April 2006 Archives

My posts are a bit rarer than normal lately. I attribute this to the weather, and all the things I have to do around the house. Melissa and I are working on getting all our ducks in a row to replace the roof on our house.

We're also trying to pick a good flooring for replacing nearly all the floors in our house. I'm *very* allergic to new carpet, and with all the animals making messes now and then, carpet is not an option. We've considered hardwood, but we've tossed out all except the pre-finished hardwoods, for two reasons. First, durability. Animals and babies are hard on flooring, and it would need to be refinished often. Second is the volatile compounds situation. Everytime you finish or refinish a hardwood floor, you're exposing yourself to that many more volatile compounds as the finish cures. Those are the things I'm allergic to in the carpet, so that's not really an option either.

So we're left with ceramic tile, pre-finished hardwood or laminate. We've picked out a tile that we really like for the living room. We're going to check out a few laminate options before we make a final decision, however.

Beyond that, not tons happening in house Heigl.

It's a bit weird, working in an office that's fairly cleanly split between the atheist-agnostic camp and the Christian camp. Not that we're not all friendly, because we are. People get along amazingly well around here. But I don't know what to think about being wished a happy Easter by someone who doesn't believe that Christ died for their sins and then rose again.

Because I *do* believe that. Christ died for me. I understand that to them, it's just another holiday. But I can't exactly wish them a happy Easter in return, now can I? Wouldn't that be a bit thoughtless? Have a fun time celebrating the salvation event that you deny happened. Enjoy the rememberance of bodily resurrection of God himself in human flesh.

This post is just me thinking out loud as people filter out on their way home for the weekend.

Two weeks ago, Jerry, Joel, Mikey and myself went down to Jerry's parents cabin for some guy time. A number of the ladies were in Ohio for a certain baby shower, so we were on our own. As befits such a weekend, I offer photographic evidence:

• Cooking meat on an open fire
• Eating meat (which was previously cooked on an open fire)
• Joel brought some firearms to shoot
• Which required an obligatory pose
• Jerry shooting
• Joel shooting
• Floppy drive after receiving a bullet

So, as you can see, fun was had by all. No pictures of me, so obviously I can deny any involvement, should anyone find out about *that*. :P

Several parts for the projector arrived Thursday. I was quite excited. The monitor arrived, and works perfectly. I'm going to use it as a regular monitor for a week or two here to get used to it and to make sure it's working well before I dismantle it. That should also give time for the rest of the parts to make their way to me.

I also bought several of the parts from an individual. He bought them, but never put them to use, so he was reselling them. The parts were a bulb, ballast, reflector, some fans and some wiring accessories. Unfortunately, he packed the bulb in the bottom of the box, directly against the edges of the cardboard box. Worse, the ballast (a heavy metal box) was right next to the bulb with no packing material intervening between the two.

In other words, the bulb arrived in shards. I'm currently emailing the guy trying to get restitution, but it's not looking good. He's claiming that he showed "due diligence" in packing the items (not true) and that he put a fragile sticker on the box, so his hands are tied. In my opinion, he should have packed it better and insured it.

We'll see what happens with that. If nothing else, it's a lesson for me regarding trusting random people on the internet. Even benign strangers can hurt me. ):

I received a post card in the mail a few days ago telling me that the $35 mail-in rebate that I sent in for the video card I bought at Circuit City was invalid because of a "bad upc". (Between the $100 coupon I had and the $35 MIR, the Circuit City price was marginally lower than mail order) The post card of course had a toll free number to call. I had almost decided to give up on it, since such things are usually a waste of time.

Instead I decided to combine two wastes of time into one: I called during my morning commute this morning. So after navigating my way through the [purposefully] useless automated "help" line, I reached a real person. He didn't give himself a name, so I'll call him Juan. My conversation with Juan went something like this:

Juan: Hi, how may I help you?
Me: I received a post card that claimed my rebate was invalid.
Juan: I can help you with that. Just a moment sir.
Juan: Please give me your name and the number on the post card.
Me: *provides the information*
Juan: (without even a pause) Since you are a valuable customer(what?!?) I can take care of this for you.
Juan: Your rebate is taken care of. Please allow 4-6 weeks for the check to arrive.
Me: *a bit incredulous* That's it? The $35 is on its way now?
Juan: Yes. Is there anything else I can help you with?
Me: Yes, there is one more thing. Where are you located?
Juan: Our headquarters are in Lubbock, Texas.
Me: No, no. Where is your call center located?
Juan: *slightly sheepish* The Dominican Republic.
Me: Thank-you, good-bye.
Juan: Good-bye.

So, there you have it. It was just one more hoop for the consumer to jump through in order to get the rebate. Or, more to the point, they lied to me about my UPC being invalid, in the hopes that I would write the money off (which I almost did). I wonder if they just send those "invalid UPC" post cards out to a random sampling of rebate hopefuls to raise the bottom line, or if they only send those out for the higher dollar value rebates?

I hate slimy corporations.