Category: Observation

A Big Thanks on Thanksgiving

I think I now know why wife and I do not have kids.  It’s really quite simply that I would probably end up accidentally maiming or killing them due to some completely bizarre situation I would have never suspected or assessed ahead of time.  Why have I come to this conclusion?  Well, this Thanksgiving I about had a heart attack by the stupid actions of a toddler.  Linda’s side of the family was down for Turkey Day and Christmas present exchange.  We alternate between the families on the Thanksgiving and Xmas holidays so we just do both at the same time on the year we have Linda’s side for Thanksgiving.  Having no kids, our house is really not set up well for children and my nerves are really not dulled enough to handle a whole day of them.  So, after the presents were given to the kids, they began running one of the kids new trucks across our wood floors.  They are supposed to be durable, but just in case, I introduced them to our wide open basement.  After a little while I took a stroll down there to see how it was going.  One of the kids then asked if he could use my treadmill.  I was not too keen on this, but decided to indulge him.

Now to set the situation.  We have a Spirit folding treadmill that sounded like a good idea when we were purchasing it many years ago.  Not until we made it home with our purchase did it occur to us that the unit folds TOWARD the controls.  This means that the tread deck ends up raising vertical in alignment with the electronic console.  You may have already pictured this, but if you put the treadmill facing the wall it will raise up in an ideal manner leaving room free for other uses when not training.  Now if you do not want to stare at a wall the entire time you are jogging, you might decided to face it away from the wall to maybe point to a TV (which is how ours is set up).  Now, you can try to distract yourself while spending hours running nowhere.  This setup means you will take zero advantage of the folding capability unless you just like staring at a large piece of metal sitting in the center of your room.  Have you guessed the drawback of this type of setup?  Let’s kill the suspense. To maximize the room space, you typically set the back of the unit near a wall, which in our case is a cement block wall, until we get around to finishing our basement.  I like to think of this as merely incentive to keep my pace up.

Slowly the situation is becoming clearer although you might have jumped to a conclusion that is slightly different than reality.  Having already decided to keep control of the situation, I stood on the side of the treadmill and made sure he held on to the front bar.  I started it at walking pace and then brought the speed up slowly until he had to just barely jog.  At all times the hand was on the kill switch in case something went wrong.  The kid in fact did a great job and I was just about to end the activity when all of a sudden another kid (who I thought was upstairs with his parents) comes along the opposite side of the treadmill and JUMPS on the treadmill.  The last time I checked, humans were suppose to be the smarter species on the planet having the ability to rationalize a situation and take appropriate action.  Apparently this attribute develops MUCH later than previously thought.  Let’s see, the person on the treadmill is moving his legs yet staying in one place… the floor he is on is actually moving as well… I am smaller so obviously it is okay if I jump on it… Non-Sequitur.  Sure enough, the new kid goes winging back to the wall and proceeds to become quite acquainted to the black mat.  My fingers smacked the kill switch while my heart missed at least 3 beats.  While grabbing the kid out of the gap I looked him over for any signs of damage and only noticed he managed to clean a little of the tread on his pants.  My attention to his situation triggered into his conscious resulting in the attention demanding scream and tears.  With the heart back in the proper rhythm, we walked up the stairs and found his parents who treated the situation with little fanfare, confidently informed me the kid was fine and told him to relax.

I am guessing kids are more durable than those without believe.  You probably also get a good idea of how a kid that age thinks and can assess a situation from their quirky point of view.  This ability is probably learned over time, but without exposure to life with kids, let me tell you, it is darn STRESSFUL.  Kudos to all you parents out there molding their little pieces of clay into successful young adults – and from the other perspective a new meaning to Thanksgiving Day.

Random Acts of Kindness

There are those times that an observation brings a smile to my face.  Generally these involve some mishap or fail that provides a chuckle at another’s expense (I’m not proud.. but often they deserve it).  Every now and then one of these is a result of someone doing something nice for their fellow man.  Over the last few weeks I have encountered three such situations giving hope to the fact our society is not completely doomed (well, beyond the threat of becoming a socialist country).

The first of these episodes came at a boutique ice cream shop in Peoria Heights (can’t remember the exact name, but something like Emocks and Bollas but that is a complete guess at the moment).  Linda and I were waiting for two me-centric high school girls to complete their order.  One of the girls had already received her single dip cone and was busy chatting about how much her friends like her fashion statements when gravity reared its ugly head resulting in the scoop of ice cream leaping off the cone to the floor.  I thought she would just leave it there, but she did clean up her mess.  Although there was some poetic justice there, what brought the real smile to my face was the owner saw this event and asked for her cone back so he could replace the lost scoop.  So not only does this place have excellent ice cream, the management is truly attentive to their customers.

A few days later Linda and I were winding down from a long work week at the Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria.  It was unusually packed likely due to a local MMA event they were hosting at their hotel.  To my surprise, the casino had also purchased the rights to the UFC Fight Night event and were broadcasting it on all their TVs.  This was a huge bonus for me since I really wanted to watch the Tito-Griffin rematch.  I had taken a seat at a video poker machine with a good view of the TV.  At some point, three men came up and took up roots in the aisle way and proceeded to carry on a 40 minute conversation about their recent divorces and get rich quick in real estate plans.  One was even bragging how he tapped his own phone to catch his wife and for some reason learned how to make a taser gun.  That caught my attention and I was eagerly awaiting this explanation. The reason never arrived because midway through this discussion an older lady came rolling up in a wheelchair.  Rolling is probably a little more generous of a word for she was truly struggling to pull herself forward with one leg and trying to navigate the people in the aisle – of which the threesome I was mentioning was posing a significant obstacle.  One of the three noticed her and alerted the other three to make way while commenting to her how well she was navigating.  She took a differing opinion to this comment and responded on how bad she thought she was doing.  As a complete surprise to me, the guy proceeds to ask her where she was going and upon hearing the response said “Well, let’s go there, I’ll push you over there”.  He really didn’t give her a chance to respond and proceeded to get her to the desired destination.  I decided that the issue just might have been with his ex… but that taser thing still intrigued me.

And lastly, I had to run to WalMart on Allen Road today to pick up a peeler and baster for my wife.  She is having her family over for some juicy bird tomorrow and accidentally broke her old one.  Ever since they reset this store we have been unable to find anything we need without traversing through most of the aisles.  Yes, I realize this is the intent having spent my youth employment at Jewel where we reset the store every 6 months in order to maximize product visibility.  As a consumer, this process absolutely blows.  Well, associating the peeler with food I managed to walk up and down every single food aisle without success.  Swallowing my male pride I asked a worker if she could possibly point me in the right direction.  Expecting to get a row number and continue the quest, she startled me with “Let me just put this back and I’ll take you to them”.    At which point, she proceeds to walk me all the way to the other end of the store (away from the food).  On the walk she asked me if I was finding everything else I needed.  I figured the baster was with the peeler so the response was a definitive YES – some of my ego regained.  About 3/4ths of the way there, I noticed the Kitchenware signed and indicated I could make it the rest of the way.  Having none of that, she told me under no uncertain terms she was committed to getting me to the peelers.  And directly to the peelers we went and you guessed it, I thanked her with a smile.

Based on these events, it seems that I am now -3 on the pay it forward scale.  I better be checking the corners for old ladies needing to cross the street.

A Social Appointment

Last week I headed out to my barber to take a little off the top.  Actually I am not sure if barber is the correct term in my situation.  While growing up I usually went to male hair cutters and they were typically addressed as the barber, but when I went to to the “Luck of the Draw” locations while in college (living on the cheap then and equated every dollar spent to the number of slices it could buy at the local cardboard and grease pizza place) I had a lot of women cutters that generally referred to themselves as stylists.  The difference there is they were into the hair wash and blow dry process which differentiated them from the o’l chop, gab and pay barbers at the Men’s Room in Springfield (yeah, it was actually called the Men’s Room).  My current “barber” is a lady, but beyond a quick spritz to wet down the hair, doesn’t subscribe to the dunk and blower approach – which fits me perfectly.  I should check her card sometime and see what title she gives herself.  So why am I boring you with details on my hair?  Actually, I had an interesting observation while I was getting my mop spruced up.  About halfway through my cut an older man came in and sat down in one of the waiting chairs.  He must have been a regular, because he exchanged greetings with my barber and another individual waiting for me to finish.  This intrigued me slightly because there generally isn’t a wait line since she only takes appointments and not walk-ins and the part I appreciate most is she is always on schedule.  As I got up to pay, my barber commented that his appointment was not until later.  He acknowledged this and responded he just thought he would be early today.  I think she was still a little surprised and checked the schedule book while taking my payment.  As she gave me the change she confirmed with the guy that his appointment was not until 1:30pm (it was 11:30am when she finished with me).  That internally jolted me a little based on how jam packed my days usually are.  He was likely retired, but said “I can go and come back if you want me to, but figured I would just come and visit awhile”  She quickly responded that is was perfectly alright and joked how it was a great place to catch up with everyone.  As I shut the door I started rationalizing this scene as I quickly headed to the car to get to the next meeting at work.  I kind of felt sad for the guy who has nothing better to do with the extra two hours of the day.  Isn’t there an immediate family member or relative to visit with, some event or site to take in instead of spending two hours waiting for a 10 minute hair cut?  I decided I felt bad for the individual but glad he had enough initiative to seek out some social interaction as opposed to just sitting at home staring out the same window or worse watching sensationalist news.  Here’s to hoping I have activities to fill my hours when I decide to jump off the employment train.  Maybe I’ll be blogging about the largest ball of tinfoil I found on my quest to hit every national park before my ticket gets punched.  It will be interesting to see how retirement life is for the tech savvy generation.

Wire Tek 1001 = 2 Demon Spawn Moles = 0

This is the face of pure evil.  Sure, they may have cute and cuddly fur but just take a look at those claws.  Those are the claws that have been causing me heartache for the last 3 months.  I have dealt with moles before at my other house, but those were not nearly as sophisticated and cunning as these country moles are.  Usually they take a feed tunnel and run across my yard.  This is not the case with these hybrids.  Instead of a straight tunnel which I can somewhat deal with, these devil creatures double back on themselves shifting a tunnel width out each time.  The result is a huge patch of raised dirt that looks like you just put down fresh sod.  Another aspect of these particular moles is they are not very territorial.  I thought a given mole would stake their territory and the other moles would have to find some other location to terrorize.  At my old house, this meant I only had to deal with one in the front yard and one in the backyard.  My new yard is more of a free-for-all that I am guessing is just to maximize my frustration.  I have become pretty proficient at using the spikes, however, it always takes a little prep work – first you have to drive the spikes all the way in to make sure nothing impedes their descent – second is to shave some of the dirt off to maximize the kill depth zone and then positioning the trigger at the proper height to allow the spring catch to just barely sit on the lever.  Then you sit and wait and wait and wait only to get annoyed by many fruitless releases.  Eventually you get a kill shot.  I was complaining to a friend of mine how annoying this new breed was when he offered me his new traps called Wire Tek 1001:

Although I tend to focus on bad products and service, this invention is awesome.  Basically, you put the two scissors in the ground parallel with the hole.  When you step down on the lever at the top, the contraption collapses on top of the mole tunnel while the scissors open up in the hole giving the mole the false impression that the passage is clear.  My friend recommends and lent me two in order to put one at both ends of the tunnel (or the in and out portions of the pushed up sod).  Following his recommendation I planted the traps.  Get this, within two days the trap was sprung and sure enough one dead mole was sent back to the land of fire and brimstone.  I was getting ready to return them when another tunnel popped up in the yard…to the Wire Teks.  This time it made the kill in less than 24 hours.  Fantastic.  Needless to say, I have two of my own on the way now and highly recommend it to anyone dealing with a similar issue.

There are few animals I have no problem killing… moles happen to be on this short list.  Note, I am constantly reminded of this by the stuffed mole toy my nephews/niece felt obligated to get me some years back.  I think I will return this little prank with Underoos for this Christmas!

Cheating Death Again

You may consider the photo to your left to be of a  charming Autumn day in the woods.  In agreement with that assertion, it is indeed an Autumn picture taken this very day.  It is also in the woods down from my house.  However, there is NOTHING charming about this specific location.   I can count the number of times I have almost killed myself on my two hands.  In fact my ring finger represents a time where I took the full blunt force trauma of a piece of wood thrown from a table saw right to the chest.  In that particular incident I do not know who was more shocked, my Dad who was running the saw or the mental tape measure I put from the impact point on the chest to my head.

Well folks, I can add another finger to the count due to an incident today.  Continuing the saga of building our bridge, my brother Dan offered to come over and help out with the project today.  To prepare, I needed to purchase the 2x12x10’s and 8’s for the support structure.  This equated to 25 of the 10′ boards and 15 of the 8′ treated lumber that needed to be hauled home and then transferred to the job site.  The haul home was fine, but the transport to the stream posed a dilemma.  The ground was pretty wet from all the rain this past week so driving the loaded truck down the hill was out of the question.  The only other option was to haul it down with the ATV and a small 4′ trailer. Do not laugh, I have accomplished a lot of things with that cart.   I hitched the cart to the ATV and loaded up 4 2x12x8 boards along with a 4′ 6×6 post.  Thinking it might want to bounce out of the cart, I decided to put a bungee cord across the top of the boards at the back.  Perfect, now to simply drive down the hill and drop them off at the stream.  One minute later I was questioning my strategy… and I mean really questioning my strategy.  Halfway down the hill, I looked to my right and there is the cart sliding down the hill perpendicular to the ATV (and the hill).  The common sense alarms were in full squeal.  I braked the ATV to get control of the situation which caused the ATV to start sliding down the wet leaf covered ground and it too started turning perpendicular to the hill.  Crisis mode as I knew the ATV was going to flip if this kept up.  Eventually I got it stopped, but the cart was still turned 90 degrees to the ATV which was now facing mostly to the left side.  Holding the brake with my left, I transferred my weight to the uphill side so I could dive off if required.  So there I was hold the brake and standing on my left foot (upside of ATV).  I decided to reach back and pull the wood off the cart to lighten the load, but the stupid bungee was preventing me from accomplishing that.  Brian just got himself in a whole lot of oops.  All of a sudden, my left foot slips off the running boards and my legs proceed under the ATV and now I am pretty much convinced I am going to die.  Somehow my left hand stayed clasped around the break and held my weight even though I have some torn cartilage in it (and let’s just say it is worse now).  I took my right arm and grabbed the utility rack on the back and hauled my body from underneath the belly of the ATV.  Stepping back on the running boards I took a minute to reflect on how beautiful life is, reflected on the life that flashed before my eyes and took a couple of breadths to take inventory of the situation (and the health of the body parts involved).  Somehow the left shoulder held through this allowing me to once again take my right arm and attempt to offload the wood.  The bungee was still causing me problems so I simply bundled the adrenaline and ripped the wood through the bungee hooks.  It literally straightened the hook flat, but the wood was successfully discarded on the ground.  EXTREMELY relieved, I got back on the ATV and gave it enough gas to maneuver back in front of the cart and proceed safely down the hill.  This one was close boys and girls and there is absolutely only two things that allowed me survive (from my assessment).  One is pure luck and the other is physical strength.  I have always felt there was no true substitute for strength in life and found it essential in my martial arts days (all the technique in the world doesn’t matter if you can’t power through your opponent’s attack  – this includes the redirection styles – trust me I have studied those as well- or if you can’t deliver enough power to disable your attacker).  Along with that, strength can also be the means out of an error in judgment.   I’ll definitely remember this the next time I try to talk myself out of my scheduled workout.

That which doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger … and wiser – I found another way to get the lumber down the hill.

Be safe out there!

One Headache Too Many

So if you read my previous blog entry, you are aware of a recent situation we had regarding our Dodge Durango having more electrical problems.  As an update to that post, the salesman that called me after the service was completed (to sell me a new car) has never called me back regarding my request to find an Aspen.  A week or so ago, Linda decided to head out to the car lots and see what we could find.  This turned out to be a very interesting event.  First off, we went to some lots in Peoria and came to the conclusion that most of these dealerships had very little on their lots and what they did have were either vans or crap looking boxes on wheels.  Now it was a quest so we took off to Morton to check out their lots.  Same situation on the Dodge lot, little inventory or was so ugly they were not even worth getting out of the vehicle to look at and definitely nothing in the SUV category.  We then headed over to the Ford lot.  They actually had a couple of Explorers on the backside of the lot so we stopped and got out to take a look.  In a first for this trip, a salesman came out to help us who promptly told us they did not have any new Explorers left due to being wiped out by the Cash for Clunkers program.  Does this seem odd to you?  Apparently everyone was turning in their clunkers for gas guzzling SUVs which seems contrary to the supposed intent of that program.  When we asked when more would be arriving we were told possibly in 6-8 weeks while he handed us his business card and walked away.  So here we sit wanting to purchase a vehicle and a) there are no vehicles to actually buy and b) the salesman doesn’t even seem interested enough to ask us our name so he can contact us when they do arrive.  We are no longer surprised why this industry is in the toilet.  Unwilling to give up, we headed to Pekin to check out the Dodge dealer there.  As we entered the now common empty lot, we spied a Dodge Aspen (the Durango replacement) and what seemed to good to be true it had a reduced sign on it.  Jumping out of the car we quickly located a salesman to inquire about the vehicle.  Turns out, it was a 2 wheel V6.  I can’t imagine that this configuration appealed to anyone in the market for this type of vehicle.  We also learned that the Aspen was not being made anymore and Chrysler decided to completely exit the SUV market.  This was the final straw and we decided it was time to check out the imports.

A mile or so down the street, there was a Toyota dealer and as it turns out, I actually knew the owner of that dealership (we met at my neighbor’s redneck Wednesday events which consists of everyone bringing over their firearms for target practice – our constitutional right to bear arms and don’t ever try to legislate it away).  Sure enough, this lot had a number of vehicles on it and a couple of Sequoias that were right up our alley.  A helpful salesman came out, we got all our questions answered, took a test drive, negotiated a price (helps if you know the right people) and signed on the bottom line.  We are now the proud owners of a new Toyota SUV and very happy with the decision.  Oh, and before we get the flood of comments trying to criminalize large vehicles, we live in the country in the Midwest (I chuckle every time I pass a stuck Prius in the snow), raise agility dogs that require traveling to competition and still looking for verifiable FACTS on the Global Warming myth (especially ones that justify the record lows we are currently experiencing).

I thought I would give a quick comparison of Toyota experiences with our previous Durango (hit the jump to see)

Continue reading One Headache Too Many

Another Fine Example of American Car Quality

I have stopped speculating as to why American car company quality is considered inferior to the imports.  The reason for this is now I know why by example.  When I did break from tradition and purchase a foreign car last year, I received an owner’s manual that was at least 3 inches thick.  It was frankly quite a shock, but there is not a question you could think of that is not answered in that manual.  Let’s compare that to a recent experience we had with our Dodge Durango.  For what seems like the 20th time we had an electrical issue with this SUV.   These issues have ranged from an all out dashboard power failure, a strange conflict that caused the blowers to go out when a random combination of radio and lights were on to the recent issue where the interior lights would not turn off even when all the doors were closed.  Linda takes this SUV to various dog shows and uses the light wheel to shut off the interior lights so she can keep the tailgate open for the pups.  All of a sudden, that switch would not work and the lights in the tailgate would not shut off even when all the doors were closed.  Frustrated with the poor electrical systems, I headed out to see if I could remedy the problem, but as in the previous cases, no luck.   Assuming another inconvenient trip to the dealer the next day, I decided to at least pull the fuse to save the battery.

I pulled off the fuse panel to see what I was in for:

The very first thing I notice is there is NOT A FUSE PULLER in the compartment.  What does it take to verify that a .5 cent plastic tool is included as it rolls of the assembly line?  Let’s just call that quality defect #1.  My next task was to locate which fuse to remove (with my own tool!).  The most obvious place to me would be on the fuse box panel – maybe a quick two word summary of what each fuse is for like interior lights or headlights or radio.

This was a big strike out, since all the cover had was 3 extra fuses (at least those were there) and although you cannot read it from the picture, it appeared to just have the fuse numbers on it – that of course is something I can obtain from the fuse itself and therefore completely useless to me (if it says something else, please enlighten me).  For the meantime,  I am naming it defect #2.  No worries I thought, I’ll break down and get the user manual… all .25 inch of it and use the schematic in there to selectively pull the appropriate fuse. Wait for it… wait for it… (hit the page jump)

Continue reading Another Fine Example of American Car Quality

That is One Steller Jay

The WordPress update effort has put me slightly behind, but nothing a quick jump back to the Yellowstone pictures can’t fix.  While we were out there, we came across this interesting bird.  This was actually the first time I have ever seen this particular variety and it caught me off guard when I saw it walking across a picnic table.  This is not my best effort in getting tack sharp photos, but it was a struggle to get it to stand still for even a second so I could zero in on it or attempt to focus through the branches.  According the trusty Audubon guide this is a Steller’s Jay and member of the Jay and Crow family.

According to the field guide, this bird is on the brash side and mostly omnivorous.  True to the description, it was indeed scrounging for food among the various groups picnicking in the area.  From a visual perspective, it is quite stellar looking with a bright blue back offset by a black plumed head…. somewhat woodpecker looking with a different color pallet.

From this particular picture it is obvious our presence was intruding on his foraging.  Okay, I admit it, my focus hand was shaking out of fear the bird was going to stab me with its beak and rip my eyeball out.  What, you do not believe me?  Take a look at this shot smarty pants and tell me if this isn’t one pissed off bird.

Oh yeah, his meat instincts are kicking into high gear.  I decided from that point on that all further pictures would stealth shots outside its vision.  Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this quite interesting bird

Continue reading That is One Steller Jay

Slob or Pure Genius

A few weeks ago Linda and I were picking up some dinner at the KFC out on Allen Rd.  For the second (and last) time, my experience was less than satisfying.  This time I had to question the cashier whether I could get the new grilled chicken in a sandwich (couldn’t find it on the menu) and basically had to beg for an explanation of what comes on it.  I ended up getting the sandwich plain.  Well plain was the request, when I got back in the car  on our way home, I pulled it out in order to finish eating so I could run when we got home.  Turns out this sandwich is about 2.5 bites big and sure enough had a giant tomato on it which I HATE.

But I digress from my original intent of this post.  As I was standing there waiting for my disappointing dinner, a young Generation Xbox kid comes waddling up to the buffet counter.  He then proceeded to badger the cashier as to whether there was dessert on the food trough.  She ended up telling him there was bread pudding available and he was satisfied.  Grabbing his plate, he quickly turned to go past me in order to get to the dessert.   Two observations hit me within a split second of each other.  The first is he had his shirt inside out.  I remember when this was the fashion trend, but generally it was on sweatshirts and not so much just plain t-shirts.  I quickly decided it he was a trend setter and just might give it that tipping point moment.  The other visual oddity that caught my eye was the fact he had spilled food all over the front of said t-shirt.  Now at the trough, the kid was visually upset because he was having difficulty locating the pudding which means he did not understand the “bread” part of her response since he was standing right in front of it.  Then my powers of reasoning kicked in and it occurred to me I could take this experience in two ways.

  1. The kid was a slob and the strong thumbs from the video controllers were now so disproportional to the fingers that the act of shoveling food into the mouth had become a challenge …. or….
  2. This kid is a total genius and was so aware of his potential to spill food that he purposely turned his t-shirt inside out allowing him to flip it right side out to hiding the  dirty deed.

I badly wanted to stay and get resolution to this quandary, but I had to get the running shoes on before the sun started setting.  I will never know for sure, but it has made me add a micro step in my observation methodology to see if other kids are now wearing their shirts inside out or if fat kids are making the trip to the bathroom for the switch before they order.  I will keep you posted on what I learn, but free to provide your own assessments or observations for discussion.

By the way, I just noticed I used this same guy in another post… can you locate it?

In Need of a Quick Calculation

Quick Calc at Menards

My summer task for this year is to finally do some clearing on my lot in order to highlight the scenic stream that runs through the middle of the woods.  This task may just kill me (now down over 10 pounds since my Steamboat Race and a mere 3 pounds away from my college graduation weight.  Fortunately, this is the kind of thing I love to do so even though it is hard work, I am smiling the entire time.  Part of this endeavor is to build a bridge so I can actually get to the back portion of my lot without getting wet.  My oldest brother is thankfully helping out with the design which is proving to be very interesting since it is over 49 feet across and I am unable to place a support structure in the middle due to the water and rock bed.  After trying all options to get a mechanical hole digger (nothing viable under a $600 rental fee) I decided to dig the footings and pour the concrete by hand.  So with my hands, a spade, a post hole digger, a 4′ chipping bar and a significant amount of sweat, 8 four foot deep by 12″ wide holes were dug.  Thankfully the new chipping bar (best $35 ever spent) made it through the roots and hardened sandstone.

The next stage in this endeavor was pouring the footings.  This consisted of hauling 64 of the 60lb bags of concrete and 8 of the cardboard pillar forms from Menards to the construction site.  For the record, a Menards’ employee managed to help load 16 (most my truck is rated for) of them into the truck – all the rest were loaded, unloaded and hauled through the woods with an ATV (5 at a time).  On the 3rd trip to Menards, I purchased the remaining four 12″ tubes for the job.  Now these tubes are 12″ nominal with a +- of 0.5″.  You might ask why they would bother with the size variance in today’s precision machinery era.  I am not sure if this is intentional or not, but this variance allows you to insert the tubes inside each other (depending on the variance of course).  I should also point out that the next size down had an 8″ diameter.

With that background in place, we are at the heart of this post.  Two of the four tubes fit inside the third, the third and fourth were the same size and purposely both at the large end of the tolerance.  While checking out, I informed the cashier there were four tubes in total and they were all 12″ in diameter.  The cashier then proceeded to look at the two exposed tubes with some confusion.  Noting that, I informed him that there was a half inch tolerance.  Without a doubt this resulted in math fog and I could tell he did not understand how that statement resolved the two inner tubes.  Keeping my peripheral vision, I proceeded to the credit card swiper.  Sure enough, he took the two tubes out and checked their labeling to make sure they were both 12″ as I had previously informed him.

I can understand the employees need to protect the company’s assets, but two things intrigued me about this event.  The first is an employee at a home improvement store having difficulty judging a half inch tolerance, but more importantly the 8″ tubes are CHEAPER.  Why would I willingly pay more for the extra two tubes?  If they were 8’s I would have pulled them out myself in order to save a few bucks.  Maybe lifting all those concrete bags impacted my powers of reasoning, but there is definitely room there for some lightening math skills.  By the way, the book used in the image is fantastic for those who like to improve their mental calculation abilities.  I was taking the picture of the ruler and noticed the binding on my bookshelf and felt it was a good fit.

Now time to go eat something.