Donating Furniture to ReStore and the Five Minute Rule

Recently, we donated some furniture to Habitats for Humanity ReStore in Iowa City. We got the idea from seeing our neighbors doing the same thing a few years ago.

ReStore requires you to put the items in your garage or driveway. The request for pickup is an easy on-line form. You have to upload photos of your items. I forgot to take a photo of the stone table top, so I had to use an old photo I took of it after a Cribbage game.

The story of the contrast between how long it took us to get the stuff out to the garage and how long it took the pick-up guy to get it into his truck is an example of what I’ll call the five-minute rule. If it takes the average person 5 hours to get heavy furniture from inside the house into the garage, it will take the pick-up guy 5 minutes to load it into his truck.

I took a photo of the table upside down because we had to take the legs off. Otherwise, we would never have gotten it through the doorway. It weighed a ton. We laid the table top upside down on a rug in the garage. I screwed the legs back on after we got it in the garage and left it upside down.

Getting a couple of sofas and a very heavy dining room table with a stone top out of the house was no easy task. It took us hours. I don’t know how the movers originally got them in the house. This was one of those “you really had to be there” episodes to appreciate.

We had to remove the feet from the sofas to get them through the doorway. They twist off, but they’re also attached with hex head screws. Oh, and those stick-on pads you apply to the bottoms of the feet so your floors don’t get scratched? You have to scrape those off to get to the screws. Just sayin’. Lucky, we had a hex head wrench that was long enough to reach through the hole in the foot. And even after we removed the feet, the sofas had to be turned just right to get it through the doorway. We’re talking less than a half-inch to spare on both sides.

It took most of the morning to get the items into the garage. I never want to do anything like that again.

Now here’s the kicker. The guy who came to pick up the furniture was a tall, wiry, friendly guy who had a hand truck and nobody else with him. The truck had a ramp. It took him about 5 minutes to hustle everything into the truck. Miraculous. I never thought of getting a hand truck. I probably could have rented one from U-Haul.

On the other hand, I doubt we’d have done much better if we’d had a hand truck. The pick-up guy was not just strong. He used Ninja physical maneuvers which made the whole job look easy. Five minutes.

By comparison, several hours after we finally got the stuff into the garage, it took me five minutes just to limp back into the house and collapse.

But Habitats for Humanity really appreciates your donations.

Great Cribbage Tutorial for Beginners!

I’ve seen a couple of Cribbage videos on Huddle Around Games, which is a YouTube site dedicated to Cribbage as well as other games.

This one is a tutorial on how to play Cribbage for beginners. He calls himself Zulwarn, which is his name when he plays the online form of a computer Cribbage game called Cribbage Pro. I play (well, mainly lose) on Cribbage Pro, but not on line. I just play the computer, on Brutal level. I guess I like punishment because Brutal doesn’t make mistakes.

Zulwarn is funny and smart. He likes coffee.

I Think the United States Postal Service Owes Me $1.10

The other day I tried to process an online request for a USPS Change of Address (COA), but it didn’t work. It hung up at the “Loading” stage for a half hour and then kicked back to the start of the form without ever giving me a confirmation. Yet, it charged my credit card for $1.10, which I couldn’t get refunded at my local post office, where I submitted the paper COA the old-fashioned way. The clerk said she couldn’t do it and referred me to the dysfunctional USPS web site. This was just the beginning of the buck-passing.

I know that others have experienced this same difficulty because I did a web search on the topic. It’s been going on for at least a year.

I tried contacting the Office of the Inspector General who referred me to my local consumer affairs office in Des Moines. I was already familiar with the 800 number. I found out from the automated reply tree that the COA issue could only be addressed through the dysfunctional online system or by submitting a paper COA at my local post office. No human ever got on the line.

Then I tried the online USPS technical support page. They assigned me a Service Request number and I have to wait for a response.

I know when I’m getting the run-around. This is not about the money. I realize some people lose more money between their sofa seat cushions than I’m losing to the USPS. This is about the USPS essentially stealing from customers.

I’ve set up my very first poll on this blog about the issue. I hope you’ll register your opinions by voting and commenting.

Taming the Corrugated Corners

At some time in your life, you may have to protect your artwork from harm. And some experts think that has to involve corrugated carboard corners.

If you ever have to deal with corrugated cardboard, be careful. It can cut you up. That’s how my arms got scratched and bruised, which you can see my video demonstration of how to fold corrugated corners. Approach it carefully from the front, maybe offer it some meat (not your own!).

Big Mo Blues Show Podcast: “Chromatic Rock”

I caught the Big Mo Blues Show June 14th last Friday night. And I also caught the Big Mo Pod Show as well. Produce Noah got the month wrong for some odd reason. He said it was May 14th. Let it go. Anybody can be temporally impaired from time to time, including me.

Anyway, the theme of the podcast was “Chromatic Rock,” which I gather applies mainly to harmonicas in this context. But in a more general sense, I think it means adding more color to music, mainly by variation in notes. The specific artist in the podcast was somebody I’ve not heard of by the name of Sugar Blue. He blew a tune on the harmonica called “Krystalline,” which is some kind of cocaine.

Big Mo got most of the items in the quiz. He always does pretty well, because of his encyclopedic knowledge about music. His memory is really strong. I bet he even knew what month it is.

Well, here comes my selection from last Friday’s Big Mo Blues Show, a number called “Plain Old Common Sense,” performed by Kenny Neal. Common sense is pretty important. It can keep your head above water and clear of cocaine.

Great Rounding@Iowa Podcast on Preventing & Managing Heat-Related Illness

The Rounding@Iowa podcast has many fascinating and helpful episodes, not the least of which is this one on heat-related illness. The days are getting hotter and we need to pay close attention to what happens in our bodies when exposed to excessive heat.

Cicada-Geddon in Eastern Iowa

A couple of days ago I saw one of the many news items about the 17 year (and 13 year) cicadas invading Eastern Iowa this summer.

But I haven’t seen any mention of the sex-crazed, fungus-infected zombie cicadas announced in April.

So, you can relax. Try noise-cancelling headphones.

Top of the Line Appliances for Your Pipe Dream Home!

It’s that time of the year again; everybody’s moving whether relocating across the country or just moving across town.

One thing is key: you need quality, top of the line appliances. Say you’re having family and friends over for dinner and you need freezer space for roadkill squirrel. Why, a General Electric fridge with the perfect size little freezer designed to accommodate flattened rodents is just what you need.

But wait; you’ll need a stove to cook them! Look no further than your own Magic Chef. Emeril Lagasse would be proud to own this little gem, which might even have smell-o-vision as he would call it! That is, if you like the smell of smoked salmon (see what I did there?). Just whack your food against the grill to knock off any residual char. Or spray them down with the complimentary Copper Bullet Hose and watch that smoke just disappear!

Better hurry to order. These items are selling so fast there is a strict order of only two to a customer!

Pay no attention to that thing which resembles an antique hash pipe in the oven.

Note on Photos: Courtesy of Slager Appliances in Iowa City, I took these photos of vintage appliances on display in their showroom.

The Triple Berry Frosty at Wendy’s

We got the Triple Berry Frosty at Wendy’s and we got a surprise answer at the order station when we asked what berries are in it:

“Uh, I don’t actually know.”

Fair enough. We tried to guess. Sena thought one of them was strawberry and another was blueberry (to account for the slightly bluish color). I couldn’t tell what was in it-but it was good.

I had to look on the web to find out the berries are strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry.

The Wendy’s Blog says that the Triple Berry Frosty is one way to take a break: “We all have moments when we could use a bit of an escape from our busy lives.”

That fits right now.

Coin Rolling Conniptions!

Bank tellers who hand you sleeves to roll your coins laugh in their sleeves (so to speak) because they don’t count coins anymore and they like to see the customers wince.

I complained about this in a previous post. I tried it. It’s doable. I used the Wikihow method. Using a cloth to put the coins on helps because they just slide around on a smooth tabletop.

Lining them up in your palm and sliding them into the sleeve just right so they don’t jam is the hard part. Once you get the hang of it—it’s still incredibly slow.

Maybe the Coinstar machine?

UPDATE: I got $55 dollars rolled up in coins. All told, I probably put in about 2 hours on the project. I also want to point out that you’ll have different numbers of piles of 10 coins depending on what denomination is marked on the sleeves.