Headed back from St. Louis

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So...

The Home Depot Coupon was a scam. This irks me on two levels.

First, I got duped. I paid for a worthless item. I'm pretty confident I'll get my money back, one way or another, but I still fell for it. Also, because I tried to use the phony 20% coupon, I missed the opportunity to get one of the legitimate 10% coupons from the USPS Mover's Guide.

Second, I'm an eBay Power Seller. I rely on people trusting me on eBay. The more people have experiences like this, the less they'll trust eBay transactions. This type of thing really hurts the legitimate sellers by scaring away potential customers.

I'm going to call PayPal, and also my Power Seller Representative. I really want to try to get these accounts suspended.

Mario Kart is on its way.

That should tie up even more of the time I don't have.

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Headed home

Even when I'm only gone for a night or two, I really miss being with
Hillary. And Scout. And someday I'll feel the same way about our
kids. I suppose it will be hard even to leave for work, when that
time comes.

Even when we don't do anything other than sit there, it's nice to be
together.

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Absolutely awful...

Read this, if you have a few minutes.

Weekend projects

I'm happy. Two days of good weather in a row. Yesterday started off a little dreary, but turned out great. We did some yard work yesterday. Hillary mowed the lawn. I coaxed a little more life from our weed eater. Hillary fertilized and over-seeded. I replaced the downstairs bathroom faucet. I haven't tested it yet because the feed lines are about 2 inches too short. Looks like a third trip to Ace Hardware this weekend is in the cards.

We're also considering a fence for our backyard. We selected the materials, but need to contact a surveyor to ensure it doesn't extend onto the adjoining property. A fence will make taking Scout out easier. Just open the door. He'll like being off his chain, as well.

Here's a tip: Before buying something at Home Depot or Lowe's (or anywhere else), check eBay for coupons. I purchased a 20% off Home Depot coupon on eBay for around $11. On a $2,000 purchase, this will save you $400, plus the taxes on that $400.

But what if you'd rather shop at Lowe's? No problem. Lowe's takes competitor's coupons.

Wii is here

Just waiting on Mario Kart.

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Cleaned the garage today

Organized, really. Hung things from hooks on the walls, threw out
unneccessary stuff, moved things around. Now we have usable space,
where none existed before.

Next week is the lawn.

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On an unrelated note...

I just made the best bowl of oatmeal I've had in years. Not too runny, not too stiff, good temperature, and it didn't make a mess in the microwave. Today should be glorious.

I got another Wii

I should have kept the last one I had, although my reasons for selling it were sound. That time, I picked up 2 from Amazon, rather easily. I sold one immediately, and kept the other for about a month or so. I decided to sell it while you could still get a premium for them. In a couple months, once the supply/demand issues were sorted out, I planned to pick up a new one.

That was roughly a year ago. I've been kicking myself ever since.

Fortunately, I saw that Circuit City had them in stock online if you purchased it with 3 games. I expected them to make me pick a bunch of crappy games, but (surprisingly) the selection was pretty good. I got Wii Play, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I was going to buy two of them anyway, and was strongly considering SSBB.

It already shipped from Circuit City, but they're using some weird shipping method called FedEx Smart Post. Apparently FedEx delivers the item to the local postal depot, and the USPS takes it from there. I just hope it arrives quickly. It's already in Earth City, MO, so it can't be too far away.

I know this is a little late, but...

I know Mario's shot gets a ton of credit, and it should. But without Sherron's steal and 3-pointer, it wouldn't have come down to that.

KU's win has to be one of the greatest finishes in NCAA title-game history, maybe even the tournament as a whole. I know there have been some close games, but not many where a team came back from so far with so little time left.

It was crazy. We didn't make it to Lawrence after the game, but we were there on Saturday after the win over UNC. That was pretty crazy the way it was.


Great win. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Who picked this tie?!?!

En route to Mass St.

Amazing. Rock Chalk!

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Chemlawn + Scam

My Google trick worked again!

We were considering TruGreen Chemlawn to help our lawn. I decided to run the quick litmus test from a few posts ago. Look at what I found.

Excerpts from consumeraffairs.com:

"We were guaranteed by the manager of TruGreen in the spring of 2006 that by the June of 2007, all the weeds in our lawn would be removed. We gave them until Dec. 2007 to remove the weeds, but my lawn is still covered in weeds.

We have watched the tech come out and not spray but received a bill stating that they treated the lawn for weeds. We have had the service for 8 years thinking the service would improve. For eight years we still have weeds. TruGreen will not take care of this problem."
-Mark of Branchville, AL (01/01/08)

"I used to work for Trugreen Chemlawn until I realized they are nothing but a scam. They could care less about your lawn. If they are not making enough money, the managers tell you to do '' double applications'' which burns lawns and causes more problems. They lie, cheat and steal. It is the worst company I have ever worked for."
-David of Newark De DE (02/27/08)

"I had a beautiful lawn and Trugreen kept it that way until one day last summer they used something that killed my whole yard."
-Debbie of Lexington KY (03/05/08)

"Tru-Green Chemlawn treated my lawn for weeds for about 2 years. Every time the lawn was sprayed for weeds, the weeds would turn yellow and grow bigger, but not die. I cancelled my service, and my lawyer had to send them a letter to stop calling me to reinstate my service. Terrible company."
-Arlene of Ocala FL (03/14/08)

The New Jersey AG's office even sued them for unfair business practices. It took me longer to type this post than it did to research the company, saving me hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Not to mention a big headache.

Hillary's Favorite Musician

Great...

My wife smells like pastries. Thanks Bath & Body Works.

Running sucks

Actually, "I suck at running" is more accurate. Gotta start somewhere.

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[INSERT SCAM HERE]

I listen to sports talk radio during my daily commute. I'm constantly amazed by the number of advertisements I hear for things that sound like scams. Their promises range from making you rich, eliminating your debt, or giving you "spine-tingling, toe-curling euphoria".

I know a ton of people fell for the Airborne scam a while back. Fortunately, there's a great invention that allows you to quickly determine if a particular company/service/etc. is on the up and up.

The Internet.

I could go on and on about how it's a good idea to seek other opinions via the web. It's essentially free, and you can take advantage of an incredible number of people's experiences. Let their bad decisions be your guide. Even if you get conflicting opinions, the more information you have, the better your decisions should be. You'll often see patterns develop, very quickly. If 99% of people love the product, it's probably good. But if you keep hearing numerous complaints about laptop screens flickering out, you'll know something could be afoot.

Here's a quick trick: You can quickly get an idea if a product is legitimate by a quick search. See what happens when you type "Airborne scam" into Google. What about Video Professor? See? If you type the product/company's name followed by the word "scam", and you get...oh, say...1.68 MILLION results (like you do for "extended warranty scam") you'll know to be on your guard.

The [PRODUCT] + "scam" Google search is one of my favorite research tools. If everyone did this, I'd have much better commercials to listen to in my car.