A Beautiful Scheme

It all started when I decided I'd like to have good pictures of my baby, once he hops out. A new camera. Not one of these primitive film-operated gizmos that charge dozens of quarters every time you need some prints, but a real, honest-to-goodness digital machine. Naturally, I sought the solution at Amazon.com (may they offer me some small token of their appreciation). Yea, and having placed an order for what can only be considered a beautiful little camera, I did wait. Oh, how I did wait. Delivery placed on the 24th of December. Yes, I made some shopping on the very Eve of the holiday. Shipping delivery estimate: 7 January. I don't know how the maths work there, but it did strike me as a bit generous on time, that estimate. Nevertheless, hope and all that convinced me to think I might even take the new camera with me to the eastern coast, where I spent the first full weekend of the new year. Time does pass quickly, tho, don't it.

Here we are, on the 13th day, which is a Friday. The camera never arrived. Indeed, the good people at usps never even received the package. Or rather, the tracking number Amazon gave me was never recognized by the system. Amazon is fully convinced that the item is somewhere "lost in transit," while I am equally fully convinced that my order never shipped. See, when I placed the order, the camera that I was ordering was described as "only 1 left in stock, order soon." I did order soon, but I'm willing to bet that someone else did as well, and that theirs went with better shipping, or more accessories, or something else that made them better than me. And so, the camera was out of stock. My order was already placed, so (according to my conspiracy theory) they decided to save face by making usps look bad - "see, they lost it after we gave it to them, they're too lazy to even scan the item into their system, even tho they created a tracking number!" Naturally, I'm not deceived. I know that somewhere out there some other lucky kid got a great camera for post-Christmas, and all I got was the replacement (which should arrive with expedited shipping tomorrow). Not sure I learned any lessons here, but I will eventually be very happy with my camera!

Update Jan 18: The original order arrived today, here's the tracking information I got off the usps website:

Note that I spoke with Amazon customer service on the 13th of January. Seems a bit coincidental that the camera suddenly popped up in the usps system on the day I spoke with Amazon. More suspicious still is the fact that the package arrived having been opened and then taped shut again. Here's what happened: Amazon thought they sent it out on the 28th, which is when they generated a tracking number for it. The package sat on a shelf in Amazon warehouse for the next 15 days. When I chatted with customer service, they sent a "find this package" notice to the warehouse, and suddenly the package "appeared." Before sending it out ("again"), they opened the package to make sure that the order was right, then dropped it into a real mailbox and off it went. Five days later, here it is! Too late, but better never than that, in this case. Now I have to ship the stupid thing back to them - postage paid, of course!

Off the Wagon?

Well, not really, not like that. But I haven't posted in a long time, so I thought I should update my status. Since I last posted, I found out that I'm going to be a dad, and I taught two new classes, and I finished writing an article on something about pottery, and I was asked to review an article for a very interesting journal, and I bought a whole slew of books, and I got to see Paul Simon and La Bohème and the Nutcracker, and I got a new espresso machine, and I discovered Portuguese coffee in Bloomington, and I learned about how heat pumps work, and I did a lot of other things too. We had several really good friends come visit us over the past few months, and then some of them moved off to other parts of the country/world, but it was awesome to have them visit us here in the Middle, because it really is a very nice place to be. We're planning to have other people visit us in the near future, because until the new person comes along, we're going to have at least one fully extra room, and we can arrange things to work out even after he's here - he won't need his own room for a few months, anyway.

I haven't been keeping up with my old soccer regimen; the weather, my work schedule, and the people in charge of the field space around here have all conspired to keep me off the grass. Fortunately, I can still ride my bike as often as I want to, and whenever I'm on campus I get to climb 6 or 7 flights of stairs, to keep me at least a little bit fit. I do have a great view out my office window, I've posted a couple pictures on that "networking" site, but here's one such view:

Since I'm going to be a dad, I am now accepting mailed gifts - preferably things like Benfica jerseys and Portugal costumes. Well, Portugal did manage to qualify for the 2012 European Cup and Benfica managed to make it out of a really easy group in the Champions League, so that's the justification for those two selections.

Oh, you probably want to see the new espresso machine. My friend Alex gave me a Gaggia Espresso a few months back (quite a few months back, as it turns out!), and I have been happily trucking along with that for quite some time. But I recently developed an urge to go with a machine that has an all brass boiler system, and the Gaggia is only halfway there, so I had to explore my options. I happen to know a guy who knows everything there is to know about such things, so I contacted him and he told me a small portion of what he knows - enough for me to know that I should just take his advice and get a killer deal on the Rancilio Silvia.

So that's the new machine. Thanks to Mr. Les for making that dream possible. I'm currently seeking a new home for the Gaggia, so if you know anyone, tell them to email me. Works perfectly, I have even been keeping it set up, just in case I need to entertain a dozen people with espresso some afternoon (which seems highly unlikely). You can see that the Gaggia has some pretty unique styling, and I can assure you that it makes espresso as well as it looks like it should! I'll be sorry to see it go, but I'm not allowed to keep two machines, according to the contract that I signed way back when.

Ok, I have to go learn some more songs for a thing I'm doing in a few days. Should be a good time for everyone, but for now I have a lot of work to do. That guitar I bought a few months (years) back is still doing its job, I suppose I should upload pictures of one or the other of those sometime.

Finally, the foot is great, no issues, no problems, not even something I think about anymore! The screw they put in my foot so many months and years ago seems to be doing everything it is supposed to do, and in fact I haven't even noticed any issues with the weather changes over the past several months, unlike my knee, which sometimes is disappointed with these pressure fluctuations. Ok, that's really all I have to say about all of that. Happy Christmas, everybody! Or Happy New Year, or Happy Spring, since I probably won't blather on again until sometime in March!