• goodbadi

    Electrical Resolution…?

    August 6, 2010

    The Southerner who had voted for the winning candidate in a primary election and who was interviewed today on an NPR newscast said of the Gospel-singer victor, “I know Gospel singers, and there are some real stinkers among them, but [the winner] is not one of them.”

    And then there are other ladies about whom such warm laughter comes not so easily.

    Take the landlady of the land adjacent to the western side of our property. She is stealing our electricity by refusing to pay for what her farmer tenant uses.

    Background: It’s not just a simple situation. See, the water for our house and for our neighbor’s barn (our house and the barn used to belong together) is pumped from a spring on the adjacent land. The pump is powered by electricity from the neighbor’s barn, and the barn’s electricity–for the pump, which the barn and we share, as well as for whatever else the farmer wants to use it for–comes from our house, through our meter. This means that we pay for whatever electricity the farmer uses. Unfortunately, short of us installing our own pump and water line, which we have rights to do per our deed (even though the western landowner has told us, “You will not put in a new line to the spring”), there is no way for us to separate completely the barn’s and our energy consumption.

    More background: Probably for years past, and certainly since we moved in fifteen months ago, the western landowner has not paid any money towards the electricity consumed by the barn in this arrangement. According to her, everything the farmer does with the electricity “doesn’t draw any current.” She never offered–and refused when asked–to compensate us even a little bit for any of it.

    Even more background: In the last months, the western landowner agreed to obtain her own power supply for the barn, with us continuing to power the pump for our house and the barn until we install a water line (that connects to the current line, mind you, not to the spring itself) and pump just for us. Neither of us has followed through.

    Now, as I’ve mentioned before, she is an interesting person to deal with. She used to own much of the land around here (including our house) and in her mind she still does. She’s sort of a localized Scarlett O’Hara.

    So here is my western landowner diary entry (yes, I keep a log of our interactions) for today:

    This morning a representative from our electricity cooperative telephoned regarding an unrelated issue, then said that she asked him to mention to us that since creating her own electrical hookup and account would require her to hire an electrician for some barn rewiring and would cost her a minimum $20 monthly account fee, she would be just as happy to pay the $20 per month to us and leave the electrical arrangement as it is.

    I thanked the gentleman, then called she. She was agreeable in every sense of the word, and suggested she pay in four-month installments.

    All good, right?

    Wrong.

    Two minutes later she called back to ask if she could start paying the first of the month.

    “You mean September?” I said.

    “Yes, since he’s not using any current now anyway,” she said.

    “He is using his electric fence,” I said.

    “That doesn’t draw any current,” she said.

    I reluctantly agreed to a September 1 start date, but soon found myself fuming. The $20 (minus her previous tenant’s plowing and mowing for us) she should have paid us for each of the months we’ve lived here already wasn’t even really the issue. It was the irresponsibility of her not even offering  or acknowledging that it would be just for her to pay for the electricity she and her tenant have been using at our expense that has had me fed up ever since we’ve moved in.

    I decided not to be a pushover. I called her back.

    “Would you consider adding $10 to the September payment to pay for the second half of August, too?” I asked. “Since the farmer is using electricity?”

    “No, I wouldn’t. That electric fence isn’t drawing any current, and I want to keep the payments monthly. And besides, the $20 is more than we’re using anyway.”

    [Now, this very well may be the case. I plan to reconsider the ethics of accepting that amount after I feel she’s paid off the electricity she’s already not paid for, and after I’ve done some metering to see just how much current does in fact go to the barn.]

    “He has been using the fence all summer,” I said. (I didn’t mention the radio he keeps also on as a theft deterrent sound polluter, which probably costs us fifty or maybe just five cents a month.) “You decide.”

    “Yes, I’ll decide, and whatever I decide will be fine,” she said.

    I thanked her and hung up.

    Good grief!

    I’ll believe and be extremely grateful for the reimbursement money from her when it starts coming, and I’ll feel justified in accepting it.

    And sooner or later I’ll find a way to humor this obstinate woman in a way that is both respectful to her and satisfying to my sense of justice.

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    Shameless Commerce: Upcoming Review of Rolling Duffel

    July 27, 2010

    Soon to be beheld here is yet another goodbadi shameless commerce exclusive review of a select item from CSN Stores, an online business from which you can buy a coffee maker or just about anything else household, including luggage.

    And speaking of luggage, I’ll let you know ASAP just how the Skyway Sigma 2 Rolling Gear Bag I’ve ordered checks out.

    Can’t wait? Same here.

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  • goodbadi

    Live Trap

    July 21, 2010

    Last Thursday my bro-in-law D and I visited the bar where my drummer and his other band were playing their funky metal really, really loud. I wore ear plugs, and was mightily impressed with both their effectiveness as well as the instrumentalistism of the band.

    I didn’t get home until crazy late, like 10:30, and the Pepsi I’d ordered up from the bartender was waning but still keeping me on my toes. As I unlocked the doors and opened up the house to let in some fresh air, down on the road a car stopped. I could tell someone was walking around, and I heard a voice say, “I got it,” before the car drove on.

    I get really nervous about things like that. Was somebody prowling around? I wondered. I hadn’t heard the person get back in the car, so I ran upstairs for the big and heavy flashlight I bought with last year’s birthday money.

    I stood on the porch and shined my light around but didn’t see anyone or anything else down at the road. Then, what I felt was the same vehicle drove by again, the other way, and I watched from behind one of our pretentious pillars for suspicious activity, but of course it was dark, so nothing stood out.

    That didn’t mean I wasn’t still on edge, though. I ate a bedtime snack on the porch and kept my flashlight handy before I headed to bed, my jumpy spirits calming only slightly, largely due to the reassuring presence of the driveway gate I put up last summer.

    But the next morning I discovered that I’d forgotten to shut the gate after coming home (so much for that barrier to invasion). I also discovered what my flashlight hadn’t made obvious: the live trap in which four groundhogs, a possum, and a skunk had met their ends and which I hadn’t set for several weeks but had left in place down by the groundhog hole on this side of the stream bed which is on the house side of a sturdy pasture fence was very much gone.

    It must have been a premeditated act of theft, as the trap was only visible from the road in the daylight. Those buggers had seen it and come back for it.

    I was a bit nervous, going away for the weekend. Our corn was about ready to pick, and our house certainly isn’t burglar proof, and my tools are just out in the shed out back.

    Thankfully, though, nothing else (that I remember having had) was gone when we returned. And I came back with some tremendous suggestions for dealing with the hooligans, including this one: put another live trap as bait into a really, really big live trap.

    Hmmm.

    Anyway, the corn survived, and today we processed and froze 235 ears. Whew!

    I actually enjoyed the ordeal a bit, after getting over my frustration at the looming fact of being trapped in a cycle of harvesting and storing food–what a wonderful problem to have–but not getting to do other projects.

    That’s a good live trap.

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  • goodbadi

    Better Than An Emmy

    July 21, 2010

    We’re not into TV, anyway, so having no Emmy isn’t a big deal. But here’s what N had to say to M last evening as we processed corn and listened to loud bluegrass music, at that moment Alison Krauss.

    N pointed to the stereo and said, “Mommy, it’s like you.”

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    Shameless Commerce: The Slow Cooker

    July 11, 2010

    Yesterday was destined to be full of struggles meriting exclamatory retaliation. I guess because I subconsciously knew I would need a preventative mouth-washing, I accidentally put A and D ointment (that’s what we use for diaper cream around here) on my morning toothbrush.

    But the day turned out much better than that, and even when I hit my finger with a hammer (with some good help, I made a lot of progress on the shed I’m building out of free materials) the A and D kept my language utterly pure.

    Besides the construction work, I cleaned the chimney and wood stove, harvested Japanese and June beetles, made a killer apricot crisp for dessert, and finally pulled out our new Hamilton Beach 7-quart slow cooker encased in smudge-proof stainless steel.

    I’d been given the slow cooker to review by an online store that also sells tons of other stuff, too. (I had to write a teaser post that included a link to whatever particular store they’re promoting and then I got to choose an item to review. They give me this “unique opportunity,” I guess, to boost their standing in internet search results listings and get “grassroots” promotion.)

    Anyway, to test the new slow cooker’s prowess, I decided I needed to work it, baby, so with our after-church lunch just 20 hours away, I got busy.

    First, I sizzled nearly two and a half pounds of salted and peppered ground beef along with several onions, lots of minced garlic, and a generous splash of olive oil. Once the meat was all browned, I stirred in about two and a half pounds of spaghetti sauce and several sliced zucchinis, and then, in the slow cooker crock, layered that with almost a whole box of raw lasagna noodles, just over a pound of grated mozzarella cheese, and a pound of cottage cheese. The slow cooker is a seven-quart monster, but my lasagna conglomeration filled it to less than an inch from the top.

    We’re talking some heavy serious business, here. I put it in the refrigerator.

    At 5:10 this morning I awoke and pulled the crock from the refrigerator and let it warm up on the counter. At 6:40, I dropped it into the cooker and turned it on “high.” As the smell of burning newness merged with and then was overcome by the smell of lasagna cooking, I went about my other business of the day. At 9:00, then, I loaded my culinary offering in a corner of the trunk, the cooker lid (with its okay-to-grab-when-hot-knobby-handle) strapped on by the convenient bungee-cord thing designed for keeping things intact en route. (At church one lady said, “Oh, that strap is so convenient!” It works, too.)

    At church I plugged the cooker in, set it on “low,” and listened to the morning service; then, during Sunday school, I switched it back to “keep warm.” (Total cook time: two hours on high, two hours on low.)

    Then we had lunch. The noodles were a bit mushy, but our friend DC made appreciative gestures over the lasagna and even though our church is small and there was plenty of other foods to eat, too, now I have just a little lasagna left, maybe enough for our supper tonight, if we eat light.

    The bottom line: The slow cooker with its simple temperature selections, handles that allow it to be lifted, and a handy bungee thing, works as a it should. And I make a solid lasagna.

    Before actually going out and purchasing any goodbadi-reviewed item, please email goodbadiblog@gmail.com to confirm that the reviewed item’s features include longevity.

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    Shameless Commerce: Musician’s Friend Rocks

    July 3, 2010

    Please note: This is not only an unsolicited review of service; it is also an account of merciless bargain hunting.

    There’s nothing like an online mega retailer to make my day. Or week.

    See, I’d been checking out PA system packages for our band, and then, once I’d narrowed my search, I sat idly by while waiting for a sale to come my way. Last Saturday, one finally tempted me, from musiciansfriend.com: $50 off orders of $250 or more.

    My order would be $700, though–so after I thought about it, $50 really didn’t sound that great. But oh! I thought to myself. What if I divided my order into two smaller orders? I called my sister, who agreed to place the second order.

    Alas, the Internet order form wouldn’t recognize the sale promo code as attempted by my sister, so I ended up calling the store direct, then realized I would have to call from my sister’s phone with her credit card, and so on and so forth.

    “Why don’t you just ask them if you can use the sale promo code twice yourself?” M asked. “You know what Mma Ramotswe always says: just ask if there’s something you want to know.”

    I called the store back: “Can I use the promo code on more than one order?”

    “How many orders do you want to make?”

    “Two.”

    “That’s fine.”

    Yippee! I thought, and stayed up late placing two orders, one for $250.77 (the $50 off meant a savings of 20%) and one for $449.99 (again $50 off, but this time a saving of only 11.2%).

    I was pleased as punch–I’d gotten a $700 system for just $600, and with all free shipping, at that. Terrific!

    But then on Monday when I checked the mail, I found a one-time-use postcard from the same, dear musiciansfriend.com for 20% off my next order.

    Hmmm, I thought. If I would have applied this postcard instead of the original sale to my $449.99 order, I’d have saved an additional $40. I called the store back:

    “I know my order has shipped already, but can I cancel the original sale promo I used in that purchase and replace it with the postcard code?”

    “I’m afraid not,” the lady said.

    “Oh, shucks,” I said. “I was hoping that maybe your 45-day, best-price guarantee would apply.”

    “I don’t know. Let me check.”

    And after five minutes on hold, I was informed of a re-crediting my credit card for the $40 difference.

    Now I was really elated–and when the sound system arrived on Wednesday, I was one excited puppy (no, I didn’t pee all over everything).

    But my story hasn’t ended  yet. The next day, researching one feature of my new purchase, I came across a price markdown for an additional item that I’d thought about buying but ruled out as “potentially great but not necessary.”

    I wonder, I thought…and sure enough, the “one-time-use” 20% off postcard promotion still worked on the marked-down price.

    We plan to test the system in the coming week, so we’ll see if it performs as great as I feel about the whole purchasing experience.

    Before actually going out and purchasing any goodbadi-reviewed item, please email goodbadiblog@gmail.com to confirm that the reviewed item or service features include longevity.

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