Recovery

I never quite got around to posting this over the holidays, but I saw the pictures tonight and thought I would do it.

It turns out sometimes I do unplug from my computer. I actually try to do it as often as possible (although not as often as I might like, especially during the arctic winter). I make a habit to only check once in the morning and before bed on weekends, and I try not to use it at all during the night while I am home with the kids.

I'm very glad when I find new tasks to try and do that aren't computer-related also. Expanding my knowledge of varied other topics is very refreshing.

When we moved into our current house, we bought a new dining set that happened to come with upholstered chairs. At the time we knew that probably wouldn't mix well with our kids, but the set works really well with our house. Less than 2 years later, the seats were completely trashed and looked horrible.

Since I like new challenges, and I don't like money coming out of my wallet, I convinced my wife that her idea of recovering the chairs was a good one, but I should do it myself. I kept saying I would eventually do it, but then she used the fact that we were hosting Christmas dinner as a reason I should speed up the process. Couple that with my nearly 3 week vacation from work, and I made it happen.

In reality, it only took me 2 nights to get all 6 chairs recovered. I needed very few tools and things to make it happen. I borrowed an electric staple gun, bought a nice pair of scissors for cutting the fabric, and some very nice leather-like fabric from a local fabric store.

Here is a gallery of some before and after pictures. I can't say I'm a master upholsterer yet, but I will say they look far better than before, and even better than when we originally got the chairs.

Who's Fault?

Sometimes, even the best stores can be a pain.

Amazon is far and away my favorite online retailer. That means I can pretty safely say they are my favorite retailer period too. However, I was a bit annoyed when I had to return something.

I recently ordered something, and inadvertantly ended up with 2 in my cart. Because I was using a gift certificate it didn't dawn on me as quickly that I was paying too much either. All mostly my fault.

When I received the package I immediately realized the error. My handy included packing slip indicated that for a full refund I could simply visit their returns site. After clicking on recent orders, and choosing exactly which item I wanted to return, I had to choose a reason. "No problem", I thought, "I'll just choose the 'Accidentally Ordered Duplicates' option, or something similar." No, that was not even close to one of the options:

So, at first I selected the first option. I didn't really order the wrong item, just too many, but I figured this was the closest. However, while I would receive a refund in that case, they stated that I would have to pay shipping costs (prepaid USPS, but they would deduct the shipping from my refund amount).

This probably should have been acceptable to me, but since I didn't pay for shipping in the first place, I was annoyed. So, I began choosing other options to find out the varied outcomes. It turns out that if I simply claim I didn't like the item (as displayed in the image above), they'll cover the shipping costs. Hmm.

So, if you end up needing to return something to Amazon, this is apparently the route to go.

Albums of 07

Ryan switched up a bit from our 5 of the now format, and gave us his favorite full albums of last year.

I'll admit, I'm as big of an album fan as him. As much as I like just finding new music, and skipping around in my playlist, I'm still thoroughly impressed and amazed when I find an album that truly works from start to stop. This should be obvious I guess, Floyd never put out anything as a single that wasn't ten times better within the context of the album.

I had to stretch a bit to figure out my 5 favorite of last year. I can't say it was the best year for the album, but these were all at least ones that earned repeat from me. Also, this is a list of albums I enjoyed this year, not necessarily albums released this year.

1. Shooter Jennings - The Wolf
Yeah, this probably seems obvious, I'm a huge Shooter fan. That said, even I was amazed how much I liked this album. It just grew even better over time. Hands down his best effort yet. See you in August, Shooter.

2. Timbaland - Timbaland Presents Shock Value
This stretches the concept of album a bit. The amount of collaboration here makes it difficult to get a consistent theme going...or does it? The consistent theme here is Timbaland's continued incredible production value. That and the fact that I kept finding a new track to be my favorite. "Bounce" is the current one - Missy and Dre along with JT, that's just good business.

3. Z-Trip - All Pro
Old-school hip-hop masters, with some nice metal behind it. Where was this in high school?

4. Aesop Rock - Fast Cars, Danger, Fire, and Knives
This album and I had some difficult times. I often referred to this as the devil album, due to it having superhuman DRM from iTunes somehow. I also thought that it wasn't nearly as good as some of his former or his current album. I was wrong, it just took some time.

5. Various Artists - Lost in Translation Soundtrack
Yes, this is fairly old at this point. I just finally got around to watching this movie this year though, and then getting the soundtrack. RZA is a master minimalist.

First Post

...of 2008 that is. Only 366 days to go until the end of the year, time to get going on your yearly plans.

Let's start with some news from 2006. That was the original year when analog TV was supposed to be done. However, it really looks like it will finally happen in 2009.

For quite a few years I was rather annoyed by the government's plan to supply converter boxes to those who needed them. I wasn't sure that television should qualify as a basic need that should be assumed to be provided by the government. Actually, in this day and age (probably aided by the fact that I don't have television service) I think the Internet is a much more valuable and basic need. As a matter of fact, that's where I watched the 2007 countdown live from New York.

Back to the point, it turns out the the cost of converter boxes is just a cost of business associated with the government's overall plan. That cost is a drop in a bucket compared to what they intend to make by selling off the returned analog frequencies.

Thus far, they have attempted to implement this whole process by providing silly $40 coupons to people who request them, up to 2 per household. I say if you have any need for this at all, go take advantage of this offer.

The site appears to be having issues today, but here it is for reference.