The Diary of A Simple Man

Not too long ago we bought a medium-sized jar of local wildflower honey. As I think I've mentioned here before, I'd heard somewhere in the news that many nationally-distributed and supermarket brand honeys originate in China, and despite claiming to be pure honey they're actually heavily adulterated with high-fructose corn syrup and other nasty stuff.

As it happens, we have a teddy-bear container of Stop & Shop honey in the same cupboard where we put the local honey. They're literally next to each other. And for some reason, that cupboard is cold.

The local honey has turned solid. It has the consistency of a moist granulated apple butter; a little difficult to spoon out, but it can be done. It melts incredibly quickly in hot tea, and it tastes great.

The Stop & Shop honey is still liquid, golden, and clear. I'm not planning to have any more of it.

I'll try to make this short, because it's late and this is another boring water filter post.

Our last Pur filter didn't last a week. We got about two pitchers of water out of it before it died. I'm starting to wonder if our cold water might actually have occasional bursts of warm or even hot water; that would explain the incredibly short life of all our Pur filters.

I tried to test it out a bit, and it did seem that for the first thirty seconds after I turned on the cold water, there was some variation; even what I would call mildly warm water. I don't know if it was enough to destroy a filter, but it might have been. After thirty seconds, though, the water became unmistakably cold. It occurred to me that if we only used the filter after a full 30-second wait, the filter might last. On the other hand, Pur had cost us a crapload of money, and no other filter system had given us so much trouble.

So I headed over to Wal-Mart to consider my options.

There were Pur filters, of course, but I was already inclined against those. A single replacement filter was $18.34! There was a Brita system, but we'd tried that before. I don't remember why we dropped it, but we must have had a good reason. The only other brand being sold was one I hadn't seen before (not on a water filtration system, that is), DuPont.

There were two DuPont systems: one that was around $36 dollars, and one that cost $16.87. The expensive one was electronic, and actually had an electronic readout to record the number of gallons that had been filtered. It also came with a filter that had twice the capacity of Pur and Brita filters, 200 gallons!

But I didn't know if the system would be any good, and money was, as always, tight. So I bit the bullet and bought the cheap DuPont. It didn't have any lights or electronic readouts, but it came with a 100-gallon filter - and both the system and filter together were cheaper than a single 100-gallon Pur filter. I noticed that the 200-gallon filters were $13.84, which was interesting. As far as I could see, the cheap system could use the 200-gallon filters too.

The Pur system took a pair of pliers to uninstall, but I managed it. The DuPont went on easily, no adapter needed. So far, it seems to work very well. One odd thing is that both the unfiltered and filtered water come through the filter system; Teri doesn't like that, because the unfiltered water is much more aerated than it was using the old system. She says that the filtered water is aerated too, but I don't see that. The water tastes fine, as good as any of our previous filters. So far the system is working well. Eventually, I may get the more expensive system; maybe Teri would like that better.

But if we have problems, you can be sure that I'll write about them here.

As you might remember, at the height of the recent gas price surge there was a strange event. All sorts of products started shrinking. Ice cream in particular went from 2 quarts (the standard half-gallon) to 1.5 quarts; a 25% reduction in product with no corresponding reduction in price.

But a few days ago I bought ice cream, and was amazed to see that it somehow looked...bigger. Sure enough, it was 1.75 quarts. And what's more, all the brands are that size now - even the store brands.

It's odd how they all stay in sync. I have to wonder if there's some sort of conspiracy between the manufacturers to all stay at the same sizes!

Teri and I did our first bidding together on eBay over the weekend, and got two rare books in the "Tim" series by Edward Ardizzone for a good price. In the process I realized that the smartest thing to do is to place your first bid bid as close to the close of the auction as possible, with a backup maximum bid a few dollars higher.

Yes, that's probably obvious to almost everyone, but it was a discovery for me.

At one point Teri started bidding on a book for herself, and discovered the power of eBay's maximum bid scam. It's pretty sleazy; for those who aren't familiar with eBay, when you place a bid they invite you to put a maximum bid in as well. Then if anyone else bids, eBay automatically bids you one increment higher than them.

The problem is that if more than one person does a maximum bid, the price automatically rises to just over the second-highest maximum bid. Since eBay takes their cut out of the winning bid price (sort of), this encourages high prices and enhances their profits - but it isn't good for people who want to buy things cheaply!

Anyway, Teri was bidding on a book online, when I had a sudden suspicion. She'd last bid $19, and if she wanted to stay in the lead the new bid would have to be $21.50; that sounded like an awfully high price for a relatively new book, even one in hardcover. So I had her wait on that bid, and popped over to Amazon.com...where I found the exact same book, NEW, for $7.98. With shipping, a little over eleven dollars.

We let the auction go and bought the book from (choke) Amazon.

It's important to be a smart shopper.

Let me just say that GEORGE shoes suck. Suck bad. I got these black leather shoes perhaps six months ago; I keep them at work and wear them there.

I have to admit that I bought them at Wal-Mart. I would rather shop almost anywhere else, but I'm in the trap that the Republicans have set for poor people: I simply can't afford to shop anywhere else.

Anyway, these shoes started making a loud puffing soon after I bought them. And now the inner sole has collapsed; the shoes are irrepairable.

Don't buy GEORGE shoes. Hell, don't shop at Wal-Mart. Assuming that you have a choice, of course.

People who post wish lists are whores!

So here's mine. Unfortunately since I'm not a teenage schoolgirl, I have no expectations of actually receiving any of this crap. So I guess I'll have to buy it for myself.

And I'll buy as little of it as possible from Amazon.com.

When I was a kid my grandmother used to make us waffles in this really cool old electric waffle maker. It was round and double sided; you could make two waffles in it at once, by flipping it.

I've always wanted a waffle-maker like that. But they're not being made any more, and I had no idea where to start.

Out of the blue this weekend my mother mentioned that it was a Manning-Bowman. That was all I needed to track it down. I found several on eBay for less than $100.

Interesting; I didn't realize that it was art deco. I also hadn't known that Manning-Bowman predated the idea of planned obsolescence. Apparently their workers were proud that their appliances could last for 25 years or longer...I wish that sort of ethic existed today. And it explains why so many are available for sale today.

One of these days when I have some extra cash (some day), I'm going to buy one of those waffle makers...and give it to my mother, so that Sebastian can get great waffles from his grandmother, too.

I should probably create a "Sebastian" filter, to spare anyone who isn't interested in baby stories. But that would probably remove two out of the three people who read this, which seems pointless.

Sebastian has been getting awfully big; he's 39 inches tall and about 39 pounds. And his crib hasn't been getting any larger. He's been bumping into the top and sides at night, and crying. And I think Teri put him up to it a bit, but he's been asking for a big bed for a while now.

So on Sunday we headed to our favorite furniture store: Building 19. It's our favorite because it's so goddamned cheap, of course. Unfortunately they no longer carry foam mattresses in sizes smaller than queen. Teri wanted to get a full-size bed (also known as a "double" size bed, approximately 54" wide x 75" long), because Sebastian's crib can be disassembled and turned into a headboard and footboard for that size. I was worried that we wouldn't be able to get the mattress up the stairs. As for a box spring, forget about it - we knew we'd have to use boards to convert the metal frame into a platform. But that was okay.

The clerk showed us a good full-size mattress that was pretty bendable. Or rather, he showed Teri - Sebastian ran off before he could see the bed. In fact, he ran quite a long way away and ended up half-hidden in a far corner of the sofa display area. When I caught up to him, I realized why - he was pooping, and wanted some privacy. He was actually pretty upset about having to go in his pull-ups (and now you know why I considered a filter for this post ). It was our fault, though; he'd told us both that he needed to go.

I brought him back to the mattresses, he took a few test jumps on the one we'd selected it and pronounced it acceptable, and we took it home (tied to the top of our car, of course).

Setting up the frame was easy. Cutting the boards to the right size was no problem. Getting the mattress up the stairs without destroying it was tough. Really tough. But during a break I thought things through, and figured out a way to get the mattress up the stairs without too much damage. Basically it's a matter of coming in a precisely the right angle, and then bending everything as far as it will go.

We set up the bed (with a headboard only for now, because the frame we'd bought wouldn't accomodate a footboard), and last night Sebastian had his first night in his own big boy bed. He did get up a few times to visit us in our room, but only at first; once he was properly asleep he stayed that way.

I only wish I had! Unfortunately Sam, our old cat, is going completely insane. He used to howl to try to wake us up to feed him at 5:20am. But that time has been moving steadily forward. Unfortunately feeding him doesn't help, because even if you do he'll come back at us and howl within half an hour.

Last night he started howling at 1:20am! I got up and went downstairs. I didn't feed him, but I dozed on the couch for an hour or two, which kept him quiet. Sometimes I suspect that half of the reason he howls is for company, not food.

Eventually I went back upstairs to bed. At about 3:20am he started howling again. This time Teri went downstairs, and she shut him up in the mud room.

At 6:30am, I was woken again by Sebastian. He wanted me to come into his bed and pretend to be moles. That's his latest game; he's Baby Mole, and I'm Daddy Mole (and of course Teri is Mommy Mole). We climb into our Mole Hole under the blankets and sleep, or listen to people walking on the ground over our hole, or talk, or dig, or eat dirt. It's fun.

Anyway, here's his new big boy bed.