Black Friday

I got one thing to say to you people that make a big deal about shopping today.....

You're a bunch of idiots!

T-Day Traditions

Ah, Turkey Day. Fall, food, beer and the couch. I’ve been looking forward to T-Day for a while now, but this year is going to be sad for a number of reasons. Just thinking about it has me reminiscing a lot, but I’ll get over it and life goes on! See, growing up, holidays were a big event. It seemed so to me anyway. Christmas has its routine, Easter, Halloween, etc, etc. How many of you had Easter baskets that your mom hid? We did! Oh, she could be sneaky! Most often it was easy, hidden behind the door, chair, etc. Not always though, ya just couldn’t count on easy. Trick or Treating? He hit the neighborhood TWICE! I had a BUCKET of candy I could swim in. Christmas? Man, I’ve got so many Christmas memories I don’t know where to begin. But that’s a month away. Thanksgiving was all about the food, and in a family of 4 kids and 2 dogs, that’s a lot of food. Turkey, taters, stuffing (yuck), gravy, cranberry sauce, John Cope’s Dried Creamed Corn, more food I can’t remember and….. BOOZE! That’s right, Cold Duck. The cheapest bubbly you could get I think, and my parents actually GAVE us a glass!!! I’m not saying when I was 6, I don’t recall when it started, but I do recall my sister Kelly would take a sip and hand it to me, ICK! We had these really thin crystal glasses, slightly pink in color, and seems like this was the only time we used them. Not even sure where they are now, SIGH!

Years ago when most of my siblings had young kids, it became harder and harder to get everyone home on the actual day of Thanksgiving, so my Pop changed it up a bit and started celebrating weeks earlier. It’s never really been the same. I like tradition, really do, and started to do my own thing, no family be damned!!! I get a big turkey, (small ones are just too easy to screw up), and I do everything but the stuffing. Cold Duck is still around, though at slightly twice the price of $3.99 a bottle, and Cope’s corn is out there: http://www.pageneralstore.com/prodinfo.asp?number=COP-001. It’s an all day process of making the house smell great, eating and eating some more. Football is on, and if I’m in the mood, I rake leaves! And do you think the dogs love it? Oh yeah.

http://bigdaddy-enterprises.com/images/mov00533.mpg

So this year we are going to the In-Laws in Oklahoma, but don’t get me wrong, it’ll be a great time! The food is good, the company peachy… it’s just not home. I’m already planning on doing “ma own thang” Saturday, but it won’t be the same. Already scheduled that day is a pinball pick up, and it’s Saturday, not Thursday, so it’s different. And don’t get all teary eyed, but I was reminded a few weeks ago that it’s been 20 years since mom died. That’s half my life ago. Cheers Mom! I’ll have a glass of Cold Duck for ya!

Fun at Radio Shack

Everyone knows I'm a nerd, or used to be one anyway. Believe it or not, I had a shy streak too. I'm not sure why I thought of this little story today, but maybe it has something to do with getting up at 2AM thinking it's 5, and the pot of coffee is almost gone.

20 years ago I worked for Radio Shack. Most nerds did, and it was the best work experience of my life. This is also the dating years, and somehow I managed to get a few. There's not many opportunities to hit on girls while working at The Rat Shack, so when a good lookin' gal comes in, you try to make the best of it. I remember it as a cold, near Christmas day, and in to my store comes a very attractive seemingly shapely lady in a long dark mink coat. I'm thinking of how to make small talk, which I'm never good at when I think I'm out of my league, and besides, she's gone straight to the batteries, looks like she knows what she's needing. Man, I wonder if she's wearing anything under that coat. STOP IT. She's going to the counter, I must ring her up! Think of something witty...witty.....

She plops down the batteries.

I muster up.

"My, that's a lot of batteries!"

"Yeah, they're for my vibrator....."

---GULP---

She reaches over and puts her hand on mine and says "I'm kidding".
I recoil in horror. I don't remember much else. We didn't date.

No wonder people go "Postal"

I got a letter the other day (addressed to Tom) from the post office. They will no longer pick up my packages that I leave for them on the front porch. Why? Well, it's TOO much work. Too much I tell you for the mailman to sort at the end of the day. Oh, they'll still do it, if I DAILY predict the number of packages I'll have, sorted by class and total weight. By 2AM, I need to log this info for pickup the following day. They need this info so they can justify someone's data. I have suggestion for you, COUNT them! Now, I can take the packages to the drop box around the corner, or take them to the post office, and the EXACT same work will be done, but apparently I'm a burden to the letter carriers at the end of the day. My 10-20 on average packages add (I timed this) oh, less than a minute to their day to sort.

Yup, this is the thanks I get for spending $11,854.55 in postage since I've become self employed.

There will be no Christmas present for Bill this year.

Learn to park idiot....

Part of the problem with griping in a blog is that if you have any decency about you, you want to sometimes leave out names and specifics so you don't stir up "problems". You don't want to make things worse, and certainly don't want hurt feelings. It's OH so tempting sometimes though. You want to WARN people, and at the same time, vent to feel better. So I'll leave out the name of the pizza place that is next to my little Shoppe in case one of them actually has the brains to use the Internet, wouldn't want to offend anyone. So the point of this blog?

LEARN TO PARK YOU STOOPID IDIOT!!!

This has really become a pet peeve of mine. I'm not talking so much about the random self centered peeps you see in the mall parking lot that think their Acura NSX shouldn't get a ding, so they park in two stalls, I'm talking about the near daily incompetence of the pizza dudes and check cashing employees that are in the same building as my pinball showroom/office. There's 6-8 parking slots running along an angle in front of my door where there's too much asphalt in front, but crap weasel man, see the lines? They don't. See the dude (me) loading up & unloading pinball machines every other day? Yeah, I might want to get in my front door. See how few spots there are? Yeah, believe it or not, others want to park here too. You're going to park here 9-5? How about leaving the ONE spot open so I can get in my door. What most bothers me is when they go over the line and right up to my front door, not only taking up two spots, but I've actually NOT been able to fully open my front door cause of someone's bumper. Mind you, this is 20 feet outside the parking lines. Pictures tell the story:

What line? I'm on top of it so I can't see it.

This genius took lessons from the guy above. Oh, and he parks here all day, not a delivery dude.

Yeah, same dude. Can you believe I've TALKED to this dude? That's my car door to the left, think anyone can squeeze in there?

This one's a little tough to see, but that's the FRONT line behind his rear tire, and my front door is a foot in front of his bumper. Then you can see the corner of the other car to the right, between the two of them, they were taking up 4 spots.

Now I have to admit that these aren't the brightest bulbs in the pack, but honestly, how hard is it?

A fuzzy ducky story

See??

OK, so Saturday I was helping my buddy Mitch pick up some pinball games, and as it went, he needed to go get lunch for his wife, which left me alone with said wife, dogs and their not quite yet 3 years old daughter. Noa is a peach, smartest kid I've met in a long time, and I gotta love her cause from early on, she's known my name, my dogs, Tracy and for some reason, actually seems to like me. I wish I had pictures of her standing amoung the towering pooches, trying to actually pet their heads while all along giggling and trying to say "Keeestoonnnnee".

So there we are, sitting on the couch waiting, and Noa is playing Bobbleheads. I'm not exactly sure what this means, but it involves uh.... Bobbleheads! They're all laid out on a mat, and just there, and I guess you play with them. Wanting to interact, I pick one up and wiggle it about. Noa at first gives me this look, like WOMEN do. "What are you doing with my bobblehead?" she's saying with her eyes, distrust spears firing away. But as I'm shaking it, she seems to quickly gain interest, and comes over and sits down in front of me. And the following conversation is why I can't have kids:

Me: "What's this guy's name?"
Noa: "That's (something I can't remember)!!"
Me, bobbling: "And do you know why it's head is shaking like that?"
Noa: "Cause it's a BOBBLE head!"
Me: "No, cause he's been smoking crack!"

To which Dawn immeditely picked up her kid and left the room and called the cops. Not really. Sorry Dawn, but I had a good laugh, and really hope I didn't ruin your child.

I bitch, therefore I am

So it's been on my mind that I've not posted a blog lately, now it's approaching 2 months. So why, may you ask, have I not posted? Well, too busy is always the easy excuse, but in the back of my mind I guess I've been a little affected by a comment a good buddy of mine made to me which in essence said "you sure do bitch a lot". OK, it wasn't really said that way, but then again, it was. So then of course every time I thought of a great topic to post about, it was a great topic to BITCH about, and I didn't! And then the days passed and I'd think of another gripe and wouldn't post and here it is, 2 months later. I guess it comes down to personality traits, I'm not one to just "let it go" like some, and I think that's part of the reason I am how I am. Or who I am. Or whatever. Bitching = stories, and stories are meant to be told, that's what I'm telling myself anyway. So, sorry if I bitch too much, but it's who I am. And I'm gonna do more. I'll throw in the fuzzy ducky stories once in awhile too, just to screw things up.

Congrats to the LeBlancs!

Well, thank God! Shelly finally had her bambino. It ended up being a girl, so TJ (Todd Jr.) must be in the works. Robby? Get busy! http://scenicoverlook.blogspot.com/

HI, I'm sorry I ordered the wrong thing

This happens once in awhile, and it just makes me shrug. It also makes me think "what the heck kinda people are out there?" This isn't the first time this has happened. This is the first time I've BLOGGED about it.
Here's the timeline. Make sure you read between the lines, cause there's nothing there :)

• 8/29/06 11:20PM I get notified by Amazon that a software package has sold! Whoo Hoo! It's a tax package. OK cool. I sell a lot of tax software. I'll go get it tomorrow.
• 8/30/06 2:33PM I ship it. It's been ordered Priority, so I make a point to ship as soon as I can. Ordered near midnight, made the next day's mail run. Hand-Slap! Pretty good customer service eh? Wiggle wiggle BOOM BOOM SHISH KA WowZA!
• 8/31/06
• 9/1/06
• 9/2/06
• 9/3/06
• 9/4/06
• 9/5/06
• 9/6/06
• 9/7/06
• 9/8/06
• 9/9/06
• 9/10/06
• 9/11/06
• 9/12/06
• 9/13/06
• 9/14/06
• 9/15/06
• 9/16/06
• 9/17/06
• 9/18/06
• 9/19/06
• 9/20/06
• 9/21/06
• 9/22/06
• 9/23/06
• 9/24/06
• 9/25/06 Whoa! What's this? Package returned? Hmmmm It's marked "Return to Sender", in hand script, not a bad address or anything...appears someone just CHANGED THIER MIND!!!

So let me get this straight Mr. Brian V? You bought a software package, paid to have it shipped Priority, didn't want it for some reason and didn't think to notify me, or even ask if it's OK to send back and expect me to what? Refund your money 100%? Who's going to pay for the shipping? What about the commission from Amazon? What about the fact you've tied up the package for a month and now it's worth less? What about the fact you can't even give me the courtesy of an email?

ANNOYING!!!!

Honesty

Well, our weekend was a bit unremarkable. We got a good dousing of rain late Friday morning into Saturday, and it was all pretty dry by 9 or 10AM, but it seemed to scare away the garage sales. The neighborhood sale to the north had, (whoa), TWO. Yippee. I bought nothing, though T found some stuff. We decided to go to lunch, Mexican at Mi Ranchito off of Metcalf, and man was it tasty. We did hit one sale on the way home and I got a stack of old Disney books, we'll see if eBay loves me.

The rest of the weekend, we both worked on “stuff”, I listed tons of crap on eBay and Amazon, Tracy worked on her web site. I filled orders. Seems like it never ends, and I can’t complain about the sales, it just becomes time consuming shipping all the time, from Friday to today, I shipped about 50 packages. I know, Boo Hoo.

So it was that, eating, TV and some movies. Nothing to write about (uh, wait a darn second…). But I DO have a short feel good story.

Just because of the sheer volume of people I am involved with, I get my share of assholes. Sometimes it amazes me, but it shouldn’t. I think it’s fair to say I’ve had 10,000 transactions, and 1% is 100 and I doubt it’s that many. Repeat stories are:

1. Where is my package? Often only a few days have passed, or maybe not, but I email upon shipping, and some people actually act like I have an ESP thing on where the Postal service has their package.

2. This doesn’t work, what are you going to do about it? Well, it worked here, OR it was untested and listed AS-IS. Most often, people don’t think they should send things back, I should just refund.

Sometimes people can be real gems. One time a guy filed a claim against me because a drive enclosure didn’t have mounting screws in it, something that wasn’t advertised as being included. It didn’t have a banana in it either dude!

Here while on vacation, another guy filed a claim against me cause I didn’t ship “it” fast enough, and despite it being delivered, he let the claim sit until PayPal closed it, 30 days later. He put in the claim log that he thought I should be punished and he get part of his money back because he didn't like my attitude. He had put in the claim he tried repeatedly to call and email me, which was BS, he never called (how would he, he didn’t have my number!) and emailed me once. I told him he was lying, I guess that’s an attitude right?

One of my favorites is on a stereo I sold, tested but listed with some problems, the buyer didn’t like the problems after he got it, and said he should come here and kick my ass. He was from Canada.
BRING IT ON FAT BOY! HA!

So brings me to my little feel-good story. Also while on vacation, I got an email from a guy on a $60 software package I sold. He says it was open, and the security dongle missing, and thus worthless. Damnit! I dunno, I can’t recall for sure if I checked each package, but I’ll side with him. Send it back. I’m thinking maybe he won’t send it back, but he does. That’s often a clue, people bitch and want $$$ back, but in reality they’re pulling a fast one. But he does, and no dongle. I email the software company just to see if he registered it, surprised at a response at all, but they say no, no one matching that name. So I refund, SIGH, whatta I do, ya gotta trust people SOMETIMES! He paid me August 5th, and I refunded a few weeks later. Imagine my surprise when I get an email from him today saying he doesn’t know how, but he found the dongle, and he wants to make it right. He must have taken a little time to search for me, cause he emails me through my Big Daddy pinball page. I respond and he quickly pays again for the item! Nice to know there are honest people out there!

Wow, two pages of nothing but babbling!

Looks like a crate of pinball parts from Arizona is here at the airport for me. What fun. Kinda like Christmas. Going to go get it tomorrow. I'll have pictures.

Now off to bowl. Been doing pretty good lately, haven't hit 170 yet this year, but haven't tanked yet much either.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Shelly at the pups 1st birthday party:

Cookin' with Pork: Volume 1

I love pork. It's not the other white meat, it's just GOOD! Everyone knows I love bacon like it was my long lost brother, but it doesn't end there. Bacon, ribs, pulled pork, pork steaks, pork rinds, chops, yum yum yum. Tonight, we had pork roast, crock pot style, and I'm just happy enough with tonight's dinner to want to share. It's my secret recipe.

4-5 pounds Pork shoulder/butt. Often in a net, remove before cooking. Trust me
1 package Onion soup mix. Two if you're a salt fiend
2 cans Cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 to 2 cans water (more if you used two soup mixes)
1 large carrot
1 big sprig of sage

Heat your crock pot up to 350 and throw in the meat, flipping it around for about 10 minutes. The whole goal here is to kinda sear it a bit.

Lower the heat to 250.

Pour on the soup mix, chop up the carrots kinda thin and put around the meat, cover the whole thing with the mushroom soup and water, top with the sage and cook for 6 hours, flip it every 2 hours or so.

Take the meat out, strain the rest and serve the carrots, the rest is gravy.

I love it served with mashed taters and some kind of bread. The meat just falls apart, and I can drink the gravy. We had it tonight and yummy yummy yum.

Some hints accumulated over time:

• Don't use beef. OK, fine. Try if you must, but it tends to dry out in my trials
• Don't use wine. It smells good, but it's usually bitter. Drink it instead. Merlot/Cabernet
• Don't cook the taters in the crock. They get mushy
• If you like onions, try throwing in pearl onions!

Mmm. Food. Isn't food grande?

Garage Sale Finds

OK, I'm second guessing that I've got interesting stories to tell. Today was a TYPICAL Todd day, I shipped a bunch of stuff, ran errands, and hit a few garage sales. It is Friday ya know. I love garage sales. Love them a lot. I used to have my own, but haven't had any in the past coupla years simply cause it's a LOT of work, and THINGS sell better on eBay these days with all the exposure. But today I did have a cha-ching garage sale find. I learned awhile ago to key in on CDs, books, DVDs and even VHS tapes. If I can get a box of stuff for a few bucks, I'm happy. DVDs are coming up more and more often, and every once in awhile, you find something a little off. Easy to buy, easy to list (on Amazon usually) and easy to ship. I also get to add to my collection of music and movies cheaply. So what if it's "All about the Benjamins" or "Bring it on!", ya can't complain too much for 50 cents!!

So anyway, I almost didn't go to the last sale. The first sale was a bust, the second "Estate Sale" was BS (if I can't walk through your kitchen and basement, the estate ain't for sale baby!). I did manage to buy a light timer for a buck, one that replaces a light switch, and this is peachy cause the one that controls the porch lights has been funked for a year+. Now I got another project! The last sale was happy to proclaim its "BABY STUFF....KIDS CLOTHES", which as you can guess, thrills me about as much as shopping for yarn. But it's close to my house, what the hell right? I go anyway. Tables and tables of kids junk, the Barbie Corvette (oh yeah), little tents, tons of books on breastfeeding which I *ALMOST* looked at (for Amazon), but the covers were icky and curled and I had this mental image of some mommy squeezing her hooter in to a jar and yelling "FRANK!? FRANK?! I'm NOT doing it RIGHT again, gimmee the BOOK!.....NOW!!!!"
So I passed on that...

I had pretty much given up when I was halfway through the driveway, but I did see a Crock Pot and a coffee maker, so there was hope. Sweeping the eyes through the garage....AH! There it is, the table of not-kids-stuff. It's small, movies, glasses, CDs, and FOOD! What's this? Spaghetti? Hey! I like sketty! R&F? That's a good name (house bitches do the shopping). Bunch of it, a case as a matter of fact, and it's marked 25 cents a box. About 8 boxes left. Hmmm. Wonder why she's selling it. So I ask:

"Whater you selling the spaghetti for?"

"Oh, it's a quarter."

-------------Blink?-Blink?--------------

"No, I mean WHY?"

"Oh, someone gave us a case. We don't need a case". First thought was, man, you obviously got a lot of kids, I'd keep the noodles instead of the coupla bucks you're going to make! But whatever. I grab 4 and look over the table and grab some Lipton Rice stuff mixes (I checked the dates) and a beer glass the kind I like from Fred P. Ott's, like I needed another and then look over the CDs. Not much, 50 cents each and there's about 10 of them. Hey! Two DVDs, new, sealed. She's got $3 each on the DVDs, and without revealing to you the secrets of the garage sale haggle, I walked out of there with the DVDs, CDs and food and spending a whole $10, and turning around and buying Tracy a wall candle holder that kinda matches what we have for $2 more. Is this exciting yet? OK, I'll wrap this up. As I do when I get stuff like this, I immediately go home and list on Amazon. At 2:10PM I listed Animaniacs Vol 1 and at 2:11PM I listed Pinky and the Brain. At 3:42PM Pinky sold for $23.95 and at 4:45PM Animaniacs sold for $27.95. This is my life, this makes me giddy....


Postscript: I bought an electronic Whoopee Cushion with remote control at HyVee today for $5! The dogs don't like it.

PPS: Tomorrow is the Walnut Grove neighborhood garage sale!!!!

Here we are, my first blog post. I'm sure I'm saying that wrong, it's probably called a "blost" or something, and I'll be banned from blogging quicker than you can say Worcestershire Sauce

(Note: yes, I went to the fridge on that word, and I had a swig of soy sauce while there. Get over it).

I'm happy to be here! I yap all the time, seems like it anyway, so why not BLOG!? With all the variety I have in life, it always seems like I've got a story, sadly half are due to idiots I run in to. OK, not half, I don't actually measure, but a dang good chunk!! Tons of stories just due to how I run my life. By golly, I should write a book! HA! For years, literally 10 years plus, I've told myself I'm going to keep a log, a diary, whatever, and go back and document this experience or that, and one never does! It just don't happen. But here I am, thanks to seeing others post their crap, I might as well post mine! Hopefully I'll keep up with it, and it won't ALL be boring.

Oh, Three Dogs: Before

Three Dogs After:

If you happened to keep scrolling down, you’ll see I’m still yapping. I’m actually typing this offline right now as my first experience with this blog has resulted in a time out while they perform system maintenance. Thrilling news! 4:45PM, what a great time. No sense in doing it 3AM. I happen to remember my buddy Shelly (technically, my wife’s buddy Shelly, I’m a guy, can’t have FEMALE buddies, can ya?) telling me she lost a long post, or maybe I read it in her blog. (Is that irony?) Anyway, I cut & pasted it to Word before I click COMMIT! Good thing too, or I would have gone back to the 80s. La de da…