How It's Made

There is a show on The Science Channel called, How It's Made. If it were not for my lovably geeky husband I would not even know this channel nor this show ever existed. However, I'm a concrete person. I want to know the details of whats going on. I LOVE to fix things, like my sons play cash register that we dismantled and rebuilt twice last summer. We are not a TV filled household. We are not TV aholics I should say. Nor are we extreme. Some family members don't own a TV so in our circle. we're pretty normal...I'm getting off track. Jacob enjoys a 15 minute show now and then and he is getting a bit to old for Noggin and Sprout. Although, I'm still in love with the Backyardigans. Anyway, This show, How It's Made, is a perfect blend between our love for tinkering and a short TV quickie. The 30-minute show explains how three or four different items in our everyday lives are made. Items like hockey sticks, bread, toilets, plastic bags, Aluminum Foil, Snowboards, Contact Lenses, Compact Discs, Mozzarella Cheese, Pantyhose, Fluorescent Tubes, Copy Paper, Jeans, Computers & Plate Glass just to name a few.

We've watched how golf balls are made about 5 times. Kinda makes me lovably geeky too I guess. I urge you to check it out, you might just find yourself with a growing toolbox of your own.

Customer Service

I'm a stickler. I enjoy getting the 1950's customer service of our past. I just don't do well or act very lady like when dealing with the roboic overseas versions of what many companies now call "Customer Service". My favorite, most recent example, was face to face at Costco. For those who have the opportunity to shop at a Costco I don't have to explain. For those who don't..it's like a drug. Correction...a BIG drug. There isn't anything little about Costco. A friend was sharing her experiences with a recent Costco purchase...a crock pot. After she and I visited, I stopped at Costco and picked up the last one on the shelves. Got home. Opened it. Hmmm....don't know what happened but the pot and crock within this box was nothing like that of the one pictured on the box. So, I returned the item. Start the harps...Customer service took my phone number upon the return and actually followed up the next day by phone to let me know that their new shipment had arrived...Further arranged to have one waiting for me at the customer service counter along with the $10 off coupon that expired 2 weeks earlier. All this for little ole me? I felt like I won the shopper of the year award. Costco....You know how to treat your customers and by the way, you rock.

On the other hand...directv - You suck! No sense in boring you with the details of that companies lack of customer service but trust me, I'm not even looking for my Ritz Carlton background standards here...just a non-robotic, human life form to remotely fix a billing issue.

I'm Quirky

I wish I could say that I was quirky in a "cool" way. Y'know, like a person who wears vintage clothing and pulls it off with their "up to the minute, 1950s looking" eye wear. Instead, I border on type A personality with downright compulsiveness mixed with a dash of quirky. See that, I only get a dash, to kind of, but nearly misses at, rounding it all out, into being "cool" Anyway, you wouldn't even know I had these quirks unless I told you. The fact that they don't further define me into quirky cuteness proves that my quirkiness misses the boat of coolness.

For example: when I reheat something in the microwave...I never use the preset times. I always put in some quirky time of my own. Mostly 1:23 but not always. This is an example of me really living on the edge people. I'm working on it though. You'd be amazed at how much work I'm doing but that is many other posts. Light switches and screws...sounds like the title of some trashy airport novel or perhaps something one would find behind thick velvet curtains of a mom & pop video store. Nope, just me again proving how UNcute my quirkiness is. We have two panels of light switches in our kitchen. Both control the same lights from different doorways of the room. When we go to sleep, my husband and I head up the stairs and he, being one for appreciating my quirkiness and even seeing the cuteness in it, makes a concious effort to make sure that the switches match. Y'know, all up on one panel and all down on the other.

To further this idiosyncrasy, we had an electrician in our house at one point and he felt the need to tell me that it was city code for electricians to make sure all the screw grooves in electrical plates were lined straight up and down. Of course, after he left I walked around the house and made sure we had screws up to code for goodness sake. Feel free to check your own screws...you'll sleep better because of it.

I'm happy to say that I can sleep just fine if the the switches aren't up to code or even MY code for that matter. I'm fine if the microwave is reheating for just a boring :30. None the less, I just feel slightly more pleased with myself when things are done in my cute quirky way.