Dean Barlow » Rants

Milk Shakes

Dean — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:40:00 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed a good milk shake. I’ve heard that Wendy’s is now serving milk shakes, so today I decided to give one a try. I was disappointed, it tasted just like the ones that you get from McDonald’s. I should have just kept on driving another mile and a half and gone to Dairy Queen. They at least use real ice cream.

April 15th

Dean — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow is the big day for most of us that have to file with the I.R.S. every year. I’m sure that a few of the post offices will be staying open a bit later tomorrow evening and that there will be long lines up until closing. Even with so many of us doing our taxes online the Post Office still makes a killing each year come April.

More politics

Dean — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:23:58 +0000

I thought the number of phone calls I got during the presidential election were bad! I’ve been getting several phone calls every day from the organizations behind the different gubernatorial candidates! It is very aggravating! The phone rings, I answer it. There is a long pause at the other end and then a recording starts off about the upcoming gubernatorial election. I immediately hang up. I already know who I am going to vote for, and these calls are not going to change my mind. I just wish the calls would stop!

Disputing a credit card charge

Dean — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:41:37 +0000

There used to be a time when the credit card companies backed me up when I made a claim, disputing a payment. Well, those days sure seem to be over! There was a charge on my American Express card last May for $197 for a product that I did order. However I then subsequently cancelled that order and the merchandise was never received. I have proof that I contacted the company and cancelled the order, and I have an email from the company acknowledging the cancellation. Yet American Express keeps telling me that the charge is valid and that I have to pay it! So every month I have to reopen the claim. It is getting very tiring and I am thinking about cancelling that credit card! I have plenty of other credit cards that I can use – I don’t need the aggravation that goes along with this one!

Fruit flies

Dean — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:40:55 +0000

I understand that fruit flies come into the house via the fresh fruit that we buy at the grocery store, but I don’t understand how they travel from the kitchen area all the way into the bathroom. It just doesn’t make sense to me that we didn’t have any kind of drain flies in the bathroom until we brought fruit in the house and started seeing fruit flies around the compost bucket! My wife tells me that they are just fruit flies, and there really isn’t a whole lot we can about them if we want to keep bringing fruit into the house. That’s really too bad, I enjoy the fresh fruit, but I hate the fruit flies!

Freecycle

Dean — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:29:10 +0000

I think Freecycle is great, but it has its limitations. We get (and give) some great stuff for free, but there are times when it can be aggravating. For example, when you are trying to negotiate a pickup or dropoff, the other party involved doesn’t seem to want to exchange telephone numbers, they simply state that they are leaving something by the curb for you to pick up at a certain time. But sometimes that certain time is simply impossible to meet, and when you send them an email about it to try to let them know (and renegotiate) they don’t always respond. So it can get quite frustrating! And if you are trying to give something away and the person doesn’t show up to get it, and doesn’t call you to let you know that they aren’t coming (or got lost) or to renegotiate a different time, that is very frustrating as well!

Maybe they ought to develop a rating/ranking system like e-bay, where feedback is given. I think that would make it a lot easier to use!

So sad to see

Dean — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:15:23 +0000

I’ve been trying to mentor some young people on job-hunting. I see how earnest they are, wanting to find work, and I try to help them out as much as I can. Whenever I hear of a job opening somewhere, I fill them in. I know that a lot of jobs are landed through social networking, and many jobs are not even advertised in any form. These folks have been looking for years, and are not on unemployment. It’s a miracle that they have not turned to crime.

I give them pep talks and help them work on their resume, and tell them I have confidence in them. It is so sad to see how hard they are working trying to find a job and they get turned away time and time again. It is very sad to see – they are disillusioned and discouraged. One of the things that upsets me is that these discouraged and disillusioned job-seekers are not even counted as part of the “unemployment figures” that the government releases. So when the government says that the economy is looking up because unemployment is down, that is just a lie. Very sad.

Get it in writing

Dean — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:14:00 +0000

I am really sad to say that gone are the days when a man’s word was as good as his handshake. There have been too many times when I have put my trust in people who are my relatives, and supposedly good friends that when they borrow something from me that they will return it. It’s really sad to think that I cannot trust my own friends and relatives anymore! What makes it really sad is that I hate to say “no” to them when they come to me and ask me to borrow something. But weeks go by and when I ask for it back they sometimes claim that they never borrowed it!

My wife tells me that when they borrow something that I should have them put in writing that they are borrowing it and when they will return it. I hate to think that I have to do that with my own friends and family, but I think that it has come to that! And she says to tell them that if it isn’t returned by the “due date” that they can not borrow anything else until it IS returned. I hate to take that heavy-handed course, but I can’t afford to keep lending out things and never getting them back!

Sad that people can be so mean

Dean — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:39:29 +0000

I am a member of a yahoo community group. I was reading today on the yahoo group that one lady is looking for a new home for her daughter’s pet goat. The reason behind it is sad – her daughter’s neighbor is mad at the daughter because a few month’s ago the neighbor’s pit bull dog was running around loose (which is illegal in this state) and attacked one of the daughter’s goats.

The neighbor had to pay damages, and he’s mad about it. So ever since he has been calling all kinds of agencies to report the daughter for any and everything he can think of. The authorities come out and talk to her and find nothing wrong, but she is tired of the authorities knocking on her door a couple of times a week. So she is looking for a new home for her pet goat because many of the calls to the authorities revolve around her having the goat. I think it is very sad that people can be so mean and vengeful. I hope she finds a good home for her goat!

Banking choices

Dean — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:55:17 +0000

The banking industry is certainly growing! And it appears to be growing at our expense. I went to open a savings account the other day and the bank told me that I had to maintain a certain minimum balance on my savings or they would charge me a monthly maintenance fee! On my SAVINGS? I don’t think so! A few days ago a good friend of mine told me that he had received a check from a customer of his and he deposited it and wrote checks against it. Well, you guessed it! That check bounced, so his checks bounced and he is being slapped with NSF fees all over the place! I can remember once depositing a check in my account from a relative and it bounced, and I got charged a return check fee myself! I think that should be illegal, for the banks to charge the innocent customer a fee for that!

More and more I’ve been thinking that prepaid debit cards just might be the direction to go. They are becoming easier to get, easier to use, and if you arrange for direct deposit from your pension or paycheck, many times you can get the cards without any monthly fees. And now some of them can even be set up with online billpay! That is a great convenience to have – online billpay makes keeping track of finances a lot easier!