Ryan McFarland

Here is some information from a sale i had on Amazon.  The book was “Living a Life That Is Blessed - Devotional Studies From the Life of Abraham” and the initial purchase was made on January 23rd.

Buyer @ 2/20 8:13 PM: “I have not received this order on time and would like to cancel it. Please do so and do not ship this book to me. Thanks”

Me @ 2/20 8:32 PM “I’m sorry Pam.  I shipped the book out immediately after you ordered it.  Please give it a few more days and when it arrives feel free to inspect the postmark. Thank you”

Me @ 2/20 8:36 PM “I just looked and you’re right - that has been a long time.  You ordered it on the 23rd.  If you wouldn’t mind just giving it a few more days I will refund your money (although I will still be out the merchandise with no way to recover it) if it does not arrive.  Would you be willing to wait another week?  Thank you.”

Pam @ 2/21 4:53 AM “Sorry but I do not want this order at this late date.”

Pam @ 2/21 11:17 AM “Ok-the book came and I will keep it. Thanks.”

I’m almost certain that 90% of the time a buyer has emailed me about a book not arriving that it arrives the very next day.  I wonder what she would have done if i had returned Pam’s money in the 5 hours between her insisting she wanted a refund and when she emailed me to say she had received it.  Since it is a Christian book it is nice to think that “living a life that is blessed” might include paying for things you receive.  Apparently a blessed life does not include compassion.  Then again, perhaps the compassion will come after reading the book.

With the feds reducing the interest rate and the economic downturn in the headlines for some this might be a good time to refinance their homes. We just went through that. Mortgages are an awfully complex part of finances. In my estimation we would not benefit from refinancing at this point. We could get a lower interest rate but the fees that are stuck on the bill the bank gives you are pretty steep. The thousands that we would have to pay might be worth the expense if we foresaw staying in the house for the next 25 or 30 years. But we anticipate paying off the loan entirely in 10 more years. A percentage point drop makes even less sense knowing we won’t be paying as much in interest anyway. If anyone has a variable rate mortgage this would definitely be the time to refinance and lock in the low rates.

After our trip to Cambodia and Vietnam we really started to consider buying property overseas. Land prices are much less expensive in developing countries and it is fairly easy to predict how population growth and urban expansion will push property values up. Other than Mexico i had never really thought about considering land purchase outside of the United States. There was a fantastic resort property that Mike, Ailis, Karna and i rode by on our afternoon of scooter rentals in Na Trang. Hmmm…

A waiter at a restaurant.  People are so demanding when they order food.  If a cook messes up an order the customer blames the person that put the plate in front of them.  Not that orders are never entered incorrectly.  Sure that happens.  But since i rarely send my food back i know that i would not handle others being belligerent about a simple error that can be fixed.  Worse still, relying on tips for income when a mistake that is out of your hands could cost you money just seems to put you in a financial bind.

Anything in sales. I’m just not pushy enough to convince someone to buy something no amount of Sales Training can change my non-confrontational nature. I’d be the laziest salesman ever. If it was a commission based job i would starve. I have never had a job that handling cash was a major component of the job either. I’m the worst person for my staff to ask to help figure out where an error in the till is.

A truck driver.  As much as i like road trips it really would stink to have to get from point A to point B in a set amount of time. I like the freedom of serendipity when traveling.  I guess i don’t have much serendipity while at work now so perhaps that isn’t a good enough reason.  How about the way that i sometimes have fallen asleep at the wheel?  Fortunately i’ve never wrecked because of it.  The drivers of tractor trailers must be under so much pressure to put many miles in a day that they either must have superhuman endurance or they must be prone to using stimulants to help them get through the days (and nights).  I don’t even like coffee!

Every now and then i receive a mailing from Domain Registry of America (they are such a shady company i will not link to their site).  The top right of the sheet they mail out says “Domain Name Expiration Notice” and the bottom is a tear-off portion with a spot to fill in your credit card number and check off how long you want your domain name renewed.  Because domain name owners have their mailing address listed openly, anyone can search records and see where to mail you things.  DRoA takes advantage of that and bulk mails out notices like these that look like a renewal bill.  They do say in the text “When you switch today…” but they also have “Failure to renew your domain…” as well as telling you the date that your registration expires.  They actually are not very good at making sure that the expiration date is correct.  I received one for a domain that is good for another 6 years.  Their rates are horribly high.  They charge $30 for a one year registration.  There is no reason to pay more than $10 per year - considerably less if you register for more than one year.  Unfortunately, DRoA does not include an envelope with pre-paid postage.  If they did i would probably glue the envelope to a box full of gravel and mail it back to them.  They just prey on organizations that have a person that pays bills that arrive and that does not have a connection to the tech-end of the operations.  SEAtrails was duped by them years ago.

Cena and i have watched quite a few TV series for not having television service of any sort. We watch them on DVD. Among many other shows we’ve followed Nip/Tuck (from Tummy Tuck). I’m not a fan of most of the operating scenes in the show but they always do a nice job of having the strangest cases come in. Between television programs like Nip/Tuck and many celebrities openness regarding their cosmetic surgery it really isn’t a surprise that nearly half of the British population would consider cosmetic surgery.

I can understand some people’s desire to have a surgery done for purely self improvement reasons. I had to live with a giant nose and huge ears as a kid. And children are the cruelest beings on the planet at certain ages. But much more understandable are the reconstructive surgeries that make people whole again. Whether it is burn victims, cancer survivors, or accident victims there is a definite need for people with the skill to recreate the bodies that people had before their misfortunes.

I vividly remember one instance. In 1992 my first duty as Northeast Region Chief of the Order of the Arrow was to give a speech at the lodge banquet of a group in Delaware. I stayed with the lodge chief and his family. During the dinner the evening before the banquet the lodge chief left the table and his mother turned to me and asked if i had noticed anything about his face. I said i had not and she told me that it had recently been entirely reconstructed after a horrible car accident. Naturally i tried to see any signs of scarring after that but his face seemed to have healed wonderfully.

I’ve been “blogging” about 5 years now. Originally i was manually producing pages using tables and a clean and crisp blue and white color scheme. About that time wy dad told me about CSS (cascading style sheets) and how they could be used to create a style for the whole site. Then i shifted to using Blogger for the publishing of my site. I was hosting on a mitkof.net page. Kevin bought zieak.com for me as a Christmas gift one year so i shifted to that domain. I had been dabbling in some scripting and added commenting via Haloscan. The most recent “major” change in the site was shifting to Wordpress and importing comments from Haloscan. In the last five years there have been quite a few fairly major site appearance changes. The only truly consistent design element in recent years has been my rotating header images. I’m thinking it is time for me to create my own wordpress themes.  I really liked the one that was made from Sharpie sketches that were scanned and pieced together to form the site.  I’m thinking of doing something along those lines again.  What I’m using now i modified from a free theme available online.  With many of my projects being published on DIYlife.com my site traffic will definitely drop.  In that sense perhaps my site is once again taking on a more personal feel.

My stupid timeshare purchase continues to bite me in the butt. I really should have stood my ground on this purchase. I have half a mind to stop making maintenance payments annually and let collections start calling my ex-wife.

The resort property i bought about 7 years ago was bought out by a different timeshare company last year.   I have a studio unit with a deed that comes with 2,500 points annually that i can trade for time (along with a fee of course) at different resorts.  I’ve used the timeshare almost every year and have never stayed at the same place twice.  But i was just looking at doing some swaps within the Diamond Resort system and if i try to trade my studio unit at the Scottsdale Villa Mirage for a studio unit at the Scottsdale Villa Mirage i do not have enough points.  According to their system i need 4,000 points to trade for a week.  How can i trade my 2,500 points at any other resort?  Simply put, i can not.

I sent them an email via their website where they claim a return to my concern will be made in 24-48 hours.  Starting the stopwatch now - 8 PM on Wednesday the 20th.

With Valentine’s Day in the past it is safe to mention my blog post on DIYlife that detailed sweet gifts. I made Cena specialized wrappers for candy bars which include points that may be redeemed for prizes from a catalog. I just need to make the catalog now!  We decided that we would try and keep our gift giving pretty low key in keeping with our New Year’s resolution.

I wonder if dating sites get a surge of traffic around the middle of February.  Singles must feel somewhat pressured to look around a little more aggressively around this time of the year.  With the proliferation of online match making websites like eHarmony and Match.com there must be some substance to those sites.  I don’t know anyone that has used a dedicated dating service to meet anyone and form a lasting relationship.

I’m intrigued by the concept of speed dating.  You sign up for a group of people that literally just spend a few moments talking and then they rotate.  Then you can quickly and easily filter out the people you like or get along with from those that annoyed or were not a match.  I wonder if people try out those more around Valentine’s Day also.

1. Take on a part time job. The average American watches more than 4 hours of television per day. I know it is relaxing but your part time job doesn’t have to be strenuous. Take up a hobby and try to make some money off of it. With the internet it is easy to sell crafts and other things online.
2. Sell your junk. Type ISBN numbers of your books into Amazon and check the value in the marketplace. Sell your DVD colletion the same way - just go through and see what you may or may not want. If you have CDs you don’t listen to then move them out also. List things on eBay. Sell things at a garage sale or list them on Craigs List or another local forum. If you do this for a while you’ll learn to recognize items that you can find at thrift stores that have a higher value which brings us to…
3. Buy used goods and sell them for a profit. This is a little risky. With 1 and 2 you are turning nothing into something. But when you start spending money to make money you definitely take on some risk. But if you have an eye for things of value be it books, art, or anything then you can probably turn that skill into money. The other day in the thrift store i saw two books that i thought might be worth more money than the $0.50 that they wanted for them. I jotted down the ISBN numbers and looked them up that night at home. Sure enough, one was worth $18 and the other $50. I had Cena buy them and within a few days i sold the $50 book. For instant gratification enter ISBN numbers into your cell phone web browser at ISBN Spy. Be warned, if you sell things online (this applies to #1 also) you probably need to ship things out which may require you buying packing tape, bubble wrap, padded envelopes and boxes but you might be able to find them…
4. Dumpster Diving and curb crawling. In my town the variety of dumpsters is pretty limited but with some thought you can manage well. Checking around college campuses and nearby apartment complexes at the end of semesters is almost always a winner. Some strip malls have large dumpsters without compactors. Ask people holding garage sales if you can come back and haul off their unsold goods at the end of the day. Take note of garbage days and especially pay close attention to any special waste management holidays like spring cleaning. There are places that pay for pallets. Finding scrap metal and rescuing it from the trash can be profitable and is environmentally responsible. Turn that trash into cash.
5. Borrow. Have a family member or friend that can float you a loan? In a pinch this can be a win-win. If you’re good for the money they can make a little interest - yes, you really should pay them some interest. And the loan won’t end up on your credit report. If you just need a small amount before your next paycheck you could consider payday lending.

In the few years that Cena and i have been selling stuff online we have learned one major rule.  Anything over $10 needs to have delivery confirmation.  We pay for this out of our own pocket.  Before we followed this rule we had many claims that the item never arrived.  Perhaps as many as one out of 20 items were not arriving at their destination.  With the volume that we have had this was amounting to about once a month having to refund someone’s money.  Since beginning our anything over $10 gets delivery confirmation rule not a single lost item claim has been made.  I wonder how often people lie about their item to get things for free.  It is a despicable practice and i truly hope that the people we have shipped to that intended to dupe us into believing that their item didn’t arrive were put off by our foresight of their plan.  I’m positive in the long run that our expense of the delivery confirmation ($0.60 per item shipped) has more than paid for itself.