Memorial Day Weekend

Read below for my belated tale of Memorial Day weekend, including the tale of terror regarding my experience with yet another service drone!

After leaving work around 11AM on Friday I picked up Danielle and she and I went Grill Shopping. The X had retained custody of our expensive stainless steel grill and after an entire summer last year of no grilled food, I decided to pickup a grill and say Damn to the unscheduled budget interruption! (Of course, it should be noted that this expense of about $220 which I paid cash for, comes back to haunt me later!)

In search of a propane grill we went to Costco, Target, Meijer's, Home Depot, and finished up with Lowes.

Costco had only monster expensive stainless steel units (if it were not for those gasoline savings the membership there would be practically worthless, except for gasoline and impulse buys that is). For example when I bought my digital camera last year they were $50 more for the base camera than what I found at newegg.com AND I got a 1GB memory card too!

Target had only ultra costly or ultra cheap, and not a good selection of either.

Meijer's had a decent selection, but, nothing jumped out as a great deal or a unit I liked.

Home Depot was a bit better, and I actually found a grill I liked, but, try and get someone to help you! Ever walk into Home Depot and you are greeted by a number of people? Then actually try to find one when you want something.

Lowes not only had a great selection, but, had about 8 models in quantity pre-assembled (for no extra charge!)! So, we decided on a model and headed home.

Danielle and I headed down to Grandma's house Saturday morning to fix her PC which would no longer get on the internet via Netzero (who wanted to charge her 2 bucks a minute for tech support!) Geez!! Now I see why Netscape is running those commercials where they are bucking against Netzero and mentioning they do not charge you for tech support. Plus, when I talked to the supervisor at Netzero the accent on this guy was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I hate that! If you are taking calls on a US support number, is it too much to ask that the person picking up can speak English in an understandable manner? I say it is NOT an unreasonable expectation!

Anyway, we had called because according to the error, Less than Zero....uh....I mean Netzero was giving, it was a problem with their network. Since I had exited McAfee's security suite I did not think it was something local until Mom mentioned hitting a block all on a popup......SO some investigation showed that exiting McAfee which warns you that your PC will be unprotected is an exaggeration; since the McAfee personal firewall uses the XP firewall, it does NOT unblock that! It turned out Mom had blocked what I surmise to be the built in commercial portion of Netzero and it refuses to run without that talking to the Internet. I explained to Mom how if she has an update running for Netzero or a program she is using that it is OK to allow the changed program access to the Internet. If she is doing nothing and that happens, deny it. That fixed, and with Danielle and I each picking a trinket from Mom's Yard Sale, we headed home.

I contacted the X whose van I wanted to borrow and Danielle and I headed to Lowes in the Mustang with the X meeting us there to pickup the grill. I got confirmation from the X (she has incredible purchase sense!) that the $40 more grill was a much better deal that the one I had been considering. This was of course after teasing her by asking of the $2000 unit would fit in her van! She concurred, she snagged a salesman (I already had a cart with an empty propane tank and grill utensils) and I paid. I then took my receipt as the service folks had told me to the home and garden section to swap the empty tank for a full one which was an additional free bonus.

Of course when I arrived there which was a considerable distance from where I started, the register drone there knew nothing about this deal

"Look! I have a receipt that shows the tank exchange there! That alone should be enough for you to do the swap" I stated.

Alas, the bit of drool leaking from the corner of the drones mouth and her glazed eyes should have warned me what was coming next

"But....you....have....one...of....our....new...propane.....tanks........" she droned in monotone "this....is....for....a....tank....exchange".

"Yes!" I cried, "And here is the empty tank!"

The flow of drool noticeably increased at this point and, while I did not think it was possible for those eyes to glaze over any more...they did!

"But....this.....is....one...of....our....new ....propane......tanks......." she started.

"I know!" I cried cutting her off mid-drone! "I bought it here! I have a receipt! See!??"

(Of course, shoving the receipt near her face only caused it to become moistened with drool!)

"I.....do.....not....know......how.....to....process....this... you...must.....do.....this.....through......customer....service" she said, nearly slipping in the puddle of drool that had accumulated from her expending so much effort in an attempt to speak in complete sentences.

"They told me to come HERE!" I almost sobbed.

At this point though I was saved.....A Drone Supervisor arrived, and with a quick application of a napkin to wipe some of the drool off the drone, and an encouraging pat on the drones head stated "Sure you do! Just process this as a regular propane exchange. Take he tank and give him a full one"

She did, and I was soon back on my way to where, after all this time, they still had not loaded my grill. I told the X I would speak to someone, so a quick trip to Drone Command (Uh, customer service) caused the dispatching of enough drones to take care fo thsi.

Once we arrived back art my residence, The X's partner Jeff helped me move the grill. Jeff and the X then departed.

The temperature was climbing (high 80's Saturday, mid 90's Sunday and Monday) so around 5PM Danielle, Scott, and myself headed to the association pool and enjoyed a cooling off. We returned home to change and then we headed to Forest Hills food where I picked up meat for burgers and chicken for Scott. I made nice jumbo cheeseburgers for all except Scott who had grilled chicken brushed with olive oil.

I also turned on the AC because at this point it was just too hot to deal with. That got us through the night.

Sunday and Monday were just more of the same, though Sunday Danielle, Scott, and I headed to Costco so I could by bulk burgers and hot dogs (actually reasonably priced for ground sirloin and Ball Park franks...hmmm perhaps I can get some extra millage out of that membership! We also got a package of Brownie bites which the kids love.

We watched TV too, finishing off accumlated episodes of Lost, Dr. Who, Braniacs, and others. I ened up by the end of Monday night having wacthed the reamining four episodes oof Charmed which included the Season FInale.

We hit the pool, and the X showed up as I was grilling so we threw a hot dog on the grill for her. It became evident at this point in time that the central air had breathed it last gasp so I turned it off. Sleeping (trying to sleep) Sunday and Monday night was next to impossible, even with a fan blowing on my bed.

Monday was more of the same with pooling and grilling........and back to work and school Tuesday.