BLARG! An eBay seller to avoid.

You might remember a couple weeks ago when I complained about the NRV pip in one of my Tilley lanterns failing. I think I'd mentioned then that it was the second one which had done it to me, well now I can report a third.

This one was in fact the rubber pip that shuts the lantern off. See how its all swollen with fuel. When new it would just barely protrude from the cup, now it wont allow fuel flow so the lantern won't light. When I tried to pull the pip out of the cup it tore apart, the rubber was just saturated with kerosene. The irritating thing is that the eBay seller I got the pips from denies theres anything wrong with them and now won't even reply to my messages.

Since the seller refuses to make things right I have no problem calling him/her out, so for the record don't buy a Tilley service kit from hootflipflopandfly on eBay, the pips will swell up in the presence of kerosene which is the proper Tilley fuel. The pips are poorly shaped and don't fit particularly well in the  cups anyway. They were made with a cheap cutter and show significant hour glassing which leads me to believe they were homemade even though the seller claims they are "Genuine Tilley". Instead go to Harbor Freight and buy a punch set, then order a sheet of proper Buna-N rubber from McMaster Carr, you'll have enough material to make a lifetime of Tilley pips. I've had my sheet of rubber since 2013 and have used only a small corner of it.

I HATE US Air

This is a boarding pass, in about 6 hours its going to let me go home. I COULD be going home right now, theres a flight home right now. I think I just watched it head to the runway. Theres an empty seat on it, a seat I could have been in but US Air hates me.

To be fair US Air is just greedy and stupid. They want $200 for a change fee, a $35 ticketing fee AND some unknown quantity of money if the fare for that flight was different than the exorbitant (Portland, Maine to Washington D.C. for more than my last trip from Boston to LA) price I paid for the later flight for me to change to the earlier flight. There are two things that really burn me, first the $35 ticketing fee. Thirty-five bucks to print a five cent ticket. Then they can't even tell me in advance how much the final price will be. Until I agree to spend $235 I can't find out if the final price will be $235 or $500 or who knows. I didn't think to ask but I bet if the earlier flight is cheaper I don't get any money back...

When I was done with a completely fruitless discussion the unhelpful gate agent ended with "This is capitalism at its best." which is wrong, this is capitalism at its greedy stupidest.

Fact A: It would have cost US Air nothing to put me on that flight.

Fact B: If I were on that flight I'd be a happy customer and would promote US Air which is a "goodwill" as it is I'm upset with US Air and will badmouth them at any opportunity which is an "Opportunity Cost".

It could be argued that US Air could resell that open seat, however I was at the ticketing agent at 2pm which left me just enough time to get through security and get on the plane. Someone at home could NOT have made that flight but they could make the later flight and could potentially have taken my seat. Which brings me to

Stupid fact C: I would have been willing to pay a reasonable change fee. I'd call it a "convenience fee" and would have paid even $100 but I will not pay "an amount to be determined later", thats what I call "a scam".

This is not my first irritating run in with US Air, in fact I think I've had maybe 2 trips with US Air over the last 11 years (my professional traveling career) that weren't marred by some stupidity:

Example 1: My first trip to Las Vegas during which it took 16 hours to get the Las Vegas. US Air claimed this was due to "weather delays" however NO OTHER AIRLINE was reporting weather delays in either Boston or Philadelphia, the other city I was traveling through.

Example 2: My first return from Las Vegas which took 24 hours due to "the pilot's seatbelt is broken." So poor maintenance... This was when I swore off traveling on US Air but sometimes its unavoidable.

Example 3: Overbooked flight in Charlotte, they asked for volunteers to move to the next flight without mentioning that all the flights for the next WEEK to Boston were overbooked. I fought hard and stayed on my flight. Somebody got royally screwed on that one.

Example 4: While I was on a flight from Boston to Philadelphia they canceled my next leg to Cincinnati. US Air offered to fly me in 24 hour hours late. I pointed out that I could DRIVE TO CINCINNATI and get there more than 12 hours sooner. They eventually got me to Cincinnati a mere 20 hours late.

Example 5: Failure to check-in. I'll admit on this one I arrived at the airport a little on the late side but I normally don't check a bag and can get through security pretty quick but their check-in system was broken and I literally couldn't get a boarding pass so I missed the flight. A US Air employee came through on this one and got me on a United flight direct when my original flight had a stop in the dreaded Philadelphia and I got home a mere 2 hours late.

Its worth noting here that US Air has some good people, it just seems that the corporate culture is one where the policy is to be followed at all costs and very little flexibility is allowed.

Example 6: Broken APU, this happened on my flight to Washington just last weekend. APU is "auxiliary power unit" its an extra engine that starts the plane. The lack of one made the flight 2 hours late and meant we had no heat on the flight a fact they didn't make us aware of until the end of the flight. Recognize that at 30,000 feet the outside temperature is around -50F so it was getting pretty chilly inside the plane by the time we arrived. Fortunately the flight was only an hour and a half long. Another case of poor maintenance on US Air's part...

Frankly I hope US Air goes bankrupt but I recognize that is being run by a bunch of idiot MBAs whos only idea about how to run a business revolves around "screw the customer, maximize shareholder value." which seems to be the thing for all businesses these days.

Something NOT to buy

One of the reasons I started blogging was to give myself a space to review things and mostly for that I've reviewed cars, here's something different:

I picked up this bag of Schultz Potting Soil Plus at Tractor Supply last spring. I wanted to use it to start plants in the house. The bag says "A rich mix of sphagnum peat moss, perlite, composted organic material and a wetting agent" which as near as I can tell means a little peat moss mixed with what could best be termed "mulch" but seems to be wood chips, and some little pellets of some magic chemical. What it seems to do mostly is nothing. About 1 in 30 seeds actually germinated, those that did were spindly and barely grew.

In about July I put some of the mix into a hole in my front yard, in September it looked like this:

Remember I said it looked like much? Thats what it looks like on the ground... Notice how weeds won't even grow on it. I've got 2 other spots in my yard I put this stuff on and those are dead zones too.

I found an Amazon review for the same stuff in a different bag: http://www.amazon.com/Schultz-Purpose-Potting-Soil-20140/product-reviews/B000HAAO04 which mostly echos my experience.

I'm going to write a note to Schultz on their website but don't expect much.

Yahoo mail blows it again

Do any of you use Yahoo mail? I have for years, lately it seems like Yahoo goes out of their way to piss off the users. Just last night they instituted another change so now each email is previewed in the subject line. This makes the subject like all cluttered and ugly.

Yahoo started pissing me off last summer when they canceled classic mail and required the new interface which I hate. Its much slower and crashes. All I need my email to do is show me my messages and let me reply. I don't need a happy ending that crashes half the time anyway.
A lot of my friends say "go to Gmail!" as if it were the greatest thing since sliced bread but honestly I don't like gmail at all and I hate the way Google automatically sorts my mail for me.

Its weird right? I've got very simple needs in my email:
Show me the messages in a list (NO conversations, I hate those)
Allow me to reply
Let me sort mail into folders
Let me search those folders.

Yahoo really falls down on that last one, today I wanted to search by keyword "verizon" because I couldn't remember the username for my Verizon account. The problem is that Yahoo kept providing every message I'd ever gotten from anybody with a Verizon email account. They also provided every REPLY I'd ever given to anybody with a Verizon account and every email from my trash. What a dumb system, it should show me my replies and my trash last if at all...

I could of course use an email reader like Thunderbird but I like having webmail because I use many computers through the course of the day. In the end I may end up writing my own email service. The old saw comes true, "If you want something done right you need to do it yourself"

Rats!

Somedays you're the windshield, some days you're the bug...

Tim texted me Sunday with a good looking lantern, big hat, nickle base. I said "Get it!" which he did. Today he delivered, what a deal right?
I think its a 220C. With 5 and 5 on the bottom it could well be a war year lantern.

This afternoon I was fortunate to have a little time on my hands and started to disassemble. The burner tubes are missing but I've got a couple from a parts lantern. The air tube is tweaked a little but not enough to really bother anything. Needs new valve packing and has an interesting square valve stem.

Finally I get the burner frame and collar off and...
Yup, the hole goes right through. Gives an interesting insight into what the innards look like but means this fount is trash.

Its clearly a drilled hole but why is it there? My only theory is that somebody drilled it in preparation for converting this lantern to electric. The odd thing is there really ought to be another hole out the bottom. Did they run the cord out the fuel cap? Its the wrong one for this lantern.

All this explains the slipshod quickie way the lantern was reassembled and probably the missing burner tubes too.

Oh well, at least I didn't pay a lot.

Wow...

Now I've seen everything.

Of course every time I say that I remember that I've said it before and weird random crap keeps coming up so without further intro check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPRditi7AQk

Yeah "elevator photography since 1993" thats what I'm talking 'bout. Dude goes and rides in elevators. Whoda thunk anybody would care? Then again who would think I'd have 25,000+ views of me playing with lanterns and stoves. Theres something for everybody I guess.

Monetizing

A month or so ago YouTube offered to monetize my videos. This is pretty awesome, in that ads will appear in my videos and I'll get a couple cents any time anybody clicks them. You may notice that ads appear here too. Again if somebody clicks an ad I get a couple cents. So far I've got just over $6, whoop-dee-doo.
It turns out YouTube is even less likely to make me rich, after a month I was getting pretty impatient for ads to show up and the money to start rolling in so I did some more digging. YouTube doesn't go out of their way to tell you this but apparently not only do you have to tell YouTube to monetize your video AND you have to have a Google Ad Sense account AND you have to agree to give YouTube some of the money since they host the video THEN you have to sign up as a YouTube partner. This last bit is in small print down at the end of a page...

*Sigh* I just want to make enough money I can quit my job and live a life of leisure making lantern videos, is that too much to ask? ;)

Stupid Verizon

Verizon sure wants to sell maintenance contracts but that somehow makes me want to cancel my service...
So every time it rains our phone service goes out. Dead air, no dial tone, busy signal if you try to call in. DSL still works and as thats the same line it seems reasonable to assume the problem is not within our house... Verizon's automated system doesn't want to hear about that though, they want me to know that since I don't have a maintenance plan it might cost $91 just to get somebody to my house.

The good thing is they can be here tomorrow. The bad thing is that he'll be here between 9am and 4pm and I need to be here to let him in...

I've been getting survey calls lately. Generally they're right wing political surveys among the questions:

Do you consider yourself a Republican? No
Do you consider yourself a Democrat? Not particularly, no.

I'm sure they have no idea what to make of me back at survey headquarters. The thing is that I don't see the world in such a black and white Republican/Democrat kind of way.

For one thing I'm generally fiscally conservative and pro small government. On the other hand I recognize the need for social programs...
I'm pro choice but I'm also pro gun.
I'm for fast cars but I think we should raise fuel economy standards.
I'm against drilling in ANWAR but I think nukes are probably a good idea.

I'm all for wind power even if it means wind turbines obscure some rich bastard's view a little bit. but I realize it isn't going to solve our energy needs.

I find it interesting that both sides will assume you're with them and they are RIGHT. That your reading their propaganda (and make no mistake it is propaganda) means that you automatically agree. Which I think means something about the real usefulness of propaganda but I'll let you think about that one on your own.

Looking for friends?

Are you sitting home lonely because nobody ever emails you?

Heres what you do, buy something from Harry and David. Heck maybe you should just do that anyway, Moose Munch is tasty but when you do be prepared for the DELUGE of emails Harry and David is gonna send you. 2-3 a day is not unusual, you'll be reminded that Christmas is "just around the corner" and they'll tell you about all the good crap they've got that you might want to buy...

On second thought you could order from Figi's, its cheaper, the shipping is faster and they don't send you a stack of emails...