I’ve got a mobile home (double-wide, to be exact) to fix up and sell. 

As some of you know, we recently moved to a new home here in Austin and now I need to prepare the old homestead for sale and move-out.   (pics and video are forthcoming, I promise).

Good thing I have the promise of knowing that hardworking, honest people who care are out there.  And it’s nice to know they are painfully honest.

I have an appointment with a handyman to come out next week and give me a bid on doing some work here and there – power wash the outside, rebuild a couple sections of flooring that got wet, fix some walls, lay down some vinyl tile - you know… stuff.  

Stuff I’d do myself if I had time.  Don’t even get me started on the cleaning that has to happen.

You see, the work itself is something I find fun and rewarding, but I just don’t have the time.  I’m the type of guy who likes to learn how to do something – just about anything - once.  I’ve changed my own oil – once.  I’ve rebuilt a carburetor – once.  I’ve laid tile, installed carpet, put up a dividing wall, poured concrete, dug a fire pit, changed my tires, installed a garbage disposal, painted a house, replaced heating elements in a water heater, built a computer from as scratch as you can get, installed a level brickstone walkway, resurfaced furniture and raised a couple of kids (well, halfway so far).  These are things I’m glad I know how to do, but I don’t want to do them every time, or very often.

Once is enough for most of it.

Now that I think about it, it’s not just about the fact that I don’t have the time.  It’s about efficiency, too.  Sure, it’s good to know how to do a lot of things… it helps you learn, you become smarter, more self-reliant, and if nothing else, you know how to spot a bad job when you see it.  But people who do things for a living are usually better, faster and more efficient than someone who just does it the first couple of times.  So while I know how to change my own oil, when *I* do it, it’s a mess and it takes me about 5 times as long as someone who does it every day.

About the only thing left is to figure out how to set up little mini-services for people who A) absolutely have the time to do a specific chore and B) have the money to pay for the chore to be done but C) want no part whatsoever in doing the chore (or) might do a horrible job at it. 

The example I’m thinking of right now is puppy dog poop stains.  I just want to call someone out to clean it up and clean it up right.  Sure, I have the time.  Sure, I have some of the right equipment.  But I know that there are people who are much better at doing that kind of stuff and won’t leave such a stain.  They can go door-to-door with a backpack-steam-vac and make the carpets look like new instead of like mushed up plastic swirlies.

Sigh. I guess it’s the price I pay until we can get a doggy door installed at the new house.

He sure is cute, though.

Over the last month or so, I’ve gotten a new job and a new house.

The new job? AWESOME.  I love the new challenges, the new company, the new product, and the future that comes with it.

The new house? AWESOME.  All four of us (ok, six including the dogs) have something we absolutely LOVE about the new house.  For me, it’s the 3car garage with a workbench + 2 attics.

I’m also attending a Transformation Boot Camp twice a week that should land me a new body in a few months.  I’ll let you know how that works out. (get it? work out?  HAHAHAH)

My old commute was right about 12.5 miles.  There were other ways I could travel to possibly avoid some traffic, but it usually ended up right about the same length of time – 25-30 minutes.

The new commute is… actually, right about 12.5 miles also. 

Today’s rain turned the commute that’s normally 20-25 minutes into a 50-60 minute one.  In fact, I never got higher than 3rd gear on the way in.  You know it’s going to be a long 12.5 miles if you never hit 4th gear.

Which brings me to the clutch.  Every time I change into 5th gear, it grinds.  The mechanic told me I’d probably have to consider replacing the clutch soon, so I guess I’m not too surprised.

So, I guess that’s my point for today.  I have a car that grinds when it gets into 5th gear, and the Universe threw me a nice rainy day that made sure I never got close to using it.

Thank you, Universe.

I have a relative who has a Prius.

You haven’t lived until you actually realize a car is driving up to you and you didn’t even hear it until the gravel crunches under its tires.  Man, that’s freaky. 

…but cool at the same time. I think it’s high-time we had electric vehicles (I had always imagined a car that ran on water, but electricity is still cool).  I still long for the Back to The Future-style floating skateboards (and cars of course), because I can totally see me tricking Biff into a truckload of manure.

You can’t see me in this picture, but I photoshopped myself onto the skateboard right behind the camera.  I look awesome in my life preserver jacket.  I also photoshopped Malorie in there with me because, well, she’s hot.

Anyway, Back To The Story, when I experienced the sensation of a huge car rolling up to me without any kind of engine sound, I instantly thought “I bet someone ends up faking the sound of an engine.”

And sure enough, this morning I hear on the radio something about safety concerns about hybrids and electric vehicles, and the fact that children might not hear them and end up getting squished.  I’m not sure of the details, but it sounded like someone was lobbying the car makers to make some artificial engine noise, and even have the sound increase along with the accelerator pedal.  You know.  For the Children.

I’m all for no-squish kids.  But fake engine noises?  Really?  Won’t we just be replacing real pollution with noise pollution?  Why can’t we just learn to live with silent cars and, oh I don’t know…. BE RESPONSIBLE FOR OURSELVES A LITTLE?!?!?!  Look, I can see having sensors that can notify the driver or even honk the horn or something, but constant noise doesn’t seem like a good answer to me.  You know what it seems like to me?  It seems like an answer someone came up with that is responsible for making the fake engine sound modules to sell to the auto manufacturers, and they happen to have a friend in the Legislature, and then they play the “it’s for the children” card and then we all pay for something that really wasn’t needed.

Anyway, Back To The Story II, I thought about ring tones.  Yeah!  RING TONES!  I figured – if we end up being forced by the government to pimp out our rides with noise makers, I might as well make a few bucks on it.  If we can put custom ring-tones on our cell phones, why not custom drive-tones on our cars?  I could make a website that sold custom driving ring tones for people’s cars and *SMACK* kiss the working day good-bye!

I’m sure NO-ONE HAS THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE.

So I go look. 

cartones.com: taken.  drivetones.com: taken.  electrictones.com: taken. drivertones.com: taken.  carrings.com: taken. carringtones.com: taken.  mobiletones.com: taken.  mobileringtones.com: taken.

Distraught, I take a break from the domain searches and try to compose myself.  I look out the window at the cars zooming by. I can hear them outside on Mo-Pac because, well, most of them are non-electric earth-killing death cars.  I close my eyes and imagine – what would I want to hear instead of pistons pumping and exhaust being spewed out into the sky?  What would *I* as a hybrid owner, want my car to sound like?  If I could choose any sound in the world…  what tone would I want to identify myself as when I drive up to someone. 

Just as a ringtone defines who I am when my phone rings, I would want to customize the sounds my car makes – not only when I’m driving and I revv up the engine, but also when I start the car.  When I’m idling.  When I stop the car.  When I’m walking up to it (it would sense my bluetooth-enabled iPhone).  When I want to honk at a cutie pie at the light.  When I want to honk at a jerk trying to fiddle with his car ring tones at the next light.

I GOT IT!

tonemycar.com: available?

Not any more! SUCKAS!

Now to make the website…. heh heh heh.  I’m already counting the money.

[time passes]

Anyway, Back to The Story III, anyone know how to make a website?

We’ve been in the middle of a little roofing ordeal recently.  In short, we had hail damage to our house back in April.

 
(click pictures to embiggify)

The Durango got a little bit of damage, and you can see on the railing above that some of the lights got smashed.  We didn’t really think much of it in terms of our house until some roofers were going through the area and offered a free inspection of our roof. 

After a quick survey, they said the roof was totalled and we should get our insurance company out here.  So we did and they confirmed an entirely new roof needed to be put in, and that they’d pay for the whole thing minus deductible.

(click to embiggify)

Our deductible is actually quite low (compared to friends going through the same thing) so I was pretty happy to get a new roof for such a low amount of money.

I’ve heard bad stories about door-to-door roofers, so even though the traveling shingle seller was a bringer of blessings, I stayed away from them and besides, they were headquartered out of town, which didn’t necessarily add any feelings of security.  Instead I asked my friends who THEY used, if they liked them, etc.

One coworker said HIS roofer was all that and a bag of chips, so I called him up, had a nice conversation and scheduled a visit.  My coworker was right – the guy was honest, forthright, helpful and just about everything I could hope for in a contractor.  We scheduled the roof installation and waited.

About a week later, the roofers showed up early in the morning and proceeded to remove the existing roof.  I left to run some errands with my daughter, knowing that it would be half a day before the roofers were done.

Then it started raining.

HARD.

My wife called while we were out and said that it was leaking in the house, and that Jaden was putting out bowls and pans to catch the dripping water.

(click to embiggify)

Good thing for us this roofer maintained his honesty and integrity, and is working with us to fix all the damage before we pay him for the roofing repairs.  He’s also maintaining the responsibility to pay for all of it.  In his words, “I want you to be happy with the inside of the house before you pay me a penny on the roof.”  Man, it’s refreshing to have this kind of customer service.

Plus, the roof looks real good from the outside

Our problem right now is that these types of internal repairs are more difficult than you’d think, since we have no attic or crawl space.  Water damage is NOT a fun thing.  We gotta get someone with powerful vacuums and mold treatment sprayers and have about 2 feet of the roof taken off along both long edges.  Then it takes 2-3 days to do it all, since they have to take out all the blow-in insulation, wait for it to dry, then treat it with bleach, vinegar and water (or something like that), and then wait for it to dry as well.  Then they blow in the new insulation and put the roof sections back on. 

Needless to say, we hope it doesn’t rain those 2-3 days.

Meanwhile the house stunk of wetness, but that went away after about 5-6 days.  We’re hoping the replacement of roof insulation will be the last of it. We also hope our exposure to mold or mildew wasn’t too bad – we all stayed at a friends house for 2-3 days right after it happened just to be sure.

Be honest.  Would you trust this person?

Taken by itself, this portrait looks like one of those Most Wanted poster shots in the Post Office.  Look at his grainy skin.  The stark black and white features.  The thick eyebrows.  Barely existent beady eyes.  Thinly veiled smile that surely belies a terrorist heart ready to jump out at you just for looking at him cross-eyed.

I’m not surprised that they use that format on wanted posters.  Ain’t nobody can look too good in those conditions.

This is what it looks like when you get your picture taken for our elementary school’s visitor badge.

I volunteered this morning and you can hear more about it by listening to my utter:

But take my word for it either way – if you have children in elementary school, take time to volunteer. Even if just once; even if just for 30 minutes; even if to just sit in class and watch. It’s worth it!

PS: A BIG Thank You to Ms Suarez, Jaden’s teacher.  You are incredible!  And patient. And helpful.  Did I mention patient?

And.

fully.

awesome!

I found two strategies to doing better in a gambling place like Vegas or Reno.

Find a place that actually closes

I learned this in Puerto Rico in 1999.  It’s much harder to gamble away your winnings when they throw you out at closing time.  Of course, this kind of place is very rare as most casinos are 24×7.    One might also equate this to “bring a spouse along” but that’s not the case for me.

Track your winnings and losses

Gambling can play tricks on your mind.  You might buy in for some amount and try to mentally keep track of “I’m up this much or that much” but once you dig in your pocket again, or forget how much you bought in for, you can get lost in how much you’re actually up or down.

For my Reno trip, I decided I was going to track every gambling session by how much I bought in for and how much I walked away with.  I’d type into my blackberry the casino name when I got there, the game, the  buy-in and the walk-away.

Did it help?  Maybe.  I think so.

Much like when you track exercising or food intake, the simple act of accountability forced a different behavior.  Knowing that I was recording my walk-away-money made me think about leaving ahead more often.

I will now share some of my stats with you, by time, game, and hotel.  Since giving specifics on dollar amounts may cause unwanted tangents (“you only bet THAT MUCH?!?!? what a marooon!” or “how could you bet THAT MUCH when there are children starving in Africa??!?!?”) I decided to give my stats in percentages of my actual budgeted gambling amount.  The amount is mostly irrelevant to the stats, the budgeted bankroll may have been $10 or it might have been $100,000.

The first day was incredible.  I more than doubled my money!  I wasn’t down until the 2nd half of the last day, and just as I was down 50% of my bankroll, a fortuitous win brought me back into the positive side.

Thank you, Star Wars Slot Machine.

These other graphs show how I did per game and per hotel:

One can infer from these statistics that next time I go gambling, I should go straight from the Airport to Siena hotel and just play craps.  When done, go directly back to the airport and only play Star Wars slot machines.

All in all, the trip ended up being close to “free” because winnings and comps took care of most of cab fare, food and tips.  The flight and hotel were free already.  That’s about as good as a vacation as you can realistically hope for.

In case you’re sick of hearing about gambling stats, here’s something for you so you can hear about gambling funnies.

I realize that posting this Fair Tax Petition for you folks to consider signing may stray from my “stay away from politics” promise, but I think it could be argued that it’s probably not too divisive in and of itself.  Primarily what I mean by that is that it’s not partisan and isn’t a dig on any specific candidate or “belief.”

As usual, I’m not begging you to side with me, agree with me or anything like that.  Rather, I’m begging you to consider the info presented.  I’m asking that you read the petition and if you agree, electronically sign the petition.  It would send a HUGE message to our political leaders and maybe finally get this thing reviewed at the higher levels.

If you want to find more about the Fair Tax, take a look at their website or just ask me.

President Obama, During your campaign, you talked about changing how Washington does business. We, the undersigned, also believe in the need for change. We embrace throwing off “politics as usual” and want to help you change Washington, D.C. to better serve public interests. We believe that a government, “Of the people, by the people, for the people,” not lobbyists, political favors, and special interests was the original vision of our Founders. We believe that the American economy—facing its greatest peril in generations—requires a real and permanent economic stimulus package that will create jobs, drive investment, and maintain the United States as the world’s leading economy in the 21st-century, and beyond. We believe that there is another way that is far healthier and more positive to heal our economy without the massive borrowing and spending that will have harmful effects on our economy for generations to come. We believe that our thoroughly researched solution will have immediate and long lasting benefits to our economy and to the relationship of the citizen to government. To address these challenges, we believe the FairTax is the change we need. Whereas millions of Americans cannot pay their bills and risk foreclosure: The FairTax ensures that American workers will see a huge boost in their take-home pay as all federal withholding and payroll taxes are eliminated—enough to save their homes and pay mortgage bills, thereby addressing the underlying cause of this economic meltdown, not just the symptoms. Whereas Washington is financing its spending programs with trillions in debt: The FairTax eliminates capital gains and corporate taxes making the US the most favorable business environment in the world. That means new jobs right here in America, higher wages and a stock market that goes up instead of down—without massive borrowing. Whereas the poor and middle-class continue to struggle to make ends meet: The FairTax removes federal taxes on the poor and the middle-class sees dramatic reductions in tax burdens under the FairTax. The “Made in America” label roars back with needed jobs and better wages and benefits. Whereas tax lobbyists peddle their enormous influence in Congress and exert undue influence over the income tax code’s 67,500 pages of regulations, for which Americans spend $300 billion annually in tax preparation costs: The FairTax is simple, transparent and fair. The tax base is expanded, special favors for tax lobbyists end and April 15th becomes just another spring day. Be it therefore resolved that the FairTax deserves support by your administration to create a tax system that provides real and permanent economic stimulus effects that our nation, our citizens and children need and deserve. Sign the Petition.

GOATEE SAVER!

From their website:

It reflects your personality. It declares your individuality. Your goatee is much more than just facial hair, your goatee style helps fashion your identity. We understand its importance to you. That’s why we created the GoateeSaver shaving template, the innovative grooming tool designed to give you the perfect goatee every time you shave.

As a recent non-amputee goatee devotee on the manatee trustee committee, I just HAVE TO GET ONE! 

Look how easy it is:

You just adjust the sides of the goatee template machine doohickey to match your particular goatee style:

Then you apply the template to your face as you shave:

And almost immediately, you get your own porn-star friend!

Visit their website to see all the wonder of this new product via video.

All this Presidential happiness has me, oh, giddy.  I can’t wait for Obama’s first non-inaugural address to the nation – a youtube fireside chat, if you will.

However, I sincerely hope the chat goes nothing like the chat I had recently with Crucial.

You know, that awesome lowest-price memory provider that usually comes through in a pinch?    They always have just the right ram for a server, desktop, laptop – even my routers!  The memory scanning and inventory tool they offer usually saves my rear-end, too because it simply takes too much time to go to a laptop manufacturer’s site and look up what kind of ram I need, how much I can put in, etc.  

Crucial usually saves the day.  But this time, they just wasted my time.

My credit card had two charges on it from last month

Now, I should mention — I’m not surprised at this – I’m positive I ordered and received this RAM.  However, in order to process my expense report and get reimbursed, I must provide receipts and/or an invoice to my company.

It’s a tax thing.

My email searches found nothing.  So I went online into my crucial account, and it also shows absolutely no invoices or orders at all (which is very weird since I’ve ordered 4 times this month!).  I figure something is up with their online system.

Just as I was thinking “something is up with their online system” in my head, the “WOULD YOU LIKE TO CHAT WITH OUR AGENT?!?!?!” popup decides to pop-up on my screen, popping up in all it’s popup glory.

Initially amazed by the mind-reading capabilities of crucial’s website, I quickly remember that I’ve basically never had a good experience with online chat, especially if I actually want something.  Oh sure, if I’m lonely and just want someone to while away the time with, online chats fill that void quite nicely.  But this time, I’m not lonely.

So I choose to go into chat.

Here is that transcript.  Follow along with me, won’t you?

Hello, my name is Doug . How may I help you?
Wayne Hall: howdy
Wayne Hall: I ordered a couple items from crucial last month with my amex, but I can’t find the invoice or order that came with it
Wayne Hall: my amex bill says
Wayne Hall: Crucial.com – Lexarmed 800-336-8915 12-23-08 $99.65 07015238 5934 78758 CM Ref: 5934 Supplier Ref: 0701523800
Wayne Hall: and Crucial-Com – Lexarmed 800-336-8915 12-29-08 $70.22 07036251 5934 CM Ref: 5934 Supplier Ref: 0703625 1000
Doug : May I please have your Crucial order number or e-mail address used on the order?
Wayne Hall: the 5934 is my po number, but I can’t find an invoice. I also don’t know the order from this on the bill
Wayne Hall: I can’t find the order number which is why I need help.
Wayne Hall: email would have been xxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx probably
Wayne Hall: but when I login to “my account” it shows absolutely no orders ever
Doug : I have emailed an invoice to xxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.
Wayne Hall: just got an invoice
Wayne Hall: but that invoice is not for either of the items I showed
Wayne Hall: I need 2 invoices – one for $99.65 and one for $70.22
Doug : That is the only order I see with email you provided.
Doug : Please call our customer support so they can help find your order.
Doug : You can reach them toll-free at 1-800-336-8896 (U.S. and Canada only) or at 208-363-5790. Their hours are Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Mountain Time).
Wayne Hall: also, that invoice was from 2007
Doug : Again, only order with that email.
Wayne Hall: What about yyy@yyyyy? (I supplied a different address to search for) 
Wayne Hall: or zzz@zzzzzzzz
Doug : No, you did not give me that email address.
Doug : Please call customer support so they can help you.
Wayne Hall: I know I didn’t. I’m giving it to you know
Wayne Hall: er, now
Doug : this is difficult for me to do on chats.
Wayne Hall: let me ask this. Let’s say I wanted to contest this charge. Is there anything identifiable in the information I gave you that indicates the order
Doug : They will be able to help you.
Wayne Hall: won’t they also ask for an order number?
Doug : We can find this order.
Wayne Hall: great! send me the invoice please
Doug : They can research this better than I can because I am on chats with four other people.
Wayne Hall: so, because you’re too busy to give me good service, you will send me to someone else who will fail to give me good service.

Ugh.  So my next step is to sit on the phone for 30-45 minutes and try to hash this out.

OOOH! I just got an idea. If they still can’t provide an invoice to me proving the charges are valid, I can just file a dispute, and THEN they’ll be sure to provide an invoice, right?

UPDATE: I did, in fact, spend 45 minutes on the phone with a customer support rep.  The guy was very patient, very friendly, and very eager to help.  He tried everything.  We searched on PO number, ship-to address, name, company name, credit card number and still couldn’t find it at all.

So in the end, he was not very helpful.

He agreed that a credit card dispute would likely ferret out an invoice.  So that’s what I’m going with.  I love it when they agree with me!

I’m going to rant a little on evite.com. 

But first I’ll recognize – it’s a free service.  You get what you pay for.  I understand that.  So I’m not really *bitching*, I’m ranting.  There’s a difference.  To me, “bitching” is when you’re griping and you don’t have a reason, a say, or a place to have the opinion or be vocal about the feedback.  “Ranting” is having an opinion, but not having the delusion that one is owed something.  When you “bitch” about something, you actually expect something to change and if it doesn’t, heaven help the bitchee. 

For the past two (2) weeks, Evite hasn’t been sending my recurring evitation reminders.  The invites are now set up as “drafts” for some reason… it started over 4th of July weekend and I just went through the 2nd week of my weekly Pool League evite reminders not being sent out.

Our event is for Wednesday nights.  The reminders are supposed to go out three (3) days before.  When I go check, the event shows up as a “draft”.  In fact, when I go back and check on previous weeks, I can see when it messed up

You can see in yellow that these invitations were sent 2-3 days before the event.  The last two, however, were sent on the day of the event because everyone was asking “what the heck is up with the emails” and I manually sent them out.

The second thing that’s screwed up with evite is all of it’s scripting, cookies, or processing that just makes it not work sometimes.  If you open up a case with them, their pat answer is “clear your cache, erase all your cookies, blahblahblah”.  Even so, the forms, editing fields, and various pieces just don’t seem to be stable.  It doesn’t matter if I’m on IE7, IE6, firefox or what computer I’m on… I seem to spend a lot more time than I should trying to get stuff to work.

Take this for example: When resending today’s evite, I tried to write in a little sumfin sumfin to say I’m sorry it’s late, yadda yadda, and look at the feedback I get on the screen.

I have 76 Characters remaining, but I’ve exceeded maximum text length.  Brilliant.

Well you know what?  I *did* exceed the maximum text length. I piped my text into wc (Unix tool that counts characters, lines, paragraphs, etc) and I have 57 words and 288 characters.

So I remove ~40 characters or so.  It still bombs.  I remove more.  It still complains.  I end up clicking “Save for Later” and it SENDS THE EVITE instead of saving for later.

And I still don’t know why it’s not sending my evites each week.