Newspaper Pricing Gone Wild

I subscribe to the local paper for daily and weekend delivery. Sometimes I read every issue. I know my brother reads the Sports page. I also use old newspaper to wrap items up. If I ever need to start a fire, the old newspaper is also a good fire started.

The paper has started an annoying tactic. They will label certain days as special editions. Then they charge me extra money for that day's paper. Once in a while this is warranted, like when they do some massive election coverage and research. Most of the times it is a money grab. Okay.

Just now they also increased the price of the subscription. That on top of the special editions is just too much. I would cancel. But my brother loves the Sports page. I decided to maybe cut out weekends and save 25%. I called them up today.

The guy on the line said that while the daily only costs less, they have no specials for daily subscription. Okay. He did not want me to drop weekends. He said if I kept daily plus weekend, he could offer me a 30% discount. Sounded great. Then he tried to get me to do automatic credit card billing for a 50% discount. No thank you. I will take that 30% discount. Price hike averted.

Moving my Study

Last time I moved my study, I went from the basement to Little Kat's old room. His room was small. I had to significantly downsize. Went from three bookshelves to one. In the end, it all fit.

Now that Kit Kat moved out, I renovated her room. Painted the walls and trim with HGTV colors of the year. Got new carpet too. So today I moved the remainder of my study from Little Kat's old room to Kit Kat's old room.

My brother and I took off the top of my heavy desk. We tried moving the bottom. It was too heavy. Therefore I disassembled it too. Found out that one of the bolts broke. We made due. Now I am in my new study with artwork hanging on all the walls. Plus my degrees are also framed and hanging on the wall.

I think it might be time to get more bookshelves in here.

Hand Rail Hell Redux

I had thought I had a good work around for our basement hand rail problems. I had inserted a piece of wood behind the drywall. Then I screwed the brackets into that piece of wood. The top of the hand rail was secure. It was good times until the middle bracket broke. This made the middle of the rail wobbly. Then the top brackets started coming undone.

I went to the store and purchased a replacement bracket. Problem was that I could not get the old broken bracket out of the wall. The screws had weird heads. They did not seem to be Philips head or flat head screws. There were some sort of star pattern. I had one tiny star screw driver. But it could not remove the screws.

I ended up just trying to re-tape the broken bracket with duct tape. It is holding for now. I really need my busy handyman to come and provide a permanent solution. Not sure if we need more brackets that tie into the studs behind the drywall, or something more extreme. I am just tired of this rail getting broken. The whole family relies on it.

Flying the Friendly Skies

I was browsing Reddit. Saw an ad from Southwest airlines. You can save 50% of fares for the next two days. Thought this was too good to be true. There were a ton of blackout dates. But I found a week early in January that qualifies. Each way to and from grandpa kat's town was $92.

Since I reclaimed my vacation car from grandpa's driveway to my house, I would need a rental car. I wanted the option to reserve and pay when I pick up the car. At first, even the least expensive cars went for $450 a week. That seemed pretty steep. I guess I could go and just borrow grandpa's car. But I drive a least a couple times a day. It felt like an excessive ask.

I contemplated visits to other places like Buffalo, NY. But that would also incur hotel fees. I checked Expedia for check motels. There were some that would cost me $500 for the week. But the reviews were not too enticing. I would also need a rental once I got there. So I was definitely priced out of NY.

At the last minute, I somehow found a rental for $365 a week in grandpa's town. I immediately made a reservation. It is for a small sedan like a Chevy Malibu. Momoko's brother-in-law rental one once. He said it had no power. As long as it gets me from point A to B, I am not complaining. My flight is booked and paid for. Momoko and grandpa did not see the notification from Southwest about my trip. Oh well.

Global Citizen Festival

Momoko tuned into the Global Citizen music festival on Amazon to watch Jung Kook. He is a member of BTS, and was headlining the show. While waiting for him, I was doing some chores. I missed the first half of another KPOP group called Stray Kids.

This was a performance by a subset of Stray Kids that goes by the name of 3RACHA. One dude wore a jacket backwards and was a good singer. Another had orange gloves and was a great singer. The third member wore a lot of pink and was mid.

This group really rocked the house. I thought they outperformed Jung Kook. They seemed to rap a lot. I think their music was a blend of Korean and English. They had a lot of wild sounds. I tried to find a video of their performance on YouTube but failed.

At the end, D Nice had a tribute to 50 years of rap. Common did some rapping. The surprise was that Busta Rhymes finished this segment.

Almost a Road Trip

My buddy's dad lived in the local area. But he eventually moved back to his home town 6 hours south of here. He died recently. I found out the funeral is in the middle of this week. I talked to my boss and was able to get some time off to go to the memorial and funeral.

I had planned to stay at a cheap motel. Figured I could drive down the night before. Spend the day at the funeral. Stay in the hotel the next day and actually work from there. Then come home on the weekend. Since the motel was cheap, the total bill would be a few hundred dollars.

Well I called my buddy today and told him about my plans. He told me he and his family were stressed out. And that me coming might only add to the stress. So I let him halt my travel plans. There is a virtual funeral online. But that does not seem right. I guess the flowers I sent will have to be the total of my contribution.

WayFair - They Got Just What You Need

My power recliner stopping reclining. I tried to order a new one from Amazon. The seller said they could not ship it to me. It was trouble to get my money refunded. I contemplated trying another seller on Amazon. But it seemed risky. I did not want to wander around town like I did last time I bought a recliner.

Instead I decided to shop at WayFair. Their motto is "We got just what you need". I thought I wanted a power recliner. However some items were called electric recliners. The one I ordered boasted USB charging as well as power reclining.

Today FedEx delivered my chair. They just left it in my carport. Only reason I knew it was there was that FedEx sent me an email. I moved out my old broke recliner. Ran the sweeper underneath. Then I unpacked the new one. Assembly was easy. It felt a bit wider than the old one.

My brother and I packed his pickup truck with the old recliner plus some other items we no longer want. We parked his truck under our carport because they are calling for rain tonight. Tomorrow we shall drive to the dump and get rid of the old recliner. I hope this new one will continue working for years to come.