One year ago today: July 26, 2017, on about real estate.
Five years ago today: July 26, 2013, make that 35 years now.
Nine years ago today: July 26, 2009, they heard the splash.
Random years ago today: July 26, 2015, still house hunting.
Six and half hours. That’s how long I was looking for those burner rings today. This makes a total of around 32 hours total spent on locating these objects and I’m no closer than when I started. The problem is, nobody knows what they are or what they are called. Don’t waste your time searching for “burner ring”, or “bezel ring” or “gas ring” or anything you can think of because nobody on line knows either. You’ll get a few sites, but after scrolling down ten or fifteen pages of each, you realize you’ve been click-baited. Harbor Freight denies all knowledge, even when you show them this picture, read on ahead.
Ha! I’ve put in around twenty times as many hours as anyone else. It seems like they are the ones sitting around waiting for me to hand them the keys and go fire things up. I understand that perspective, that it is the guy selling hotdogs that gets the bucks in the door, but that is also the easiest part of the work. I’ve got half a mind to just sit down and see how long before anybody speaks up. It’s not their dollars at risk. But this is why you’ve got haves and have-nots. If I was Agt. R, I’d be going crazy trying to find those gas rings.
The entire operation cannot proceed without them, and I would have a few words with the guy that sold us the rig. He knew we were amateurs and should have checked for the rings. As it stands, I think he kept deliberately saying “as is” because he knew they were missing. I’ve examined the option of having to replace the entire burner system, which will push the price of the cart up into the range where we could have bought from a reputable source. The problem is finding another brand that will fit into the same firebox with the same clearances. The odds are about zero on that.
Today I was touring the barbeque, gas grill, and gas companies in Winter Haven. I’ve long since given up asking for a burner ring because I really, really don’t like the FBS, the “Florida Blank Stare”. I took in the picture (see July 20 post) and show them. The first question out of their pie holes is usually, “What’s that?” Trust me, that means you are not going to get anywhere. This is the ultimate outcome of the “customer service” fiasco. They don’t know, but they cover it up so politely that they think they have a right to waste your time. And this is the people at the information desk. Jeez!
Another pity is that nobody in these small towns knows or recognizes the value of opportunity costs. If I had my old job back, I would have earned $ 7,392 on this cart already. Even if I’m not paid the full amount, I still have renovations, car repairs, band practice, studying, and a camper trailer to fix up that are all on hold. Those rings are not in any of the packages that came with the cart, but I will look one more time. Then up to the library to see if maybe it is a special order. Yes, I count those hours as well, it’s not like anybody comes knocking on my door to tell me what needs to be done next. Therefore figuring things out is all billable hours.
House on the hill.
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This may be the only happy news today, this chess set. It looks like a wooden box with no lid, but if you know the trick, viola. Twist open, it’s like an adult-proof lid. I don’t play chess, but bought this as a novelty. All the pieces are there. I’ve played chess maybe five times in my life. I find checkers more absorbing because the company is better. Note the improvement in picture quality these days? I have my small work space back. Now if only I could find an effective camera. I go through the cheap ones because the expensive ones are not any better and all too often use formats which require the loading of applications that mess up your system. Are you listening, Kodak? Sony?
And this movie more than sucks for portraying the Eloi as a commune of peaceniks, complete with tattoos. That’s copy-cat idiocy, not sci-fi. Of course, the woman has morphed from babe into a thirty-something brown-skinned single mother. Who now wears sensible shoes. Yeah, we get it, when all races are intermingled, the result is an olive-toned freak without no aspirations in life but to gather the crops, worship the ancient gods, and prepare for the Great Festival by painting her body parts. How freaking ho-hum can these millennials get?
That reflects my frustration at finding the burner rings. I finally stepped through the entire video and found the frame that depicted the Harbor Freight model number, HF-35559-6VGA (see photo above). I took it in and showed it to them, and they were about as helpful as, well, the staff at Harbor Freight. They grudgingly, with a lot of exchanged furtive glances, admitted that maybe it was available on-line. (It isn’t, I’d already checked. I was there to ask if they could order me a new one.)
So, it’s propane burner time. I was back on-line, which is a woefully inefficient way to find anything unless you already know where it is, type of thing. The Internet has degenerated into a massive amalgamation of each programmer’s worst practices. For every good site, there are a thousand bad ones, a complete lack of standards. You have no idea how many things are called burner rings until you try to find one. And of course, this Google SEO nonsense makes sure you get almost every site with either of the two terms, including jewelry, circus tents, and firefighting equipment.
This is why my idea of a search engine that lets users vote on the accuracy of each search keeps cropping back up. If I could find out where and how to program a search engine, I’d give it a whirl. Just a search engine that let’s the user “vote” whether the search was good or bad. One vote per computer per visit per day. In fact, he is categorizing the site into a set of pre-configured criteria. Thus, when a subsequent user logs on, he can opt to eliminate sites with too many ads, that require memberships, that lie, or that plain suck to start with, like the “ad block” people. (What part of ad block don’t those morons understand?) Then sit back and watch the fun as the webmasters go ballistic trying to defeat the system.
ADDENDUM
Ending the second month in which we’ve had operations, I record a loss of $468 as of the 27th. I am the only one taking the loss, again I’m getting no help from anyone, however this is normal. What others don’t know is if I do all the work myself, I don’t need them. Plus, I won’t take losses forever. I’ll sell the cart for what I can get and cut my losses. However, I’m still fascinated by the process and I’m learning the system as much as the business. The other side of that coin is that I’m the only one around here who knows how to run the office part of the business. That’s another instance where I know the other vendors are cutting corners. Nobody like to do the paperwork.
I would still like to know what happened to the thousands of startups that went invisible after startup. Will the same happen to me? Will I find something or experience something that causes this? Were they all shut down? Or did they find private catering functions? Nobody is taking.
[Author’s note: I am now of the opinion the guy who sold us this cart was scum. While he did say he was selling “as is”, he also knew that we were both rookies and should have fired the cart up before selling. He had three months in which to do so, but acted surprised and too busy when we showed up. Instead he kept saying it was working “as far as he knew”. Since he didn’t bother to check a thing, he should have said it was NOT working as far as he knew. When we go there, he did say both tanks were full, and I should have insisted on seeing it work. But as usual, everybody was in a big hurry.
Maybe that’s why I’m the only person around here with any money. Now, I will squeeze the cart for every penny I can. And the guy’s reputation will never recover.]
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