Open Letter to My Mechanic

It was nice, cool, and cloudy this morning but the sun came out.  As I've told you before, the skies are not cloudy all day here in the Southwest Desert.  I arrived home after doing my morning errands.  I walked in the gate just in time to see a dove fall into the yard.  Did a hawk injure it?  Did it fly into something?  I hope it was not poisoned because the dog was on it in an instant, undistracted by my entrance.  I walked over quietly to observe the old dog kill the dove, pick it up in its mouth, and move it to a more open area.  He dropped the dove, looked up at me briefly with his mouth full of little feathers, then continued to tear the chest of the bird open and rip out its innards with his teeth.  He then carried the bird to the place he buries bones and eats dog biscuits to continue his meal.  I figured he must have needed some fresh organ meat.  I also figured that was an auspicious sign that I should write today's blog: an open letter to my mechanic.  My mechanic's bills have been troubling me for months.

Dear (let us use the fictitious name) Economical Lubricant Mechanic (not intended to be associated with any real mechanic of similar or same name if any such exists),
As you know, I have not been pleased with the last job you did for me.  I paid over $800.00 and the car would not start the next day.  You gave me a song and dance about how much our family's business has meant to you over the years, how the family patriarch was with you since almost the beginning, how you considered him a personal friend, how sometimes mechanics make mistakes, you are not always perfect, but you will do whatever it takes to make it right, etc.  Yep, those were pretty words.  And I said, "Look at it from my point of view.  When you say you put in parts, I don't know how long it really took you when the labor charges are more than estimated.  I don't know whether you really installed new parts or used parts.  Heck, if you showed me parts and said those were the old parts you took out of my car, I wouldn't really know whether they were or not.  All I now is my last two bills were nearly $1,600 and I am not to happy with the work.  You charge as much as the dealership, and generally they are considered high priced.  The way I feel, you don't need to bother working on the car, you can just take your biggest wrench, club me over the head, and take my wallet."

I realize those are harsh words.  Let me explain some of the reasons I feel that way.  I trusted you.  The family patriarch took his vehicles to you exclusively for over a decade.  On several occasions when his son was in town Patriarch would send Son to you to have his, i.e., son's car worked on.  But lately, things have been going sour.

First of all, an Interstate battery was sold to Patriarch 2 years ago.  Interstate inscribes the date the battery is shipped on each battery.  Batteries are to be installed within 3 months of this date.  The battery sold to Patriarch was installed over 3 years after the date inscribed.  Interstate's national policy is that their batteries be recharged every 3 months if not yet installed.  The recharge ensures the freshness and quality of the battery and is to be indicated by a 2 digit code branded on the battery's cover or on a small round label on the battery cover.  Neither the branded code nor small round label was on Patriarch's battery.  Your only explanation of why or how a 3 year old Interstate was installed was, "We gave you a free replacement battery at no charge."  Thanks guy.  The battery had a 75 month warranty.  Maybe if a fresh battery were installed 2 years ago it would not have died this untimely death.

Second, I recently paid over $700 for a front wheel struts and pads, with labor.  I was told I would notice the difference in the drive.  I did not notice improvement.  I did not have time to come back into the shop and let you look at it (what were you looking for?), so time went by.  Another vehicle wouldn't start, wouldn't start with a jump, and was towed to you by my insurer's roadside service.  They provide only one free tow per problem, so one has to have the work done at the venue the car is towed to or pay for the second tow.  I trusted you to fix whatever needed fixing.  The fix was over $800.  The next day the car would not start.  So, I had to take it down to the shop again, kill more of my time waiting for you to do some mechanic's hocus-pocus, and hopefully say the magic words that would make the car start this time and every time.  There was more sweet talk about how much you care, work is not always perfect, if the car won't start call you so you can see it when the problem occurs, etc.  But I was still bothered by something...

The owner's manual for my fancy-dancy American sedan indicates the car has a computer system that tells me when to change the oil.  There is not a 3000 or 5000 mile time to change oil, nor is there a period of months, because the need for an oil change is based on a number of variable factors.  Thus, if the system is reset every time there is an oil change, the "change oil soon" light will remain on when it is time to change oil.  The mechanic said the system is reset after every oil change.  I notice I usually do not see the "change oil soon" light on when I change oil on or after the mileage or time the mechanic's reminder sticker on my windshield indicates.  I cannot know for sure whether uber-frequent oil changing is good for the car, but I can state that is good for the mechanic's wallet.  Again, I assume the oil has been changed at the shop.  I do not really know. 

On a hunch, I went to the mechanic across the street.  They are a franchise, or corporate, or some such disparaging thing.  I went in asking for an estimate on struts and pads for my car.  Their "out the door" price was over $100 lower at mechanic across the street.  I asked whether those are the cheaper struts.  Answer: price quoted is for the better quality struts; the next grade down costs slightly less.

Have we been getting lubed at the Economical Lubricant for years?  While we have been giving you our business, have you been giving us the business?

What can you do to make it up to me?  Refund the $100 dollars and throw in a free oil change or two.

Sincerely Yours,
Southwest Desert Blogger

P.S.  You understand I will have to get an estimate from the mechanic across the street before I have work done here in the future.  And if I ever change mechanics, I will have to get a second estimate from the shop across the street, down the block, or around the corner from them.

United We Stand?

I once heard Ralph Nader speak at the nearest state university.  You might think this sort of event would not be well attended in a red state, (red state? sounds like a bunch of commies), but the university students and adult folk turned out to a standing room only auditorium.  This was way back at the start of the century, year 2000.  Ralph Nader won me over when he said, "When I want to listen to classical music, I just telephone United Airlines and get put on hold."  Used to be they put you on hold for a good long time and you could listen to classics or get in your 20 minutes of meditation while on hold.

Today  I called six different toll free United numbers and didn't have to wait 20 minutes on most of them, but all the folks I spoke to were in foreign nations, i.e., not the USA.  Several times I could not hear or understand the person on the line.  When I asked to be transferred to the USA I was told they could not do that.  In addition to volume too low and accents too thick, offshore reps were too polite and pandered so as to waste time.  Finally, several referred me to other toll free numbers that were supposed to solve my problem.  Twice I was referred to numbers that were eternal, exclusive automated systems with limited menus of possibility and no live operators.  Sometimes I was limited to only "yes" or "no" answers.  One of the choices asked whether I wanted to lodge a complaint. I responded in the affirmative.  I was referred to the website by the automated system!

Finally I got to rate the service I had received on one of my phone calls.  Rating was to be done on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being lowest.  Evidently the service is so so-so (at best) that they could never rate a 10, so they did not bother with a scale from 1 to 10.  After I rated all categories, they wanted me to tell them why I gave them the ratings I did.  This was all automated.  I had wasted over an hour in this cycle of offshore phone rooms, automated systems, more offshore phone rooms, difficult to understand service reps, and a web site that wanted my "profile" before it would issue me a password to conduct my business.  The system is too invasive and inept.  Maybe we read blogs because we cannot talk to anyone in the USA anymore.

I am not a fan of United.  Their skies are allegedly friendly, but their phone system and online profiling is not.  One of my best United horror stories is the time I boarded a trans Pacific flight at its airport of origination.  There was a half eaten sandwich in the emergency instruction, magazine, and barf bag pocket located on the back of the seat in front of me.  I had a window seat.  The window was covered with greasy smudges.  The food tray was dirty.  The vegetarian snack was a handful of corn chips, not in a sealed bag, but in the type of plastic wrap you use for leftovers, with a little salsa, and some other little unmemorable, inedible.  The non vegetarian selection appeared to be much more generous -- a whole sandwich.  Their complaint process has always been unsatisfying.  I have even more abusive stories, longer stories, of flying United.  But enough complaining.

When are we going to move jobs back onshore?  My computer, and the security system that was sold with it, resulted in painfully long, hours and hours and hours and hours and hours with offshore, difficult to understand folks with irritatingly slow, if any, solutions to my issues.  I know there are unemployed folks in the USA.  I know many of them are tech savvy, willing, and able to work.  I know there are bright, quick, folks in the USA who could solve consumer issues rapidly and pleasantly.  Could the time saved by clearly communicating with quality customer service phone reps in the USA offset some of the additional costs of domestic labor?  I quit doing business with four large businesses who have moved their telephone customer service offshore.  I have also quit doing business with one very large, (as large as an Amazon woman?) bookseller because customer service email was incorrectly and repeatedly mishandled by offshore reps.  They did not understand the problem of a book ordered as a gift not delivered as promised, the applicable policy, and solution.  Finally I got through to someone in the US who understood what was going on and took care of the matter quickly and easily.  I easily changed wireless companies when that "socially responsible" long distance and wireless company moved their excellent customer service from San Francisco to outside the US.  The quality of the customer service markedly dropped and I deserve better.  The San Francisco workers deserve better, too.

Things will change when enough consumers unite and vote with their pocketbooks whenever possible.  Will I ever buy another computer with a name that rhymes with hell?  Hell no!  Will I ever again pay a fee to that computer security company that has "a fee" in its name?  No way Mc.  Will I chase offshore bakers trying to get one I can understand?  No.  I decided to change my bank -- buck the system.  And today I fly away from skies that were not friendly enough.  I deserve better treatment.  Consumers unite! 
(c) 2011.

Got Gas?

A big howdy to all you cowboys, cowgirls, city slickers, dude ranch dudes and dudettes, desert rats, yuppies, and hippy wannabees.  A few days ago I heard in the mass mediums, i.e., radio and TV, that Tucson has the cheapest gas prices in the US at $3.41 a gallon.  Well, the mass media got it wrong again.  I drove around Tucson and easily found several places where gas was, and still is, $3.39 a gallon.  I got gas at $3.379 per gallon at one of those big, membership, discount warehouse places with a name like Costlo.
A quick online search of gas prices in Honolulu within the last 36 hours reveals that the cheapest price per gallon there is $4.23.  On the island of Kauai the cheapest gas on the Kuhio Highway is $4.439 per gallon.
If you want to snowboard instead of surf, the cheapest gas on Highway 82, Aspen, Colorado is $4.099.  If you get your gas on Main Street, Aspen, the cheapest (is that a word anyone uses in Aspen?) gas is $4.269 per gallon.  A few blocks up Main Street you can pay $4.459 for a gallon of regular grade gasoline. 

So folks, if you want cheap gas, and you don't need to be near ocean or extreme high country, you know where it is:  the southwest desert, where the livin' is cheap and the skies are not cloudy all day.  Happy trails.

How Clean is Your Restaurant Table?

Once a week I meet one of my friends at a fancy pants bread and pastry shop.  You know, those places where they sell overpriced little things with whipped cream and chocolate and a few berries on top, and breads with olives and nuts in them.  Some of the loaves have French names.  The bread does not come sliced.  They sell soup served in bowls made of hollowed out loaves of bread.  Does anyone know what they do with the bread they scoop out of the bread bowls?  No one eats the bread bowl.  Aren't there people starving somewhere?  I've seen them picking through trash cans downtown looking for edible leftovers in "doggy bags" and take out containers.  Why don't we just take the loaves, not scoop out the centers, serve the soup in reusable ceramic bowls, and serve the loaves of bread to the folks who have to pick through trash cans for food?  Where are all the green minded folks?  Are they eating soup out of bread bowls at the fancy pants bread bakery?

I have sat in the (let us call it) Fancy Pants Bakery (a purely fictional name, not to be confused with any bakery anywhere that might have that or similar name) and watched the servers who are also often the bussers who also swab the tables with a rag they carry around.  That swabbing is supposed to clean the table between diners.  First of all, they do not always clean the table between diners.  Second, they just sling the rag over the table in a casual, quick, much less than thorough way.  The entire table surface is not cleaned nor are all crumbs and surface matter removed.  The crumbs may end up on the chairs.  Some chairs may already have crumbs.  I took a paper napkin and wiped the surface of a table and the white napkin showed a significant amount of dirt.  I got another napkin and cleaned the table again, and again the napkin picked up a second layer of dirt. I had to clean crumbs off the chairs before we could sit in them.  I felt like Adrian Monk.  Who trains the staff?  Are they trained at all?  Does a manager just say, "Clean the tables" and assume the teenager knows how to do it?

Most of the staff at the Fancy Pants Bakery are teen or twenty-somethings.  Ten percent appear to be older.  The older workers appear to do a better job.  This observation may not be statistically significant. I blame management for not training all workers on proper cleaning techniques.  I wonder how many folks have coughed and sneezed on the tables that rag has been slung over.  There does not appear to be a disinfecting spray used.  How many babies have drooled on their hands and rubbed them on the table and put hand in mouth?  The cleaning rag just takes the particulates from one table to another.  Then the cleaner serves food!  Then she buses dirty dishes, cups, and cutlery that a coughing couple handled.  Then she serves more food, often while carrying that table cleaning rag.

I brought the lax table cleaning style to the attention of one Fancy Pants manager.  I think he was manager because he was in his mid-twenties, maybe near thirty years old, thus he had seniority.  He said the tables were being cleaned.  I told him to walk to one of the tables with me and see the outcome of the cleaning.  There were visible crumbs, rings from drink glasses, and greasy areas.  I explained that the person cleaning the tables only pushed the rag in an arc over the table, quickly pushing some of the more visible crumbs and food pieces onto the floor or chairs.  I fault management.  The workers need to be trained, i.e., taught how to do the job.  He agreed.  I did not even get a free whipped cream and chocolate thing for bringing the disgusting state of the tables to his attention.

Final Report:  Two weeks later the situation is not much better.  I had to stroll around the Fancy Pants for quite a while until I found a table that appeared clean with chairs that did not have crumbs.  It was a challenge.  I guess Fancy Pants folk don't care if they sit in crumbs and set their elbows on dirty tables.  They just want their pretty, fancy pants food.  My friend said we could go to places with names like "Burger Royalty" and "Precious Metal Arches" instead of Fancy Pants.  I'm thinking the better option is home cooking.  There are still frozen bison burgers in the deep freeze and a plastic bottle of ketchup in the fridge.

Got Beef?

A Denver Chef brought some buffalo burgers down to the desert.  He bar-be-cued some of them for a family dinner and a half dozen have been in my freezer, in neat frozen cylinders, for a few months.  I don't eat much meat, and I don't care whether you do or not.   I finally decided to pry one of the frozen buffalo patties off the frozen stack, defrost it, and cook it up.  I fed some of the burger to the dog.  He liked it.  I cooked the remainder of my burger through and through.  It was in a pan, stove-top.  I flipped it several times to get that well done, no red or pink at all, effect that I like.  It had a pretty good fat content for buffalo, but then I am not familiar with buffalo meat.  Not knowing how much fat might be in that burger, I started the pan with a modest pat of butter to be sure the burger would not stick.  Let's face it:  if you eat meat, why not add butter?  You evidently don't give a sincere damn about cholesterol.

I expected buffalo to be gamy tasting so I sprinkled it with garlic powder and cracked fresh pepper out of a well worn, foot long, wooden mill -- the kind in fancy restaurants.  Ketchup in a large squeeze bottle was available.  I considered hot sauce and decided against it unless the buffalo desperately needed a disguise.  I had not eaten meat in a while.  I put the burger on a plate, piled some ketchup on the side, wished I had a jar of jalapeno peppers to kill what I expected to be an unpleasantly strong wild meaty taste, and sliced myself a small piece of buffalo burger.

The burger was not bad and got better with each bite.  I quickly learned that a generous coating of ketchup complemented the meat.  It was a big chef size burger, and I felt its presence when I was done eating it.  Actually, the dog got the last few bites, sans ketchup.

After a while I sensed the "vibe" of the buffalo, North American colloquial name for the American Bison.  I did not expect this.  I was feeling that large, 11 foot long, 6 foot tall, two thousand pound herbivore presence.  Approximately half a million bison live on 4,000 private ranches in the US.  You have a dog and a cat and Ted Turner has him a herd of buffalo on the lower 40.  The total number in conservation herds is said to be 30,000 (and not 30,001 or 30,002); of those, only 15,000 are wild, free-range bison in North America.  In 2005 about 35,000 bison were processed (i.e., killed) for meat in the U.S.  And for all you kosher cowboys and city slickers there is kosher bison.  Bison is lower in fat and cholesterol than beef, ergo the beefalo, a crossbreed of domestic cattle and bison.  Although hybrids may look like pure bred bison, it is estimated that there may be only 12,000 genetically pure bison in the world. 

Twenty one states have cities named "Buffalo" and some have townships and counties named "Buffalo" too.  The word Buffalo is used in the names of an NHL team, an NFL team, college football team , rugby and soccer teams, Japanese baseball teams, US Navy ships, British Royal Navy Ships, steam locomotives, and a line of wireless routers and interface cards.  Even the old Indian Head nickle is, if you flip tails, a Buffalo nickle.  Money was money in those days.  Now we might coin a beefalo.

Plant a Garden

We had a particularly cold winter.  Several nights in a row were below freezing.  This would not be unusual except that several of those nights in a row were, more or less, around 15 degrees (F) which is much too cold for ornamental cacti, succulents, and other plants which are not indigenous.  Even some of the southwest desert native flora suffered at 15 degrees and below.  Some of them died.  They passed on, kicked the bucket, went to plant heaven, took a dirt nap... Those nights were in the record-setting cold category.

All of this is great for the nurseries and other businesses that sell plants.  But after a period of mourning for the dearly departed, I decided not to invest large in flora this year.  One reason is that I keep hoping some of the trees and bushes will rise from the dead.  I'm giving them until Easter.  That's the deadline.  A couple of citrus have put out suckers.  Others are stiff and breakable, indicative of dead wood.  Due to its high water content most of the aloes froze despite being covered.  Yes, we cover our frost sensitive plants and young trees on cold nights.  A few hearty, well located aloes survived and are flowering.  However, most aloes were post-frost heavy, sad, sacks of liquid that left their root systems and underground runners to provide a next generation for me. 

Desert folk are weird.  On cold nights they not only cover plants with an assortment of old sheets, quilts, blankets, towels, cardboard cartons, and whatever else is available, including frost cloth that can be purchased for the purpose of covering plants, but they go without heat in their homes while heating their greenhouses.  I used to be a member of the local Cactus and Succulent Society.  Not heating one's home, but heating the greenhouse so that exotic, frost sensitive cacti and succulents would survive was one of the old timers' interesting quirks.  They were an strange crew, but then the yuppies moved in and took over.  Well, that's another story for another time.  Back to the garden for now.

I bought one small succulent at the 99 cent store.  It was rather like buying a lottery ticket in a 3 inch pot.  I wondered what quality a 99 cent plant would have.  Would this investment pay off?  I  re-potted it and it is blooming nicely -- best 99 cents I have spent in a while.  Next I purchased some wheat berries and planted a 6 inch diameter terra cotta pot of wheat grass for the dog to munch on.  I found an old packet of basil seeds and planted them.  They are crowded little sprouts that I've been thinning and adding to pasta and salad.  I had a dried pomegranate in a bowl.  It was harvested last year.  I cut it open, and planted some of the seeds.  To my surprise, those pomegranate seeds were still moist.  I went to town and bought a packet of chive seeds -- a wild impulse purchase.  They are fine, thin sprouts that I hope tolerate the heat.  They will be kept in the shade. 

I expect there will be more clearing of dead wood along with joy at late signs of life from the frost damaged plants.  For now, the seeds sprouting and 99 cent plant blossoming before the hard burn of summer heat is a delight.

How Weather, Cooling, and Drink

It has been over 90 degrees (Fahrenheit obviously) for 2 days in a row.  The hard core desert dwellers try to see how long they can hold out before they turn on the air conditioning or cooler.  The hardest of the hard core never use AC or coolers.  There are the in between hardies who use an electric fan, perhaps with a wet cloth thrown over it to cool the air.  It has been stated that there would be fewer people living in the southwest desert if we didn't have air conditioning.  I say, turn off the AC and let's see who's the last one standing.

I have a passion for ice cold water during the hot weather.  Sometimes I add lemon and a straw.  Sometimes I add limes and honey making a limeade.  If I had one of the fancy cooking blogs, I would take photos of lemons, limes, and honey.  I would show a photo of cutting a lemon in half.  I might link you to a YouTube video of juicing lemons and limes with my $15 plastic electric citrus juicer and then pouring the juice into a quart of water in a ball canning jar.  I would remind you to add the ice cubes before the water and juice to avoid splashing your granite counter with the acidic juices.  I don't have granite counters.  Perhaps we could pan to a cactus outside.  I could educate you about the alleged health promoting properties of honey, maple syrup, and xylitol.  I could show you how elegant it looks to add a straw and a sprig of mint, and/or very thin slices of lemon.  And finally, my secret ingredient... a whole, dried or fresh, cayenne chili pepper.  I grew peppers 3 years in a row.  Last year's plant produced a very thick skinned chili which I did not like for cooking or eating, but it is good for visual presentation in lemon or lime water.  I leave a half inch of green stem on the bright red cayenne pepper and the visual is spectacular in a tall thin glass or quart jar.

I am fortunate to have purchased some beautiful, mild, domestic (i.e., USA) lemons at my local grocery.  These lemons have such a refined, graceful taste that they require no sweetener.  My water of choice is distilled because a mighty tasty mystery blend comes out of our tap.  A generous  white sludge remains in the distiller after distilling each gallon of tap water.  A trick my Texas relatives taught me is, if you are in a restaurant always order water with lemon and a straw.  If the water tastes "bad" the lemon will usually disguise the off taste.  The straw ... maybe you can drink from a glass that has someone else's lipstick on the rim?

If the lemons are bitter and I do not want a sweetener, I forgo lemons and drink simple iced or refrigerator cold water.  I like it.  It is cooling.  I also like traditional iced tea with lemon and a straw.  Once in a while I drink carbonated water, perhaps over ice, with lemon or lime; sometimes I add a cayenne pepper just to remind myself that I am in the hot desert.

Stay cool and well.