Category Archives: ToRn’s Posts

Nominate me for “EBay’er of the year”?

I do not use EBay often; maybe 30 times over the last 3 years but when I do buy something 9 times out of 10 I will just use the “Buy Now” feature since I hate waiting to see if I have the winning bid. I normally make sure I am getting a good deal and make sure I can’t get what I want at a store for the same price.

Today I wanted to get 2 Xbox controllers so the kids will all be able to play games at once, I find 2 new ones for $10.05 and $14.95 in shipping and handling which I thought was a good deal, as I am pay for them I see the seller is also in Florida so I also have to pay 6% tax which is no biggie.

Now for the “good part”…

As I get my receipt of payment I see the sellers address is 2.5 miles from me… and it is a game store…. So I paid $15 in shipping when I could have spent $4 in gas and got them today.

Sigh….

So that is the reason for my lack of updates. Weather has been good for the most part, high 80’s low 90’s but the wind is still coming from the East so we are still covered with dust and now the odor of sewage since they are working on the sewage pipes at the construction site. Joy…

Still no word on if we have to move or not, I spoke to the landlord last week and they was meeting with the home owners today or tomorrow to discus it so I will call Monday or Tuesday if I have not heard from them. He seems to think living on a month to month lease is a great thing. I see it as what happens when we are in Seattle for 10 days and when we get back we have 20 days to pack, find a new place and move.

I estimated it would be $10,000 at least to have a moving company move us to Washington/Oregon and at least $5000 to $8000 to do it ourselves which the idea fills me with dread, but if I have to and that is the only way we can move to where we want to be, then we will do what we will have to do.

The idea is to rent a large Uhaul and tow our truck while Pauline drives a rented RV behind me with the cats. The main reason for this is, it is about 3500 miles from here to Seattle, at 65 MPH at 12 hours that’s about 780 miles which if we could keep up that pace would take us at least 4.5 days to drive it, add all the stops we will be making since Pauline is not the best traveler and with 2 cats who HATE cars it would be best on them and us if we could let them have room to roam and we could also do some small site seeing on the way and not have to worry about finding a hotel with space to park a 26’moving van and trailer like I had the last time when I drove to FL.

The hotel I had booked was too packed to pull in the parking lot so I had to leave it and find another hotel which turned out for the best since it was in a BAD part of Columbia SC. Which really didn’t matter since the cats would not let me get any sleep when we did get a hotel 40 miles later and after 4 hours of laying there I packed back up and hit the road and eventually pulled off into a rest stop and cat napped in a jam packed Uhaul cab with 3 cats a bright sun and crappy A/C.

So the idea of knowing we would have room to chill, a bed, a shower of any sort and a place to eat as well as more room for the cats is a good thing. Of course the RV will cost about $2500 not including gas which I’m sure will push it up over $3500 so we are back at the $10,000 area to move.

Yep, that is a lot of money, but if all goes well, we should be able to pull it off, if not we will of course have to stay here until we do. If that isn’t motivation then I don’t know what is.

I’ve never been one to “settle down” and it does bother me that I never seem “happy” with where I live, but I am hoping that as I grow older I will feel more comfortable with where I am and actually get a social life, maybe that is the secret?

Crap!

Friday afternoon I go outside to take a break and I notice the pool pump is not making its normal sound, so I look it over and notice it is not pumping water and I shut it off and call the pool guy. Pool guy calls me 6 hours later and says he may stop by Saturday. About 6pm Saturday he shows up looking like this is a 1 min job so he won’t be bothered to bring his tools and of course, tells me he needs his tools.

Comes back Monday and spends 4 hours tearing it apart and tells me it needs a new gasket and he will be back tomorrow, Tuesday he is here 4 more hours and finally gets his saw and cuts the pump off the lines and tells me it had a leak and all needs replaced and he will be back Friday…. Maybe.

Today and Tomorrow Pauline has off and our plans were…. Yep, pool and laying in the sun all day. Now I have a nice green cement pond in the back yard that is just a few days away from having its own eco system complete with fish and alligators…

What bugs me the most, is when this all happen, I told him I saw what looked like a leak and he blew me off and guess what part he ends up cutting out? It also rubs me wrong that it has taken so much time, his main thing he tried was just turning the pump on/off a few dozen times, then after hours of this he started to take things apart. We also live less then 1 mile from no less then 3 pool supply stores so it rubs me wrong that he did not just go get what he needs and finish the job.

Why will people not go the extra mile anymore?

I’m ok…. Really I am…. I AM DANGIT NOW LET IT GO!!!! Sheesh….

Been pretty nutty here this past week, spent a few hours cleaning the house Sunday due to all the dust from the construction site which I notice today didn’t matter and was just time wasted so we get to do that again.

And now we have to plan on finding a new place to live of course, but I have too much on my plate this week so I will worry about that next week.

I got a nice crunch bench this week, got it online, I tried to get the same thing at a local sports store, but when I asked guy #1 who was working there where I go to get the box, he looked around, asked guy #2 who said they was out as he walked away and then guy #1 looked at me and said “we are out” and quickly walked away so I was standing there dumbfounded….

I go to the front desk and asked for a manager and sure enough…. Turned out to be guy #1… so I laughed and told him what I thought of his customer service and that I would not be back which turned out for the best since I found the exact same thing for $30 cheaper including shipping online

Ho hum…. Not much else to add.

I am in a pretty crappy mood lately, no desire to do any work, but I have so much work that I have to get done so that makes it worse and now today I cant seem to “wake up”. I woke up just after 8am but laid down in bed at 930am for about 20 mins but did not sleep and then at 1030am I laid on the couch for another 15 mins or so and again did not sleep so I do not think I need sleep, I think I am in just a crappy mood.

We got some somewhat disturbing news this week, I went to pay rent and asked the landlord for another years lease and he told me the owner asked him to ask us if we wanted to buy the house. I said no since honestly we do not want to own another house, and also do not want to stay in Florida any longer then 3 to 5 years and June ‘07 will be 3 years. But what upset me the most was she wanted to sell which means we either have to move before we wanted to and/or there will be a shit load of people coming and going to look over the house.

We had our house on the market for over 8 months in Indiana, and we had people looking at the house 2 to 4 times a week for almost 7 months straight and having to clean and put away all personal effects and then leave for 1-2 hours every time while people look in your closets takes a huge amount of effort which honestly I do not think we have right now. So we are at a cross road, move at the end of the lease or wait it out and see how bad it gets and then move which would be more stress.

We are on good terms with our landlord/company so I know they will be willing to find us a new place if we needed it, but even as run down as this place is; we do like living here, which makes it worse. This is a great rental, just not something I would want to own.

Last year when we had all the A/C issues the home owners brother, who owns his own A/C business was the one to do all the work, and he and I became friends, so when I heard that his sister wanted to sell, I called him (she lives out of the country) to see if he knew anything on how badly she wanted to sell and that was the first he heard of her wanting to sell. So he called her and she confirmed she wanted to sell and he told me last night he would have her contact me. (We spoke last year on other issues) Pauline and I want to know how serious she is on wanting to sell, is this something she will be “gung ho” on and try to do as quickly as possible or will she just put it on the market and see if anyone wants it.