Weekend Plans Post: Settling into the Summer
The punctuation of the summer begins with Memorial Day and now we’re in the groove. The AC is set up in the bedroom and the kitties are rediscovering that the box, while loud, is in the nice room where they don’t have to sprawl out in a straight line.
I’m in a place where not too much interesting is happening to me, but it’s all happening to Maribou. She’s visiting her relations in Canada for the first time since before the pandemic and so it’s my job to hold it down in Colorado Springs and make sure that the kitties are fed and their boxes are clean and they get somewhere around 10% of the pets that Maribou is able to bestow.
One of my friends has his wife out of town as well (though she gets back tomorrow) and so I’ll probably go over to his place tonight with a pizza and we can watch some mindless television while idly entertaining the girls.
Today Maribou’s new chair gets delivered, Tomorrow is a gaming night but it’ll be an off-night given that one of the D&D players is out of town, so we’ll play a board game or find something else to do, and Sunday is mine, all mine. (I’ll probably just goof off and maybe get my steps in.)
After a crazy four years of weird pandemic stuff, we’re still finding little things to claw back.
Each one is a small delight.
So… what’s on your docket?
We finally sealed up the house and turned on the AC this week. At our altitude, it isn’t so much the temperatures–it’s quite cool and pleasant when Sol finally stops beating down–as it it the pine tree pollen, which starts coating everything in a fine layer of yellow dust once the first really hot day hits. Now it’s just a waiting game until the next hard rain to wash it all away.Report
The pollen that looks like little tufts… is that cottonwood? That stuff is flying fast and furious around our house. AND STRAIGHT UP OUR NOSES.Report
Yeah, that’s from the cottonwoods. I don’t have any of those up my way, thankfully.Report
Man, it’s been a busy last two months. The youngest graduated, everybody in the house except me had a birthday (18/20/54), the big birthday was a 65+ person party that required me to get off my duff and finish a major landscaping project that’s been languishing pretty much since I got elected to the board, I got a summons for a deposition for a decision I disagreed with (long story), I’ve been trying to put out fires my fellow board members have set with decisions they’ve made recently, and now this weekend I’m reorganizing the garage.
Last year with a kid in K-12, last year on the board (coming off in December after the election), Kitty’s last year as Nuclear Grade Parent Volunteer, last year with kids in the house full time. We’re about to go through a very welcome major re-allocation of time.Report
Daaaaaaang. Let’s hope that the upcoming 4th of July has nothing but brats and burgers involved.Report
I bought a new truck already this weekend. The old truck got rear ended by a literal actual Mack truck, and despite appearances the insurance company decided a clean check was better than messy repair.
I started to apply my usual opening gambit with the dealers… and second call landed on a deal that was really surprising. On top of that they offered their ‘concierge’ remote buying option — which is just a digital link to eSign all the paperwork without the finance guy asking if I’d like the undercoating. The other awesome benefit was that we didn’t have to drive an hour to 1) Have the sales manager attempt to renege on the deal, or 2) sit for 2-3 hours waiting for the finance guy (because you wouldn’t renegotiate the deal).
Anyway, not sure what happened, but got a great deal on the exact same truck I had before and didn’t have to negotiate (much) or deal with dealership nonsense… just picked-up the car with all the paperwork signed via an app. The payoff is kinda small because my other truck was new-ish… so doesn’t feel like an upgrade or that whole new car experience. But after the horrors of trying to buy cars during the Pandemic chip shortages? Nirvana.
Almost feels like we don’t really need dealerships at all … just get a reasonable price and eSign all the paperwork.Report
Glad to hear you survived your run in with the truck. At some point I think consumer demand is going to finally tip the balance against all the dealership stuff. People are getting way too used to having anything they want dropped off at their doorstep for it to go on like this much longer.
Personally I have a weird love of the haggling, making a big show of walking out the door, waiting for the phone call 15 minutes later…. but I know it isn’t everyone’s bag. And it just kills an entire day, minimum. I also may have lost my step a little. My current vehicle was a good deal but not the great deal I’ve grown accustomed to. Maybe next time I’ll try the e shopping experience.Report
I don’t mind the negotiating so much… but I’ve switched to never going to the dealer to negotiate because once I’m there it’s harder to introduce other dealers. So now I do all the negotiating at my house. The ‘hardest’ part is getting the first nut to crack — their go-to counter is to ask you to come in — but once you have an ‘ok’ offer you can start probing the floor with other dealers. To get the first discount I tell my least favorite dealer that I’d like a 9% discount and I’m ready to buy today (which I am). Invariably they play amateur split the difference and that’s fine because now you have a bona fide 5% discount to try to work to 10%+ with other dealers (or whatever price you want to pay for the vehicle – depending on make/model of course).
In the Covid years, you would just hit a really really high floor really really fast.
What I really hate is waiting for the finance guy… which at times has felt punitive depending on the dealership; have waited 3 hrs after the deal was struck. So the *big* win here was the internet finance signatures… that’s something I’ll do every time now. Won’t leave my home until it’s picking up the car itself.Report
I admit to thinking that I was going to change my goals from “quarter million mile club” for the Yaris to “million mile club”. If it becomes easier to actually buy a car, that’s nothing but good news. (I had friends try to purchase an SUV during 2022 and I was one of the people who got the worst of the stories of the crap the dealers were pulling. Harrowing.)Report
I had been thinking about replacing my Honda Fit before we had to put my wife in memory care. That costs as much as a modest new car per year, even net of long-term care insurance, so I’ve reconsidered. Something electric. But no more than I drive, I probably can’t even justify it on carbon footprint. New car carbon cost, plus local power won’t be carbon-free for several more years vs. my modest (by US standards) gasoline usage. The Fit will be 16 in August. I make it a 50/50 bet whether I have to give up driving before it dies.Report
Maybe the upcoming Chinese vehicles will be good? Or am I getting into politics?Report
Too close to politics.Report
Yeah, as I noted above, check the dealer site to see if they offer ‘concierge’ buying experience. Since you live near civilization, they might even deliver the car to your house.
While I don’t think the buying experience is ‘good’ yet… I do think technology and buying patterns have caught up to the market so you don’t *have* to go to the dealer to buy a car — depending on the dealer.Report
AAA has for years offered a buying service, at least in some states. A number of companies advertise that you pick the car and the listed price from their web site and they’ll deliver it. Some will also make the deal for your trade-in, in which case the new car comes on a flatbed and they take away the old one.Report
Just about an hour ago I was dismayed to learn my girlfriend had no idea the phrase “more cowbell” is a thing. Now I have to spend the weekend pondering our relationship.
Tomorrow I’m going suit shopping for a wedding we’re attending in NYC in July. My nephew is turning 30 and there’s a cocktail party.
Hoping to sneak in some golf.
Now spinning ELO’s Out of the Blue.Report
30? He’s supposed to be 4 and talking about Legos!Report
I’m starting a new applied math project and am in the process of skimming technical journal papers, and reading a subset in detail. The non-political part is “Old mathematicians don’t retire, they just go amateur again.” The political part, about which I should do a separate post, is that an amateur mathematician on a retiree’s budget has to steal the papers via the Russians.Report
getting back to normal after
a. a freight derailment in Arkansas blocked the tracks for several days, requiring me to remake my train reservation for five days later than planned
b. the bigger thing? part of my elm tree came down a couple days before I got back. Took out the cable, ripped the phone box (yes I still have a landline) and the meter box for the electric off the house. O G and E uses super sturdy braided cable lines so it didn’t snap the line, but the line was down. It also – I found out later – cracked into the roof of the garage, damaging the decking and a couple rafters.
So I first had to have the power shut off to reduce the risk of fire (though I don’t know how long the line had been on the ground, I guess I got lucky). Then I had to hire guys to remove the downed three. Then had to hire an electrician to replace the meter. All this while I was staying in a local (not great) motel because it suddenly got into the mid 90s here and being in a house with no AC and not even power to run a fan didn’t appeal to me.
that took a couple days (Friday through Monday). Tuesday I finally got power back (after a few hiccups, communication mostly). Wednesday I got cable and internet back. Thursday I got the phone box put back up.
I still have to secure a roofer (or more likely, a carpenter, seeing the extent of garage roof damage) and also call the tree guys again to (on my own dime this time) take down the rest of the tree ‘cos I don’t want to do this again.
I will say my homeowner’s insurance has been good; they already paid me back (minus a deductible) for the tree cleanup and the electrical work. I submitted my hotel bill, and will have to submit the roof repair bills.
I restocked my freezer yesterday – just threw everything out because I knew I couldn’t trust it. Same with (most) of the fridge stuff that was still in there while I was gone (mostly cheese an a few spread-type things)
but I’m exhausted. That’s more being-an-adult than I really like, and FAR more dealing with phone trees and “phone representatives” of services who are not actually based in my town so if the call keeps getting dropped (as one did), there’s no way I could just go to the office and talk to a person’s face.
I am REALLY hoping my insurer doesn’t drop me for filing a claim. I expect my premiums will go up a good bit come this fall at least.
living in apartments sucks, I did that too many years. but sometimes owning a home sucks. I don’t know what the answer is, certainly going and living in the woods under a tree isn’t it…Report
Oh, dude. That truly sucks.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another. I am so sorry.Report