the paperwork to get my new harddrive and headed to the line. That gentleman was, by chance, in front of me. He profusely apologized for interrupting our conversation but he had found it so intriguing that he was compelled to get in on it. I told him he was a jerkoff, shove it up his @$$ - that's what most of the world around me does. I did no such thing, actually. Instead, it was no problem, have a great day.
So, how does my spending money on a new computer and these trailer tenants equate to what I started this entry with? I can't tell you that I'm going to end my life and keep a hold on doing ANYTHING in order to help other people out. I have given consideration to giving them next month's rent free. After the extreme amount of water money shelled out a few days ago and the fact that electric usage is WAY down now, I can probably afford it. But I am not telling them that. I won't make that decision until we're there.
I would love to build a garage with loft on top of it. If it were built the way I wanted it, I would move out of this house, they could have my master bedroom and I would move up there. I have seen layouts - a totally open design - that are awesome. It's sort of a giant kitchenette - but MUCH nicer. One can always dream : )
I was also thinking that, if I found a way to afford it, to take their monthly payment and dump it into a savings account. For a couple thousand bucks, I could buy a much nicer travel trailer than that thing out there.
They told me the other day that my ponds are my "pondering" place. Lol, isn't that true? I ponder these things and much more while watching all of these fish go crazy when I throw the Koi pellets in. Well, that and that flakes - the smaller fish have to have ground up flakes or they ain't eating, at least not the pellets.
Hmmm, I have lots of pondering to do. A great lack in my life rears it's ugly head here and there.
Ain't going into that here.
G'nite.
ben
Tuesday
Tenant issues. Always. Lol. I had to leave a notice for the newest member of the household to not make so much freaking noise in the morning. This at the request of the Army reservist. The guy gets on a conference call with a company he is working for and talks VERY loudly and has that speaker turned up JUST as loudly.
That is done. Whatever the results are, I have no clue. All I know is that it tends to get complicated when there are 3 renters living in the house. I could probably live off of two, but the third gets me caught up plus helps to get to fixing things, replacing things, whatever needs to be done around the house.
Onto the Koi. I bought I think it was 10 small ones from a seller a while back. They all died in short order - they had been subjected to high heat in transit from NC to here. I had lost his email address but then found another one of his ads. I wrote him about the dead fish - no great loss at only $20 but I wanted to see if the dude would make good on bad fish.
Nothing at all the response I received from him. Bug off. Get a life. Go F yourself. This was from a simple statement about the dead fish. I didn't even ask him to do anything about it, ie: replace them, I just told him they had all died. This guy has a freakin' COW. I mean, talk about person who needs to get a life.........I wrote him back and told him if he's going to be that pathetic about this situation that I was going to start flagging his ads. The cows turned into whales - didn't know humans could put out anything that big, but this guy did. Told me he would SUE me if I flagged his ads!! ROFL!!!
Well, I will take it further than that. His business ethics being questionable at best (if it were me selling the fish, I would have simply offered replacements), I wrote up an "re:" ad telling everyone my misadventure with this individual. I also told the guy that I doubted he had a business license or was paying taxes on the proceeds from the fish.
I haven't heard back from that one, though, I am not holding my breath, I don't really care WHAT kind of threats this guy comes up with. Sometimes, this is what you have to deal with on CL. Not for the feint of heart, I'll tell you that right now. The fish are a loss, they were $20, not like I lost hundreds, but still, I did want to see if he would offer anything.
I am trying to get the bravery up to go into Fry's electronics and buy everything I need to put together that computer system. The problem is this: I go, spend the money and then some emergency comes up and I don't have the money to deal with it. Been around the block a few times now, it seems things like to happen that way. I was also considering taking this money and paying off the 401k loan and then getting another. Why? Then I would have a couple of thousand for backup emergency funds instead of - almost nothing.
Let's say the AC went out again right now and I had to replace another $800 compressor. I could come up with the money, but it would put bills and such into "jeopardy".
I dunno. Making these decisions sometimes is very difficult. To pay off the 401k loan, I would have to wait 30 days to get another one.
Well, whatever. I'm sorta sitting on this deal until I get some peace about it one way or the other.
Work day approaches, albeit there is nothing in the truck routing system to do......
G'day.
ben
Tenant issues. Always. Lol. I had to leave a notice for the newest member of the household to not make so much freaking noise in the morning. This at the request of the Army reservist. The guy gets on a conference call with a company he is working for and talks VERY loudly and has that speaker turned up JUST as loudly.
That is done. Whatever the results are, I have no clue. All I know is that it tends to get complicated when there are 3 renters living in the house. I could probably live off of two, but the third gets me caught up plus helps to get to fixing things, replacing things, whatever needs to be done around the house.
Onto the Koi. I bought I think it was 10 small ones from a seller a while back. They all died in short order - they had been subjected to high heat in transit from NC to here. I had lost his email address but then found another one of his ads. I wrote him about the dead fish - no great loss at only $20 but I wanted to see if the dude would make good on bad fish.
Nothing at all the response I received from him. Bug off. Get a life. Go F yourself. This was from a simple statement about the dead fish. I didn't even ask him to do anything about it, ie: replace them, I just told him they had all died. This guy has a freakin' COW. I mean, talk about person who needs to get a life.........I wrote him back and told him if he's going to be that pathetic about this situation that I was going to start flagging his ads. The cows turned into whales - didn't know humans could put out anything that big, but this guy did. Told me he would SUE me if I flagged his ads!! ROFL!!!
Well, I will take it further than that. His business ethics being questionable at best (if it were me selling the fish, I would have simply offered replacements), I wrote up an "re:" ad telling everyone my misadventure with this individual. I also told the guy that I doubted he had a business license or was paying taxes on the proceeds from the fish.
I haven't heard back from that one, though, I am not holding my breath, I don't really care WHAT kind of threats this guy comes up with. Sometimes, this is what you have to deal with on CL. Not for the feint of heart, I'll tell you that right now. The fish are a loss, they were $20, not like I lost hundreds, but still, I did want to see if he would offer anything.
I am trying to get the bravery up to go into Fry's electronics and buy everything I need to put together that computer system. The problem is this: I go, spend the money and then some emergency comes up and I don't have the money to deal with it. Been around the block a few times now, it seems things like to happen that way. I was also considering taking this money and paying off the 401k loan and then getting another. Why? Then I would have a couple of thousand for backup emergency funds instead of - almost nothing.
Let's say the AC went out again right now and I had to replace another $800 compressor. I could come up with the money, but it would put bills and such into "jeopardy".
I dunno. Making these decisions sometimes is very difficult. To pay off the 401k loan, I would have to wait 30 days to get another one.
Well, whatever. I'm sorta sitting on this deal until I get some peace about it one way or the other.
Work day approaches, albeit there is nothing in the truck routing system to do......
G'day.
ben
Monday, October 25, 2010
Wasted Tired
After getting at most 4 hours of sleep last night, I ended up driving all day long.
A call came in late - late for deliveries anyway, after 11:00 am, that a contractor needs pipe and materials. The continuance of that was that if we couldn't get it there today, they were going to call someone else. My manager is asking me if I want to do it. Umm, I'm not used to management asking me if I want to do something or not, I just get it done regardless of whether I feel like it or not.
Admittedly, I was tired but my mouth spoke completely opposite: Let's get it done. Downtown, then off to Florence, otherwise known as prison town. I believe there are 6 prisons in that town (at least). LARGE facilities, all of them, included a Department of Homeland Defense "detention facility". A nice drive even if tired, I left there and took the back way back to the yard - much faster.
Umm, excepting the fact that there was a serious accident on that road further down the way and DPS shut it down. I ended up going around 20 miles out of my way to get back. It's all farm land out there. 2 lane highways and a lot of back roads. If you know the back roads, you can beat everyone else by far. I know ALL the back roads in that entire area - I have spent considerable time out there over the last 6 or 7 years. So, I'm toodling along and finally get to I-10. I'm on there for a minute and come up to another accident. A semi, rolled over on it's side, in the middle median. There was another semi parked next to and and a huge crew of people transferring material from the wrecked truck over to the "good" one.
Wow, is all I can say about that. An eerie site to see a semi rolled over on it's side. There was a huge tow truck that, from what I could tell, had tried to upright it and couldn't, it was sitting idle waiting for them to empty the contents of the trailer. My mind imagined what could have happened to cause that. In that area, huge wind gusts come up unexpectedly and that kind of accident has happened many times before out there. But, it could also have been a cutoff. Or perhaps a shutdown. Who knows.
Umm, as usualy with my entries, long interlude. I get distracted by something and hours pass before I come back to this.
Probably sometime this week I am going to buy all the items necessary to build my new computer. This is really what's on my mind right now. I just haven't decided whether to buy the stuff online from Newegg or Tiger Direct or buy it from Fry's electronics. I'm the kind of person that will wait for a while and see if I can find some other venue to get what I want at cheaper prices. So far, the pricing is marginally different from all sources and in that case, having the personal interaction at Fry's with someone who really knows what they are talking about and will spend the time is far better than blindly and coldly buying it online.
Whatever the case, it is my bedtime.
G'nite.
ben
A call came in late - late for deliveries anyway, after 11:00 am, that a contractor needs pipe and materials. The continuance of that was that if we couldn't get it there today, they were going to call someone else. My manager is asking me if I want to do it. Umm, I'm not used to management asking me if I want to do something or not, I just get it done regardless of whether I feel like it or not.
Admittedly, I was tired but my mouth spoke completely opposite: Let's get it done. Downtown, then off to Florence, otherwise known as prison town. I believe there are 6 prisons in that town (at least). LARGE facilities, all of them, included a Department of Homeland Defense "detention facility". A nice drive even if tired, I left there and took the back way back to the yard - much faster.
Umm, excepting the fact that there was a serious accident on that road further down the way and DPS shut it down. I ended up going around 20 miles out of my way to get back. It's all farm land out there. 2 lane highways and a lot of back roads. If you know the back roads, you can beat everyone else by far. I know ALL the back roads in that entire area - I have spent considerable time out there over the last 6 or 7 years. So, I'm toodling along and finally get to I-10. I'm on there for a minute and come up to another accident. A semi, rolled over on it's side, in the middle median. There was another semi parked next to and and a huge crew of people transferring material from the wrecked truck over to the "good" one.
Wow, is all I can say about that. An eerie site to see a semi rolled over on it's side. There was a huge tow truck that, from what I could tell, had tried to upright it and couldn't, it was sitting idle waiting for them to empty the contents of the trailer. My mind imagined what could have happened to cause that. In that area, huge wind gusts come up unexpectedly and that kind of accident has happened many times before out there. But, it could also have been a cutoff. Or perhaps a shutdown. Who knows.
Umm, as usualy with my entries, long interlude. I get distracted by something and hours pass before I come back to this.
Probably sometime this week I am going to buy all the items necessary to build my new computer. This is really what's on my mind right now. I just haven't decided whether to buy the stuff online from Newegg or Tiger Direct or buy it from Fry's electronics. I'm the kind of person that will wait for a while and see if I can find some other venue to get what I want at cheaper prices. So far, the pricing is marginally different from all sources and in that case, having the personal interaction at Fry's with someone who really knows what they are talking about and will spend the time is far better than blindly and coldly buying it online.
Whatever the case, it is my bedtime.
G'nite.
ben
Monday 10/25/2010
Monday:
I've been sleeping fairly well for several days in a row - until last night. Wake up at midnight, back to sleep around 3:30 am. I've gotten so used to not having enough sleep that I'm mostly able to perform at work anyway. If worse comes to worse,I take my 30 minute break in the form of a nap.
Fortunately, there is plenty to do today as well. A trip the Indian reservation; a delivery of copper material to another site and probably a trip downtown. That should eat up most of the day. I say fortunately because it is much easier to get through a work day when busy as opposed to not being busy at all.
Well, anyway. I was looking this morning at a "huge sale" by a company discount thing - the huge sale was not that huge and the components in the computers weren't anything even close to what I am looking at doing. I do admit some amount of trepidation at building a computer - I have never done one before - but the benefits outweight any cons. You just end up with such a far superior computer than what you are going to pay at the same price for an - inferior model. Upgraded processor; upgraded motherboard; upgraded video card.
Anyway, I'm just biding my time with this thing. I want to make sure my bills are covered before diving into this project, which I will probably do anytime now. Prolly not today for lack of sleep.
Election rhetoric continues to spew forth out of the garbage machines that manufacturer such filth. I say that for both sides. Dems are obviously afraid. I personally do not think it health that any one party control the House and the Senate plus a president in a 3-some of all 3-somes. They can basically do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it and there isn't much to stop them.
That is, until election day arrives and voters undoubtedly are going to create huge lines and large backups to even get to a poll. I do hope that doesn't sway anyone from taking however much time it takes to cast your vote, regardless of your political views. Let the people speak and let it be as much of the voting public as possible. I would love to get there early - but they don't open up until I'm already at work.
I don't know what happened to an entire entry I made yesterday, just sorta disappeared. I have decided that it is very possible to have a nice water garden without any fish in it for the small pond that I was going to get rid of. Just put an aerator in it and maybe a small pump - of which I have both already - to keep the water from getting foul and full of mosquitos. I also have plants I can break apart to use for such.
In other words, there is nothing I have to buy for such a setup, I already have everything. Where to put it poses an entirely different question, but I think I will put it out front where I was going to put a slightly larger pond for fish. I can put mosquito eaters in there and perhaps, maybe some small - very small goldfish as a stock tank sort of thing, but that's it. I think if set up right, it would look totally cool.
Also, I popped off the panel on the outdoor breaker box to take a peek inside - running a line off of that thing is going to be a piece of cake. I need to get that done soon. I would think about stopping at Home Depot on the way home today - but - again - I doubt I will want to do anything but go home and take a long nap this afternoon after getting off of work.
Well, work day approaches and I'm off to look at more "junk" in the news, lol.
G'day.
ben
I've been sleeping fairly well for several days in a row - until last night. Wake up at midnight, back to sleep around 3:30 am. I've gotten so used to not having enough sleep that I'm mostly able to perform at work anyway. If worse comes to worse,I take my 30 minute break in the form of a nap.
Fortunately, there is plenty to do today as well. A trip the Indian reservation; a delivery of copper material to another site and probably a trip downtown. That should eat up most of the day. I say fortunately because it is much easier to get through a work day when busy as opposed to not being busy at all.
Well, anyway. I was looking this morning at a "huge sale" by a company discount thing - the huge sale was not that huge and the components in the computers weren't anything even close to what I am looking at doing. I do admit some amount of trepidation at building a computer - I have never done one before - but the benefits outweight any cons. You just end up with such a far superior computer than what you are going to pay at the same price for an - inferior model. Upgraded processor; upgraded motherboard; upgraded video card.
Anyway, I'm just biding my time with this thing. I want to make sure my bills are covered before diving into this project, which I will probably do anytime now. Prolly not today for lack of sleep.
Election rhetoric continues to spew forth out of the garbage machines that manufacturer such filth. I say that for both sides. Dems are obviously afraid. I personally do not think it health that any one party control the House and the Senate plus a president in a 3-some of all 3-somes. They can basically do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it and there isn't much to stop them.
That is, until election day arrives and voters undoubtedly are going to create huge lines and large backups to even get to a poll. I do hope that doesn't sway anyone from taking however much time it takes to cast your vote, regardless of your political views. Let the people speak and let it be as much of the voting public as possible. I would love to get there early - but they don't open up until I'm already at work.
I don't know what happened to an entire entry I made yesterday, just sorta disappeared. I have decided that it is very possible to have a nice water garden without any fish in it for the small pond that I was going to get rid of. Just put an aerator in it and maybe a small pump - of which I have both already - to keep the water from getting foul and full of mosquitos. I also have plants I can break apart to use for such.
In other words, there is nothing I have to buy for such a setup, I already have everything. Where to put it poses an entirely different question, but I think I will put it out front where I was going to put a slightly larger pond for fish. I can put mosquito eaters in there and perhaps, maybe some small - very small goldfish as a stock tank sort of thing, but that's it. I think if set up right, it would look totally cool.
Also, I popped off the panel on the outdoor breaker box to take a peek inside - running a line off of that thing is going to be a piece of cake. I need to get that done soon. I would think about stopping at Home Depot on the way home today - but - again - I doubt I will want to do anything but go home and take a long nap this afternoon after getting off of work.
Well, work day approaches and I'm off to look at more "junk" in the news, lol.
G'day.
ben
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The Tenant
I am hardly going to say here that I am surprised at anything that tenants bring forth when it comes time to paying rent and - sometimes - one of them not paying it.
It is not pleasant business to have to get blunt with a person that is living in your home - which was my intial objection to engaging in such, long ago, but not now, not ever again.
However, today's encounter was a new one on me. I claim no life-long authority on this type of situation, I do claim a 2-1/2 year tenure in dealing with such and I am prepared for whatever comes against me, even such that occured today.
For 2 weeks, the individual has told me he is going to pay back the $85 in arrears, today, he started a discourse. His discourse was that he is supposed to be paying X amount per month and that today? X amount has been paid. He did not venture into the realm of "therefore I don't need to pay the other $85".
I did ask him anyway. "So, are you saying now that you don't owe me the $85 that you missed 2 weeks ago?". No. He admitted such. Then what, exactly, ARE you saying? He "didn't understand" that he would have to pay "more" than the amount of rent accrued in one month. Oh? We are on a weekly deal here, you are paying by the week, not by the month. If you were paying by the month, then you would pay me a month's worth of rent at the beginning of the month.
This is simple logic. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. But this went back and forth for quite a while. I ended the stalemate. You owe me $85 in arrears PLUS this week. That's a fact, you haven't disputed it. If you can't afford to pay it up all at once, I'll work with you - pay it back in payments. X amount over the weekly rent until you are caught up.
That was that. He handed me a money order for the amount of $90 - $5 over what he owes for a week and that was that. Oh, I see. Well, if he didn't think he owed me more, why then did he give me more, even if only $5? I didn't ask him that, but the reigns are going to be pulled much tighter on this individual. He promised me the full amount owed for the past due and current due - but did not deliver it. That has me on "flag". Meaning, this guy is going to have to be pressed.
No biggies. I can do that and will. I have the advantage over a person that wants to get their own apartment: you going to do that, you don't want what I can put on your record. That would be a judgment for forcible detainer/eviction. A vast majority of apartment properties are going to reject anyone with such, or, force far more money down, like first and last month's rent plus deposit.
I can't possibly write here the entire dialect between us, take too long. It might be entertaining reading to certain individuals, however, I have had a full weekend and I think I've had enough.
The fact of the matter is, it was the boost I wanted to get on with this computer project AND be able to pay my bills. The $325 water bill really hurt this month, I admit I have myself to blame, but that does not ease the pain.
Umm, so it's drawing to a close, the day that is and I have plenty to do.
C'ya tomorrow.
ben
It is not pleasant business to have to get blunt with a person that is living in your home - which was my intial objection to engaging in such, long ago, but not now, not ever again.
However, today's encounter was a new one on me. I claim no life-long authority on this type of situation, I do claim a 2-1/2 year tenure in dealing with such and I am prepared for whatever comes against me, even such that occured today.
For 2 weeks, the individual has told me he is going to pay back the $85 in arrears, today, he started a discourse. His discourse was that he is supposed to be paying X amount per month and that today? X amount has been paid. He did not venture into the realm of "therefore I don't need to pay the other $85".
I did ask him anyway. "So, are you saying now that you don't owe me the $85 that you missed 2 weeks ago?". No. He admitted such. Then what, exactly, ARE you saying? He "didn't understand" that he would have to pay "more" than the amount of rent accrued in one month. Oh? We are on a weekly deal here, you are paying by the week, not by the month. If you were paying by the month, then you would pay me a month's worth of rent at the beginning of the month.
This is simple logic. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. But this went back and forth for quite a while. I ended the stalemate. You owe me $85 in arrears PLUS this week. That's a fact, you haven't disputed it. If you can't afford to pay it up all at once, I'll work with you - pay it back in payments. X amount over the weekly rent until you are caught up.
That was that. He handed me a money order for the amount of $90 - $5 over what he owes for a week and that was that. Oh, I see. Well, if he didn't think he owed me more, why then did he give me more, even if only $5? I didn't ask him that, but the reigns are going to be pulled much tighter on this individual. He promised me the full amount owed for the past due and current due - but did not deliver it. That has me on "flag". Meaning, this guy is going to have to be pressed.
No biggies. I can do that and will. I have the advantage over a person that wants to get their own apartment: you going to do that, you don't want what I can put on your record. That would be a judgment for forcible detainer/eviction. A vast majority of apartment properties are going to reject anyone with such, or, force far more money down, like first and last month's rent plus deposit.
I can't possibly write here the entire dialect between us, take too long. It might be entertaining reading to certain individuals, however, I have had a full weekend and I think I've had enough.
The fact of the matter is, it was the boost I wanted to get on with this computer project AND be able to pay my bills. The $325 water bill really hurt this month, I admit I have myself to blame, but that does not ease the pain.
Umm, so it's drawing to a close, the day that is and I have plenty to do.
C'ya tomorrow.
ben
Sunday
What an unbelievable amount of rigarmoroo to do the fumigation of this house!The prep work is incredible. Pulling everything out of your kitchen cabinets is much more of a chore than one might imagine if one has a lot of them. I have no idea what the final verdict is. Did it get all of them? Judging by the choking sensation I had when I walked in here after 4 hours of it - I would say the poison certainly had it's opportunities to kill them out. I also pulled of several electrical outlets in hopes of that stuff getting into the walls.
Honestly? There was only some fogging for a short period of time after setting off those bombs. I thought maybe they were making claims that were far beyond reality. Looking through the windows, after maybe 30 minutes, you couldn't see anything in here. However and again, walking in here after 4 hours of setting them off and choking - coughing, hacking, I was running through here to open up the windows and air the place out - well that made a believer out of me, at least to the longevity of the poison's ability to stick around. The dead roaches on the floor this morning was further indication that yes, it had to at least partially do it's job. I'm considering doing it again - though getting tenant cooperation with such may be a bit difficult.
I'm certainly not calling it a waste of time. For the roaches I found dead on the floor, I'm assuming much more dead out of sight. BUT, it was "the" project of the weekend. I was going to run a line and get another electrical box going outside for the ponds, NOT. Wait til' next weekend. Looking at this week's projected low temps, I'll be safe. I don't want to load anything more onto that extension cord - 300 watt heaters will be too much amperage combined with the pumps and aerators on that one cord. The pumps and aerators are very low wattage, no problem with current setup but it's only a temp deal.
Enough about roaches and electricity (though, the electric usage was $5.40 yesterday!). Computers. If you've never entered the world of attempting to figure out what to put into a computer to build one yourself, well, unless you are going to blindly go in swinging, you are in for quite an education. I have spent days and even a couple of weeks now poring over an unlimited amount of websites, blogs and internet store pages reading about everything the mind can imagine. Yes, I want to become well-versed on core components, no, I can hardly say I have any amount of expertise, I am relying on opinions and reviews of others.
Well, I've read hundreds of them so far. That is no exaggeration. I'm seriously telling you that there must be millions of pages out there - you can find opinions up the ying-yang ad-infinitum. I neither have the time nore the desire to do all of that, BUT, I definitely have the desire to go ahead and do at least some research. I want the best machine I can build for the money I have to dump into it. Motherboards and processors and video graphic cards. PCI Express, how much wattage in a power supply, do you want to overclock, on and on and on. It's unbelievable the amount of different technology out there. Almost equally as unbelievable the amount of people that actually KNOW - ALL - of this stuff.
I talked to one such individual today. My quest: go to Fry's electronics, pick the brain of whatever computer geek I could find. Well, I found a doozy. The guy was a walking encyclopedia. He had opinions on everything. No, more like, he had EXPERTISE on everything. I spent an hour standing there listening to this guy showing me everything and attempting to show me what I could get with the budget I have in mind. The quest included getting pricing on pre-selected items that I found the experts to agree on - at least to some degree so I could compare pricing with online stores; glean as much information as I could from the guy - especially about motherboards because I find the "expert's" opinions on that to be confusing at best; and possibly even buy the setup then and there and just get it over with.
I ended up being bombarded with information from 2 fronts: the store employee and an older gentleman who knew more than the store guy, which in itself I found quite amazing. He was listening to the store guy talking and just had to chime in. In a scenario where I really don't have a clue, I'm going to take all sides even if unasked for. He apologized for nosing into my business - I replied I was glad to hear the information. He WAS impressed by the motherboard I was looking at buying. He suggested a processor to go with it - WAY out of my budget, lol, at $250. He started laughing as well, "Well, I AM good at spending other people's money!".
I also took a second trip to see the pre-built systems they had. One advantage is they are, of course, already set up. The huge disadvantage is you are paying the same price or even more for a system that is far inferior to one you can build yourself. The money you save in building it yourself is the money you spend on better components. There was nothing there under $900 that was worth spending that kind of money on. Even the more expensive systems - they had better components, but for THAT kind of money you could build your own system that would be doubled the computing that those things offer.
So, here I am with about $400 sitting in my pocket. Waiting on one particular tenant's money - he will be addressed personally today if he doesn't ante up. He left yesterday and I have had no opportunity to - discuss - this issue with him. Money in the bank is for bills - can touch a bit of it but not too much. I haven't gone off the cliff yet - I am still considering my options. I will undoubtedly not be able to buy or build another computer for a long time, this one is going to have to be able to tide me over for quite a while.
The HUGE water bill - 2 months worth is -paid. Felt good to pay it, yet it felt bad to have a bill THAT big just for water, sewer and trash. Criminy. Water consumption is way down, I haven't watered plants in 2 weeks. The next water bill should be as shockingly low as the low amount of electricity that is being used : )
Oh, Direct TV. Yes another run-in with Direct TV. I decided that if they weren't going to give me new equipment (and in exchange, I would sign another 2 year contract), then they ARE going to continue to give me free movie channels. This was one of the worst interactions with Direct TV employees I have encountered yet and with the LONG list of encounters I have had with them in over a decade, that IS saying something.
These people are getting ruder, more condescending and being very flippant about the fact that you are their customer. They could CARE LESS. Their policies are their policies, if you don't like them, tough. But, experience that I always fall back on, persistence is key. Not with the same person who is mouthing off to you, get beyond that and call again. And again. And again. I spoke with 3 separate "supervisors" which in my view are nothing more than a glorified incoming 800 call center operator - they have no powers to speak of. After all of that, I finally ended up at the Office of the President. I was - getting pretty upset at that point - about the way those people were talking to me. This guy says he's in Iowa somewhere. I had to ask how he could be in the same office as the president is in considering the present's office is in California.
Ohh, sir, but this IS the right department. I had gotten the runaround so much, I didn't even want to talk to this guy. I had specifically asked, after being transferred off to Iowa the first time, to speak with someone in the office that I had called directly, which, btw, was NOT an 800 number. It's in El Segundo, to be precise and yes, the number to headquarters is listed online (albeit ifyou ask any Direct TV employee, they are going to tell you they don't know or have access to that number).
I finally relented and gave him my information. This was after 10 or 15 minutes of me telling him about the previous phone calls, the length of time I have been with this company on 2 accounts for over 10 years, and the fact that I had been PROMISED free movie channels by the 1st individual I had talked to (whose manager came on the line and retracted). I "earned" 6 months of free Starz channels for that. Look, they all occasionally have some great movies and the rest are junk you don't want to watch anyway, which is why I refuse to pay for them. I can't always just turn on any movie channel package and find something I want to watch, not at all. I actually did it for the trailer tenants who told me the Showtime channels had been shut off. Yes, I replied, it was a 3 month freebie, but I'll try to get some more.
Anyway, it was worth the effort. I guess. I mean, it helps my bottom line and that's what counts.
It's 3:00pm Sunday afternoon, the weekend is winding down, they always disappear like lightning. Mind filld with all kinds of stuff. I'm going outside shortly to take care of more landscaping issues.
G'day.
ben
Honestly? There was only some fogging for a short period of time after setting off those bombs. I thought maybe they were making claims that were far beyond reality. Looking through the windows, after maybe 30 minutes, you couldn't see anything in here. However and again, walking in here after 4 hours of setting them off and choking - coughing, hacking, I was running through here to open up the windows and air the place out - well that made a believer out of me, at least to the longevity of the poison's ability to stick around. The dead roaches on the floor this morning was further indication that yes, it had to at least partially do it's job. I'm considering doing it again - though getting tenant cooperation with such may be a bit difficult.
I'm certainly not calling it a waste of time. For the roaches I found dead on the floor, I'm assuming much more dead out of sight. BUT, it was "the" project of the weekend. I was going to run a line and get another electrical box going outside for the ponds, NOT. Wait til' next weekend. Looking at this week's projected low temps, I'll be safe. I don't want to load anything more onto that extension cord - 300 watt heaters will be too much amperage combined with the pumps and aerators on that one cord. The pumps and aerators are very low wattage, no problem with current setup but it's only a temp deal.
Enough about roaches and electricity (though, the electric usage was $5.40 yesterday!). Computers. If you've never entered the world of attempting to figure out what to put into a computer to build one yourself, well, unless you are going to blindly go in swinging, you are in for quite an education. I have spent days and even a couple of weeks now poring over an unlimited amount of websites, blogs and internet store pages reading about everything the mind can imagine. Yes, I want to become well-versed on core components, no, I can hardly say I have any amount of expertise, I am relying on opinions and reviews of others.
Well, I've read hundreds of them so far. That is no exaggeration. I'm seriously telling you that there must be millions of pages out there - you can find opinions up the ying-yang ad-infinitum. I neither have the time nore the desire to do all of that, BUT, I definitely have the desire to go ahead and do at least some research. I want the best machine I can build for the money I have to dump into it. Motherboards and processors and video graphic cards. PCI Express, how much wattage in a power supply, do you want to overclock, on and on and on. It's unbelievable the amount of different technology out there. Almost equally as unbelievable the amount of people that actually KNOW - ALL - of this stuff.
I talked to one such individual today. My quest: go to Fry's electronics, pick the brain of whatever computer geek I could find. Well, I found a doozy. The guy was a walking encyclopedia. He had opinions on everything. No, more like, he had EXPERTISE on everything. I spent an hour standing there listening to this guy showing me everything and attempting to show me what I could get with the budget I have in mind. The quest included getting pricing on pre-selected items that I found the experts to agree on - at least to some degree so I could compare pricing with online stores; glean as much information as I could from the guy - especially about motherboards because I find the "expert's" opinions on that to be confusing at best; and possibly even buy the setup then and there and just get it over with.
I ended up being bombarded with information from 2 fronts: the store employee and an older gentleman who knew more than the store guy, which in itself I found quite amazing. He was listening to the store guy talking and just had to chime in. In a scenario where I really don't have a clue, I'm going to take all sides even if unasked for. He apologized for nosing into my business - I replied I was glad to hear the information. He WAS impressed by the motherboard I was looking at buying. He suggested a processor to go with it - WAY out of my budget, lol, at $250. He started laughing as well, "Well, I AM good at spending other people's money!".
I also took a second trip to see the pre-built systems they had. One advantage is they are, of course, already set up. The huge disadvantage is you are paying the same price or even more for a system that is far inferior to one you can build yourself. The money you save in building it yourself is the money you spend on better components. There was nothing there under $900 that was worth spending that kind of money on. Even the more expensive systems - they had better components, but for THAT kind of money you could build your own system that would be doubled the computing that those things offer.
So, here I am with about $400 sitting in my pocket. Waiting on one particular tenant's money - he will be addressed personally today if he doesn't ante up. He left yesterday and I have had no opportunity to - discuss - this issue with him. Money in the bank is for bills - can touch a bit of it but not too much. I haven't gone off the cliff yet - I am still considering my options. I will undoubtedly not be able to buy or build another computer for a long time, this one is going to have to be able to tide me over for quite a while.
The HUGE water bill - 2 months worth is -paid. Felt good to pay it, yet it felt bad to have a bill THAT big just for water, sewer and trash. Criminy. Water consumption is way down, I haven't watered plants in 2 weeks. The next water bill should be as shockingly low as the low amount of electricity that is being used : )
Oh, Direct TV. Yes another run-in with Direct TV. I decided that if they weren't going to give me new equipment (and in exchange, I would sign another 2 year contract), then they ARE going to continue to give me free movie channels. This was one of the worst interactions with Direct TV employees I have encountered yet and with the LONG list of encounters I have had with them in over a decade, that IS saying something.
These people are getting ruder, more condescending and being very flippant about the fact that you are their customer. They could CARE LESS. Their policies are their policies, if you don't like them, tough. But, experience that I always fall back on, persistence is key. Not with the same person who is mouthing off to you, get beyond that and call again. And again. And again. I spoke with 3 separate "supervisors" which in my view are nothing more than a glorified incoming 800 call center operator - they have no powers to speak of. After all of that, I finally ended up at the Office of the President. I was - getting pretty upset at that point - about the way those people were talking to me. This guy says he's in Iowa somewhere. I had to ask how he could be in the same office as the president is in considering the present's office is in California.
Ohh, sir, but this IS the right department. I had gotten the runaround so much, I didn't even want to talk to this guy. I had specifically asked, after being transferred off to Iowa the first time, to speak with someone in the office that I had called directly, which, btw, was NOT an 800 number. It's in El Segundo, to be precise and yes, the number to headquarters is listed online (albeit ifyou ask any Direct TV employee, they are going to tell you they don't know or have access to that number).
I finally relented and gave him my information. This was after 10 or 15 minutes of me telling him about the previous phone calls, the length of time I have been with this company on 2 accounts for over 10 years, and the fact that I had been PROMISED free movie channels by the 1st individual I had talked to (whose manager came on the line and retracted). I "earned" 6 months of free Starz channels for that. Look, they all occasionally have some great movies and the rest are junk you don't want to watch anyway, which is why I refuse to pay for them. I can't always just turn on any movie channel package and find something I want to watch, not at all. I actually did it for the trailer tenants who told me the Showtime channels had been shut off. Yes, I replied, it was a 3 month freebie, but I'll try to get some more.
Anyway, it was worth the effort. I guess. I mean, it helps my bottom line and that's what counts.
It's 3:00pm Sunday afternoon, the weekend is winding down, they always disappear like lightning. Mind filld with all kinds of stuff. I'm going outside shortly to take care of more landscaping issues.
G'day.
ben
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