Rule Of Acquisition Number 168,894*: Garage Sales Are Good

On almost any Saturday morning you can usually find me cruising by at least one or two garage sales. Hey, I gotta do something since they got rid of Saturday morning cartoons.

I tend to find the sales I want to check out by using iGarageSale or Garage Sale Rover on my iPhone. Both of these apps parse the Craigslist database and display pins on a map representing the sales near your current location. You can tap the pins and view the listing details.

Today, I found two. A garden variety garage sale and a pawn shop that was selling everything except guns and ammunition at 50% off Friday and Saturday to make room for a U-Haul center. I thought it was rather clever of them to advertise in the garage sale section of Craigslist.

After enjoying our traditional Saturday morning breakfast at Hardee's/Carl's Jr. we popped in at the first garage sale. Not much there, really, but I managed to snag a copy of the original Halo for the XBox. We gassed up my car then stopped by the pawn shop. Given their location, lack of inventory and minimal variety, it's no surprise they need to bring in another business type to stay afloat. We learned they will also be selling scooters and ATVs as well as used cars. They have the lot space for all of that but can you say, "all in?"

Anyway, the pawn shop sells DVDs for $2 each, making them $1 each on sale and I picked up The Man With One Red Shoe and 300. Not on the top of my must-have list but worth a buck to have them in my collection. I also spotted a copy of Left 4 Dead for the XBox 360. While I was meandering about looking at other things I didn't need or already owned, the wife asked me, "Did you see this?"

She handed me a white box. It was The Star Trek Original Motion Picture collection. It has the first 6 movies plus a bonus disk. It was still in its original shrink wrap with an $89.96 Wal-Mart sticker on it and a $60 pawn shop sticker on it. Today, it would be $30. Now, I've never been a big fan of the odd-numbered films so I took a look at the spines to remind me of the titles. They're in thin cases so I start squinting at The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for... "Ooh! These are Blu-Rays! I want." So, that's another one of my Christmas presents I already know about.

The wife had mentioned during our morning planning session that she wanted to go to Tulsa to return some items to K-Mart and redeem her "Turkey Bucks," which garnered us an $11 coupon for a Butterball turkey. I had a small pile of items I had decluttered from my office, including an inkjet printer, a stereo received and a 6-disc CD changer I haven't used in six years, and decided it would be a good time to take them over to Goodwill. Finally, we wanted to swing by a Kohls to look at a waffle maker they had on sale - she's been into waffles lately for some reason.

We made the trek to Tulsa and got everything squared away at K-Mart and dropped off our items at Goodwill. As is our habit, we popped in to see if there were any goodies worth taking back with us. The wife picked up a blouse and I walked out with a Sister Hazel CD and the Barenaked Ladies greatest hits disc one.

The big score of the day, however, was at Kohls. Many years ago my wife gave me a nice leather wallet as a gift. It is a tri-fold wallet with an extra pocket in the back of the middle section of the cash area. Over the years I have found this space invaluable for storing FSA cards, corporate credit cards and other items I don't want to accidentally utilize.

About a year ago we noticed the wallet was starting to look a little past its prime. The black dye had faded from the corners-in so that the wallet now looks to be black with green highlights. I started looking for a replacement, even from the same company, but never found one that had anything like that extra convenience of that separate pocket.

It being (almost) holiday season, Kohls had their wallets prominently displayed. I started looking at them and, as usual, was getting disappointed with what I was finding. Around the back side of the display there were wallets from the company who made my wonderful extra-pocketed model. Wouldn't you know it, the very first one I picked up was exactly like the one I carry - extra pocket and all. Joy filled my heart and I was more than willing to pay the $20 to obtain this gem. I looked around a bit more and found one in a deep brown that eventually made it home with me.

Add another good Saturday to the list.

*Can anyone tell me where my Rule of Acquisition number comes from?

Drinking The Kool-Aid

I went ahead and pulled the trigger this afternoon and bought an iPhone. Right deal, right time.

I realize that the iPhone 4 is coming out in about 10 days and it's the new shiny but I talked with some people at the AT&T store and decided to go with the 3GS. Here's why:

Right now AT&T is selling the 16Gb 3GS for $149* and the 32GB 3GS for $199*. These are closeout prices. The new $99* 3GS will be 8GB. When the iPhone 4 hits stores, the 32GB will go back up to $299* (yeah, sure it will).

The iPhone 4 has three things I can see being important to me.

1. The high-resolution screen. I'm sure it's mighty sweet but I don't watch a lot of videos and, frankly, I'm okay with the current screen.
2. Extended battery life. I know 4 people who use their iPhones in the exact same environment I will be using it. I've never heard them complain. Again, nice but I can get by with the current offering.
3. Front-facing camera. Oh, I could have fun with this but it's just not a deal-breaker.

So, I can wait 10 days, spend $199 and get a 16GB iPhone 4 or I can buy a 32GB iPhone 3GS today. I went for capacity over features. That simple.

The only kicker is that, since it is at a closeout price, I don't get the 30-day trial period. I'm stuck with it now whether I like it or not.

----------------------------------------------------
* With new 2-year agreement

Nice Saturday If You Can Get It

Y'all know that one of the things I love to do on a Saturday is go to garage sales. It started as a way to make some money re-selling stuff on eBay and it just kinda stuck. I don't do the eBay thing so much anymore (hardly at all - too much effort, not enough payoff) but I still like to find bargains.

Another of my hobbies is candle making. I do it mostly around the holidays because I find it relaxing and handmade candles make wonderful gifts. When I saw an ad in the Friday paper for a garage sale that included candle making supplies, I made sure it would be my first stop even though it was about 5 or 6 miles outside of town.

I arrived right about 8:00am when the ad said they would be starting. I am quite often an early-bird but didn't want to drag my butt out of bed quite so hastily. I walked up and the lady told me that two older ladies who always show up to her garage sales very early (they had been there at about 7:10am) had all but cleaned her out. Although she still had a respectable amount of items left, I panicked. Older ladies who frequent garage sales tend to be the arts & crafts types. I feared the candle making supplies were already gone so I immediately inquired about them.

My fears subsided as she gestured to them and said, "They're right over here." She then proceeded to show me all of the items included. There was a nice stainless steel double-boiler that is about the size of the two I already have if you combined them and there was a pouring pitcher. I've never purchased one of those because they are a simple aluminum pitcher that is way overpriced ($16-$20) just because it says it is for candle making.

She pointed out a box of wax with the better part of 20lbs still in it, two large fragrance oil bottles, a couple of medium-sized bottles of fragrance and there were some "sampler" sized fragrance oils as well. I could clearly see the two 4" x 4.5" and the two 4" x 6.5" seamless aluminum round candle molds. Also included was a spool of wicking, several other small bits of wicking, and misc. equipment such as wick holders (for centering the wick), wooden spoons, a glass measuring cup, etc.

I started adding up the value in my head. First, double boilers are not cheap and they're not particularly easy to find in stores. The first one I got was at a garage sale for $0.10 (a lucky lucky find). It is aluminum and holds about a pound of wax. The next one I got was about the same size (also aluminum but Teflon-coated) but I had to buy the chocolate-making kit it was contained in (I gave the molds to a friend who made chocolate) and that cost me around $15. The molds are about $15 each at Hobby Lobby, 20lbs of wax will set you back about $25, the large scents are $20 each and aren't available locally... I figured there was at least $150 to $200 worth of equipment and supplies.

As she finished showing me what she had and before I could ask, she said, "and I'd take, for the whole thing..." The word "twenty" came out of her mouth. I said "Sold!" and as she unnecessarily continued trying to convince me of the value by saying the molds were worth at least that much I had a $20 bill outstretched in my hand before she finished the sentence. This was a big time score. I hadn't lucked into anything like that since July of 2007 while I was in Boise when I would have liked to clean them out (they had a bunch of stuff) but didn't have the financial resources.

As if that wasn't enough, while I was driving to the next garage sale heading East on highway 51, I saw a deer bounding across the road well in front of me. I watched where he went and as I passed the clump of trees, I saw that he had a companion with him (or she with her - neither had antlers). Then as I was driving down 26th street near the house, I passed another deer by the side of the road so closely I felt I could reach out and touch it. This one, too, had a companion. Yesterday certainly was a lucky Saturday.

Unexpected Gifts

There is a store here in Stillwater called Wall's Bargain Center that sells closeout merchandise at discount prices. It's a little like Big Lots but they tend to buy stock from stores that are closing, going out of business, had fires, etc. more than "the manufacturer changed the box design" type stuff.

I got word from one of the students at work that Wall's had recently acquired a large batch of inventory from a Best Buy that had experienced an extreme heat incident with rapid incandescent oxidation and gaseous residue followed by liquid deterrent application (a fire). Said student had picked up a new Dell computer and a flat screen monitor for under $500. It wasn't a fantastic discount but it was a good price nonetheless.

I decided Friday night that I wanted to go see what they had and just how good the discounts might be. I entered the section where they had concentrated the stock and began to drool look around. I saw many shiny things and lots of blinking black boxes but they were all beyond my price range. Wall's was only offering a 25% discount (which ain't bad, really) but was using the original Best Buy pricing as a baseline which is inflated anyway (i.e. a weather radio you can buy @ WM for $29.99 marked at $39.99). Many of the objects were originally over $200 so I stuck my hands in my pockets and continued to drool profusely "window shop."

The wife, who has been wanting a digital SLR for a couple of years now, wandered over to the display case filled with cameras and camcorders. She had spied some Canon Digital Rebel models but even with the discount they would end up over $500 (except for one but we ruled it out since it didn't have a box). As I was scanning the various camcorders available I saw a Sony Digital Alpha tucked unobtrusively in the back of the case. If you didn't know what it was, it would be easy to overlook. Heck, I knew what it was and almost overlooked it myself.

It was a Sony Alpha DSLR-230L with an 18-55mm zoom lens. The price written on the side was $549.99. With discount and after tax, we figured it would cost about $450.00. The wife asked to see it and looked at the specs on the side of the box. She took the body out of the package to see how it felt and to examine all the buttons and ports. She was suitably enamoured with it and we considered buying it since her birthday is a week from Tuesday. In the end, we decided to sleep on it. First, we didn't know much about the camera itself (the best I could come up with via my smartphone was that it was released last May). Second, we didn't know where the money was going to come from. We could fudge $450 but it wouldn't be a wise thing to do.

After dinner, we both retired to our respective computers and began researching the Alpha 230. The first thing I figured out was that current selling price is $499.99 (via Best Buy, Amazon and Sony). The wife read the reviews on Amazon and felt the camera would be a good fit for her. At that point, I put into action a plan I had hatched on the way home from the store.

First, I called my mother. I explained the situation to her and asked if she would be willing to contribute $100 (or more if she wanted to) toward the Wife's birthday gift. She thought that was a splendid idea. [Side note: Mom informed me that my brother had won $2,200 at the riverboat casino... on a penny slot machine. Of course, he was playing a dollar a spin (the bonus came up all wild). I never win that much because I never risk that much.]

Next, I called her mother. I again explained the situation and she agreed to contribute $150 to the cause. We were now going to be responsible for less than half the cost of the camera (an amount we could justify without too much guilt) and had current cash on hand to float what was being covered by The Moms. Because of the nature of the business and there being only one on hand, I told the wife about the contributions, said "happy birthday" and we agreed to go to the store as they opened on Saturday to give the camera a final inspection and purchase it if it passed muster.

We got to the store and went straight to the display case with the cameras. The same lady who had helped us at closing time on Friday was in the general vicinity and came around to greet us, "You came back for the Sony, didn't you?"

The wife opened the box and removed all of the contents to take inventory. Everything was present except for the battery which we quickly located as being installed in the camera. We agreed to purchase it and the attendant filled out some paperwork for the 30-day store return warranty. We then found a suitable bag (that we later discovered was too small for more than one reason) and checked out. The camera came out to $449 and some change. With the bag, we walked out about $468.00 lighter and one camera heavier than when we walked in.

But wait, there's more.

The wife charged the battery and fiddled with the camera some to get a feel for it. I had been wanting to go to the fair in Oklahoma City all day so I struck out on my own. After visiting the ATM and grabbing a bottle of water at the gas station it was almost 3pm. I was driving toward the highway when a prominently displayed garage sale sign caught my eye. The street it pointed to only has 3 or 4 houses so if it was still going on it would be obvious. although it had been picked over quite well, they were still open for business so I dropped by.

There really wasn't much left. What they had most of was bundles and pieces of fabric they had bought for their sewing business but ended up with too much inventory and not enough time. I wandered into the garage itself and spied upon a box for a Minolta Maxxum film camera. The Sony takes the same lens mount as the Minolta. The kit had a 35-80mm zoom lens with it. It was a cheap lens. It even felt cheap. Almost every bit of it was plastic except for the optics. But it was a different lens than the one that came with the camera.

"How much?" I asked. "We were asking $40 but we're trying to get everything gone so we're doing half price. $20"

I texted the wife: Do you want a 35-80mm Maxxum kit lens for $20?

Without hesitation, the answer came back a simple "yes." I bought it but it meant that the camera bag which barely fit the camera if she took the lens off was no longer suitable.

So, in the span of a day, we had managed to get the wife a new camera with a kit lens, a bag that was now too small, and a second lens for a very reasonable price. It was a happy early birthday for her.

These Aren't The Droids Deals You're Looking For

A few weeks ago, my wife discovered Swoopo. For those not familiar with Swoopo it is what is referred to as a penny auction site. The auctions run on a timer with a fixed bid interval (2¢, 6¢, 12¢, etc.). When you bid, just like in a real auction, time is added to the counter. In this way, you can be within a minute of the auction ending literally for hours.

The lure is that, sometimes (rarely, actually), the item goes for very very cheap. A Canon Rebel T1i 15MP Digital SLR for $6.80, an Acer 18.1" laptop for $3.20, and a 32GB iPhone 3G S for $1.14 are but a few of the extreme examples. But imagine that iPhone for even $263.88 (no contract required) - it's still a great bargain.

The catch is that it costs 60¢ to place each bid.

Some people have equated it to gambling and, honestly, the psychology involved is very similar and the site does a lot of things to enhance those effects. Having been a previous estate auction junkie, the psychology is very similar there, too.

After watching for a relatively brief time, the wife decided to jump in and give it a try. She bought some bids and started bidding on items. It took her a couple of days and a couple of bid packs to even start getting the hang of it and still she wasn't winning. She checked out the beginner auctions and won a 20-bid voucher for just under $2, I think. That got her back in the game and play the game she did.

Having been drooling over iPhones, I had been carefully watching the iPhone auctions. Looking at average prices, close times, etc. I registered so I could ad them to a watch list but I wasn't going to start bidding until I had a decent grasp of how things worked.

Then they got me. Do you remember me saying the site does a lot of things to enhance the psychological effects? They sent me an email telling me that "today and today only" the first bid pack I bought would include 25% additional bids for "free". Hmmm... I was planning on buying bids eventually anyway. Why not buy them now and get a little bonus? Which is exactly what I did.

I tried to be very judicious with my bids and was even bidding on bid packs to try to pad my stockpile. But, you see, they have this thing called a bid butler. You set a lower and upper limit and the maximum number of bids you want to allot within that range. The bid butler is guaranteed to place a bid for you within the last 10 seconds of the auction as long as the price is within the range you specified and it has not expended the allotment of bids you gave it.

Here's the rub. If I have an active bid butler set for, say, $5.00 to $15.00, the price is at $5.22 and my bid butler has bid for me in those "last 10 seconds" a couple of times already. Then, somebody else activates a bid butler starting at $5.24. His bid butler will make his first bid, the next bid, to which my bid butler will react and bid $5.26 (assuming a 2¢ auction) and what I have termed a Bid Butler Battle will ensue. The two bid butlers will continue to bid against each other (quite rapidly) until one of the contestents is out of bids or out of range. The bottom line is that a Bid Butler Battle can eat up bids very very quickly.

So, why use bid butlers? Because if you look at the ended auctions you'll see that the majority of the winning bids were placed by a bid butler. At any rate, I burned through a couple of chunks of bids before deciding I didn't necessarily want to use bid butlers anymore.

So, there I sat, placing bids now and then on this item or that (not simultaneously) until I had only a single bid left. I was just going to let it languish there until, on a whim, I took a look at the beginner auctions. Beginner auctions are reserved for those who have not yet won any auction. The participant pool is limited and the experience level is lower but you also won't find any big ticket items there.

At any rate, I was perusing the auctions and across the top the site was showing four or five auctions that would be "ending soonest" and I saw a 20 bid voucher counting down. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... I clicked the bid button, I saw the bid amount flash and saw the timer jump up but my bid count didn't go down. I quickly clicked the title to go to the actual item page and discovered that my bid hadn't registered. So I waited a few more seconds and 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... bid! My bid registers, timer jumps to 20 seconds, and I watch it count down to zero. I won the 20 bid pack for $1.20 ($1.80 when you calculate in the cost of the bid). I was back in the game!

So here's what's happening. When you go to the site, you see a lot of shiny, valuable objects being auctioned off at very low prices. Those low prices are attached to a counter that is ticking away ever closer and closer to zero "Oh my God! I'm going to miss out on a fantabulous bargaination! I better get in on this before it gets away." Then they start enticing you in with special promotions and special deals and before you know it, they have you hooked.

So, I had my 20 bids and decided I might as well use them to try to get that iPhone. I got up this morning and started watching one who's timer was counting down. I bid very very carefully. The competition was tough but I was still in the fight. I had about 5 bids left and decided that I was going to use them up and be done with it. If I won with those 5 bids, so be it. If not, I was out.

Then I saw it. On the lower left of the bid button there were three little people figures. They had closed the auction to new bidders. It was just us now (however many that was). If they've closed the auction, maybe it's almost over. Well, I just have to stay in it now... so I bought another bid pack [hangs head in shame]. I actually made a good show of it but when the sale price got within a couple dollars of $100, I had to back out. The competition had gotten too rich for me.

Now, here's what I figured out. I went to the AT&T site yesterday and found out I can get a refurbished 16GB iPhone for $299 ($317 w/ shipping/tax/fees/whatever). Knock off the $100 gift card I got when I won the Matrix pro and that brings it down to $217. I sold the Matrix Pro for $182, leaving a manageable balance of $35. But because of the shiny psychology of Swoopo, I no longer have all of that $182. I still have a decent chunk but not enough to make as big a difference. So, I'm letting my wife use up my remaining bids and I'm walking away for good. If I ever win big in the lottery I may go back because the bargains are good if you can stick it out but the site sure isn't losing any money. Let me show you what I mean.

Let's first look at one of the cheap auctions. Remember the Canon EOS Rebel T1i I mentioned going for $6.80? Swoopo puts the MSRP for that particular item at $819.99. Now assuming it was a 2¢ auction, that means there were 340 total bids placed on that item (6.80/.02). At 60¢ per bid, Swoopo collected $204.00 (340*.60). Add the $6.80 and they sold that camera for $210.80. Now, Swoopo probably got it for wholesale so they're not losing the $609.19 it looks like they are but they've taken a loss on that camera.

Now, let's take a look at an iPhone. Swoopo puts the value of a 32GB iPhone 3Gs at $898.00. Looking at 27 sales over the past week, the average selling price comes out to be $124.03 (including one for $1.14 and another for $309.42). Let's just give the benefit of the doubt and say it's a 6¢ auction. Using that average selling price and dropping a penny to make the math come out even, that's 2,067 total bids. At 60¢ per bid and adding in the $124.02 selling price, Swoopo took in $1,364.22 for an $898.00 iPhone that they didn't pay $898.00 for. That's a little over 1.5 times the MSRP. And if you use the high-end number I quoted, you're looking at a raw selling price 3.8 times the MSRP (309.42/.06=5,157*.6=3,094.20+309.42=$3,403.62/898=3.8 times MSRP).

Whoever came up with this concept is a genius! I applaud you but I have to stay away.

I'm A Pod Person

I borrowed a sync cable from one of my student employees last night so I could see about getting some music onto the iPod. It was still being a bit flaky so I decided to try and revive it. It took me about 3 hours but I think it was worth it.

I downloaded some utilities and set to running a health check scan on the hard drive. Sure enough, it failed but it was still spinning pretty well so there was hope. I attempted to format the drive using Windows but it kept hanging at 5-7%. I finally did a full low-level format. I wiped out EVERYTHING - even, supposedly, the partition information.

The little iPod must have done something to the drive itself because when I plugged it back in, it showed up with a drive letter. I proceeded to format... and it still had trouble. I switched to the Vista machine and it seemed to be doing better and I thought it was oging to work but it said the format failed. I eventually did a quick format (which doesn't scan the drive as it formats) and got signs of life.

I went back to the recovery instructions and, after all that work, read that the format doesn't have to finish, it just has to destroy enough information to let iTunes think that there's nothing on the drive.

I fired up iTunes and plugged in the pod. Sure enough, iTunes came up with, "It looks like this unit is in recovery mode... let me fix that for you" and it did. I haven't had a lick of trouble with it since then. I know the hard drive is still going bad and could croak at any minute but, hey, it was $10.50. I've got nothing to complain about.

The other positive is that the battery appears to be in great shape. I let it charge overnight and started playing tunes when I got to work at 8:00. It made it to noon and still has a little over half a charge left... not bad. Not bad at all.

I, Pod

The iPod came in this afternoon. It was in the mail when I got home for lunch.

Initial results were not promising. I dropped it onto my iPod-ready radio and it started to charge. The apple logo came up and then... uh oh... the sad face came up. It cycled through this for most of the time I was home and I could hear the hard drive gently thunking.

When I finished lunch, I dropped it in my pocket and powered it up as I was walking out the door. It gave the sad face and the thunk, recycled to the apple logo and stayed there a while. I've managed to get it to start working and even played some of the atrocious music that was on it but it's still having some troubles. I'm 95% sure it has a failing hard drive. Other than that, it seems to be fine... even the battery.

The "Accidental" iPod Owner

I've been bored the past few days and started looking at iPods on eBay for some reason. I'm not a fan of iPods. Like all Apple products, they're too restricted. But as I've noted previously, all the cool accessories are for the iPod. Plus, I have this really cool clock radio the wife bought me that just happens to have an iPod dock so...

All the inexpensive iPods are defective in some way or just aren't close enough to ending to have been bid to an unreasonable level. I did a little bit of research and figure that many of the problems (i.e. the sad face) are easily fixable. I even looked up how easy it is to upgrade/replace the hard drive - doesn't look too bad.

I've been bidding on the defective and the working iPods here and there but they all tend to go over what I'm willing to spend (which isn't much). My itchy bidding finger found one that was about to end (3 mins or so) and only had a $9.98 bid on it with free shipping. It was listed as defective but didn't list the specific defect. On a lark, I entered a bid of $10.55 and it locked in at $10.50. D'oh! Surprisingly, nobody sniped me. D'oh!

I am now the proud winning bidder of a 20GB 4th generation white iPod with a defect of unknown origin.

How do I get myself into these things?

Officially Impressed

One of my toys came in today. No, the phone isn't here yet. I have no idea even when to expect it. The MicroSD card will be a while since it's coming from Australia.

What arrived was my new Blueant Z9 Bluetooth Headset. My trusty Motorola H500 headset was, frankly, quite obsolete and it had started giving me trouble (okay, I threw it against the wall in frustration one night but I swear that the trouble started before that). I had been cruising eBay and had narrowed my search down to a Jawbone or a Blueant product. Mostly because I wanted a quality headset with noise reduction.

I knew I wasn't going to be able to buy the latest and greatest. First, I'm not paying that much for any headset. Second, I can't afford to pay that much. Besides, my H500 was old hat (and used) when I finally bought it.

I looked at several reviews comparing and contrasting the original Jawbone with the Blueant Z9 and the Jawbone 2 with the Blueant Z9i. One thing kept repeating. The Jawbone had superior noise reduction but the Blueant was louder. The loudness is a huge factor for me since I have some slight difficulty hearing anyway. What really tipped the scales, however, was trying on my friend's Blueant V1. It has a very similar form factor to the Z series. Plus I had read that the Jawbone had a tendency to have fit problems. So, the Jawbone was out.

After about a week of watching the auctions I finally started bidding. I actually bid on a couple of Jawbone devices but nothing came through. I ended up winning an auction (for less than what I paid for the H500) on a Z9 that was described as used, fully functional and in good cosmetic condition. What I got was a full retail box with all accessories except the manual (which was available online). It looks like it was a customer return, perhaps from someone who just didn't like it for some reason.

I charged it up and downloaded the manual and perused the quick start guide to get a feel for all of the basic functions. I paired it with my phone and called time and temperature. First impression: Damn this thing is LOUD! I generally have to set headsets to maximum to get a comfortable listening level. For the first time with any bluetooth headset I've ever used, I had to turn it down. And not just a notch or two. I'd say it's down to about 50-60% of max volume.

Despite having an earbud-style earpiece (think iPod headphones), the fit is pretty good. The device sits tightly on my head and is held securely in place by the plastic earloop. It's lightweight and easy to wear. The only problem I've found is that the hard plastic wears on the top of my ear pretty easily. It's a tight loop so I doubt putting moleskin on the inside of it for padding would be very effective. I think there are third-party loops available. I know there are different eargels available so we'll see how all of that goes.

Want to hear what a difference the noise reduction makes? Have a listen to these two wav files:

Motorola H500 (no noise reduction capabilities)

Blueant Z9

p.s. The comment I made about the Z9 not connecting has been corrected. I had to set it as the primary handsfree device on my phone - operator error.

Bargain Of The Week

This time of year, on any given Saturday before 10:30 a.m. or so, you will find me cruising the local garage sales. Sometimes it's a bust. Sometimes I get some useful stuff. Sometimes I find a downright steal.

This weekend, I picked up two big bargains. The best was scoring a digital photo frame for $4.00. It's one of the low-end Pandigital frames with a 6" LCD and a 400 x 234 resolution but it's a digital photo frame. And I only paid FOUR DOLLARS for it! Bargain number two is a Vista compatible sound card (I've been looking for one). I came across a Diamond XtremeSound 7.1 sound card with coaxial digital output. It looks like it was released in 2006 but Diamond and Amazon still sell them new for around $50 give or take. I paid $7. :-)

The Weekend In Review

I woke up Saturday morning feeling fantastic. Of course, when you enjoy a nice cocktail of Demerol and Versed (because of the EGD), you tend to sleep well. The wife and I drove around and visited a few of the sparse garage sales. Nothing to write home about. I think I picked up a copy of "The Last Action Hero" on DVD for $1. No, it's not The Greatest Movie Of All Time but it's kinda fun and for a buck, how can you lose? Oh, and we picked up a small TV for $3 to mount by the treadmill.

After scarfing down a breakfast from Carl's Jr., the wife drove down to Oklahoma City to borrow a larger vehicle from her mother. She's been keeping an eye out for a new, more appropriate, breakfast nook table (we don't have a dining room) and there was one on sale a K-Mart... but it wasn't going to fit in the trunk of a Honda Accord (1998 or 2004). I had other plans.

After she left I set out in search of coaxial connectors (the kind on the end of the cable/satellite TV cable). I knew where the wire in the attic was that leads to the bedroom with the treadmill and we already had a line that runs from behind the TV in the living room that had previously fed the front bedroom that I used to use as my office (I'm now in the back bedroom). We had asked the builder to run an additional line for the front bedroom and he simply clipped the main line, put in a splitter and ran the signal to both the South wall of the living room and the front bedroom from the same main feed. There was enough slack in the cable I had run from behind the TV in the living room that I considered pushing the line down through the wall and swapping out the main feed but the treadmill room is far enough toward the front of the house that I didn't want to work in such a cramped space kneeling on support beams. (go ahead. Read it again. I did most of that wiring work and even I had to read it a couple of times - I'll wait). I decided to splice the cable.

I ran to Wal-Mart but all they had were the screw-on connectors. Can you say 'crappy'? In the end I bought a couple of crimp-on connectors for $2 and paid $11 for a crimping tool at Radio shack. Turns out, the existing line is all-weather coaxial cable that is double shielded, double insulated and slightly thicker than the average cable most homeowners work with. Translation: The connector was too small. I got it on well enough that you can see a picture but it's kinda snowy. I need to find a proper connector and re-do the splice. But I had more plans and didn't really feel like rushing back out to RS. So, I put away my tools and closed up the attic ladder.

I then proceeded to the shed and rolled out the lawn mower. I was a little concerned because a) there was still gas in the gas can (that I'm pretty sure I didn't treat with Sta-Bil) and b) There was still gas in the mower. D'OH! I put it away 'wet' at the end of last season. (In case you're wondering, that's bad. Gasoline does break down over time and can damage an engine). I needn't have worried too much, she started on the second pull. Not surprising since I bought her brand new about 4 weeks before the end of last season (my $7 garage sale special had finally started pushing up the daisies instead of chopping them down).

The front yard wasn't too bad. It was just starting to look a little shaggy. It appeared to be mostly grass, too. I think it's bermuda grass because we're really the only yard on the street that was ready to be mowed (because of grass, at least). The back yard was my main concern. It has needed a 'shave' for the past month. Some of that stuff was downright thick! And, despite running the mower in mulch mode, she only stalled out once.

I chilled out until the wife got home and we loaded up and headed for Tulsa. We might have waited but the dining room furniture was all on sale at K-Mart and the sale ended Saturday. While we were in KC last weekend, we had seen a solid, round table we liked that came with four chairs so we were off to make our purchase. But we didn't buy that table.

When we got there, we found a simpler, rectangular table that had not been on display in KC. It was considerably cheaper, but didn't include any chairs. They had some padded parsons chairs displayed with it that I preferred over the hard wood ones on the other table so we snagged a couple of those while we were at it.

Now it was dinner time. I wasn't being too particular but the wife suggested Olive Garden. I enjoyed a couple of plates of salad (we practically emptied the bowl) with generous amounts of Parmesan cheese grated on top and about half a serving of eggplant Parmesan (also with generous amounts of freshly grated Parmesan cheese in addition to the Parmesan cheese already melted on top of it). We saved some room and elected to have dessert. I had a new Chocolate Ciottoli Cake (Dark chocolate cobblestone cake chunks layered with chocolate mousse and a soft brownie topped with hazelnuts). It was so rich and sweet... up to a point.

About half way through dessert, the intestinal distress kicked in. I had to visit the restroom twice before we left the restaurant. Then, I had to make two stops on the way home. I took something to staunch the flow as it were and things started to settle down a bit. By the time we got home, I had to take another dose and that may have been what actually did me in.

I no longer had any urgency but my tummy was still a bit upset. Basically, it felt like an old fashioned belly ache but it wasn't too bad... at the time. We finally got to bed about 11:30. I couldn't find a comfortable spot and my stomach wasn't settling at all. I finally just got up and went out to the living room where things only got worse. By this time it was about 1:30 or 2:00 am and I was hurting. I was doubled over and on a scale of 1 to 10 I rated the pain at an eight... that's pretty bad.

We discussed the situation some and decided that, perhaps, with my family's penchant for lactose intollerance, I shouldn't have had so much cheese. So, at 2:30 am on Easter Sunday my wife, God bless her, went to Wal-Mart to pick up some Lactaid (as well as a couple of other easy-on-the-tummy food items).

She hadn't been gone five minutes and I just couldn't stand it anymore. I hurt and I was concerned that, maybe, this was some sort of complication from the EGD procedure. I didn't want Lactaid, I wanted to go to the ER. I picked up the phone, dialed her cell number, and heard The Magnificent Seven theme from across the room... she hadn't taken her phone with her.

I did the only thing I could do. I kicked back in my recliner and sat perfectly still. This accomplished two things. First, it gave the cat a nice, warm, stable place to curl up and nap (and get loved on a little bit). Second, it settled my stomach enough that it had become somewhat tollerable (probably down to a 6). By the time the wife got home, thoughts of the ER had left the building - but I was still a little concerned.

I took a dose of the Lactaid and sat still (and loved on the cat) some more. Within a few minutes, the pain was down to a 3. Still worried about a post-procedure complication, I called the hospital operator and asked to have the doctor who had done the EGD paged so I could report my issues. She ended up calling my primary care physician. After describing what had transpired over the past several hours, he surmised that it was most likely something I ate. With things mostly settled down, I went to bed and finally got some sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, there was still some lingering discomfort. We visited the walk-in clinic and, after some blood tests, the doctor there agreed with my doctor's diagnosis that it was most likely something I ate. My mind was at ease that it wasn't a post-procedure complication and life went on. By the end of the day on Sunday, my tummy had settled enough and life returned to normal... but I didn't get a damn thing done on Sunday.

MagicJack Update

I don't know if I blogged about it initially but about 2 weeks ago we acquired and installed a MagicJack. This is a USB device that plugs into the back of your computer and gives you Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony or, put more simply, phone service over the internet. The service is dirt cheap. It's $40 for the device and the first year of service (we got ours on sale for $30) and $20 per year for continued service. No, that's not a typo. Telephone service is $20 per year.

We haven't had a land line since we returned from Idaho over a year ago. When we moved back we thought it foolish to pay for phone service we were probably just going to ignore because only people who wanted to sell us something or wanted money from us would call us on it. All of our friends and family just call us on our cell phones anyway.

This has turned out to be occasionally problematic. For instance, you will remember my last day at my previous job. When my friend tried to call my wife, she was asleep on the opposite side of the house from her cell phone. He had to call another friend who happens to have a key (thank God) to go wake her up. There have also been times when a battery dies and someone is trying to reach us. It is during these times that a land line would be useful but it simply isn't worth $30-$40/month just for an occasional convenience.

When we heard about MagicJack, it seemed like the perfect solution for a secondary communication line. When it went on sale at Radio Shack, we decided to take the plunge.

So far, we have had hardly any difficulty with it. We have a bargain-basement bottom-tier DSL connection (256k x 256k) and the calls are clear and sharp. Shortly after hooking it up, I called a friend and the sound kept dropping out (both inbound and outbound). I then realized that my computer was downloading something. Once I stopped the download, it worked fine. I have been looking into setting up Quality of Service (QoS) on our router but it hasn't occurred since. We don't use it much but when we do it has worked just fine.

Shortly after activating the unit, I went looking for the manual so I could figure out how to do things like access my voice mail and find out what other features were available and how to use them. I will save you the trouble... there is no manual. There isn't even a list of features. The closest thing available is a knowledgebase at magicjack.com (link is @ the bottom). The KB is pretty good, actually, but it's one of those situations where you almost have to know about a particular feature before you can ask about the feature and get information on how it works. For instance, I originally plugged a multi-handset cordless phone into the MJ dongle until a friend told me you could plug it into the wall and it makes all of the other phone jacks in your house active... go figure! There is also a web site (my.magicjack.com) for your account management. I had no idea about that until I actually contacted support by chat. A simple "current owners click here" link on the magicjack.com page would have been nice.

After failing to find an official manual, I located a few internet discussion boards for MJ to see if someone had made one. Nope. I may go through the KB and put something together and post it myself but for now there is no manual. Period. The discussion boards have the occasional very angry customers posting very angry messages about the service. One, for instance, posted that you could get your service cut off for making too many phone calls but support would not tell him how many was too many. You'll also find the occasional dire warning about privacy issues, etc. Mostly, though, it is about users helping users with technical issues.

The bottom line: It works for me. If you're looking for a secondary/emergency phone line or a way to make "free" long distance calls ($20/year is a lot cheaper than any phone card I've seen), MagicJack may be for you.

Pros:
Inexpensive startup ($30-$40, first year included)
Inexpensive service fees ($20/year)
Free calling to U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico
Portable (Use your laptop as the base station while on vacation)
Great as a secondary phone line
Cheaper than a calling card for long distance
Call forwarding (forward your calls to your cell phone while you're out)
Use your existing phone and existing wiring
Extremely easy setup (just plug it in to an available USB port and it installs the software from the device)
Includes call waiting, voicemail and caller ID
Free MagicJack to MagicJack calling anywhere in the world (calls to international land lines require the purchase of international minutes)

Cons:
Serious lack of technical support
Technical support appears to be based in a non English-speaking country based on grammar used in chats
No support via phone
Lack of company contact information on web site
No user manual or even feature list
Service interrupted by power failure or internet service failure
Computer it is connected to must remain on
Requires broadband connection
Doesn't work well over wireless
Potential company instability (they appear to be doing everything on the cheap)
Can't transfer your existing home number to MJ (yet!)
Macintosh version only in beta
911 support is different from a normal land line (this is a function of VoIP, not MJ specifically)

Resources:
The Unofficial MagicJack Forum - Pretty decent community of users and by far the most active forum
MagicJack Forum at DSLReports - There's a lot of anti-MJ traffic on this one
MagicJack Tips Tricks and Hacks - A blog about the MagicJack (hasn't been updated in almost a year)
MagickJackforum.com - Recently-launched technical support forum

Cutting Down A Tree With A Pen Knife

I'm taking a break from the "festivities" (work) here at the office because I've been boiling my brain for the better part of two hours.

I believe I have mentioned before that we use Joomla to manage our web site. Joomla is one of those programs that you can spend a couple of days with, get a handle on the basics, and build a pretty decent product with but there are all sorts of hidden nooks and crannies you almost have to know about in advance to get into. I have been digging through those nooks and crannies and managed to find one of them and get a light fixture installed.

When I learned that we used Joomla, I immediately installed it on my "server" (that I share with who knows how many people), and went through a basic online tutorial. I didn't realize just how inadequate that tutorial was. I cannot fathom how many hours I have spent banging my head on the desk trying to figure out just what the h--- is going on and where Joomla is getting a particular piece of data. Well, it has been getting easier each time I try to tackle a problem. Today, I put one more piece of the puzzle together but if you look at the title of the post you will understand how I feel about the whole process.

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Moving on to other news, I had a really... interesting weekend. I had already planned to go to the university surplus auction on Saturday and a friend, Kevin, was coming up from Oklahoma City (~60 miles) to go with me. When we found out that another friend was in town on business, he came up Friday night and we all went out.

Long story short I went just slightly over my cutoff line on Friday night. No illness or other difficulties but my tummy was not terribly pleased with me most of the rest of the weekend. It's okay, it was worth the price of admission and it's not something I do that often.

So, what about the auction? I purchased 2 kinda nice VCRs ($1 ea), 2 fancy Sony DVD players with component video and 5.1 audio outputs ($1 ea), a box of keyboards ($1 - if anyone needs one, let me know, I have extra), and 2 palettes of printers ($5/$1). That's just under $12 including tax.

I immediately gave one of the VCRs to the friend who was in town working. She had been saying, "I should get a VCR so I can watch my original-version Star Wars tapes," the night before so it seemed like the right thing to do. I'll have her buy me a soda sometime. The 2 DVD players tested fine. One is in the living room and I'll probably use the second one once I connect the audio stack to my PC. The status of the second VCR is unknown. I didn't realize they were mono when I bought them (I snagged 'em because they have jog/shuttle wheels) so I may use it or I may just freecycle the thing. The keyboards were purchased because my M-I-L needed a new one and, well, I had to take the whole box. They're pretty nice with a couple of USB ports built into them.

The printers are another story entirely. Kevin and I were talking and he was asking about the networked LaserJet 4 I bought at the last auction and mentioned that he wanted to get a network printer. I bought the first palette for $5 because it had a couple of LJ4 units and what looked like some LJ 1100's and 2100's I might be able to make use of somewhere. The $1 palette had a LaserJet 8000 (a big, honkin', heavy-duty laser printer). I thought it was worth the risk, plus it had at least another 1100. But it gets better.

Some guy asks me if I plan on keeping the copier that's on the $5 palette. There's a copier on there? I told him I had no interest and, having only paid $5 for the palette, I offered to give it to him (that's just the kind of guy I am). Once we got it off of the palette, I started uncovering the rest of the goodies. Sitting next to the copier was a Xerox Phaser 6300 color laser printer. When I got it home, I plugged it in and it spit out a startup page that showed it had less than 1,500 impressions on it. Once I found it a permanent home and did a bit of tweaking, I found the unit to be in excellent operating condition. The Cyan and Yellow cartridges are low but it starts hollering about that when it gets down to 500 pages so who knows when they'll actually run out.

One thing I am trying to figure out, though. There is a "test print" button on the back of the unit. When we pushed it, the unit slid out a piece of paper, sucked it back in, then spit it back out. It was printed on both sides. The printer obviously has duplexing capabilities but the firmware doesn't seem to think so and I can't activate it. I'm going to ask our Xerox repair guy next time I see him.

Well, that's about it and I've spent way too much time on this distraction already. Y'all have a good week.

Nope, Didn't Make It

I skipped Trek Expo this year. Like I said, I'm disappointed on many levels.

It's probably a good thing. Our cash flow hasn't been that great recently and that's money I didn't need to spend. Of course, what I spent at garage sales and getting to them this weekend probably cost about the same. My friend Kevin and I haven't hit garage sales together since before I moved to Idaho and he was in a mood to go. It didn't hurt that there were no less than eighteen neighborhood garage sales near his area of Oklahoma City. I got up, drove to OKC, and we spent the day buying stuff on the cheap that we really didn't need.

That's not entirely true. I picked up a Hoover FloorMate for $30 and I've been wanting one of those for a LONG time. That's only $10 more than the deductible to go see my doctor when I have back spasms after trying to mop our ceramic floors. Quite a bargain if you ask me.

Other than that I've been doing stuff around the house like laundry, mowing the lawn...

Speaking of mowing the lawn... I haven't mowed the back lawn in 3-4 weeks for various reasons and excuses. Some of the grass was better than knee high - seriously. As I came around on one pass, I noticed a small area I had just mowed over on the last pass and it was squirming. I looked down and saw three or four very small critters jockeying for position. None of them appeared to be hurt as they had been burrowed in just under ground level.

These were baby critters who hadn't opened their eyes quite yet and, at first, I thought they were mice. We have a multitude of them around our area and they've gotten into the attic again (gonna have to do something about that). Having gloves on, I gently picked one up and examined it. Odd shaped ears. The back feet don't look quite right. No whip of a tail. This is not a mouse.

Somebunny used our long grass for cover. They were baby rabbits no bigger than an adult mouse.

I don't know if they'll survive but I did what I could for them. I put the one back and he snuggled in with his siblings. I turned the mower chute away from them and carefully mowed the grass around them. Finally, I pulled some of the long grass that was left and laid it over the hole. I figured this would shelter them from the sun and any prying eyes circling the sky. I checked on them this morning and they seem to be OK.

Garage Sale Marathon

I got up this morning, as I often do on a Saturday, with the intention of spending my morning cruising the garage sales. I had gone through the newspaper, then entered several of them in a mapping program so my efforts would not be so random. It appeared that the day would have plenty of opportunities because there were not one but two neighborhood sales. The day did not disappoint.

The MIL is still staying with us and her recovery is coming along very nicely. She is still using the walker but has started using a cane more and more. I think she also had her final home health care visit late last week. Chances are she will be back home and independent by next weekend.

As I was preparing for my adventure, I discovered she was awake and wanted to come with me again. The wife was not awake and was quite content to stay snuggled in bed a while longer. Once my MIL was ready, we got into the car, stopped by the ATM and headed for the first neighborhood sale. We spent somewhere around two hours in that one area alone. There were LOTS of sales.

As we started to drive by the same sales and were preparing to move on, the wife called and wanted to join us. We went by the house, picked her up, dropped off what we had purchased so far, and headed for a drive through to get breakfast - hey, we have to keep our priorities straight, here.

From there, we visited a couple sales on the opposite side of town from the neighborhood sale mainly because one of them had advertised a dining room table and the wife is looking for a more suitable table for us. All that activity killed at least another hour.

There is a local restaurant that does a pretty good business selling T-Shirts and other clothing items. Throughout the year, they produce their share of "factory seconds" and today was the day of their annual reject sale. In addition, they were also holding a company garage sale so that's where we went next. The garage sale wasn't anything spectacular but they did have a couple of restaurant tables and more than a few retail and display items (if I needed a cash register for anything, this was the place to get it). The wife grabbed a locking file box, the MIL picked up some nick-nacks, and I ended up at the reject sale and bought three T-shirts. One of the shirts had a 3" tear in the front (that I mended when I got home), one had a couple of "pin" holes in the back (which I also mended), and I'm still looking for the flaw in the third. All this I got for less than the discounted price of even one of the shirts I bought.

Next stop was an estate tag sale. I managed to pick up a set of Big Band vinyl (that's record albums to those of you among the younger CD crowd) and the wife nabbed a scarf.

Once that was done we finally made it to the second neighborhood sale. It wasn't as impressive as the first, partially because it was a smaller neighborhood. I can't recall that I actually bought anything, either.

As the afternoon wore on (yes, we were well into the afternoon by this time), we stopped at one final sale that had advertised dining room tables. They had one of them left but it was no better for our space than the one we currently have.

Finally, we had to go back to the area of the first neighborhood sale with the aid of a friend who has an SUV so we could retrieve a plastic garden shed I picked up for a song. It was very similar to this one but I only paid $20 for mine.

When all was said and done, we had spent six to seven hours trolling garage sales. I don't think I've ever spent that long on that particular activity.

So, what was the tally for what *I* purchased?

Brand new crock pot, never used - $3
Garden shed - $20
Misc. small items - $5
Ionic Breeze Quadra air filter - $5

And the bargain of the day....
Magellan 315 Handheld GPS - $2

No, that's not a typo, I bought a handheld GPS for TWO dollars. It works fine! It had some hazing on the plastic over the LCD but a little quality time with a buffing disc and my Dremmel and it took care of most of that - at least enough for it to be usable (even with the gouge I somehow managed to put into the middle of the screen).

Chaos And The Art Of Wormhole Maintenance

It was a busy weekend. A VERY busy weekend.

My Saturday started out at the OSU surplus auction. True to form, I purchased a palet of monitors. I paid $15 for it but was only interested in the flat screen monitor that was sitting on the top. I also nabbed the iMac that was wrapped up in there just to play with.

As the auction winds down, Kevin and I will often hang around and try to make deals on individual pieces with the people who bought the entire palet. Sometimes they don't care about the piece you want, sometimes they give you a song and dance about how much they can sell it for and make a big production out of it. Either way, it never hurts to ask. Sometimes you end up with some really cool stuff.

I was talking to a couple of kids (probably students) who had bought a couple of palets of mostly junk. They pointed to several items and said they were fair game. We looked through their remains and moved on.

A few minutes later, we saw them talking to another individual. I told them that if they wanted any of the CRTs I had bought, they were welcome to them. This caught the interes of the other guy and I told him he was welcome to take one, all or none and kevin said as much about his palet of monitors. I then got the bright idea of asking if he'd bought any CPUs (actual computers). He pointed to a trailer stacked 4 feet high with them. I inquired if he'd be willing to trade one machine for all the monitors he wanted and he agreed. I plucked a Dell Optiplex GX400 off the top of the stack and went on my merry way.

As soon as I got it to the car, I popped the case. It appeared to be complete - Processor,RAM,and even 40GB hard drive were in tact: Score! When I got home later, I hooked it up and she's got a 1.5 GHz processor and 256MB of RAM. That's plenty to turn it into a server to learn on.

After we left the auction, Kevin and I met the wife for breakfast then headed to the discount flooring center to take a look at the palet of laminate flooring she bought on Friday. The short version is she bought an odd lot (3-4 different colors) of 1300 square feet of laminate flooring for $100. For the mathematically impaired, that's 13 CENTS per square foot.

NOTE: We have been talking about replacing the carpet in the living room with laminate flooring for quite a while so we snatched up the deal while we had the opportunity.

Next, we went to... I'm not sure what to call it. They purchase closeout lots, damaged lots, remainder lots, etc. You never quite know what they'll have. A couple of items they've had for the last month or so are a large office desk and a double bookcase. I've been looking at the desk, the wife has been looking and the bookcase. As it turns out, they had just been marked down to 50% off the discount price.

Now, I have been looking for a computer desk since we moved back from Idaho. The one I had before we moved was of moderate size and worked very well. It had enough room for two monitors and both of my printers plus it was the perfect height. We ended up donating it to the Salvation army to save weight in the move. I have regretted it ever since. The trend now appears to be toward satisfying the laptop-toting college student with space issues. In other words, they're all small. The desk at the discount store is not small. It is not even moderately sized. It's nothing but BIG. It is U-shaped with each leg sticking back six feet and the bridge space spanning seven feet. PLUS, it has a hutch. I had been considering this desk at the discounted price but with it now being half off of that, I bought it. The wife bought the bookcase for the same reason.

Our next step was to rent a U-Haul for 3-4 hours so we could get the desk, the bookcase and the flooring home. Loading was easy. The flooring center loaded the entire palet on the back of the truck and three people loaded the furniture boxes. We had to break up the palet of flooring and restack it in the garage then secure the furniture boxes (they were partially opened) and fight gravity trying to yank the dolly down the ramp.

By the time we returned the truck and had something ot eat, darkness had overtaken the day. I took the time to prepare my office for the new desk. I planned where it would be, moved some boxes out of the way, moved other boxes out of the room (those that didn't belong there anyway), and cleared off and cleared out my desk. This last step included disconnecting the computer and tucking it into a corner (where it still remains at the moment).

When the evening finally started to wind down it was after 11pm. We had been put on notice to pick up a Wii for my mother-in-law if we came across one. As it happened, the wife discovered that the local Wal-Mart was getting some in that they would be selling at midnight. So we got out of our bed clothes, re-dressed and went and bought a Wii.

When I got up on Sunday, I moved a small part of the existing desk out to the garage. The wife got up and asked me to go get breakfast, which I did. We ate and I started some laundry then changed out the cat boxes while my wife talked to her mother and let her know we had gotten the game console. I went to move the larger part of the desk and couldn't quite figure out how to do it. It's too bulky for me to lift alone, the wife is minor help at best for lifting things, and dragging it across the carpet would only server to break it apart. We have some of those "moving men" discs but I didnt know where they were.

I enlisted my wife's help in looking for them and mentioned that I could get it out in a jiffy with a furniture dolly. "Atwoods has them on sale for $15.99." I have wanted a furniture dolly for the convenience of it for a long time but I've never known where to get one.

"Want to go to Atwoods?" I asked. She agreed and we were back on the road. On our way there, she mentions that her mother needed a new monitor because hers was broken. "I told her it was information I could have used yesterday." To which I replied that I was sure most of my monitors were still at the auction site and if not Kevin's definitely were. We made a detour to the auction site and picked up a couple of my monitors.

While we were there, we met someone who had been hanging around, chatting with those that were gathering their purchases, and determining what was leftover stock for the scavenging. I picked up a 1U rack server for myself, a 3U (or 4U) rack server for Kevin, and, at the wife's direction, a Laserjet 4 printer with a Jet Direct network card in it.

As if my back didn't hurt enough, I continued the day by clearing my office and starting to assemble the very large desk constructed with several very large (2' x 6' x 1.5" particle board toppers for each of the legs), very heavy pieces.

When I finally said "Uncle" and gave up on the desk for the night, I had everything but the hutch put together (only one small, concealable piece was missing and I managed to fix up a rather nice replacement). When I get home this evening, I will finish the hutch and set the computer back up.