Yahoo for Email

We finally settled our team for the group project last night in my college class. There were initially three people on our team. But one girl became missing in action. The instructor moved another girl into our team to round out the numbers.


One of our first assignments was to exchange contact information with each other. The kids on my team seemed shocked that I still used Yahoo for email. I asked them what they used. Gmail. They thought I might not even be able to get a job if people found out I still used Yahoo.


Calm down children. Grandpa might use Yahoo for email, but he has plenty of tricks up his sleeve to be valuable for employers.

Cujo Calls

My real estate agent took one look at the circuit breaker at dad's house and declared it dangerous. The circuit breakers sometimes refuse to flip. That's a potential fire hazard. So even though the cost was high, I decided to have an electrician redo the electric service.


The guys put a new breaker box in the basement workshop. Then they went outside to install a new meter. Unfortunately the dogs next door got riled up and were ready to jump the fence. The electricians fled and said they could not return unless the dog situation was resolved.


I asked my brother to talk with the neighbors to see if they could put the dogs indoors. He said he would take care of that on the weekend. Unfortunately I got sick on the weekend. And then my brother said he could not find the neighbors. Must be on vacation.


So here we were the day before the electricians were to arrive. Dogs were still outside. I was still very sick. But I had to power through to get this resolved. I asked my brother to take off the rest of the day from work. We piled a bunch of supplies in the back of his truck and went to dad's house.


After surveying the situation, I figured we could just use some 4x4 lumber and 4x8 plywood to erect a massive barrier where the fence was too low. Of course Cujo was there barking while we were at work. Luckily I had my brother hold up the barrier and we installed they rest of it. Let's hope these electricians do their job on time now.

Cujo Calls

My real estate agent took one look at the circuit breaker at dad's house and declared it dangerous. The circuit breakers sometimes refuse to flip. That's a potential fire hazard. So even though the cost was high, I decided to have an electrician redo the electric service.


The guys put a new breaker box in the basement workshop. Then they went outside to install a new meter. Unfortunately the dogs next door got riled up and were ready to jump the fence. The electricians fled and said they could not return unless the dog situation was resolved.


I asked my brother to talk with the neighbors to see if they could put the dogs indoors. He said he would take care of that on the weekend. Unfortunately I got sick on the weekend. And then my brother said he could not find the neighbors. Must be on vacation.


So here we were the day before the electricians were to arrive. Dogs were still outside. I was still very sick. But I had to power through to get this resolved. I asked my brother to take off the rest of the day from work. We piled a bunch of supplies in the back of his truck and went to dad's house.


After surveying the situation, I figured we could just use some 4x4 lumber and 4x8 plywood to erect a massive barrier where the fence was too low. Of course Cujo was there barking while we were at work. Luckily I had my brother hold up the barrier and we installed they rest of it. Let's hope these electricians do their job on time now.

Toilet Paper Arbitrage

I noticed the toilet paper supplies at home were getting low. Low as in we had two twelve packs left. Momoko gets worried when we do not have a large supply of toilet paper. She complained that the prices were getting out of control. So I took over purchasing.


Now I love to get stuff delivered from Amazon. Same deal with toilet paper. I always look for free shipping. Even better if it is two day shipping. Last time I bought from Amazon, the box came from Walmart. That seemed strange. Why would Walmart use the Amazon storefront? They have their own web site.


This time around, the box came from Walmart again. I looked at the receipt. The cost was a couple bucks cheaper than I remember paying. I looked up my order. Sure enough, the actual price to me was higher. Then I figured it out. Someone is taking advantage of arbitrage here...


So a guy sees that he can buy toilet paper from Walmart for seven bucks. He lists is on sale at Amazon for ten bucks. When someone like me orders from Amazon, he places the same order with Walmart using my address as the shipping address. He pockets the difference in price. Arbitrage.


I thought about this for a second. Could I get the same deal from Walmart? No. I don't qualify for free shipping at Walmart. That would cost extra. So in effect, I am paying a couple extra dollars to make use of some other guy's shipping subscription. I get my toilet paper at the price I agreed upon.


As long as Walmart and Amazon are happy, getting their cuts of the transaction, there should be no losers here. I would think that Walmart might get suspicious if a dude has a free shipping subscription, and keeps changing his destination address. But hey. If Walmart if okay, I am okay. This is business.

Triple Cheeseburger Surprise

I did some shopping for dad's house at lunch. Got a basket strainer, which is the part of the kitchen sink that meets the drain. Also returned some wrong items to Lowes. That took a while. Was busy at work. Wanted to do some more shopping. Just no time.


I finished work a little late. Needed to rush to get to school tonight. But I was set on visiting McDonald's to try the triple cheeseburger sandwich that had returned. Also ordered a small French fries for the road.


Was surprised at the pay window. They told me some guy ahead of me had paid extra money for my meal. No charge for me. It was only 4 or 5 bucks. But still, I was pumped. The triple cheeseburger was delicious too.

Grass Clippings

In the old days, I used to bag up my grass clippings in black hefty plastic trash bags. Then I would put the bags out for trash collection. These days we generate a lot of other trash. That means there is not a lot of room for bags of grass in there.


So I turned to setting the grass out for yard clippings collections which comes once a week. The yard clippings service is free in our county. They now requires that you put grass clippings in paper bags. I started doing that. The problem is when I cut the grass early. The grass ferments and gets nasty. The paper bags can't contain the grass for long.


I tried to put the grass temporarily in plastic trash bags, then transfer it over to paper bags just before yard clippings pickup. That did not work either. The grass got nasty in the plastic bags, and the nastiness came out when I tried to transfer the grass to the required paper bags.


This week I started trying a new technique. I cut the grass and dump it out at the back of my property. I let it air out. I spread the grass around the back of the property. My intention is to rake it all up right before yard clippings collection. I hope the open air and spread out grass will prevent the nastiness before I get rid of the grass.


This should not be this hard. Maybe I should use the mulching option in the mower and just let the grass clipping stay on the lawn. That's what my brother used to do and it seems like it worked.

Robo-Ticket

I got a citation in the mail this week. It was a speeding ticket. Darn the luck. Then I looked closer. They provided pictures that the speeding camera took. It was of a Nissan Titan truck. But my car is a Nissan Versa hatchback. WTF?


Then I looked at the close-up picture of the license plate. The tow hitch on the back of the truck covered up part of the license plate. The numbers that were visible matched my license plate. But you could not see the whole license plate in the picture. What did they do? Randomly ticket everyone with a close match license plate?


Oh hell no. Time to fight this ticket. Especially since Big Brother took a picture of me. I figured I would have to go to court. While I was at it, I might as well request that the officer who used the automated system come to court as well. More fun for all.


Then saner minds prevailed. Nobody has time to go to traffic court. I still did not want to pay the fine. I don't give into extortion so easily. Instead I called up the city that issued the ticket to me. I tried to stick to the fact: license plate obscured, different vehicle model, and a request for dismissal of the charges.


The city agreed with me. All right. The battle is almost won. Now time to craft a letter documenting my phone call with the city, and send it to the city via registered mail. If they screwed up and sent the wrong guy the ticket, what is to say that the do not dismiss the ticket in the end?