A Random MMP (My first MMP!)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
361

I’m way late today, for a lot of reasons.

First off, we slept in. I had a lousy night - I woke up just before midnight and tossed and turned for hours. ugh. But once we rose and showered, we breakfasted and tidied a bit, then waited for the window salesguy to show up. There was an adventure.

He was 15 minutes late - way to make an impression. Then after he measured all the windows, he launched into his spiel. He spent close to half an hour putting down everyone who made windows. He asked stupidly leading questions (“Do you want to save money?”) :rolleyes: and obviously couldn’t take the hint when we ignored his stupid questions. At one point, FCD did give him an answer, and the salesguy looked at him and said “Is that an honest answer?” :confused: When he finally got around to showing the sample window, we were impressed with it - a very nice product, with lots of really nice details.

Before he’d give us the estimate, he made us guess how much it would be. **FCD ** guessed $8K. I guessed $12K. It was $11,690. For 7 windows. The estimate is good for a year, but he wanted us to commit to making a decision in the next month. Then he went back to “Do you want to save money?” implying that if we ordered now, he’d reduce the price even more. But he wouldn’t say how much unless we’d promise to order. At this point, we said we had things to do. He started whining that we were supposed to give him 60-90 minutes. But he packed up his crap, and as he went out the door, he said “Thanks for being serious!” in a decidedly snarky tone.

There will be a letter going to his company. What an ass!

So once he was gone, we agreed that business wasn’t going to get any of our money. And off to the dump we went. Next stop was the marina so we could swap out dock lines with some we’d been working on at home. That’s when we discovered there was something wrong - no DC power. The batteries are dead. Near as we can guess, we may have taken a lightning strike or the battery charger died or something. But it was too doggone hot to do anything about it today.

Other stuff too mundane to waste time recounting. I’m tired. It’s hot. The grass still needs to be mowed, and I need to get some clay work done.

I need a vacation. And a nap. And new windows, but not from idiot salesguy.

362

Pouncing is good. I’ll leave it at that.

363

When we got new windows in our house in New Orleans, we went to a buddy of ours who worked all kinds of construction-related stuff, who hooked us up with a company just up the road that made nice windows, and for which Kenny was able to get us the contractor price. So even with the “thanks for helping us” bonus we paid him on top of the windows, we got windows for this house, including for the two bay windows downstairs, and on the ends of the house upstairs (but only upstairs in the back since the ground floor in back was almost all glass) for about $2500. Granted, they were only two-layer windows instead of three, but in that climate you don’t need the triple panes. And our electric bills immediately went down by about 40%, so it was well worth it. Yeah, that was a good deal. :smiley:

It is hot out there today. And quite humid. I just took Isaac out to play (they’ll get to go swimming tomorrow morning; this morning Papa Tigs had to be at the Amish Market when it opened at 8 am), and brought him in well before he was acting tired. I didn’t want him to collapse on me, and he’s just dumb enough to run until he drops. Stoopid dog!

Off to finish the last couple inches of a cable scarf.

364

The link FCM posted a couple of pages back has a mention of radium-laced chocolate bars. They’re glowy and delicious!

I went and did some bridal registry stuff with Attacks Husband, and he bought me lunch at a nice Thai place. Now I’m home, surfing the interweb and wondering about what to do for the evening. It’s rainy and hot here. Maybe we’ll stay home with popcorn and a movie.

365

Ok, folks get this… we went for pizza and when we got back to da cave, there was a message waitin’ on my answerin’ machine. It was from my old job. Somebody callin’ me about a problem that nobody can figure out what to do about. Show of hands everybody who thinks I give a shit… :dubious: Also, wanna take bets I get another call even though I erased the message after gigglin’ for about five minutes?

Now, in other news… It gets kinda scary when you’re ridin’ down the road with da squeeze and you pass a restaurant that has a sign outside advertisin’ “Two Piece Pork Chop Dinner $5.95” and both of you blurt out at the same time… “A two piece poke chop suppah! Dang, didn’t know that was one of them faaan-cee places!” :smiley: It’s this little concrete buildin’ thing that’s been some kind of [del]dive[/del] bar/restaurant forever. About twice a year the name changes. We’ve never eaten there. It looks skeery.

LiLi popcorn and a movie sounds great! I’m thinkin’ that might happen here too.

366

Break time! I’m making a sail cover and I’m pretty sure I need a new sewing machine. Mine is a Viking - actually, my second one. I took the first one in for repair and service and the guy couldn’t fix it, so he gave me this one for the cost of the servicing. But that’s been a while and I’m having lots of trouble with this one keeping tension consistent and it likes to drop stitches while I zig-zag, making it pretty obvious that stitches were dropped. Plus the foot pedal plug is broken and they no longer make this model, so we had to tape it together. It works, but OSHA would not be happy. So I’m guessing after the first of the year, I’ll start looking for a replacement. Just a basic machine - straight and zig-zag, with adjustable stitch lengths. I don’t need to fancy computerized foo-foo stitches. Does a basic machine even exist??

I’ve got the main body of the sail cover assembled, and I’m sewing on a contrasting color band along the bottom hems. Next, the zipper goes in, then I have to figure out how to collar around the mast. Finally the webbing is sewn on to tie it in place around the boom. I’d like to get it done tonight, but that’s doubtful - it’s such a big piece, it’s like rasslin’ just to run it thru the machine. If I can get the zipper and the collar done tonight, I’ll feel like I accomplished something.

I’m still stewing about the idiot window salesguy. We’ve decided we’re going to call a local company - these guys are just a few miles away and I’ve read good things about them on a local message board. Of course, if they start out telling us how bad everyone else sucks, they’ll be out the door, too. I don’t have time to deal with idiots.

Although I did like the last idiot’s parting line: Thanks for being serious! Indeed. I think I’ll put that on a t-shirt! :smiley:

Break over, I guess. Back to the mighty Viking…

367

I have a choice between Battlestar Galactica, and the next twenty episodes of Doctor Who. Eeek. :smiley:

368

**Swampy **- take the call. Charge em lots and lots of money. Consultancy fee donchaknow. :wink:

369

zelie, that’s genius!!

370

zelie this ain’t the first time I’ve gotten a call. :rolleyes:
The first time it happened I told them my consulting fee is fifty bucks an hour with a minimum charge of two hours. Maybe I should up the price? Who knows, if I charge a hundred bucks an hour, minimum charge of two hours they’ll jump all over it, cause we all know it’s them consultants what charges outrageous fees that’s the good ones, right? :smiley:

371

Very weird that there should be mention of a bichon upthread, because today I met Jaques (or just plain Jack)–a rescue new pet of a neighbor’s (I just met the neighbor, too–she actually lives two streets away). He is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen and I IF I ever get a dog–it’ll be a bichon or a mutt.

Here’s a pic of a cute dog: I’minlove Scroll down to the “puppy look” pic
I don’t like the groomed look, though–the walking carpet look. I like the wooly short haired look. What a sweetie pie.

No dogs in my immediate future, though.

Spent 3 hours out in the [del]mud[/del] yard today. Need to do it again tomorrow, but progress is being made. yay.

372

Just keep racking up the price. If they are dumb enough to let you go then realise they desperately need you then they are going to pony up the dough. Remember to add in expenses…you know…travelling costs (petrol, wear & tear on vehicle, wear & tear on shoes, percentage of any costs you have for tax etc), refreshments (if you are working TWO hours then you are going to need lots of drinkies and nibbles to keep you going, any more than THREE and you need a full meal - don’t forget to charge em time for the meal break), sundries (you’ll need a new pack of pencils for making notes, a new notepad etc).

Sorry, this post is much longer than the sentence I originally intended but I was having fun in there. :slight_smile:

373

zelie you are wasting your obvious og given talent! You should be a consultant to consultants! Charge outrageous fees to consultants to tell 'em how to consult! It’s brilliant! :smiley:

374

so Bro did some cleaning up (he must have gotten a sudden spurt of energy) and found some pics SIL had taken long long long ago, including one of our mom - of whom I am the spitting image, doncha agree?
eta
dinner at Houlihan’s - tried a Banana Cosmo - it’s like drinking a banana! :slight_smile: but watch out - it goes down verrrrrrrrrry easy. (2 of them go even easier ;))

eata:
no snerking, please. I meant they’re smooth and you don’t taste the booze

375

Not so much…perhaps the banana cosmos are helping the resemblance?
:confused: I can see you’re related, though.

376

When I looked at the pic of myself from the backyard party, the first thing that popped to mind was my mom - and how I remembered her looking - very much like the pic Bro sent me. I suppose I’ll have to have my hair colored and styled like that* for you to see what I see
eta *don’t hold yer breath . . . :wink:

377

zelie, I’ve worked with consultants and you actually didn’t go nearly far enough. swampy, everything *must *be of the highest quality, it must be name brand, and most of all, it must be expensive. Let’s see, fees. Manager’s rack rate would be, say $400/hour, with a discount of 25%, so $300/hour, plus expenses, which should include an overhead charge of, say, 10%, calculated based on the rack rate x hours charged. I’ve been generous with your former employer - an unpleasant client often pays rack rates. Oops, I just realized I used Silicon Valley pricing, so lop 15% - 25% off the rack rate, in addition to the discount. You could easily make the decision that since you’re a one man shop, you should get partner rates. In that case, double everything, including how long you expect to take to do the work. Don’t forget to expense everything, parking, mileage, tolls, your morning coffee, everything. Try to work a hotel stay on their dime in there somewhere, at the most expensive hotel available, nothing less than a Marriott/Hyatt/etc. Also, you must eat at the best restaurants. You have to spend that $50 per diem somewhere! Remember, every time you even *think *about the client is chargeable time. Always round up to the nearest quarter hour. **Now **you’re a real consultant.

378

oooh oooh oooh, Jah, I wanna be a consultant, too! (gotta figure out what my extremely essential and unusual skill is, tho)

379

We just had a nasty little thunderboomer go through here – not only did Rusty go into full freakout, poor baby, but it was close enough to shut the ol 'puter down. So I’m just back up. I think we even had a little hail. We also had some water blow through the crawl space over the laundry room and leak onto the laundry room floor. We’ve had a drop or two leak there before, but this was more like a cup full, so it’s time to call the landlord and let him know he’s got a wee problem. It may be like a roof leak we had in New Orleans – there was one shingle that was a bit loose over the den, and so only when we had a certain amount of wind blowing from just the right direction did we ever have a problem. And of course as soon as Papa Tigs climbed up on the roof and sealed the shingle, it went away. But this time no roof climbing for him, not with his neck and arm problems right now!

Do you have a decent freecycle group in your area, FCM? If not, we do and people give away nice stuff all the time. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a sewing machine for you, how about?

380

Gee swampy, perhaps you brought value to your previous employer after all. :wink: Good for you for giving them the pricing up front.

We had a tornado warning earlier. It was very weird because it didn’t look like tornado weather at all, but the air pressure was very odd (I could feel it in my ears). No damage that I’ve heard of, though, thank goodness. Got a lot of rain though.

Tired. Watched 1/2 of Daddy Day Care with the nephew. Second half will be tomorrow morning. Bed time.

GT