Do You Use PayPal?

 

A number of years ago when I first started buying a few item off of Ebay I opened a PayPal account.  I’ve never had any problems, that is until recently.  Maybe you are a lot like me, I have assumed that a seller or vendor is on the up and up if they have established an account with PayPal that allows me to pay for my purchase that way rather than giving out my credit card number.  But, that is not always the case.  Let me tell you my little story.

I discovered that the chainsaw bar on my chainsaw was needing to be replaced.  As I often do, I shopped around online to find the best price.  The company had a nice website and offered to let me pay for the bar with my PayPal account.  I immediately received a receipt from PayPal that the money had been sent to the vendor.  I thought it a bit unusual but I did not receive a confirmation from the vendor.  I kept expecting my new bar to arrive.

After two weeks had gone by and I still hadn’t heard anything I sent an email to the vendor, which was not answered.  I attempted to call but got a recorded message that the number was disconnected or no longer in service.   I logged onto my PayPal account and went to the “resolution center” and gave them this information.  They encourage the buyer and seller to work things out.  They were to send a message to the seller.  Several days went by.

I did further checking online to see if I could find out anything else.  What I found was very interesting.  I located a second phone number, which when called resulted in the same message,  number disconnected or no longer in service.  I came across a website that told me that this company was closed.  I went to the BBB’s website and found that they had rated this particular company, on a rating of A+ to F, an F.  This they said was primarily due to unresolved complaints.

I updated the message board at the PayPal resolution center and then filed a claim.  The automated email indicated that they would investigate, possibly ask more questions and would make a determination within 10 days.

The amazing thing to me was that in only about an hour I received an email from PayPal stating they had investigated my claim and that they had issued a full refund to my credit card.

I’m impressed with their quick resolution and with the refund.  But, the need is there to check out who you are buying from.  Don’t assume that just because they accept PayPal they are someone you want to attempt to do business with.

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A Story of a Coffee Grinder

Some of you reading this may remember when nearly every grocery store had a commercial coffee grinder, usually located within the coffee aisle.  A lot of the coffee sold was whole bean and you were able to open the package, pour the coffee beans into the grinder, select the grind you wanted, and grind the beans right there in the store.  There are some few stores that may still have such units but not many.


In the late 1960’s a family friend living in the Champaign, Illinois area located quite a number of these coffee grinders sitting in a warehouse, having been removed from grocery stores.  He made a deal with the owner and bought all they had for almost nothing, I believe about $5.00 each.  He cleaned them up and serviced them and resold them to friends to use to grind wheat for cereal and corn for corn meal for $10.00 each.  My parents bought one and when I saw it on one of our trips to Illinois from California where we were then living I asked them to purchase one for us, which they did.  In the summer of 1970 we packed the machine into our station wagon and hauled it back to California.  It has gone with us on every move we have made since.

We have used it to grind wheat for cereal, corn for corn meal and for baby chick feed.  However, I got into trouble some time ago when I was grinding roasted chick peas, also known as garbanzo beans.  I was roasting them and using them as a coffee substitute.    ( http://gdpifer1.blogspot.com/2008/12/brew.html )

Well, to make a long story short, the beans were quite hard and something broke.  I suspected that there was some kind of shear pin since the motor was continuing to run without a problem but the grinder wasn’t grinding.  I attempted a “hurry up” repair but couldn’t get to the area I needed without tearing things down a bit more.  Consequently the old grinder sat in the corner for the next several months.

Last month, one of the grandsons was helping me do some clean up and we moved the grinder into the workshop.  A day or two later we decided to take the time to tear the machine down enough to get to the grinder.  Once we got the end plate off we could see the shaft that the motor turned and it was moving freely.  And, we could see that there had been some type of “shear pin” in the end of the shaft.  All we could see was that it was a rusty, coppery color.  The grandson made the remark that when we got the old piece out we could probably replace it with a penny.  We had a good laugh.

However, when we did get it out what did we discover?  It actually was a penny!  And, not only did we find the two pieces of the penny, there was a small piece of another penny that had apparently sheared earlier and had never been removed.  I’m thinking the family friend replaced the first sheared penny when he was cleaning and repairing the units back in the late 1960’s as the penny we removed was a 1964 penny.

We have laughingly remarked that there wasn’t a shear pin but a shear penny!  The grandson donated a penny he had in his pocket and the old coffee grinder is working great.  We had to grind some wheat and had wheat cereal for breakfast the next day.

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It Seems To Be Addictive

After not making any candleholders for some time I can’t seem to quit making them now.  Since my last post I have turned a few more on my Craftsman Router Crafter.

The hollow spiral on the left was made from a piece of oak firewood.  It stands 16 inches tall and allows for a large pillar candle to be placed on top.  Here is a close-up photo.

The second from the left, pictured above, is made from Eastern Red Cedar and oak.  This was the first time I tried laminating two species together and then turning them.  Here is another photo of this 13 inch candleholder.

The third candleholder from the left is made from a piece of dogwood.  The piece had an unusual light portion running down the center of the limb.  This piece is about 9-1/2 inches tall.  Here is a picture of it by itself.


The final set on the right are turned from the Mimosa (Silk Tree) that grows about everywhere here in Kentucky.  These are small, only about 5-1/2 inches tall.



Maybe I’ll find something else to do for awhile.

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More Candleholders

Busy with everything else it seems, I had not ventured into the shop to turn any candleholders for quite some time.  Below are pictured ones that I made on my Craftsman Router Crafter.


The above photo is rather dark, so below are individual pictures.

This set is made from carob wood brought from California.  It has a beautiful red color.

These are also made from wood brought from California, olive wood.  This wood is very hard and heavy.  I believe the grain is quite beautiful.

This is another black walnut candleholder made from the old sill log I got from under the old house I tore down a couple of years ago.  It is drilled for a tea light candle.

And, finally, another Eastern Red Cedar candleholder.

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Our 48th Wedding Anniversary

On July 19, 2012 Connie and I celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary.  We got away for a couple of days.  On the 18th we drove over to Cumberland Falls State Park for a return visit to the falls.  We had been there about 5 years ago and although we enjoyed it very much, the water in the river was quite low and there was not enough water going over the falls to fully cover all of the rocks.  We had kept promising ourselves we would go back.  So, finally we made it.  Although the summer has been quite dry there had been some rain in the local area that had the river running at normal levels.

The falls is 125 feet wide and 68 feet tall at normal pool.  If you look closely you can see several people on the left of the falls.  This will give you a bit of an idea of the size.  The falls is referred to as the “Niagara of the South,” as it is the largest waterfall south of Niagara and east of the Mississippi river.

There is one thing that occurs here and in no other place in the entire western hemisphere.  Only at night during a full moon  one can see a “moon bow.”  This is much the same as a rainbow that is seen on most days but is an arc of white light.  We have never seen this but maybe sometime!

Leaving the falls we drove to near Knoxville, TN and spent the night.  We had made reservations at a unique “bed and breakfast.”  Here is a picture of the sign in front of the place.

We found the name of the place to be quite interesting since we live here “on Cedar Ridge.”  The cabin was moved to this location from about 3 or 4 miles away and was modernized.  It has central heat and air, a full bathroom and modern kitchen.  We opted out of the breakfast and took food and fixed our own—steak and eggs!


This picture is of the exterior of the cabin.  All of the logs in the walls are original.  The setting is very nice, quite a ways off of the main street and was very quiet and peaceful.  Below are a couple of photos of the inside of the cabin.





A very large and working fireplace is the central point in the  cabin.  Unseen in this photo is a nice sofa in front of the fireplace.  The white cabinet to the left in the photo is an entertainment center with TV and VCR.




This picture was taken from in front of the fireplace, looking up into the loft where the king-size bed was located.  After a good breakfast the next morning, the 19th, we spent several hours at the Museum of Appalachia, which was virtually next door to the cabin.


The museum was founded by John Rice Irwin in 1969 with one log cabin.  It is now a non-profit organization and includes dozens of historic log structures and exhibit halls with thousands of authentic artifacts from the Appalachia area.  Mr. Irwin traveled the many back roads collecting these items, items used by and often made by the mountain folk of the Southern Appalachia area.

The view above is of part of the 60 acre museum grounds. 

The tiny building in the photo to the left is the smallest dwelling  in the museum.  It was moved to the museum in 2007 from nearby Beard Valley, in Union County, TN.  This was the home of an old bachelor by the name of Tom Cassidy.  He is reported as saying,  “I’ve got that little cot in there, a chair, a stove for heat and cooking, a frying pan, a bean pot, on old dresser, my fiddle and my pistol;  what more does a man need?


This cabin is known as the “Mark Twain Family Cabin.”  It was moved to the museum from Possum Trot, TN and once was the home of Mark Twain’s parents and some of their children.  Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons) was born 5 months after the family moved from Tennessee in 1835.


As I said, we spent several hours there but one could spend even more time looking at all of the interesting exhibits and reading the information that has been written about them.  We returned home that afternoon, having had an enjoyable break and a good anniversary.

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Our 33 Day, 6731 Mile Road Trip–part 13 Recap

As the title says, Connie and I were gone from home for 33 days (and 32 nights).  We drove nearly 7000 miles, by actual odometer readings it was 6731 miles.  We crossed or drove through a portion of 17 states.  Including Kentucky, where we started and ended up, we drove through Kentucky, a corner of Indiana, across Illinois, Missouri, a small corner of Iowa, across Nebraska, Wyoming, part of Utah, across Idaho, through much of Oregon, into and back out of Washington, down through California, across Arizona,  New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, and half way across Tennessee before getting back to Kentucky. 

Of the 32 nights we were gone from home we spent 10 nights at our son’s home, 8 nights with friends, 1 night in a motel and 13 nights we slept in our van.  9 of those nights were spent in the auto parking lot at “truck stops” or as they are called most often now, Travel Plazas.  1 night was spent in a Wal-Mart parking lot and 3 nights in campgrounds.

If we use the amount spent for a motel for the one night as an average figure the 13 nights spent in the the van saved us almost $1000.00.  I mentioned in part 1 that we tried to figure all the ways we could cut expenses.  One way we did that, in addition to sleeping in the van, was to invest in an America the Beautiful Senior Interagency Pass available for those over 62 years of age (and it is good for a lifetime).  The pass is $10.00 plus a fee of $10.00 when ordered by mail, as I did.  With the pass we were able to visit the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center and the 3 national parks for free.  Two of the campgrounds we stayed in were in national forests and we got 50% off of the normal fee.  By my calculations we saved about $85.00 after deducting the cost of the pass.

I had mentioned that gasoline would be our big expense.  The lowest price we paid was $3. 299 a gallon.  Most was in the $3.50 to $3.65 range.  It was much more expensive in California and parts of Oregon and Arizona.  The most we paid was at a station just outside of Yosemite National Park, and I only bought $20.00 worth.  Regular gasoline there was $5.099 a gallon.  When I figured everything up on our return I found that we paid an average of $3.82 a gallon.  Our van performed well and we averaged 24 miles per gallon for the trip.  I felt this was quite good considering we were driving 70 miles per hour on most of the interstates and we were driving in the mountains for many of the miles.

We thoroughly enjoyed our road trip but perhaps the most beautiful thing we saw was this.

Yes, home sweet home.  (This photo was taken last Fall so we didn’t have the color change of the leaves greeting us on our return.)

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Our 33 Day, 6731 Mile Road Trip–part 12

I mentioned at the end of part 11 that we drove to Hondo, TX on day 27 of our road trip.  For the only night of our trip we had reserved a room at a motel.  As far as I could determine there was no truck stop in or near Hondo and since the temperature was quite warm we desired to have a good nights sleep and a shower before we began our busy day, May 19th.

We arose early and ate a bit of breakfast, then drove the 3 or 4 miles out of town to the Ruben Torres Unit.  We arrived a little before 8:00 A.M. and found that there were 15 or 20 vehicles already there waiting.  And, we all waited until 8:00 A.M. when the guards manning the guard shack began their shift.  Each vehicle went through the security check and was allowed to proceed to the parking area.  From there we were processed through the security entrance and moved on to the visitor area.  Finally, a little before 9:00 A.M. our actual visit with Juan began.

We had called earlier in the week and requested a 4 hour visit, the normal visit being just 2 hours.  That request was granted and the guard on duty in the visitor room situated us to the far corner, away from much of the noise of the contact visits.  Ours was a non-contact visit since we were not family.  We were not prepared for the visit to be by telephone, only being able to see Juan through the glass.  We had experienced that at the McConnell Unit last October but it was a maximum security unit.  However, we managed fine, except for the time a couple with small children or babies were seated just down the way from us.  The little ones made quite a bit of noise and even Juan could hear some of it through the phone.

Due to  the timing of an inmate count and the guard just not being strict with the time our 4 hour visit became 4 hours and 25 minutes.  And yet, it seemed to fly by.  The visit was about a 20 on a scale of 1 to 10.  All three of us enjoyed it greatly.

The man we visited at the McConnell Unit last Fall has been paroled and is living in the Austin, TX area.  We had contacted him and told him we planned to stop for a few minutes and see him.  We called him from the parking lot at the Torres Unit and let him know we were on the way.  About 2 and 1/2 hours later we were visiting with Robert at his niece’s home.  Our visit was short, only an hour or less, as we still had several miles to drive.

By about 7:15 P.M. we arrived in Bryan, TX at the home of Thomas and Raquel, the founders or Broken Vessels Prison Ministry.  They set some food before us and we enjoyed some good conversation before it was time for bed.

The next day, May 20th, the 29th day of our road trip, we were up and away early, driving to Navasota, TX to the Pack Unit where we spent most of the day.  We first visited Troy, who we had visited last Fall, for a bit over 4 hours.  We exited the unit, ate a sandwich in the parking lot, and reentered to visit with Wesley B.  Due to the timing we knew we wouldn’t be able to get in a full 4 hours with him, but due to his leg bothering him and needing to get back to his dorm we cut the visit short after about 2 and 1/2 hours or so.  Both visits were very good.

After returning to Bryan we accompanied Thomas and Raquel to the home of Rebecca, whom we had met last October.  What we didn’t know until we arrived in Bryan was that Rebecca had married Wayne a bit earlier in a civil ceremony and they were planning a “religious” ceremony while we were there.  As it turned out I got to walk the bride down the “aisle.”  I put that in quotes as the ceremony took place at the picnic area at Lake Bryan.  But, I’m getting ahead of the story.

Wesley T., that we had met last Fall, lives in the trailer park that Rebecca manages so we were able to see him and visit a bit that evening.  Of course we got to meet Wayne and we all enjoyed a bit of food together.

The next day was a bit of a relaxing day.  Connie and I spent a couple of hours with Wesley T. in the morning before he had to go to work and then just rested most of the rest of the day.

May 22nd, our 31st day, was busier.  We all had to drive out to the lake and help get things prepare for the wedding service.  Everything went well and following the ceremony we all enjoyed a good meal that had been prepared by some of the wedding parties relatives.  A little later Thomas, Raquel, Connie and I had the privilege of baptizing Wesley T. in the lake.

May 23rd Connie and I headed on toward Kentucky.  We had a good day, driving about 560 miles.  We spent the night at the Flying J Travel Plaza in West Memphis, AR.  The following day, May 24th, our 33rd on the road we drove the rest of the way home.  We arrived home by about 2:00 P.M.  It was good to be greeted by 4 enthusiastic grandchildren and their parents.  We felt like maybe we had been missed a little bit while we were gone.

I’ll bring this whole story to an end in the next part as I try to recap and summarize a bit.

This picture was taken at the Flying J in West Memphis, AR

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