29 December 2007
27 December 2007
Christmas Wrapup
Another busy busy Christmas is in the books. Well, not completely. We still have a family Christmas party on Saturday down in Illinois. It should be a ball, the family white elephant gift exchange is always an interesting present experience.
For Christmas, we did our normal Christmas tradition. On Christmas Eve we exchanged presents, we went to her church for the late night service, and packed up the house in preparations for driving down to Illinois for visiting my family for Christmas. Let me tell ya how thrilled I was about getting up and driving to Illinois at 4am. Yea, not a huge fan of mornings. The upshot of that was all 4 dogs were tired and slept most of the way down. Unlike on the way back when the puppy was on a mission to get into my lap while I was driving. He's cute, I'll give him that. But he can be a bit annoying at times. Puppy + Lap + Driving = a challenging, but cute, driving experience.
(By the way, the puppy is up for adoption: http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=9934223
we are fostering him right now before he finds his permanent home.)
Upon arrival at home, the cats were happy to see us. Not so happy to see the dogs of course. I bet they were hoping we would "forget" them somewhere so they could have the house to themselves. The present they gave the house for Christmas was to use something in the living room as a toilet. Not sure what they relieved themselves on (it wasn't the litter box), but it smells like its near the couch. Bad kitties. The house gave us a Christmas gift too, a clogged drain. The main line going out of the house is clogged. again. So the water from the washer found it's way to wander over the basement floor. This time, I am not going to hire a plumber. I know where the clog is and all I need to fix things is a drain auger. So after work today, I'm off to Home Depot to get one to save the day. Getting the auger and using it successfully once will pay for itself right away. Because of the age of the house, the main drain line cloggage is a yearly/semi-yearly event. Fixing it myself will be much cheaper than hiring a plumber every time it gets backed up.
And now back to training. Two days of work, then back to Illinois for the weekend and returning in time to hit the new years party.
For Christmas, we did our normal Christmas tradition. On Christmas Eve we exchanged presents, we went to her church for the late night service, and packed up the house in preparations for driving down to Illinois for visiting my family for Christmas. Let me tell ya how thrilled I was about getting up and driving to Illinois at 4am. Yea, not a huge fan of mornings. The upshot of that was all 4 dogs were tired and slept most of the way down. Unlike on the way back when the puppy was on a mission to get into my lap while I was driving. He's cute, I'll give him that. But he can be a bit annoying at times. Puppy + Lap + Driving = a challenging, but cute, driving experience.
(By the way, the puppy is up for adoption: http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=9934223
we are fostering him right now before he finds his permanent home.)
Upon arrival at home, the cats were happy to see us. Not so happy to see the dogs of course. I bet they were hoping we would "forget" them somewhere so they could have the house to themselves. The present they gave the house for Christmas was to use something in the living room as a toilet. Not sure what they relieved themselves on (it wasn't the litter box), but it smells like its near the couch. Bad kitties. The house gave us a Christmas gift too, a clogged drain. The main line going out of the house is clogged. again. So the water from the washer found it's way to wander over the basement floor. This time, I am not going to hire a plumber. I know where the clog is and all I need to fix things is a drain auger. So after work today, I'm off to Home Depot to get one to save the day. Getting the auger and using it successfully once will pay for itself right away. Because of the age of the house, the main drain line cloggage is a yearly/semi-yearly event. Fixing it myself will be much cheaper than hiring a plumber every time it gets backed up.
And now back to training. Two days of work, then back to Illinois for the weekend and returning in time to hit the new years party.
14 December 2007
On Pizza, Delivery, & Tips
Sitting waiting for Vista SP1 to install and for my pizza to get here, I have a question to ask my readers/friends/strangers regarding tips, fees, and deliveries.
When ordering my pizza I noticed a new addition to the bill, a delivery fee. I am not a huge fan of added fees. They appear everywhere and the main purpose of those fees look to be buffing profits at the cost of consumers. They don't really add much to the service or product they are added on to. My hope would be that the fee would be to get the drivers some sort of tip for folks who would not tip. Not tipping delivery drivers sucks for them since they are adding to the service by bringing the food to you and thus they deserve a kudos of some sort.
I see this delivery fee as a mandatory tip. It is similar to the mandatory 18% tip some restaurants charge for serving large groups. When you pay that bill, you wouldn't add an extra 18% tip on top of the bill and the mandatory 18% tip. You would incorporate the mandatory tip into the tip you would ultimately leave.
Taking this into mind, what I did for the tip was give my normal 20% of the total. In this order, it would total a $3 tip. Since the fee (aka the mandatory delivery tip) is $1.50, the additional total I tipped is $1.50.
My question for you, is that an OK thing to do? What tip would you leave on a $15 pizza delivery with a $1.50 delivery charge?
When ordering my pizza I noticed a new addition to the bill, a delivery fee. I am not a huge fan of added fees. They appear everywhere and the main purpose of those fees look to be buffing profits at the cost of consumers. They don't really add much to the service or product they are added on to. My hope would be that the fee would be to get the drivers some sort of tip for folks who would not tip. Not tipping delivery drivers sucks for them since they are adding to the service by bringing the food to you and thus they deserve a kudos of some sort.
I see this delivery fee as a mandatory tip. It is similar to the mandatory 18% tip some restaurants charge for serving large groups. When you pay that bill, you wouldn't add an extra 18% tip on top of the bill and the mandatory 18% tip. You would incorporate the mandatory tip into the tip you would ultimately leave.
Taking this into mind, what I did for the tip was give my normal 20% of the total. In this order, it would total a $3 tip. Since the fee (aka the mandatory delivery tip) is $1.50, the additional total I tipped is $1.50.
My question for you, is that an OK thing to do? What tip would you leave on a $15 pizza delivery with a $1.50 delivery charge?
07 December 2007
Random Thoughts Part 1
Some random thoughts running through my head:
- Tip #1 for new husbands: When shoveling snow during winter, take off the ring before partaking in snow removal.
- Sub-tip: Be sure to put ring back on after said snow removal
- Sub-Sub-tip: On the correct finger
- "Offline" should only be used in meetings when referring to an Internet or network device or computer being removed from the network or taken out of service. It does not mean we'll talk about it after the meeting. Instead of "we'll take this offline" how about "we'll talk after the meeting"
- I wonder if there is something I could hook the dogs up to to have them help clear the sidewalk after a snow. A dog-plow.
- If it squeaks and my dogs are around, the mean time to failure for the little squeaker can be measured in minutes... with the puppy, seconds.
- It's going to be a white Christmas. Kick ass!
- Nintendo DS game cartridges are apparently built tough. They can survive a puppy chewing them and still work.
- It's weird that I have been eating wheat noodles like candy tonight. No sauce, no seasoning, just the noodles. I really like noodles. (Cooked noodles of course)
- A good topic for the Tuesday essays would be if you are running for President, what would be your key issues on your platform.
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