Wayne and Erika Pfeiler

Two weeks ago (Sept 15th), I placed an order through Dell's website for a new digital camera. To my frustration, I found out the next day that the thing is backordered, and probably won't ship until October 17th. There was no mention of this anywhere when I placed the oprder! This makes me mad since I wanted my new toy right away. I looked online to compare prices with other places, and try to find it cheaper/sooner, with the intention of cancelling the Dell order if I found one. I soon found out how good of a deal I got with Dell. The camera's MSRP is about $550, but most places sell it for about $500. On sale, it might run around $460-$480, and don't forget taxes and/or shipping charges. The total price I agreed to with Dell was $401.68, so no other place could come close. I'd rather not pay an extra $50 to $100 to get the camera right away, so I decided to wait unless I found a really good deal elsewhere.

Here's a wrinkle. I found out Dell likes to keep customers happy so we'll be more likely to buy from them again. So I go online to chat with their people and ask if they can give me a discount or something to compensate me for having to wait. The nice guy offers me a $35 "concession coupon" toward a future purchase. I ask if he can also upgrade my shipping to a faster method, but he said he wasn't allowed to do that. So I take the coupon and feel a little better. Dell frequently runs sales on camera memory. I've seen a 1 GB SD card for around $45, so I may grab one of those soon.

Wonder how I found such a good price on the camera? Check out Deals 2 Buy. You have to watch for a really good sale. The last time I found this camera so cheap was back in June.

Posted by Wayne at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yay! That was an exciting game. The Vols didn't play so well in the first half, but they managed to pull it together in the 2nd with Clausen as QB. I thought it was odd that so many LSU players had trouble with cramps during the game, but our players didn't seem phased by the heat...and LSU was playing at home. I'm glad I stayed up to watch the end.The final score was 30-27 in overtime.

For those who've lived on campus at UT, you'll may understand this 12 minute video taken by a student right after the game.

Posted by Wayne at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Blah blah boo

Posted by Wayne at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Two nights ago we had some pretty heavy rain during a thunderstorm. This wouldn't have been a problem, except that I had just seeded some new grass close to the house. So during the rain, I hear an odd noise. I look out the window and I see that water is streaming straight down from the roof. So we basically have a two-story waterfall from the roof. This sucks for several reasons, but it basically screwed up the grass I'd set out within about 5 feet of the house, by washing the seed and dirt away.

So I call the home owners association and they agreed to take a look at it. Two days later, I'm curilous if they did anything about it. I brought out the ladder and climbed up to the roof. I don't think they'd come out yet, and I saw there were clumps of leaves and roof gravel clogging both the downspouts. As long as I was up there, I decided to clean them out. And yes, I was careful. Now it should be safe to re-do that grass. Hooray for 22-ft ladders!

Posted by Wayne at 08:26 PM | Permalink

Last Saturday our couch was delivered! Shelton's Furniture delivery guys brought it about 5:30 pm. We had been scheduled for a 4pm delivery and they were running late. That meant we had to miss the Jeopardy show taping at the RBC Center, oh well. The couch is nice, and it even pulls out into a queen bed. Amazingly, it's not too uncomfortable. Ashley uses something like a trampoline tarp under the mattress, so you don't feel the typical metal bar across your back. Definately an upgrade from the black metal frame futon that had been our main couch previously. The futon has moved upstairs into the workout room. We still have room for the loveseat the G's Pfeiler gave us too.

Posted by Wayne at 07:55 PM | Permalink

One of the fun things my new cell phone does is let me take short video clips and put them on the computer. Here's a Quicktime clip of Annie fetching her rubber chicken at our house (approx 0.5 MB).

Posted by Wayne at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In short, I'm happier now. Here's the long version:

So to bring you back up to speed, my original phone (A) quit knowing when it was closed. The first replacement phone (B) had a bad ESN that couldn't be activated.

I got the second replacement (C) phone on Friday. They must have some trouble with quality control on these remanufactured phones. There was a screw on the back of the phone which wasn't screwed in quite well enough. This kept the screw cover from fitting into place, so the cover kept flopping off. I wasn't too pleased about this, so I called 1-888-best-buy and told them about my troubles.

I spoke with a nice lady who looked at my case file, and could see I've been having several problems with phone replacement, so she gave me another option this time. I could either 1) get a third refurbished replacement phone, or I could 2) go buy a brand new phone at Best Buy and write a letter to their corporate headquarters in MN about my troubles to have a refund check mailed to me for the purchase price of the original phone. Does that sounds familiar? It's basically what I wanted in the first place, with the small added trouble of having to wait to get the refund. So I took option number two.

Saturday I went to Best Buy and bought a brand-spanking-new Sanyo MM-8300, acrtic blue (D). It was a little more expensive than the 8100, but that's fine, it does lots of new fancy things. I should be getting a refund for about $250 for the old phone. I called Sprint and activated the new phone and now I'm all set.

Monday I fed-ex'ed the two refurbished phones in their prepaid mailers back to Best Buy in Copell, TX.

Hooray for persistence and good luck!

Posted by Wayne at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just upgraded to MT 3.2

Posted by Wayne at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Following article was just printed in the Johnson City Press newspaper in Tennessee.

CO-OP - Farmers support each other through a system that saves them money while supplying them with what they need.

By Keisha Bratton, Press Business Writer kbratton@johnsoncitypress.com

Sixty years ago, a movement spread across the country that allowed farmers to buy supplies at better rates than ever before. Local agriculturists joined in on the action, and in a new millennium, the Washington Farmers Co-op is still going strong.

The cooperative's retail store is located at 1001 Depot St. in Jonesborough and carries everything from feed, seed and fertilizer to clothing and shoes. A branch office also is located in Castlewood, Va. "For years, folks have thought that you have to be a member to buy at the co-op, but that's not true at all," said store manager Tom Bible. "We still focus on the farmer, but we also cater to customers interested in buying products for their homes, lawns and pets. We have hunting and fishing supplies and a wide selection of clothing for outdoor enthusiasts."

While the store is open to the general public, it's the 700 members who benefit financially from its sales - all profits go directly back to them.

Last year, the co-op did $10.7 million in business, with 2 percent of that paid to members in patronage refunds and allocations. Bible attributes the co-op's success to its progressive approach. One example is the sale of environmentally friendly biodiesel. "The trend right now is for farmers to have an off-farm job," he added. "They'll be part-time farmers. We're going to have to carry a lot of convenience items."

Bible is considering expanding store hours to better serve farmers with full-time jobs, and more services may be added in the future. The co-op currently offers feed delivery, fertilizer spreading and on-the-farm tire service.

The service Bible is most proud of, however, is the knowledge his staff passes on to their 5,000-6,000 regular customers. "We stay educated about the products in our market," he said. "We attend seminars. We try to keep our customers up-to-date on our products. ... We want our sales people to disseminate as much information as possible."

The Tennessee Farmers Co-op buys and distributes products for the state's 65 local cooperatives. At one time, there was a co-op in almost every Tennessee county. Some have since merged and others have closed. "It (Washington Farmers Co-op) has stayed viable because of the support and belief in the system by the farmers. We still have a generation of farmers who helped establish the co-op. They remember what it was like before. Plus, we have a younger generation that's buying into the system," he said.

The Washington Farmers Co-op was incorporated on Sept. 8, 1945. Incorporating directors were R.L. Hannabas, Dave Treadway, H.H. Gresham, Justus D. Barkley, Paul A. Dillow, Wayland Crouch, A.A. Deakins Jr., B.C. Hunt, Bruce Thompson, Ivan H. Range and A.J. Willis. Bible said farmers who served during World War II were coming home and trying to make a new start.

"They banded together to help create buying power to go out in the market and buy in bigger quantities so those savings could be passed on to everyone," he said.
As the son of a Greene County dairy/beef farmer, Bible said it was only natural that he spend his life with the co-op. He's worked at the store almost half the time it's been open, since 1978.

"I was raised on a farm. I don't farm now, but I've never lost my love for agriculture and farming. That's why I wanted to stay in the business," he said.

The Washington Farmers Co-op will host a 60th anniversary celebration Friday from 7:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Saturday from 7:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. Radio station WGOC will conduct a remote broadcast, and door prizes, discounts and refreshments will be available.

For more information on the local co-op, visit www.washingtonfarmerscoop.com. Information about the statewide organization can be found at www.ourcoop.com.

For more stories, please visit http://www.johnsoncitypress.com. Thank you!

Posted by Wayne at 10:37 AM | Permalink

I'm displeased with Best Buy. I used to like their PSP cellphone replacement plans, since they were so simple to use.

The way they used to work is this:
1) Your phone dies, etc.
2) You go to a Best Buy store and show it to them.
3) They give you a credit (purchase price of broken phone) toward buying a brand new (and usually better) phone.
4) You buy a new phone and activate it.

That sure was great. So last time I bought a phone there, I bought a replacement plan for it. To my suprise and disappointment, about 9 monthas ago they changed the way it works/sucks:

Here's how it works now:
1) Your phone breaks.
2) You call 1-888-best-buy.
3) You talk to a well-mannered but slow person in India, and explain the nature of your phone's trouble. They try to weasle out of replacing it by asking if you dropped it, or if there's damage to the outside, or the lcd is broken, etc (not in my case).
4) They agree to replace your phone with an identical refurbished phone, no upgrades allowed.
5) They Fed-Ex you the replacement phone, and you get it in 3 days.
6) You get the new phone, activate it.
7) You mail the old broken phone back to them in a pre-paid mailer.

The no-upgrade, refurb phone part made me mad. I also had trouble around step 6 above. Activating a phone should be simple, right? Hah!

So I call Sprint, and speak with a nice American guy who tries to activate my phone, but can't. He says the ESN # is the trouble. It hasn't been marked stolen or anything, and it's a good phone, but it's been labeled to a private Best Buy account, and I must get them to do something to activate the phone. Well crap, 25 minutes on the phone wasted.

So I call 1-888-best-buy. I tell them my PSP #, ESN #, and all my troubles, and that I'm very irritated about it. The well-mannered but unhelpful Indian man on the phone keeps me on hold 15 minutes while he talks to Sprint about the problem. Then he puts me back on the line. Apparently, the Best Buy warehouse people didn't mark that ESN as assignable, and NOBODY can activate it. I must now return the new phone and wait for another replacement phone with a hopefully good ESN. I tell him how irrritated I am at this, and how I feel they should give me something in return for all my trouble and waiting again for a new phone because of their mistake. He says no dice, the best they can do is replace my phone again as he said. Another 25 minutes on the phone gone forever, and 3 more days until a new phone.

This waiting for the new phone bothers me. I was told by the first Indian man that I would need to buy a new PSP for the replacement phone before the old PSP expires. If I don't, the new PSP would cost much more. My current PSP is about to expire, so I'm probably screwed. I'm not sure if I'd even want a new PSP at this point, with as much trouble as I've had, but still!

So yes, I'm upset at Best Buy. I cc'd a close copy of this entry to their customer support people to see what they might do for me. I'll let you know.

Posted by Wayne at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's very nice to have a day off once in a while. I think it helps people to be more productive at work when they get time to rest and do non-occupational stuff occasionally.

So Erika and I ran out to Lowes and got some stuff for the house. We came back and built a new raised bed on the back fence line with landscaping timbers. I made a nice brick wall style pattern at the corners, and locked them together and into the ground with 12-inch galvanized spikes. A sledge hammer would have helped a bit too. Erika planted some cool-weather vegetables and flowers in the raised bed.

Next we set up a new sprinkler to water the grass in the back yard. This is something that's bugged me for a while. We have tons of mosquitos that love to hop on me everytime I'd go out back to water the grass with the handheld sprayer. This sucked and made me itchy. So now I can turn on the faucet in the morning, eat breakfast, and then turn it off, all mosquito-free! It works pretty well too. I set out a bit of slow-release fertilizer in preparation for fall over seeding.

Posted by Wayne at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We just posted pictures of Erika's trip to Holland in the photo gallery. Go check them out.

Posted by Wayne at 08:19 PM | Permalink

Yay! Erika flew back to Raleigh this evening. Passing through customs was a hassle, maybe she was selected for a random check or something. Anyway, she's back safely and we'll post pictures she took over there soon.

Posted by Wayne at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)