In case you haven't heard, there's a drought in North Carolina. If you live in NC, It would be almost impossible not to know about the drought, because at least 10 minutes of every hour of local news concerns the drought. I'm fairly annoyed by all the media coverage and weather guys yelling at the tv audience about how we need rain. Yes it's dry. Yes, I stopped watering my lawn last summer when the city told us to. Yes, my back yard is an arid plain of brown dirt now because of it. Okay, I'm doing my part, tell me something new.

Another issue I'm annoyed about is the local government's planning. Raleigh and the surrounding area's population has been rapidly increasing for over a decade. The city hasn't been doing anything to expand our sources of water. The best solution they could come up with is to pump less water from our main supply lake into a creek. Wow! Genius! They don't recycle water. They aren't trying to come up with new sources. They just make life a little bit worse on the citizens by asking people not to water lawns, plants, or gardens, and giving out $1000 fines if they find you're washing your car.

So anyway, I keep hearing about people buying rainwater collection barrels from the city in Cary and other places for about $40. They've shown lots pictures on the news, and I thought I could build one and I might even be able to water some plants this year. So I drew up a 1 page set of plans and headed off to Lowes. Before gathering materials, I wanted to see if they had any ready-made collectors. They did. Turns out this $55 model is almost exactly what I planned to make, short of an fullness indicator on the outside. So I weighed my options and decided to buy it.

Setup was simple. Attaching the gutter downspout wasn't exactly what they intended though. Right now, I'm threading the downspout right into the barrel, instead of using the filter on the lid. Problem is the filter is really small, and I'd need some sort of adapter to connect it to anything. I'll have to figure that out later. So now I'm hoping for rain to try out my new gadget.

Do you remember the Quizno's commercials asking people on the street which sandwich they'd prefer? The commercials would have us believe that Subway is downright skimpy on its meat per sandwich allocation. At first, Subway responded by comparing its coldcut sandwich to a burger at McDonalds or somewhere. They claimed you got more meat and less fat than the burger, but completely ignored its main competitor Q-something.

So I take it that campaign didn't work so well, because now they're resorting to the kind of 'Thickburger' products that Hardees advertised with a soapy Paris Hilton on a hot car. You remember that ad, surely. Subway's new Angus sandwich comes with one, two, or three beef patties. Does that sound like Wendy's to anybody else?

I've been hearing that the prime fast food demographic now is men 18-30 who don't want to cook and don't really care about calories. Maybe that's their new target with this Angus campaign. For those of us curious about the nutrition information, we might try searching Subway's website. I'll save you the trouble - as of writing this, it's not even mentioned. I did write an email to the company's customer service asking about it, but their auto-responder politely informed me that I could expect an answer within 7-10 days. We'll see.

Here's a story about how I found out how hard it is to buy one, and how I finally did (twice): So about 3 months ago, I decided I wanted to buy a Wii. I had a bunch of Target gift cards and decided to buy one there. I went to Target's website and saw the Wii advertised with the normal price $249.99, but no "add to cart" button like pretty much everything else on the website. I didn't understand, so I called them and was informed that because of limited quantities, Wii systems are only available through retail stores. So I pull up local Target store phone numbers, and sure enough, every one of them claims to be out of Wii systems. This was a Tuesday.

I'm surprised and frustrated, so I search online for something to help me find where I can actually buy one. I found something called iTrackr that several people claim helped them. You can use it for free, or pay $2 through PayPal to have them supposedly send your cell phone text messages whenever your selected stores get a Wii in stock. This never worked. I emailed and complained and got no response. So rats off to you, iTrackr.

I found another free tool that figured out Target's inventory system and uses a backdoor to check inventory in stores close to your zip code. Just change my 27606 in the url to whatever zip code you need. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work anymore for Wiis, but you can still use it for Wii accessories. I guess target figured it out.

Later, I found something better. Why scramble all over town hoping to find a Wii, when you can instead know exactly when and where some will show up? The solution: newspaper ads! When a store advertises an item in the Sunday (or any) paper, they absolutely have to have some in stock when they open that day. There are laws about this. I remember a bit about this from my days in highschool when I worked at Staples. So if you're industrious, you could go out early to check your local Sunday paper and quickly read through the ads to see which local retail stores advertise the Wii system.

But here's a wrinkle you might not know about: Those newspaper ads go to the newspaper a week or so before the newspaper sends them out. That means if you can get the inside information, you can find out days ahead of time where a Wii system will be available. I found a (free) website called DVD Talk where some wonderful person likes to tell others about the coming ads for Sunday papers. Just look for an entry titled something like "Best Buy Prices: July 29 - August 4, 2007" when the current date's something like July 25th.

So I found out that Target would have Wiis available the very next Sunday. What luck! I saw they opened at 8:00 am, so I woke up early and checked the Target website to confirm my local store had the Wii in its ad. Sure enough, they did. So I headed over to my favorite Target about 6:30 am. There was one man sitting in his car near the entrance when I arrived. I thought: no rush, they'll have several. So I waited around until he approached the store before I got out of the car. Apparently he'd been there for an hour before me. So I was number two in line, and about 3 more people showed up after me. Around 7:30, a nice Target guy came out and handed us all numbered cards so we wouldn't have to make a mad-dash for the electronics section. He assured us there were plenty to go around. At 8, I calmly walked up, claimed a Wii, Wii Play, extra nunchuk, and the new Zelda game.

So I played my Wii and showed it to lots of friends and family. My sister was much impressed and decided she wanted one too. So last week I decided to look around at the early ads to see who might have a Wii available. Best Buy was the only option, and they claimed to have at least 12 per store. It sounded good, so I called my sister and gave her the good news. Best Buy opened at 11:00, which worried me a little. Eight in the morning is earlier than most people like to show up at a store, but eleven isn't so scary. I thought there might be too many people to show up before me. Well, I drove up to the store at 9:30 and saw a line outside the store. I quickly counted and estimated about 12 people were there. Rats! I thought there might be more than 12 Wiis at the store, so I hurried out and jumped in line.

The woman ahead of me explained that her friend who worked at Best Buy said they're have 45 units. Excellent! So I enjoyed the company of my fellow Wii fans until 10:30, when a couple Best Buy guys came out with numbered tickets stapled to their extended warranty plan advertisement. Nice add on sale! I was number eleven. I called my sister and gave her the good news: she would get a Wii. Once in the store, I called again to ask which games she'd want. I made a quick stop by Office Depot to pick up a $25 wireless G router, and headed over to Fedex-Kinkos to ship it off. Two-day shipping was only $16.22, which included the price of a box and insurance. The whole package weighed 13.5 lbs, so I was pleased with the shipping cost. This also made me suspicious of the E-Bay sellers who want $40 for shipping a Wii.

That's your other option. You can find plenty of new Wii systems on eBay. But be prepared to pay. They like to advertise 5 free games, or 14 free games and 4 controllers. These aren't as good as they sound, since any Wii you buy comes with the 5-game Wii Sports disc. And Wii Play retails for $50 and comes with a controller. The extra nunchuk adds $20. So add up how much you'd pay at your local store before you shell out big bucks on eBay.

As for me, I'm still enjoying my Wii. Happy hunting to the rest of you.

So Betty sat in the parking lot until lunch time, when I could get away from work and have AAA tow her to a repair shop. The mostly-friendly AAA lady on the phone suggested I have it towed to an AAA repair shop which was also close to our house. This sounded fine to me, so I followed the tow driver out there and gave the repair shop my information and car key. A few hours later I got a call from them. Guess what... They were basically afraid to work on the car since it's so old. I can somewhat appreciate this, since with an older car like mine a seemingly simple repair might reveal or cause other subsequent problems. The repair guy on the phone said I didn't owe them any money, and I could pick up my keys whenever I liked.

After work, I went back down there and talked with the repair shop guy a bit. They suspect that my fuel filter is the original one from 1989 and these really ought to be changed every 30K miles. He hypothesized that this old (and likely very-clogged) fuel filter was restricting the flow of gas so much that the engine was starving. He further projected that if I was to replace this fuel filter, the components past it along the fuel system might fail due to the sudden increase in pressure.

So I was stuck between a possible cause to the problem and the concern that I could cause more problems by trying to fix it. The mechanic said the car would start sometimes, but it took several tries. I didn't have any luck, and I thought I'd probably run the battery down. So they said I could leave the car in their lot overnight and have it towed elsewhere tomorrow. I was tired and I decided to head home.

Thinking about the problem at home, I got out my car repair manuals. I bought these back when I bought the car, since it didn't come with an owner's manual. Back then I thought I'd get more useful information from a repair manual instead, and they were cheaper. The manual detailed how to change the fuel filter, and it didn't look difficult at all. I thought it should be worth spending $30 or less to replace it myself, and at worst I'd still have a car that doesn't run. So I ran by Advance auto parts and picked up a filter for $16. I gathered up all the tools I might need and went back down to the repair shop to do some after-hours repair work. I thought it was pretty funny to be doing this sort of thing by myself while I was right outside the repair shop.

While working, I talked on the phone with Matt, a friend who knows more about cars than I ever will, and he suggested I try to change the filter. He didn't really buy the mechanic's story about a new fuel filter causing problems. He also said if I still had trouble after that, I should give him another call and he could take a look at the car for me. So inspired by this, I finished replacing the fuel filter by the street light over the parking lot. One of the banjo bolts (yes that’s a type of bolt) was on so tight, I had to use an oil filter wrench to hold the old fuel filter in place while I used an adjustable wrench on the bolt.

Then I crossed my fingers and cranked the engine. No good. I realized this new fuel filter was bone-dry and I may have to try a few times to work the air out of the line. So I did, and on the third attempt the car sluggishly started. Hooray! I called Erika and asked her to put down the new Harry Potter book for a few minutes to help me drive the other car home. Unfortunately, my conclusion of success was premature.

I had driven the car to the edge of the shopping center and gave it some gas to make my way onto the street. The engine immediately died. I coasted backward out of traffic and gave Erika another call to hold on a while. I thought maybe there was still some air in the line and I should just drive it around the parking lot a bit more. So I tried. The car repeated its problem.

After 30-45 minutes of examining the problem in detail and a couple calls from Erika, I came to these conclusions: The car would usually start sluggishly. It would idle all day without any problems in park or neutral and I could even rev up the engine a bit and it'd be fine. When I shifted to drive or reverse with my foot on the brake, the engine would idle poorly. The rpm would drop way down but usually come back up. Sometimes it would just die. If I gave the car any gas in drive or reverse, it was likely to die. I could allow the car to putt along in drive most of the time if my foot was off the accelerator. Reverse was worse than drive. If the car was pointed downhill, it seemed to do a little better. Uphill was rough. So I eked the car into a (different) parking space and called it a night.

At work, another friend (Jeff) suggested the transmission might be the culprit, since the additional tax of trying to turn the axle seemed to make the engine die. I hoped this wasn't the problem, but Jeff also warned that there may have been some merit to the AAA mechanic's concern about the car being so old. I shrugged it off and belayed my fears of Betty coming to the end of her road in a shopping center parking lot.

After work, I called Matt back and left him a message about my predicament. Erika, having finished the new HP book, was eager to take a look at my car too, so we both headed that way after work. No changes, but the car was a little more trouble to start. I think it was harder with a cold engine. While we were there, Matt called back and said he'd be happy to stop by in a few minutes to take a look, since he was on his way to go running. So while waiting, I somehow got a free drink from Hardees, since the cashier was feeling nice and they were short-handed. Matt came by and gave a five-minute assessment of the situation. I explained my findings from the previous night and gave him a summarized maintenance and repair history of the car.

In about a minute and a half, Matt had the distributor cap taken off and found the most likely problem. The rotor button's metal contact plate had all but worn away in the center. This would need to be replaced. He took a look at the spark plugs and suggested they were due to be replaced too. Matt said the ignition wires might be getting old, and they were a third possible problem. A distant fourth possibility was a part called the vacuum advance which affects the engine's timing. An even more distant possibility was the timing belt, which may have lost a tooth. Matt suggested I buy a new set of spark plugs and distributor rotor button. He even offered to help us put those in after his run.

So we ran out to Advance auto parts again and picked up the needed parts for about $10. After changing clothes, Erika and I returned to see Betty and we changed out the plugs. Just after that, Matt called to say he'd be there in a minute. He helped us install the rotor button, and I cranked the engine. Success! A silly $3 plastic part about the size of my thumb was all that needed to be replaced. It was probably a good idea to change the fuel filter and spark plugs anyway. But I was amazed. I have no idea how much a repair shop would have charged to diagnose the problem. We offered Matt our eternal thanks and shook greasy hands.

I can gather several morals from the story: Keep your car up to date in maintenance. Don't always take the first repair shop's opinion. And if you can, make friends with a former mechanic. Thanks Matt, the next round's on me.

First, I was annoyed that I couldn't buy tickets using the student discount that we're accustomed to. Second, their checkout process works in this way:
1) Choose tickets and see a "total" price.
2) Enter your credit card info.
3) See a message that you must also agree to an additional "convenience charge" of $1.00 per ticket in order to finalize your purchase.

What a load of crap! To me, this is basically a "bait and switch" technique to gouge the customer by tacking on hidden charges. I'm pretty mad about it, and I sent a letter to their customer service. I don't really expect a response, but I wanted to let them know I'm not happy about it.

So, if you can avoid it, DON'T use Fandango to buy your tickets. Unless it's opening night...

Okay, so I have to go, how much do they pay you for this? Haha. $12 for the day. If it lasts longer, they give $20/day for the next 4 days, and really long trials start paying $40/day on the 6th day. I looked up the Jury Duty FAQ for North Carolina and I learned that it's inappropriate to wear a halter top, cut-off jeans, or bring my knitting needles to court.

Trying to look on the bright side, I thought it might be somewhat interesting and I'd look forward to seeing how the jury-side of a trial works. Especially if this was a major trial, I'd love to see how detailed the deliberation is between everyone on the jury. I'm imagining it might be a bit like the movie Twelve Angry Men. But sure, it will probably be something much more pedestrian.

I mentioned my upcoming public service to a few friends and I was cautioned that I probably wouldn't actually be called to serve. Apparently one of the first questions the attorneys like to ask potential jurors is how much education they've had. So, I finished high school, I have a BS, an MS, and I'm working hard on a PhD. I'm not sure if this goes against a "jury of your peers" or if my education would intimidate the other jurors and give an unfair bias, or something else completely. We'll have to see how it goes. Maybe my education will "lead the attorneys or the judge to feel that [I] could not be objective in considering the evidence in this trial." Haha.

They better still pony up that $12.

They said that my "Purchase date on sales receipt does not fall within program dates". This was totally untrue, so I called the customer support line and asked why. After explaining everything to the girl on the phone, we decided that perhaps the rebate-checker people only read the ship date on my invoice. And since Buy.com took about a week to send the thing to me after I ordered it, the shipping invoice date was after the rebate period. However, the rebate states that the purchase date must be in the certain period, and it was, so I'm entitled to the rebate. The girl on the phone said I have to send in the needed documentation again, but to a different address. So I did that back in late January.

Now it's mid February, and I still don't have a my rebate. The online status hasn't changed since I sent in the re-request two weeks ago. Today I called to ask about it and after waiting 12 minutes on hold, the girl on the phone simply responded with "give it more time... at least a week". So now it's been 3 months since I ordered the thing. That's 1/4 a year that the company has been able to play with my money (interest-free) and not do anything. This feels a little like that movie Rainmaker where the corrupt insurance company's policy is to deny all first claims, and hope people don't try again. Granted, my $25 isn't much, but how many people are they doing this to?

next time I'll just look for a low price without rebates.

Saturday morning, Erika and I and about 1400 other crazy people met up at the NCSU Belltower for a 4-mile donut eating race. It was all to benefit the NC Children's Hospital and have some fun.

The way it works is runners pay a $10 or $15 entry fee and get a t-shirt, and meet up on the chosen date to run/jog/walk 2 miles from the belltower to the Krispy Kreme store in downtown Raleigh. Once there, the challengers are to eat 12 hot glazed donuts and then hurry 2 more miles back to the belltower, all within an hour. It was crazy, and it was fun. This year, the best time was under 25 minutes. I remember seeing this guy racing back as I was still trying to get to KK. I came in with a time of 1:01:34, so technically I didn't quite meet the challenge. I also technically only ate 2 donuts, and carried the rest back with me - can't let those gems go to waste, right?

Notable appearances were made by Elvis, Extreme Wolfpack fans, and pirates pushing a grocery cart/ship along the way. I was impressed by how many people came out to volunteer their time during the event. Police even blocked off traffic as runners raced along the downtown streets. We took a bunch of pictures and posted a few for your viewing pleasure.

There's a website with more information about the fundraiser if you're like to check it out.

So we got the first snow of the season in Raleigh this morning. It wasn't enough to close the city down, and it looks like the public works people did their job by spraying brine on most of the roads last night. Lots of the local schools closed for the day, or opened with a delay, but NCSU was still in session. By this afternoon, the temperature is supposed to warm up and we'll get some rain. But the snow is pretty while it lasts. I posted a few other pictures as well.

Can you guess who we are?

So I almost forgot how to post entries, it's been that long since I updated our site. Anyway, Halloween was fun. We started the holiday off with a FSC party at John and Marci's place where our awesome costumes won the coveted First Place in the contest. Minor wardrobe malfunctions and such aside, we had a great time. My favorite costumes were Collin Finnerty and the unnamed stripper/dancer from the Duke lacrosse party. Also present were a skeletonized Nicole Richie, an Islamic extremist, Bender and Leila from Futurama, Flava-Flav, and a couple of Red-Hatters.

A few nights later, we headed out to Chapel Hill for the Franklin Street craziness. A fellow BME student was hosting a party within walking distance to Franklin, and we met up with a bunch of BME and associated friends there. I was really impressed with most of the costumes at the party and on Franklin. Notably present were: Kim Jong Il, Mario Luigi and the Princess from Mario Bros, Princess Zelda and Link from Zelda, a bunch of giraffes, Michelangelo from TMNT, Mike Tyson, the intercom from Charlie's Angels, and us.

After partying a bit, we headed to Franklin Street to take everything in. The police blockaded the street around 9 pm and opened it up to pedestrians. This was a good thing, because thousands of costume-clad folks flooded the street to see and be seen. Some of the costumes blew me away, and I tried to take as many pictures as I could. There were several great groups of people dressed to complement each other, like a set of Crayola Crayons, a waddle of Marching Penguins, Frylock Meatwad and Master Shake from ATHF, Thing 1 Thing 2 and the Cat in the Hat, and a set of kitchen appliances. The best single person costumes were Mystique from X-Men, a seven-foot phallus, and a one-night stand. There were tons of people who came sans-costume, just to watch. Even couples in their seventies and families with toddlers came out to see what all the fuss was about.

As you can tell, we took a bunch of pictures, so check them out. And if you weren't able to guess who we are in the costumes, take a look at Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom.

So I'm a bit slow to post this, but that's ok.

The weekend before Labor Day, we took a trip with Michelle and Phil to Carolina Beach State Park, just south of Wilmington, NC. It's about 2.5 hours from Raleigh along I-40. We got to experience the end of I-40, which was interesting... You're driving along and signs say the interstate is about to end, but the road doesn't. You just start to see traffic lights and the road become a four-lane highway.

Anyway, we got to the park and had a little confusion about how to rent a campsite. Erika and I had both separately called the park to get camping info, but we each were told a different story. The CORRECT way to do it is drive into the campgrounds, choose a site with a green numbered tag hanging on the post beside it, and bring that tag to the marina, where you can pay the $15/night fee. For the record, Erika was right, and I wasn't. We pay the fee, buy from firewood, and were probably the last customers before the marina shop closed for the night.

So of course, it's dark by now, and we need to set up the tents. I drive our car close to the campsite and leave the headlights turned on to give a little light. The tents go up, no problem. But it took a while to set up the tents, and I notice the beams from the headlights on the car look a bit more yellow than normal. So I try to start the engine, and sure enough, the battery's too low. Fine, we have jumper cables, we'll worry about it in the morning. We're all pretty tired so we get to sleep pretty early.

The next morning we load up the dogs and drinks and drive a little to the beach. They have lots of pay lots within easy walking distance. So we stop and pay $5 for one lot and walk out. Unfortunately, we should have read the sign first before paying to park, because this part of the beach doesn't allow dogs. Drat! So I talk to a lifeguard and find out there's another beach close by which does allow dogs. We drive over there and unload our stuff. This part of the beach was intended for car and trucks with a high ground clearance and four-wheel-drive. As we walk out there, we see a bunch of cars parked and people basically tailgating at the beach. It's kinda cool.

We get out in the water for a while, and give the dogs a chance to jump around in the water. Annie was at first interested, but I think the waved scared her. Erika carried her out once or twice and Annie just ran/jumped back ashore. I tried snorkling, but the water was way too murky green to see anything, and there were lots of kids surfing and not watching out for anybody else. I tried letting Annie walk up to the water on her own when Erika was wading. Annie got pretty far out (relative to her height) and then a lot of water came in and Annie was suddenly swimming. She seemed to do just fine - we'd never seen her swim before - and she headed back to the shore and proceeded to roll around in the sand.

It was pretty hot, so we didn't stay at the beach too long. We went back to the campsite, got some lunch and rested a while. Later we went on a short hike and saw some cool stuff, including a really big spider. We cooked dinner and stayed up late talking around the campfire.

The next day we cooked breakfast, packed up and headed home. It was a fun trip, but I'd suggest taking it when the weather's a bit cooler. Take a look at the rest of our pictures.

Since we bought the house in Fall 2004, I've been talking about installing recessed lighting in our living room downstairs. Finally, on Sunday I decided the time had come, and we took a trip to Home Depot and bought four straight down lights and four eyeball lights, 100 feet of Romex electrical line, some wiring nuts, and eight light bulbs. It's annoying, the light fixture kits only cost a dollar or two more than the light bulbs do. Hopefully both will last a long time.

With all the supplies in hand, we planned where to install the lights and cut the first hole in the ceiling. Then I realized a problem. The space between the ceiling was different than what I was used to in my parent's house in Tennessee. In their house, the upstairs floor was supported by a 2x6, and then there was a gap below, followed by a 2x4 supporting the ceiling. In our house, there was only one huge 2x10 that supported both the floor and ceiling. This meant I couldn't just pass the wiring through a gap that I'd imagined should be there. That brought work to a halt for the night, as I planned what else to do.

I had several ideas, some better than others. I thought we could pull up the carpet and flooring up stairs, and access the space to drill holes through the joists to run the wiring. That would require a lot of work. I thought we might be able to pass the wires through the ceiling box between the living and dining rooms, but that didn't work out either. Then I read a nice page about installing speaker wire into a house, and they showed tips on how to work around joists in the walls or ceiling. This usually involved sawing a small hole in the sheetrock, notching the joist, running the wire, then repairing the hole. It sounded like my best option. Then I had a realization. We have crown molding all around the ceilings downstairs. I could remove that, and cut a narrow hole in the sheetrock that would be covered by the crown molding, repair the hole, then replace the crown molding. This way, people would never even see the evidence of a hole.

So over the course of the next few days, I carefully removed the crown molding and made those holes. Then I ran the wiring to a twin set of light switches already there. One switch turned a receptacle on and off, and the other did nothing. That always confused me. Why install a switch if it doesn't do anything:? But anyway, this worked out great for the way I planned to control the lights. I ended up using all 100 feet of the wire, so my estimate was spot-on. I wired the lights and tested them out before clamping them into the ceiling. Everything worked. I was so excited that I woke up Erika (past her bedtime) to come see everything working. She gave a sleepy smlie and seemed happy with everything.

So now we have new lights in the room, and we're able to move the floor lamps somewhere else. I'm also happy with the way everything works. The grou outside corner eyeball lights are controlled by one switch, and the four inside straight-down lights would be controlled by the other switch. When we want lots of light in the room, we turn everything on. The inside four lights give plenty of light for reading papers or working on things in the room. The outside four eyeball lights are turned away from the center of the room, so they work to accent the bookcases and fireplace. They're also great for when we're watching tv after dark, and we don't want light glaring in our eyes or the tv screen. Hooray!

You may have heard that I've been looking for a good used pin-select weight machine for our workout room since around April. I've tried to buy several on Ebay since then, but I hadn't been successful. Each time I found a good one on Ebay, somebody would snipe it away from me, or the seller had set way too high a reserve price, and the bidding wouldn't make it up there. Frustrating. Anyway, since April, I've studied up on all the different models to see what might fit in our room, and what has the features that we'd be looking for. I first saw a WeiderPro 9940, which was a perfect size and had everything we wanted. Then I found the next-up model, a Weider Pro Powerstack which lets users lift more weight. Unfortunately, these two models didn't often go up for sale on Ebay, and were even less likely to be available within driving distance from our house - a must to keep from paying severa hundred dollars in frieght shipping charges.

Enter Craigslist. This is a totally free website that lets people list items for sale or trade and post pictures. I found the PowerStack listed for sale in Durham. The price was fair, and still available for sale. So Saturday after installing the dishwasher, we drove out there with some cash to takea look at it. The machine was in great shape, and we decided to buy it. The sellers helped us take it apart and pack all the pieces into our car. We rode a little lower than normal on the way home, but everything fit. Erika helped me carry all the parts inside, and I cleaned the dust off and put it together in the workout room upstairs. Some time around 1:00 am everything was together and I tried it out. It worked beautifully!

Next time you're in the market for a good bargain, give Craigslist a shot. It worked for me.

In our continuing quest to update appliances in our kitchen, we got a new dishwasher. This one's a Whirlpool with stainless steel and black finish. We got a pretty good price, and by installing it ourselves, we saved around $140. In my opinion, an hour or two on a Saturday is better than paying somebody that much to do something that's pretty simple. Anyway, we're very happy with it so far, and it gets our dishes clean!