Category: Commentary

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Home improvement

Ugh,

Today we start the quest. The quest for getting bids. We have a fair amount of home improvement that needs to be done to our home.

Well that’s not exactly true. We’ve talked to my cousin’s husband, he does work on the side, but he can only do the work on weekends and lives about 2 and a half hours away. It’s not exactly convenient for him.

We have an older farm home originally built in the 1850’s. It’s been well taken care of and for the most part has been updated. We’ve lived here almost 7 years now. But it’s time to take care of some things. The list is rather long.

1) We need a roof (bad) it is leaking.
2) We need to finish the half finished attic to turn it into a bedroom for one of the kids.
3) We need new windows through out 26 of them (ouch).
4) New front and rear doors.
5) The electric service needs updating. Just the service mind you not all the wiring. I can run circuits as needed.
6) We’d eventually like hardwood floors and will probably do this one ourselves.

There are other maintenance things that need done to the barn too. It also needs some new doors but those can wait.

It’s not that I’m not handy, I just _hate_ doing this stuff.

Let the estimates begin.

First up, is a local guy. He should be here in oh, 15 minutes (if he shows). We’ve already blown off one window and door company because the demanded that both of us (my wife and I) be home for the estimate and that we’re in a position to make a decision that night. What the hell?

We’d like an estimate thank you.

We have a general contractor scheduled for Friday afternoon as well, and another roofer/window company for next week.

My wallet hurts just thinking about this.

More later.

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Christmas Shopping Part II

OK, so if you don’t think I’m a perfect husband then just keep this in mind.

I shopped with my wife the day after thanksgiving for 14+ hours, then again on the following day for another 10 hours. I didn’t whine, nor complain. We went out to dinner too on Friday night as well, and I did this all with a broken toe to boot.

Just kidding, I enjoy participating in the event. But it’s getting harder each year. We are blessed. Our family is blessed. Nobody needs anything really, and it’s getting harder and harder to buy for people.

We did luck into some killer bargains though. Some Black Friday left overs that I can’t write about at this time as it wouldn’t be appropriate. Let’s just say some folks are going to really appreciate Santa this year.

I am truly amazed at what people do buy, at the crap that’s available and at the number of places to shop. The economy can’t be as bad as the news would have you believe. Ever place we went was unbelievably crowded. Far worse than any of the last 5 years that I can remember.

Gas prices all under $2.00 a gallon every where.

The only unpleasant experience we ran into was at BestBuy, but maybe I’m jaded, as I said prior, I just don’t like em. I had a really crappy experience with them a couple years ago with a digital camera that didn’t work and returning it cost me more money than they made profit wise on the original purchase (10% restocking fee if I recall correctly) on a $1000 camera, that’s $100 bucks. For what amounts to a defective camera. I don’t like they way you are hounded and hassled at Best buy.

There’s a post over on DataPoohbah about them changing their Black Friday deal for XBox 360’s and making those that stood in line buy bundles. This wouldn’t surprise me at all.

The final results for the weekend were positive. We completed our goal of knocking out 80% or more of our shopping. It was harder than it should have been but it’s done and over with.

There are holes here and there and some gaps to fill but we’re almost there.

I’m interested to see what gets reported to the markets next week. In any event as stores restock, more sales are around the corner leading up to the holiday. There are still deals to be had.

Happy shopping 🙂

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14 hours of Black Friday Power Shopping

Holy Moly what a year!

Nobody can complain about the economy that’s all I have to say!

About 5 years ago my wife decided for her birthday (Which falls on Nov 30’th) that we’d take the day after Thanksgiving and knock out the bulk of our Christmas shopping. I let her talk me into it.

It was the easiest thing we ever did. Really. No lines, no traffic No nothing the last 4 years. A LONG day sure, but we’ve had fun and enjoyed the day together taking our time and getting the bulk of our shopping done in one day.

I’m not kidding. What’s billed as the busiest day of the year simply was a piece of cake for us. Most malls and stores were empty. We’d get front row or near front row parking everywhere. Now I worked retail for a number of years and I know what this day is capable of being but for the last few years, it has not been bad at all.

This year was very, very different. Butts and elbows everywhere. We didn’t even attempt to get up early. Didn’t even drop the kiddies off at the in-laws until 10 am to avoid the BIG rush to get the uber bargains. To me that’s just not worth the hassle.

Our first stop was at Kohl’s, and I kid you not at 11:30 am the check out lines wrapped half way around the store. (Sheesh).

More on this day later, in depth but I’ll leave you with a couple tid-bits.

I do a fair amount of Internet shopping. Best Buy, you didn’t get a DIME from me this year. Here’s why.

Every time I went to your website from Thursday night on, this is what I saw:

Not good. I never got a good chance to see what you had on sale. We did stop by and browse the store, but I can’t stand you’re return policy anyway so you lose.

I almost bought this camera online from Circuit City.

After all I was saving almost $10,000 dollars 🙂

Man you’d think as important a day as this was and as far as the internet has progressed companies would have their act together when it comes to this stuff.’

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LG Lemon Dishwasher Part 3

If you’re not up to speed here check parts one and two.

OK, we have returned the “Lemon” to Home Depot, siting their 90-Day satisfaction guarantee as the reason. No questions asked, the took it back.

Of course it still looked new and we gave them all the instructions and everything from the second (new) dishwasher. You can’t save the box, as soon as you open it all the stuff to keep it from getting crushed just falls to the side. No way I was going to try and put that back together.

I installed the second unit, ran it empty and it was as quiet as the first one.

Here we are about two weeks later give or take. We’ve had a couple of noises, that didn’t sound normal to us, and a couple of things come out with baked on food again. Just a couple items mind you, not the whole load.

We’re keeping an eye on it. If it gets worse this sucker is going back and we’re swearing off LG. Next up will be the:

White Kenmore Elite TurboZoneâ„¢ Dishwasher
Sears item #02217052000 Mfr. model #17052