It's all a SCAM!!!

OK, so recently I sold some of my extra stuff I have in basement on ebay. Good idea I thought. Well eBay, PayPal and UPS are all scam artisits. And here's why.

I sold 2 things on eBay last week. One for about $1000 and the other for about $1300. Ok good deal, I was hoping to get more for the first thing, but not bad. So ebay charges me $10.10 to list the 2 items, reasonable, not problem there. Then I find out after I sell these things that ebay then charges me another $66.00 for selling them. Why the hell do I pay them twice? When I put an add in the paper I pay them to put the add in and that's it. They don't come back later asking for commission. This is a bunch of crap. But it gets worse. So I sold the 2 items and the one guy pays me within seconds on paypal, cool I already got paid for the one item. Problem, since the item is over $500 I have to upgrade my account, and not only do I have to upgrade the account they are also going to take their cut, another $60.00. So I email the other who guy who bought the other item, asking him not to pay via paypal, three seconds later I get an email stating I just received another payment...CRAP! The guy paid via paypal as well. So paypal takes another $60.00. Now you may not think that is bad til you realize who owns paypal. FLIPPIN' eBay owns pay pal, so they have double dipped into my money. So off my 2 sales ebay has taken $10.10 to list, $66.00 commission, and $120.00 via paypal. Those bastards. I understand making money, but come on, eBay just made almost $200.00 on a $2300.00 sale. That's almost 10% down the drain that I just lost. OK so I am already pissed about the whole eBay/PayPal scam...and it is a scam believe me, but to top it off I went to send the servers out today and went to the UPS Store. And had the worse experience ever, well maybe not ever, but close to it.

I get there and carry in the items I sold which aren't light. after which the lady tells me, oh you could have parked out front and used the cart. Now you tell me. So one of the items doesn't have a box and I need one. They tell me because of the size I will have to get a custom box, ok I say how much is it....oh $40.00 they tell me. Are freaking crazy? $40.00 for a box? I turn around and see a box marked $12.99. I say why can't I use that box? Oh you can she says to me. OK so why would I pay $40.00 for a custom box when the $12.99 box will do just fine. She doesn't know. So we use the $12.99 box. Then she puts the one item on the scale and tells me how much it will be, I say ok. She asks if I want insurance, I ask how much it is. She say $1.25 for every $100. I say ok, give me $800 insurance. Ok package one done. On to package 2, this is the one without a box. So she asks if I want fragile packing, I ask what's the difference. She says fragile packaging is bubble wrap and non-fragile packaging uses peanuts. I tell her the peanuts are fine. So we move on. We get to the point where it is time to pay. She tells me the total is $150.29, I only charged the people I who bought the stuff $110.00, crap. So I look at the receipt and see a $19.99 charge. I ask what that is for she said the box. I tell her the box says it's $12.99. She says that's for the box, the extra $7.00 is for tape and peanuts. You have to be kidding me I tell her. i also inform her this is the last time I am coming to this store. So back to work I go. And I start looking at my receipt. I then see she charged me $11.50 for insurance. If you remember I asked for $800 insurance at $1.25/$100. By my math that is $10.00, but UPS math that is $11.50. Then I continue to look and I see a handling charge of $11.75 on the boxless item. So not only did they charge me for the peanuts and tape, they charged my another $11.75 to put them in and on. What kind of crap is that. Oh, they also charge a fuel surcharge, what is this for?

So to make my long story short I got SCREWED...3 TIMES!

Give me a break!

Ok certain goverment agency's are going too far. The health department in NYC wants to ban trans fats. They are comparing it to the ban of smoking in restaurants. I will give them the fact that both are unhealthy, but the reason for the ban on smoking was that it affected others than those that smoke (2nd hand smoke). I don't think you are going to get fat by being around me while I eat a donut, unless it looks so good you go get your own. Give me a breka people, if you don't want to eat fatty foods FINE! but some of us like things like french fries and donuts. And people who claim not to know that these foods are bad for you are idiots. And any judge that lets a case in front of them of such stupid merits is also an idiot. The bottom line is my fat isn't hurting you, so let me eat it.

Well, well.....

...it looks like Jackson not eating was not the result of his obese parents trying to shove food down his throat. We went back to the doctor's office this week for Jackson and Mackenzie's yearly check-ups, Jackson's 1 yr. old and Mack's 3 yr. old. We saw a different doctor this time and while he was checking out Jackson it turns out the reason he has been cranky and not eating is because he has fluid in his right ear. Hmm....what do you know about that? I guess not all obese parents try to cram food down their kid's throats. Eat that dr. o'brien, or would that be too filling for you?
Other than that it was a normal annual check-up, Jack got shots which he didn't like and Mack was the most well behaved child I have ever seen, yes our Mack. I think I am going to start wearing White Lab Coats at home and see if that was the reason she was behaving.

I think he just called me fat....

Yesterday Allison and I took Jackson to the doctors for 2 reasons really. The first of which is that since it has gotten cooler out Jackson has been conjested and has stopped eating baby food. The second was that he cut his eye lid open and we wanted to make sure it was ok.

So we get to the doctor and he is checking Jackson out. We then mention that since Jackson has gotten conjested he has pretty much stopped eating. The doctors response was this and I quote, "A new study just came out that says obese parents are more likely to have obese children". Wait a second, did he just call me fat? I think he did. I wanted to say "another study is about to be released that says doctors who call their patients parents fat are more likely to end up with a black eye than those who don't." But I didn't. I wanted to, but I didn't. Actually I think I was more in disbelief that he just called us fat than anything. Granted I could lose some weight, but that has nothing to do with the fact that Jackson stopped eating. Needless to say, but I will anyways, that will be the last visit with that doctor. Not only did he call me fat, but he just left right after that and never came back. We weren't really sure what was going on so we packed up our stuff and headed out.

And about his eye, Jackson's not the doctor's, it is fine.

She's Potty Trained......

....well kind of. No I am not talking about my wife, she has been potty trained for at least 6 or so years now. I am talking about Mackenzie. This weekend we decided to bite the bullet and put Mackenzie in "Big Girl Underwear" and for the most part she did great. The first day was Saturday. It was going well, we went to Old navy and some other places then we went to Friendly's for some lunch. She had gone potty while we were at Old Navy so we thought she was good to go for lunch. We during lunch she said she had to go again, so I took her and she went again at Friendly's, a whole 15-20 minutes after going at Old Navy. Good job we told her then we left. As we got into the car, I was putting Jack in his car seat when I heard Mack start crying. Apparently she had to go again, so she had her first accident in the parking lot. I guess she couldn't have picked a better place to have an accident. The rest of the day she did great. No other accidents.

Now onto Sunday, we decided to go to the fair. Although they seem to have a lot of bathrooms, they don't have ones close to where ever we were. I think Mack has the world's smallest bladder. She must have went 10 times while we were at the fair. However, she should have went 11. As we were leaving the fair, she started acting a little funny so we asked if she had to go to the bathroom, she hesitated but said no. So we continued walking to the car, when she started crying again, but this time she was leaving a trail, and this was not the kind of trail you wanted to follow. We stopped immediately, but didn't know what to do? If she walked stuff fell out of her undies, but we couldn't leave her there....could we? No of course not. So Allison pulled out all the wipes we had with us...all 2 of them, CRAP!(no pun intended). So Allison cleaned her leg a little bit and I picked her up. We made our way to the bathroom where Allison took her into the ladies room and cleaned her up and put a new change of clothes on her.

So to sum the weekend up, Mackenzie only had 2 accidents over a 2 day period of time, not too bad if you ask me. I am very proud of her!

Karate

I have taken karate since I was 6 years old. That means I have taken it a LONG time, 27 years to be exact. And as some of you may know, I am very opinionated. Also for taking Karate (tang soo do) for 27 years I am a relatively low belt, only a 2nd degree black belt. I know more than 2nd degree level, but I don't really believe in taking tests to prove you know something. And belt level really isn't that important to me, which may be part of the problem that I am about the RANT about.

Tonight after class a higher ranking student came over to me and asked if he could ask me a question. So I said sure thinking he was going to ask me a question. NOPE! Instead he begins to tell me something I guess I was doing wrong in a staff form. It was a little thing and I don't really think I do what he said he saw me do. But here is my problem:
1) Why ask if you can ask me a question if you aren't going to ask me a question?
2) Why wasn't he doing the form instead of watching me?
3) Why wasn't he doing many of the exercises we were doing in class, maybe that is why I was tired and maybe made the mistake and he wasn't
4) Please don't sprout of theological crap for why things are done. Hell they change the way things are done constantly. Which is fine, I understand revolution.
5) Excuse me buddy but I have been a black belt longer than you have been taking karate.

OK i guess that is the end of my RANT. Just a little frustrated I guess, and I guess I should thank him for taking interest in helping me, but nah! That just wouldn't be me.

Jack's First Haircut

Jack got his forst haircut a couple of weeks ago, but I just got around to getting the pictures off of the camera. Here are some shots of the experience. The last one is Jack and Laura, his stylist. Ya I said Stylist..so what!

Crikeys!

I would like to take a minute or so for respect to Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. He was a very funny individual with an important message.

As it just so happens, Sunday the family and I went to Lake Tobias, where they have alligators as well as a bunch of other animals. The most unusual one was the Elk. It was unusual because of the noise it makes. It sounds like a lady screaming in the woods. At Lake Tobias you can go on a little safari and see all kinds of animals. There were Elk, Buffalo, LLama, all sorts of Deer, Emus and many other kinds. It was also interesting to find out that the male Emus take care of their young instead of the mothers. You can also go to a petting zoo where they have goats you can pet, a pig, and a deer. The goats ambush you looking for food the second you walk in. I assume they feed these animals once in a while, but the gaots sure didn't act like it. They also have a reptile show. During the reptile show you get to see a 2 toed sloth, some parrots, a couple of snake, an African Porcupine, an aligator and 2 13 foot long snakes. On the way out you can put the longer snakes, Mack's favorite part she loves snakes for some reason, and you can pet the alligator. Steve would have been very happy.

On the way back we decided to stop by Kipona. This was good time. They had all sorts of entertainers. From singing acts, to magicians, to a lady named Carmen Bannana who walked on stilts.

Monday we went to Downtown York, to see the Labor Day Parade. It was a little disorganized, but a good parade none the less. We actually got more candy at this parade than at any of the Halloween Parades we went to last year. My wife's company, Voith Seimens Hydro Power, even had an entry. Although I must say their candy was lacking. Maybe the wife can do something about that next year.

Well all in all it was a pretty good weekend, I had hoped to see a friend who said she was going to be in the area this weekend, but she didn't stop by. Oh well maybe next time.