Korey Atterberry’s Idle Chatter

For several years we’ve been buying the 18-gallon Sterilite plastic storage totes. They’ve offered the same grey tubs (item #1815) for years, and we’ve bought dozens of them. They sell for around $4 and are roughly 24 inches long, 18 inches wide, and exactly 15-3/8 inches tall. Because of this de facto standardization, I’ve built wooden shelves in my garage, in the basement and in most of our closets specifically sized for these tubs, with 16 inch spacing between the shelves for optimal storage efficiency. Almost everything we store is in these tubs.

About a week ago, I bought a bunch more since we’re doing some organizing. Tonight I went to put a tub of out-of-season clothes on one of the shelves and got a nasty surprise: the tubs have been slightly redesigned and are 3/4 of an inch taller. The lid is identical to the old model, and the stated capacity is still 18 gallons, but it’s now taller than my shelves. D’oh…

I’ve got a lot of shelves built for these tubs, probably about 40 tubs of storage capacity. My choices are to take the new tubs back and HOPE to find some (read: a lifetime supply) of the old ones, or do a ton of shelf rebuilding. I checked on Walmart’s website, and there are still some in stock, but not within 50 miles. Shipping is a possibility, but it’s a little pricey.

I guess there is a third choice: a grassroots effort to get Sterilite to return to the old design. Hopefully this inconsequential blog post, along with the nearly dozen people who will likely read it, will do the trick…

Over the past couple of weeks, there have a fair number of occasions where I thought someone was going to back out of a parking spot while I was approaching. Of course, I stopped to avoid get hit, but then I noticed that the driver is out of the car and walking toward the store.

Maybe I just haven’t been all that observant before, but what seems to be happening is that the clear reverse/backup lights on the rear of the vehicle are being turned on as a sort of courtesy light. My truck, for instance, leaves the headlights on for a minute after I lock the doors, which I assume is to illuminate my surroundings as I leave the vehicle. It’s a logical extension of the same principle to use the reverse lights for this purpose as well.

The problem is, reverse lights already mean something: the vehicle is in reverse. Moreover, when the reverse lights are used as courtesy lights, the brake lights and other tail lights are not on. What that means to me is: the vehicle is in reverse, AND the brakes have been released. In other words, “I’m coming back right now!”

The vehicle I can remember off the top of my head that exhibited this behavior was a Pontiac Torrent SUV. I don’t remember what the other vehicles were. Does anyone know what’s going on? This feature just seems like a really poor choice to me.

On a totally unrelated note, I’m going to wire my turn signals to flash with the beat any time my car stereo is on.

We use Packet8 for our home phone service. It’s an inexpensive VoIP service which provides 500 outgoing minutes for $15 a month. Today I received an email from Packet8 (now known as 8×8) which says:

8×8 will be discontinuing the Freedom Choice plan, and effective June 1, 2009, your plan will be changed to:
8×8 Freedom Unlimited Plan – $24.99/month

June 1st is monday… and they’re increasing my bill $10 for the privilege. To top it off, the Freedom Choice 500 plan still shows up on their website right now.

Since I just got the email 3 hours ago, there’s not much information on the net just yet. I’m hoping the straight story comes out pretty soon.

How long will standard NM 12-2 wire (like “Romex”) last if buried directly in the ground? Answer: about 11 years.

For past year or two, the GFCI outlet in our garage has tripped occasionally. We were never able to figure out exactly what was going on, despite lots of experimentation and replacing the GFCI outlet (in case it was faulty). The problem is, unfortunately, that our chest freezer is on the same circuit in the garage (there’s only one circuit in the garage…)

Well, on Friday, Dusty called me at work and told me that my homemade power outage alarm was going off. The GFCI had tripped again. We unplugged absolutely everything on that circuit, but the GFCI still tripped. This time I had an idea. It was pouring outside, and had been for some time. We have a post light in the front yard, installed by the original builders. They ran standard indoor wiring out through the garage wall, under a planting bed, under our front steps, and about 40 feet to the post light. I unwired the light and left the circuit open, but the GFCI still tripped. Finally, I disconnected the outside wire at the outlet, and lo and behold, no more ground faults… I deduce that the insulation on NM wire has decayed somewhere outside and has a ground fault when wet. I’ve never done any digging in that area, so I didn’t damage it.

Especially at the time the house was built, the proper UF wire (rated for underground) didn’t cost that much more than the NM wire. I used a whole bunch it when running power out to my shed, and it wasn’t too hard to work with. At this point, I need to run a new wire to my yard light, since that light is required by our local code. I’m going to either have to dig a 100ft trench to the breaker box or find a way to fish the new wire under the steps where the original wire is. If the installation had been done properly in the first place, I could have saved a lot of trouble…

On Friday, on the way to a camping trip, my family and I stopped at the Burger King in Wenona for lunch. We placed our order, then the kids and I sat down with our drinks as my wife filled hers. When she looked in her cup, there were large green and white chunks floating in there. She called me over to see, and I then discovered the same problem in the other cups too (which we had been drinking out of). I checked, and the junk was coming out of the ice, not the soda. It looked like mold to me.

I took the drinks up to the counter and complained. The guy running the counter was very polite and apologetic and got me new cups of ice from the untainted supply behind the counter. The staff at the counter started handing out cups pre-filled with ice to subsequent customers.

Here’s where it gets worse, though. About a half a dozen customers (either those who were waiting on their food or were already in the lobby) went up to the ice machine and got more ice from the tainted machine. I went up and warned each person about the problem, and most were disgusted but grateful for the warning. I went up to the counter and asked to speak to the manager. I told her that I really shouldn’t be the person warning people about the sanitation issue. Her response was that the ice was fine earlier, and that they’d take care of it when they weren’t busy. All I wanted was an “out of order” note to be placed on the machine.

The drink dispenser was the type that doesn’t make the ice itself. There’s a hopper on top that you have to dump ice in from the machine in the back. There was no lid on top of the hopper like there normally should be. I don’t know where the gunk came from, but without a lid on top, the possibilities are limitless.

I am now paranoid about fountain soda, and I’ve definitely lost my taste for the Wenona Burger King, if not Burger King in general. I wanted to file my complaint online at Burger King’s web site, like I’ve done for past incidents at other establishments, but on their site, there was no feedback form, no email address, and no postal mail address. All they provide is a consumer relations phone number. It’s a toll call, and I had to wait on hold for ten minutes. The associate on the phone was polite, took my complaint and forwarded it to the regional manager (or perhaps the assistant to the regional manager). I’m not anticipating any coupons or gift cards coming my way, since they didn’t take my address, just my phone number. At least if they call me back it will be on their dime.

Update: The manager of the store got my feedback routed to her. I wasn’t at home to take the call, but on the answering machine she apologized and offered a free value meal on my next visit. I didn’t call back, since I’m rarely in the area, and it’s certainly not worth a special trip for $6. I’m glad the feedback system worked, though.

This morning, I got out of bed, wandered in the dark to the bathroom, and dragged myself through shaving. As I got in the shower I couldn’t believe how tired I was and wasn’t looking forward to the day. I got out of the shower and headed toward the dresser for some clothes, but something didn’t seem right. When I moved my water glass out of the way of the alarm clock…

What… the… heck…

It was 1:21am.

I normally finish my shower around 6:30, so the fact that I only got two hours of sleep explained the discord. My wife woke up as I expressed my dissatisfaction, and before long the mystery was solved. Apparently, my wife said “Please shut off the TV. You forgot to set the sleep timer.” What I heard was “Get your butt out of bed and get to work.”

Going back to bed was never so refreshing.

Dear Homebuilder-

When installing an exterior door, don’t worry about using shims between the door frame and the rough opening for proper support. Three drywall screws on the hinge side only should be more than enough to attach the door into the opening. If not, the load-bearing ability of the exterior trim will suffice. When installing the header over the door, rather than sandwiching boards of the proper thickness to make a uniform piece the same depth as the opening, just fill the remaining void with a tube of clear caulk. That will make a great nailing surface for the exterior trim.

Additionally, rather than using expensive flashing and water-resistant building paper to form a proper drainage plane behind the siding, a whole tube of caulk between the brickmould and the vinyl J-channel should be good enough. After all, don’t all proper vinyl siding installations make use of lots of caulk?

Finally, when finishing the installation, why bother with insulation between the door and the opening – that’s what trim is for, right? When painting the trim, one coat of interior white paint should do the job. There’s no need to spend time with extra coats of primer. If, when removing the masking tape, some tape remains on the door, just leave it. I’m sure after ten years it will dissolve and fall off on its own anyway.

I hope these tips can be of value to you and help you cut costs to maintain your profits.

Sincerely,
Disgruntled Homeowner

P.S. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is how much more effort I put into doing things the right way building my kids’ backyard playhouse compared to the work of these “professionals.”

Tonight we went to Walmart for some necessities, and while we were there we got Evan a little treat. It’s an Aquadoodle Mini Mat with Thomas on it. It’s just a little pen that holds water along with a couple of coloring book pages. When you get the pages wet, the black and white pages turn colors.

Well, when we got home I tried to get it set up so Evan could play with it. All I had to do was fill the pen with water, which shouldn’t have been too hard. Evan was standing by waiting, patiently for the moment. According to the printed instructions on the pen, I just had to “twist cap to remove.” After several minutes of grunting I eventually resorted to a couple of pairs of pliers. Even then, I had to stop just short of shattering the plastic. Eventually, I discovered that they used right-hand threads… Turning it the other way quickly solved the problem.

I’ve slacked a little bit this year on filing my tax return, but I basically finished up tonight. I’m using the TurboTax online service, which guides you through the process of entering the numbers from your forms and finding deductions, etc.

As you enter your data, a little ticker displays your estimated tax refund/bill. As I went through, the number was WAY different than last year, and I had a pretty good idea that this year would be similar to last year. Nearly in tears, I found my final “refund” amount was going to be almost $8000 less than last year…

I discovered the problem was in entering my W2. In boxes 12a-12d, each have a “letter code” and an amount. Even though I’ve filed taxes for years, including the last 4 using this same system, there was a mistake this time. Box 12a defaulted to letter code of A, and box 12b defaulted to B. Sure, that looks fine, right? In fact, box 12b should have been code “D”, not “B”, so all the money I contributed to my 401k was being reported as “uncollected medicare tax on tips”, not “elective deferrals to 401k”. As a result, that amount was going straight to my tax bill, instead of reducing my taxable income.

Ok, disaster averted. I guess I’ll tell Evan he doesn’t have to go to that job interview tomorrow!

I’ve always been under the impression that Christmas, regardless of your religious affiliation, was a time of giving and goodwill toward your fellow man. Whereas Christmas might bring out the best in people, Christmas shopping certainly must bring out the worst.

In an attempt to get past some of the incidents of this Christmas shopping season and get back into the holiday spirit, here is a list of people who will be getting coal in their stocking this year.

Diagonal parking lot crosser:
One thing that has always bothered me is people who tear across a parking lot diagonally, without regard for those who travel properly within the lanes. Normally it’s not a big deal, but a couple of weeks ago, I made the mistake of pulling into a space at the end of a row (leaving a couple of empty spots like I always do). Apparently Ms. Diagnonal Crosser wasn’t happy that I’d blocked her way and proceeded to berate me from the safety of her car with the windows up. She appeared to be asking her male passenger to escalate the situation, but he declined.

Intersection blocker:
Sometimes we’re not paying attention and find that due to traffic we don’t have room to exit the intersection we’ve just entered. An unfortunate but honest mistake. Less forgivable are the folks who, seeing that the car in front of them has been trapped in the intersection, enter as the light turns yellow. After watching this happen for three lights in a row near the mall two weekends ago, I gave a short honk to the folks stopped in front of me preventing my turn. I was wrong though – they indicated to me (in various ways) that they were in fact victims, not perpetrators of this offense. My mistake.

Checkout line sore loser:
After waiting for several minutes behind a shopper dumbfounded by the self-scan machines at Walmart, Dusty noticed the next lane over was about to be vacated. I carried Evan to the line while Dusty wheeled our mostly empty cart behind me. This did please another customer (unseen by us) who rounded the corner as Dusty was pulling into position. She immediately entered verbal attack mode and proceeded begrudgingly to the line we had vacated. In fact, the lane she entered opened up before ours, but that didn’t stop her harassment as we left the store. Perhaps the most disappointing facet was the lesson she was teaching her kids.

Parking space squatter:
In a great mood from our encounter with the sore loser above, we headed out to the parking lot. Dusty loaded Evan into the car while I put our packaged in the back. Behind our car was an SUV driven by an able-bodied man, followed by several cars, blocking our exit. The cars behind him were honking as he waited for a family to reach their van, load up, and leave an empty spot for him. I stood at the back of the car with arms crossed and waited for a couple of minutes until he claimed his prize.

Slick road honker:
Last week the roads were a bit slick, and the snow plow crews really dropped the ball. We were out shopping and spent quite a bit of time standing still in traffic near the mall. When the drivers actually left the intersections passable, some cars had problems getting enough traction to get moving into the intersection, since the snow and slush tended to pile up there. The correct thing for drivers behind to do might have been to get out and help push the car to get it moving, or at least leave a little room for the troubled drivers to back up for a running start. One notable offender was a young couple in an old VW camper van. Not only were they honking at a front-wheel drive Chevy in front of them, but they also pulled right up less than a foot behind every time the car made progress. Eventually I, waiting to turn into that traffic (for 10 minutes), honked at the van and motioned for them to stop and leave the car a little room. They got the idea…

Cart flip watcher:
Yesterday I took Evan out and we picked up a few gifts. The parking lots were mostly clear but had snow, slush and hard packed ice in spots. When we were done, I put Evan in the truck and jogged with the cart the 40ft to the cart corral (which no one apparently uses when temperatures are under 40, but that’s another story…) I hit an unexpected patch of semi-soft snow into which the wheels of the shopping cart stuck. The cart came to an abrupt stop, but I didn’t. Some quick reactions and more than a little luck helped me vault over the cart and land on my feet. A girl 50ft away saw my trick and began laughing. Her family was kind enough to wait for me to stand up and say “Tada!” before joining in. Not a big deal, but making sure I was OK first might have been nice.

Ok, that’s all. Thankfully, there have been a number of nice people I’ve encountered, and I will say that Evan’s doing his part to spread Christmas cheer. Very few people can resist smiling when he runs up to them and says “hi!!!” We also made it through a couple of hours tonight without incident, which surprised me. All the same, I think I’ll be doing more Christmas shopping on Amazon.com next year…