Company Endorsement

In February of 2010 I bought a Litter Robot litter box for my cats.  Unfortunately only one of the cats (Trouble) will use it on a regular basis, the other one (Janie) turned out to have issues with the whole “covered litter box” concept (basically she hates it).  In general for the last year however its worked just fine with minimal hitches in the running. 

But a week or so ago it stopped working.  No lights on the control panel, no nothing.  Sigh.  It only came with a 90 day warranty, and even if the warranty were for a year its over that mark too.  But I went ahead and contacted the company.  At best I figured I’d end up being told I had to buy a $50 part to fix it, at worst that I’d have to pay for shipping it to them and a fee to have them even look at it.  But I figured it was worth contacting them to see what they had to say about it.

Instead Shirley from their tech support department contacted me with a list of things to check, or double check, with the end conclusion that it was likely the power supply was no longer working (the power supply remains cold even after having been plugged in for a while, when every other power supply in the house gets at least a little warm after the same period of time), not perhaps a HUGE surprise as we had major thunderstorms rolling through the day it died complete with power fluctuations. She said that was a not unusual failure point, the other being that something caused the plug jack in the unit to fail, and that were that the case they have a new jack unit they can send me.

The company shipped me a new power supply at no charge, with only request being that I return the defunct one to them, AND I don’t even have to pay the shipping on the returned power supply.  They’re sending FedEx back out to pick up the box.  The new power supply did indeed solve the problem, and the defunct one is in the box waiting for FedEx to come by and pick it up (the plan is for Tuesday pickup).  How cool is that?

**Disclaimer, I bought the original litter box with my own money, and am receiving no kickback or reward for this endorsement.  I also have to add that this is NOT a litter box for every cat loving house-old out there, but it works well for me!


Gas tax

Over at Daddy Bears Den Daddy Bear commented on the lack of breakdown of taxes on the reciept at the gas pump. Which started a conversation on how much ARE you paying in gas taxes a year, which drove me to find this site.

Assuming I don’t run to many extra errands during the week I average 10 – 12 gallons a week. According to that chart I’m paying $0.66 in taxes per gallon. Thats $6.60 a week, or $343.20 a year. My husband runs about the same, though his car doesn’t get quite the gas milage mine does. Which I suppose in the over all scheme of things could be worse, I have no kids to run around, and a car that gets decent gas milage. But at the current gas prices (after taxes) of $4.03 (at the cheap place!) thats another 85 gallons of gas I could buy just from the taxes I personally pay. That hurts. I’m already not going places because I can’t really afford the gas.


Apollo’s pedigree

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Pedigree of SARAS HIMALAYA’S APOLLO


SARAS HIMALAYA’S APOLLO
Gold
USA
2010
AKC Grand Champion
LEGENDS KAILAS HIMALAYAN
Gold
USA
2005
LEGEND’S ST. NICHOLAS
Gold
USA
2001
AKC CH
TIMBERLINE BARNI DRAKYI
Gold
2000
MOLOSSER CHAKA OF LEGEND
1998
BUDDHA’S LEGEND’S DOLLYWOOD
USA
2004
CH
SIERRAS’ MAJESTIC MUFASA
Black and Tan
1994
DRAKYI BABA YAGA


QUEENY OF SARAS
Black and Tan
India
2003
CH India


HIMALAYA’S TANGO AT SARAS
Black and Tan
USA
2002
ATMA/ARBA Champion


HIMALAYA’S LOKESHVARA
Black and Tan
USA
1999
ATMA/ARBA/DFUSA/CKC Champion


HIMALAYA’S ISIS
Black and Tan
USA
1996
FIZA OF SARAS
Black and Tan
RUSTAM
2005
BALLERINA OF SARAS
This pedigree was generated by http://www.tibetanmastiffinfo.com/pedigree

A couple of suggestions to contractors everywhere

1: if I ask you for an itemized quote don’t send me a one line contract with a single dollar figure list and a spot to sign here. Especially when I know you sent my insurance guy an actual itemized quote.

2: if you say you’re going to show up this afternoon to look things over and give us a quote, and for some reason are unable to make it, call me and let me know. I’m a generally understanding person, honest. Not bothering to call the next day either to apologize and reschecdule doesn’t help either.

On the otherhand if anyone ever needs chimney work done in the general Syracuse area I can tell you tw companies NOT to pick!


Mice

We have a mouse problem. I don’t expect to have one for long though……

Folks we bought the house from had a pair of energetic Yorkies (little guys, I doubt they’re more than 5lbs a piece) which I’m sure the mice were thrilled to see the last of.

We had a minor incursion over the winter, some mouse sign in one cabinet. Some traps solved the problem and we’d not seen them since though we left the traps in place.

I guess the rain has finally flooded them out of their home. Today I looked in the cabinet and discovered that two of the traps had caught a mouse….and just about 30 minutes ago Janie was going nuts trying to catch one in one of the puppy free corners of the house. It escaped her by dodging under the puppy barrier only to be greeted by said puppy who’d been trying to figure out what all the noise was about…..theres one less mouse in the world tonight.

As I type this Janie is attempting to digg her way under a set of shelves and the puppy is sitting ever so patiently outside the puppy barrier hoping for another snack!


How to use a scope….hints, tips, suggestions anyone?

Ok, so this past weekend while the weather was nice I took the opportunity to haul out the air rifle.  I won’t be posting a picture of my target, lets just say it was pretty bad, and not because I was a good shot.  Part of the problem was the puppy who was NOT happy about being stuck inside while I was out was barking at odd moments making me twitch (not yet 5 months old and he sounds like a german shepherd, can’t wait to hear him as an adult!), but my hands weren’t happy either (g*d d*$%ed weather) which was making the loading process interesting, and I’m pretty sure I was shakier than usual: something has to explain the issues I was having…..  I took 5 shots with the built in fiberoptic sights, first one was less than an inch from the bullseye, not a bad start right?  Yah, except every shot from there on out went further and further away…..sigh.

So I gave up on the fiberoptics and attached the scope to play around with for a bit.  Please note this is NOT a high end scope by any means.  It came with the air rifle and the whole kit cost us just over a $100.  Took another 5 shots before I gave up reloading (gonna have to spend some time doing this when the husband’s home so he can reload for me).  I’m clearly lost when it comes to scopes.  Pretty sure I’m not getting the right angle to look through the thing at first of all because I keep getting the visible circle at odd angles instead of straight ahead, and the instructions that come with it on how to adjust it aren’t the most helpful.

So….anyone reading this have suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong??