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…