Mothers Day

In the US it was Mothers Day yesterday. I surprised my mum back in England with a phone call wishing her mothers day (which was two months ago). And yesterday afternoon, with no food except a frozen chicken breast, in the house, we decided to go out to eat. Not a hard decision really. "How about Ruth's Chris" says Gale. Which is a restaurant I love, but you can't realy call it cheap. The tip alone would have paid for a nice meal somewhere else.

We all had steak, of course. Which was as incredible as always. As was the bill. But hey, I don't need to eat again this month.

Busy Day On

As summer approaches, people seem to clean out the attic and garage of all the moldy old trash and anything that vaguely looks like it once have been some printed material they bring into the book shop to sell to us. So we have to sift through 14 boxes of rotting pulp, probably should wear full haz-mat suits, in order to find something that anyone else could possibly want to buy from us. We make the offer:

"For ALL these books?!" they reply.
"Well, the offer is for everything, but there are quite a few that probably won't sell very well for us." motioning to the festering pile of wood pulp steaming behind them.
"You're welcome to take those back and the offer would remain the same."
They then look at the dusty slop...
"My friend bought 2 books in last week and you paid her $40 for them."
"I find that very doubtful" you want to say but instead you say "It does depend a lot on how popular the books are. Sorry I couldn't offer you more."

Yesterday was crazy. We had one hour that had 17 buys! And another guy had maybe 12 huge boxes. And when the offer was made, he wanted a count! AND asked why we wouldn't take the 4 boxes of books that were rapidly falling apart behind him. Which he took back (thank God)

AND another chap wanted a break down of hard backs, vs paperbacks that he'd bought in. I said the offer was for everything. he said that the "other" store (47) gave him a breakdown of book by book. Which is really annoying since they shouldn't do that. "Don't split buys" Rule number 1.

I tried to explain that the offer is for all the books and that if he just bought in the hard backs, the offer may be different to bringing in the hardback with the paperback. He looks at me blankly...
"OK, one sec." I count the books and then divide that into the amount I offered.
"30 cents a book"
"You just averaged it out"
"yessir"
"So you can't tell me how much I got for the hardbacks."
I try to explain again that it doesn't work like that. He explains that at 47 (I presume) they broke it down and paid 75c per hard back. So then I have to explain that they are book club editions, but I've paid for them because they are large print.

OK, you're not reading anymore, I can tell, so I'll stop my rant there.

Hey, I love my job. Really I do. But some customers go out of their way to make me change my mind. So far, I'm winning.

Busy day off.

We've been remarkably busy today. Last week someone knocked over our mailbox post. The mailman is a great guy and goes out of his way to make sure we get the mail, but it's not his job to come to the door. So we had to get it replaced.

This morning we head off to Lowes with the intention of getting a new post and mail box. A cartload of flowers later and we have no room for the post. So we return home and then to lowes again and this time get a mailbox post and a new track lighting get up for the great room.

I get home and my neighbour, Derby, helps me dig out the post. It took well over an hour. We dug deeper and deeper and finally with a lot of brut force we managed (or Phil did at least) to pull out the 3 feet of post! It was so deep that when the new one went in, it was only about a foot off the ground so we had to fill the hole a bit. SO anyway, I felt we accomplished something there.

Then I installed the new light fixture. And more importantly (and remarkably) didn't electrocute myself or blow the fuses for half the neghbourhood.

Gale was also very productive. She planted a ton of plants and they look fancredible. Once they're all done I'll take a few pictures.

Then the other story was the baby bird. Phil found a baby bird sitting on our path. Old enough that he had feathers and looked like a little bird, but young enough that he couldn't fly. It was getting cooler and we were sligtly worried. Phil prepared a small box with tissue paper and a hot water bottle (I kid you not). I picked up the birdie and put him in the box, but he didn't like it and jumped out. A few hours later we kinda gave up and he had hoped down the road somewhat. Then just now I was putting the car in the garage and noticed the little bird asleep under the car. So once again I tried to put him in the box, and again he jumped out. Right now he is asleep huddled in a corner by our front door. I just hope he lasts the night and his mum finds him and somehow he survivies. I'll let you know tomorrow what happened.

Small Changes

Gale has been updating her website and it's looking pretty cool. So I've been playing a little with mine. One thing I've noticed is that over the years I've posted subpages to various websites. drawbridge.org.uk/art for example, rather than making people come through the front door. So I've played on that a little and added a "home" page to both Art and photography, so they stand up on their own. This lead to me creating a layered menu to appear above all pages, including the offsite links such as the guestbook, this blog etc.

THIS in turn lead me to have to update 14000 files which now pointed to the wrong place. Ever wish you never started something? The webserver must be pretty full of junk. I really should clean it off. Simon is kinda enough to not charge me, so the least I can do is not waste space.

ANyway, if you've come via the website, I hope you like it. If you've come from another link, then check it out.