Where is my book?

I wanted to save some money on textbooks this term and I decided to buy a used textbook through Amazon.com.  I bought one used book for a writing class I had nearly a year ago and was satisfied with what I got and how much money I saved. Sure, it was a little beat up and had some underlining and highlighting in it, but it was perfectly usable.

So, on Friday, December 11, I found the book that I needed, correct edition, apparently in "very good" condition, and it was a hardback to boot, instead of the paperback that seems to be what most college textbooks are now. Instead of paying nearly $100 for a used book through the college bookstore (and more than $130 for a new one), I paid $34 (incl. shipping). And I'm still waiting. I figured the holidays would slow down the delivery a bit, but when it still hadn't shown up today, I started to get a little worried. I emailed the store I bought it from (not actually Amazon, just selling through their site) and asked where my book was. They sent me a tracking number from the USPS for my package.

It WAS shipped from Chadler, AZ (just outside of Mesa/Phoenix) on December 14, so the store was right on top of getting it to me. Three days later (Dec. 17) it had travelled about 400 miles and it was processed in Bell, CA (basically Los Angeles). The book was headed my way. And then it took the scenic route. It's next stop was on Dec. 22 in Springfield, MA, which is about 2900 miles from it's last stop in California. The next day, my book made its way down to Jersey City, NJ. This is around 150 miles from Springfield, just across the river from New York City. By Sunday (Dec. 27), it had blasted nearly another 2900 miles across the country and ended up in Federal Way, WA (between Seattle and Tacoma).

My oh my. Well that makes a lot of sense. What should have taken only a few days and would have travelled about 1500 miles to get to me (even that seems like too far) has now gone nearly 6400 miles, crossed the country twice and is only 150 miles away now.

No wonder the USPS isn't making any money.

I want my book.

Update 12/29/09 - The book showed up this morning. I'm happy.

Who are you going to believe...?

I hate I-5

After nearly 40 trips to Medford in the last 3-1/2 years, I have come to some conclusions. First, most of the 275 mile trip sucks the big one. The scenery is sort of nice, in an interstate kind of way, for much of the way between Cottage Grove and Gold Hill. Other than that, I know of no redeeming value of this stretch of road. Second, I have determined who the biggest jerks are and who the speeders and inconsiderate drivers are according to what kind of vehicle they drive. This is by no means a scientific finding, only my observations while driving on this road.

Most big rig drivers are considerate. I have no problems with the majority of them. It is somewhat disturbing though to see many of them talking on cell phones while driving.

Most vehicles from Washington state, regardless of the type of vehicle, seem to excessively speed and drive like jackasses. I'm not sure why this is, but the majority of the time, this seems to be true.

Nearly every vehicle from California seems to drive AT LEAST 15-20 mph over the speed limit. And they don't seem to understand that the far right hand lane is not really meant for passing.

Now for the vehicles that seem to break the most laws and are the most inconsiderate. There seem to be a few types that account for most of stupid behavior and speeding. They are almost always newer (less than 5 years old), except for POS cars driven by teenagers and young adults. Most of these older cars are nearer to cities that I-5 intersects. The most common offenders include SUV's (big surprise), pickup trucks (usually 3/4 ton or larger), luxury-type cars, inexpensive cars (like Scion or Kia) and sports cars (although to a lesser extent than the others).

The worst cities to drive through are Portland (obviously) mainly because of the amount of traffic, particularly if you are caught in rush hour(s); Salem, which seems to have a fairly high number of assholes per capita; Roseburg, which is a pretty small city, but makes up for the small size by having the largest number of jerks and morons in the entire state; and Grants Pass, which is another small city that seems to have a lot more inconsiderate drivers than seems possible.

I'll be glad when I no longer have to make this drive.

Bitch session is over.

A Reading Experiment

I like to read a lot. I like to read all kinds of different things. I read a lot of non-fiction. These all came together, much like a horrible car crash, or maybe a circus freak show, two days ago at the North Portland branch of the Multnomah County Public Library. I reserved three books over the past few weeks that couldn't be any different in their political and social strata. But the subjects all deal with belief systems. I've just started reading these books and I am going to try to get all three read in the next week or two. Regardless of my own personal beliefs, I like to keep up on many different views of things.

Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity by David Limbaugh. The author is Rush Limbaugh's brother and so far, this book reads like a Fox News show. I wish this book didn't have that fear-mongering feel to it, because I think it might prevent me from finishing this book. I'll give it my best shot.

So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State by Forrest Church, who is a thirty year minister and earned a doctorate in church history at Harvard. This appears to be an honest and factual accounting of the religion or non-religion of the country's first five presidents and the role that religion played in politics. This one is going to take a while to get through. Good thing I like history.

The New Athiesm: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason by Victor J. Stenger. This is the shortest of the three at 240 or so pages. The title pretty much says it all.

More stuff I've been watching

The first season of The Wild, Wild West, when it was still in black and white and a little darker and less campy. This remains one of my all-time favorite TV series. I was disappointed when the movie with Will Smith came out. But not as disappointed as when Blues Brothers 2000 was released. What a horrible piece of garbage that was.

Black Dynamite - This is basically a spoof of blaxplotation movies of the 1970's. I laughed a lot while watching it. Not for everyone.

Food Inc. - Documentary about the modern food industry. Not very fun or glamorous, but you really should be more informed about the food you eat.

The Man With the Golden Gun - Continuing the Bond films, one of the better ones with Roger Moore, mainly because of villains and the locations.

Frontline: Poisoned Waters Stay informed about real news. Watch any of the PBS Frontline shows and you will learn things.

It's cold

My stupid car.

The weather here is really cold (for Portland). It's been in the teens and twenties at night and low to mid thirties during the day. Cold snaps here don't usually last very long, but this one has been going on for about five days and isn't expected to change much for at least the next week.

Exactly five days ago (same day the cold started), the heater in my car stopped working. Great timing. I finally had some time two days ago to look into it. I had just enough time to tear the dash apart, look for a manual online and download it, test the fan speed switch, and get a piece of jumper wire from my friend. My flashlights are over at my other friend's place (with the Harley) and I had to stop because I could no longer see what I was doing. Yesterday, I had school and a thing I had to go to for my unemployment and got home just as it was starting to get dark (I hate daylight savings). Hopefully, today I can figure out whats wrong and get it fixed. Or at least order parts if I need them. I wanted to drive to Medford next week, but I'm not willing to do that without a working heater/defroster.

I don't even have a stereo, as I had to remove it to get to the heater controls. I guess that's the least of my worries, but I miss OPB and NPR.

UPDATE
It's fixed! Hooray! It turned out to be a loose connection on the blower motor. I have heat again.

UPDATED UPDATE
It's acting up again. I need to look at this some more.

UPDATED UPDATED UPDATE
Got it working, lost 2 bolts, will it last?

Almost done

It's finals week! I took my econ final on Monday. I think I did pretty good, but won't know until probably next week. I finished the test in just under an hour and was the second one done. Whatever that means. I am pretty confident of getting an "A" in this class though. A lot of people I've talked to don't seem to like economics very much. I thought it was interesting. But I think most things that I don't know are interesting. Funny how that works. I even got a book from the library about economics ("Freakonomics") and am reading it now. It's more about incentives and the things people do to get what they want (most of the methods covered are illegal). During the second to last class, we had a guest speaker. He talked mainly about Henry George and the Georgist theory of economics. Very, very interesting, especially his view on taxes. I'm now contemplating reading George's book "Progress and Poverty".

I am so glad that I'm done with my speech class. I still hate public speaking, but I'm probably better at it than I was before this class. The last impromptu speech turned out to be pretty easy. She gave us each three topics, two of which were based on out other speeches, and one that was a random topic. We had about 2 or 3 minutes to prepare and then give a 2 to 4 minute speech. My topics were: cars, motorcycles, USA. I combined cars and motorcycles and talked about the different costs between the two (gas, new purchase, insurance, and maintenance). It was really easy to do more than two minutes. I also got a much better grade on the previous speech (commemorative) than I thought I would. I'm positive I got an "A" in this class.

Tomorrow is my last scholarship class. I already know I got an "A" in the writing class and don't even have to show up. I'm also confident that I got an "A" in the other one, and only have one last assignment - goals presentation. I don't think I would have to do the assignment, or even have to show up, to still get an "A", but we turned in our notebooks last week so the instructor could grade them and I want to get it back.

I wish I could stop stressing out so much about my grades. I seem to do just fine, and frequently better than I thought I would. If I could just relax a little more I think it would help me a lot.

I have a three week break until the next term starts. I'm signed up for 13 credits and am having a hard time not signing up for another class. Maybe I will try to get in a one credit PE class or something.

Quote(s) of the day

Here are two quotes that I'm using in my speech on Thursday.

"Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - Hunter S. Thompson

"Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep, sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride." - Dave Karlotski