Talk about a backlog.

I got an email today with a subject line that just said “Case #204609221”. 

The body of the email identified the sender as The Better Business Bureau and informed me that they were processing a complaint from one of my customers.

Near the end they warn me: “Failure to promptly give attention to this matter may be reflected in the report we give to consumers about your company.  We encourage you to print this complaint (attached file), answer the questions and respond to us.”  (note: “open the attached file” should always be a red flag.)

Red Flag #2 – I would never use my personal email for business purposes, so why did they send it there?

Big-Ass Red Flag #3 – The only business I ever owned went belly-up in June of 1985.

That’s one heck of a back-log, 27½ years.

But the best laugh was when I read the last line in the email:
“BBB Serving Metropolitan New York, Long Island and the Mid-Hudson Region”

Yup.  Provo, Utah falls under that region.  We often delivered pizza to the students at Brigham Young University of Long Island. 

Uh, yeah.

Yup, you ARE more important than anyone else. I guess.

I was at a funeral Friday night, during the snow storm.  They had ample parking, but it was a short walk from the building.  Which would have been no fun if I hadn’t found a nice, close spot that I could plow my Jeep into.

When the other teacher I went with and I decided it was time to leave and headed out to the parking lot, we couldn’t get out.  Seems that someone decided it was a lot more important for them to be close the front door than it was for three other groups to leave when the felt like it.  He parked his car right behind us.

We had to find a waitress, who told us to look for the guy at the door.  Who wasn’t at the door.  We finally found him, after 10 minutes of looking, and he finally made an announcement to the group.

I guess I should appreciate that he did apologize, but frankly, I find BS apologies more annoying than nothing at all.

“Sorry, I couldn’t find anywhere else to park.”  Uh, you mean to add “where I wouldn’t have to walk a half block in the snow.”?

I can sympathize with not wanting to walk in the snow, but why is it that preventing a 5 minute inconvenience for you is worth causing someone else a 15 minute inconvenience?  Or any inconvenience at all?

Oh, I forgot.  You ARE more important than me.

Upside-down snow storm.

It snowed for about 40 hours here in Salt Lake.  That’s unusual for us, but even more unusual was where the snow fell.

The weather people are calling it an “upside-down” snow storm.  Overall, the valleys got more snowfall than the mountain ski resorts.

I got 18” (46cm).    The benches in Bountiful got 34” (86cm) and the benches in Salt Lake got up around 2’ (61cm).

The ski resorts got less.  Snowbasin topped it off with 19” (48cm), the only one that got more snow than I did.  Snowbird got 17” (43cm), Brighton 13” (33cm) and Alta and Solitude a whopping 10” (25cm).

That’s very unusual.  We’ve had winters where the ski resorts get pummeled with snow, and the city sees mostly rain.  And frankly, I like it better that way.  Good for the tourism, much better for driving around the city.

Although, it has made me happy I bought the Wrangler.  Getting around has been slow, but not white knuckle driving like it would have been in the old Fords.

And, even with a foot and a half of snow, I been able to get in and out of my long, uphill driveway without having to shovel it at all.

Now, that’s good.

Hello? Utah here.

As an 8th Grade Math teacher, I had to take a national survey today.  I got to this question and first laughed, then cried.

Could they at least acknowledge that we exist?  That having only 26 in a class is an anomaly in at least one of the 50 states?

The top one has the question and choices exactly like the real survey I took, the bottom one is the way I would imagine it if it was written just for Utah teachers.

Just click on it if it’s too small to read.

Junk in my trunk.

Or “Trunk in my Jeep”.

One of the drawbacks of a Wrangler is that when you’re driving around with the top off, or soft top on, there really isn’t any room to store stuff securely.

I was going to buy a truck bed box and somehow make it work in the Jeep.  Everything I looked at was going to look jerry-rigged and displace the back seat.

So I went online looking for real Jeep storage that may still take the place of the back seat, but at least would look like it belonged there.

Instead I found the “Insta-Trunk”, a piece of metal that was custom formed for my Wrangler, would fit behind the back seat and wouldn’t mean having extra keys to get into it.

It’s bolted in (from inside itself) and fits tight against the back door, creating a small (1’ x 1’ x 34”) but secure storage compartment that is accessible with nothing more than the Jeep’s own key.  I can also remove it easily if I ever need to carry something big.

It was pretty simple to install.  With bolt inserts that go into holes that come from the factory, it needed no drilling and took me a total of 2 hours to install. 

And that included my custom job for the high-boy jack, which did take some drilling.

Now I’m really ready for some warm weather to come along.