ChuckDoherty.com

I buy a lot of stuff online, both through sites like eBay and from dedicated retailers. Most, like Amazon, are pretty squared-away and do a good job, but some others are very difficult to deal with. One of the biggest problems with buying online is comparison shopping when taking shipping charges into account. Some sleazy sellers throw out a lowball price on eBay, then ask for a much higher shipping charge than the others. Since the shipping charge does not appear in the listing, it is hard to see what is a better deal.

Another frustrating company is The Territory Ahead, which bases their shipping charges on the purchase amount. However, sometimes this seemingly rational approach makes no sense at all. For example, if I buy a pair of pants for $49, the shipping is $4.95. If I spend an additional $6 to have the pants hemmed (effectively making them lighter and costing less to ship) the shipping charge goes up to $6.95 since the total purchase now exceeds $50 which is one of their cutoff points. You would think that someone there would realize that the shipping should be priced against merchandise, not service.

And those sites which don’t tell you the shipping charge at all until you get midway through checkout? A pox on their houses!

Paid a visit to the Pueblo Aircraft Museum today, an interesting collection of mostly military aircraft, along with a few truly bizarre non-aircraft vehicles. Since there is a DOT train testing facility located nearby, the museum has inherited some examples of experimental rail vehicles as well. The vehicle below (click for details) was a precursor to maglev technology, and is based on using compressed air to keep it off the tracks. I don’t think it got very far along in development, but it sure looked futuristic back in the 70′s.

They had a few old military rockets there too, including the one shown below. If you look at the photo on the right, you’ll see a little notice that was stenciled on the rocket, toward the tail. I don’t know about you, but it seemed a bit unnecessary to me.

I was just on fboweb.com to track the progress of Ben’s flight back from London. If you have never used this site, take it from me; it is very cool. It shows where almost any flight is in real-time, along with its altitude, speed, and time to destination.

Below is a screenshot of Ben’s flight taken at around 8:30EST, as the plane was over Long Island on approach to JFK. Click for larger view.

Steve, one of the guys here in the Pueblo office, brought in some home-made tamales and chili sauce this morning. I’ve had hot before, but this was something else. If you would like to experience the same effect, try heating a metal spoon over a gas stove until it is white-hot, then press it against the roof of your mouth.

As is my usual practice on St. Patrick’s day, I plan to have an early dinner and stay in, safely away from the amateur drinkers that this day brings out.

Got a nice email from Ben today saying that he arrived safely in Amsterdam and is enjoying his visit. I’m sure he is.

This weekend I saw the entertaining (albeit somewhat overblown) Riverdance at Radio City Music Hall in NYC only to learn today that the dancers in the show are actually stomp-synching to prerecorded tap sounds much of the time. Oh, the humanity! Apparently, this is rather old and well known news among those folks who would know about such things, but it came as a surprise to me nonetheless.

Not to take anything away from the show, but I am not quite sure why a performance based on Irish traditional music and dance needs to include a heavy-handed production number midway through the show (apropos of nothing else) bemoaning slavery. In case you may have missed hearing about it on the news, it seems that slavery was a very, very bad thing indeed.

As I write this, my son Ben is on Spring break. He is currently visiting England and will head down to Amsterdam (oy!) for a few days after that.

For the benefit of those of you who do not have a kid around Ben’s age, and are therefore unfamiliar with the protocols involved in communications, I expect our next conversation to go a bit like this;

“How was the trip?”

“Great. We had lots of fun.”

“Do anything interesting?”

“Oh, you know. Went out to a few restaurants. Saw a museum. Toured the town. That’s about it.”

“How about Amsterdam?”

“Very quaint. Lots of bicycles.”

As long as he gets there and back safely, and stays out of the newspapers (at least the ones that are sold over here), that’s pretty much all I really need to know.

March 13

Just in case you ever get tempted to whip out your Sharpie and put your ‘tag on a train, consider the fate of the three dim-witted youngsters who decided to leave a bit of graffiti on the door of the Amtrak regional train I was on today. When the train pulled into the next station, at least half a dozen burly police were waiting for them, and paraded them off to the the pokey after they were patted down and handcuffed.

Did you know that a draft of Bud Light costs about $8 in Penn Station?

I just returned from a local grocery store to pick up enough food to last until I fly out again. When I was finished I went to the cashier with the shortest line and stood behind a nervous looking older woman as she waited for the order ahead of her to finish. I noticed that she was just standing there without putting any of her own items on the belt. I put one of the plastic order-dividers on the belt, and prepared to unload my basket. When the divider rolled up to where this woman was standing and she noticed that someone was in line behind her, she reacted as though I had handed her a dead raccoon. She was very upset to have anyone else in “her lane,” and told me that I should be in the express lane instead since I only had a few items. When I pointed over to the un-manned express lane to show her that no one was working there, she called out to the manager insisting that a cashier be sent to open the express so that I could go there (and get away from her). So, I moved over to the express and watched as the rest of her OCD unfolded.

In addition to not allowing anyone else to stand in the line with her, this woman had another phobia related to the moving belt at the register and would not allow any of her items to touch it. Instead, she insisted on handing the cashier each item in turn so that it could be scanned, then took it back from her immediately and placed it back in the cart, arranged just-so. No item was allowed to touch the counter at any time, not even cans or plastic-wrapped rolls of paper towels. God knows what bizarre rituals lie in store for these items when she gets them home.

Time for me to head off to bed, and of course to lock the back door and check the security of the lock exactly 785 times. No more, no less, or I’ll have to start over.