Made in The MotherloadFound the following pellet stoves on the web. They are sold locally, so will go take a look at them. They are made in Nevada City/Grass Valley. They have 12V battery backup which is kinda cool. Here's the URL to the manufacturer's website: www.thelinco.com
The Check Was in the Mail
Yessir, I'm feeling fine. Got my Ottoman Turkish Empire Settlement Payments check today. Bought a new car for Stitch and paid off the Kubota. Feels great.
Customer Service Rant (Version 2.0)
So...as many of you know, I am remodeling a couple of bedrooms at the Garden Valley Place (GVP) into a quilting studio for Stitch. I'm far enough into the process to be thinking about getting flooring. From day one of this project I wanted to put down either solid wood or engineered wood flooring. Specifically, I wanted the same brand of flooring that i/o used as it was of impressive construction and nice looks. Some time ago I was pleased to find out that a flooring company over in Meridian handled Century Flooring.
Well, to make a long story short, the local Century dealer did their damnedest to ensure that we didn't buy their product. It's not a short drive to their place of business and we made three attempts to check out their products. They were always closed despite their posted hours of biz.
As it turns-out, a new hardwood flooring place just opened up over near Costco. I had heard good things about their selection so Stitch and I went over and found some really nice solid hickory (3"x.75") stuff. The folks at that place practically fell over themselves with offers of free training and cheap rental of a floor nailer as well as advice on underlayment and their ability to store the flooring (for free) for awhile until we needed it. Their prices were not super-cheap...but for hickory they were pretty decent. So anyway, I ordered 300 sq. ft. from them for the studio. You can be sure when I'm ready to do the rest of the place I'll be back there.
Another instance of impressive customer service was from an
online flooring place. www.ifloor.com shipped us a boatload of samples. I still think that Century Flooring is super-duper, top-notch stuff...but they need to find a new dealer for the Boise area. Or maybe iFloor or NextToCostcoHardwood will start selling Century Flooring...
The Customer Service RantNewegg spoiled me, I guess.
Today I went over to U-Haul to get a couple of propane bottles filled. I pulled-up to the big tank, stepped outta the jeep, and unloaded the bottles. Usually, there's someone there to help almost immediately. Today was an exception. There was an employee about 30 feet away washing one of those orange/silver U-Haul trucks but he seemed too engrossed in the complexities of his job to help us. You know the type...you know he has seen you...you know he knows you've seen him...and yet his mind has started running either the "That's not my job" or the "Maybe if I ignore them they'll go away" software routine. My mind started running the "what a dumbass" software; part of which is walking to the office to fetch some help. After entering the office, I found the whole staff busily, and I mean
busily, working on stuff despite the fact that I was the only customer. After they all attempted maximal avoidance of eye contact, I cut to the chase and directly accosted one of the dudes who said there would be somebody out to fill our tanks "in just a second". So I went back to the jeep and after a few minutes one of "I'm a afraid of eye contact" office guys slowly ambles out to the propane tank. All this time he's giving the evil eye to TruckWashGuy. I swear there was this palpable "intelligence vacuum fog thing" surrounding both NoEyeContactDude and TruckWashGuy. I was just glad the guy was able to finally fill the tanks without blowing us all up.
A Promise KeptWell, Newegg kept the faith and The Chief's PC case arrived yesterday afternoon just as Newegg promised. This is a sweet case...it's an Antec Sonata II. Nice construction and looks like it's going to be a quiet one. I've installed the mobo and will continue with the construction after dinner.
Gravity Takes Its TollAs mentioned in our previous episode, I am building a PC for The Chief. Unfortunately, the case I ordered arrived with considerable damage; apparently thanks to UPS. The shipping carton took an hit that left a small innocuous-looking dent in one of the carton's corners; however, it must have hit just right because the PC case took the whole experience rather poorly. The cushions internal to the carton gave evidence to the impact. This didn't put me in a good mood.
My mood accelerated its downward spiral when I went to the Newegg site in order to get an RMA for the case in order to get it replaced. The info present on the Newegg site indicated that I had to call a 1-800 number in case of shipping damage. "Oh great" I though...expecting to have to file a claim with UPS and go through that mess.
Well, I called and probably the most positive customer service experience I've ever had (regarding an online purchase) ensued. I talked to "Eric" and explained how the case was bashed. He asked me my invoice # and after I gave it to him he just asked me if I'd like my credit card credited immediately or if I'd like to ship the case back for a replacement. I said I didn't care because I was going to just turn around and order another of the same case and that I was in no hurry. He suggested that I take the immediate CC credit refund and (re)order while I was on the phone with him. He said if I did this that Newegg would overnight a new case to me as compensation for the hassle. That was excellent and the new case is supposed to be here Tuesday (I called Newegg late Friday). He never said anything about what to do with the old case so I brought that up towards the end of our conversation. He said, "If nobody contacts you, do what you want with it." That was great as I expected that I'd have to send it back but this was not the case....so far, anyway.
After that experience, suffice it to say that although Newegg is sometimes a little bit more expensive than others I will be ordering 99.9% of my PC stuff from them.
I'll post more about this experience as the whole episode comes to closure.
Restful EarthBoise is a seismically (sp?) boring area for the most part. Last quake felt here was in 1981 when the deadly Challis quake struck. As I recall, there were two fatalities in Challis, Idaho, with that one. The quake was 6.0 at Boise and we felt it as far north as Post Falls, ID. Today, however, the construction crew across the street from my place of work decided to try and make their own seismic entertainment. Took a big-assed excavator to do it, but it was impressive.
But meanwhile, back at the kitchen table...PC #2 is being staged. This one is for The Chief. I took special care to order an extraordinarily quiet case for this PC. The Chief needs quiet given his loud environment what with Spudlet and Ma Sweettooth living under the same roof as he.
And on the mechanical front...Tater Tot changed the oil and filter on his favorite Toyota Camry a few days ago. When I got home today from work I noticed a rather pronounced oil stain on the driveway. Stitch confirmed that the budding mechanic had parked the Camry (Japanese for "Crashme") where the suspicious pond of petroleum was slowly seeping into the concrete. Ironically, Tot was off at his job at the truck stop watching the wrenches get down and dirty with diesel road majestics. I left a message on his cell noting that he either needed to fix the Camry or apply for OPEC membership. He called back later saying that one of his buds had put the Camry on a hoist and commented to Tot that it was not a bad idea to snug the oil drain plug after changing the oil.
