...For Something Completely Different

Call your uncle and wake the kids-they'll want to see this!

My water is well water. By most accounts, it is good tasting, better than expensive mineral water bought in bottles. We knew it was hard and mineral rich, but you really need to actually SEE what that means. The orange-white stuff in the cut-open water heater is silt and sediment covered calcium and magnesium salts which accumulated over 15 years of use. No wonder the water heater had lost efficiency! Duh! The water heater was supplied from our old well for 14 years, and that well had no sediment filters or treatment of any kind. We got a new well in December of 2007, and now we have filters that should be eliminating such build up. Most people say that water heaters last only 5-7 years, so we must have had a good one to have survived that kind of mineral abuse for 15 years.(It was a Kenmore lowboy). Even though the second well is only 100 feet or so from the original well, it is almost twice as deep and a bit softer than the water from the old well.

These are the types of problems with old houses in rural areas. They often have minimal utilities which may or may not meet code. Of course, as we remodel and renovate, we can add things like water filters or GFI outlets.

Vacation Planning in Progress

It feels like Spring here at EarthNSky. Today, it was 80 degrees. High temperatures should be back in the 50's by the end of the week, but it was sure nice today. The peaches, plums,and pears are blooming, but there is no sign of flowering with the dogwoods or redbuds. Looking into the woods, I don't see any hint of green, no buds yet. The trees know that Winter still has a bit of trickery left in her.
Skyguy and I rode our bikes for the first time in 2009 over the weekend. I am so out of shape that I could only ride 2.7 miles. Realize that this is hilly terrain. We'll work up to riding more as the weeks go by. We hope to be able to take 40 mile excursions by the fall. We plan to take the bikes to the coast when we go on vacation in May. We haven't had a real vacation in years, so we plan to go down to the South Carolina Lowcountry for a week and visit both Savannah and Charleston. Bike riding down there where it is flat should be easy. We'll camp at a KOA and just ride the bikes and explore the area. We've both wanted to go to Patriot's Point for a while now, and I found out that you can take a tour of the Hunley, the Civil War submarine that is being carefully studied and preserved in a special lab on the old Navy base. I was born on the Charleston Navy Base. Since our son is a submariner, and we both come from Navy families, these historical things interest us. I also want to explore the natural world, and I am hoping to be able to take a short backwater cruise into the marshes-maybe see a dolphin or two. We need to get away. I've made reservations, but if Mr. Bully Collector continues to be a pain, we may have to cancel. I'm pretty frugal when it comes to traveling. In 2001 I drove with the kids across the country for over a month and explored the National Parks along the way. Food, gas, and lodging cost right at $2000. My budget for this vacation is far less. Luckily, the things that interest us, like Forts and museums, are generally inexpensive or free. I enjoy fishing, hiking, canoeing and biking, all of which we have the equipment for and costs nothing. Luckily, we don't do the golf, spa, and shopping vacation. That's just not me. I suppose we will spend most of the budget on food. I want good, fresh seafood. We will eat brunch at the campground, but for dinner, I want shrimp and scallops and crab! I do want to spend some time at one of the old rice plantations near Charleston. I feel drawn to it for some reason. Yeah, I've wanted to grow rice for some time now, but it is more than that. I sometimes think I lived on one of these plantations in a former life. I do believe in reincarnation. It explains so many of life's mysteries. Perhaps I will blog about that in a separate post. I hope to learn more about life before modern conveniences like electricity and indoor plumbing and tractors.

Bullies and Bad Behavior

I was working on a piece about biofuels and moonshine, but after two days of research, I have come to believe that my idea is not worthy of being published. As they say in a pool game, "Scratch".

Today, I had a nasty telephone confrontation with a 'debt collector'. It all started two months ago when I went over the limit on my credit card. I had to buy glasses and the credit card that I wanted to use would not scan for whatever reason and was being rejected. I only have two cards, so I pulled out the other one, knowing that the $600 purchase would put me close to the limit, if not a bit over. The next day, I received a call from the collections department at the credit union advising me that I was over the limit by $30 plus fees and that I needed to make an immediate payment. They cut me no slack. I made a payment of several hundred dollars, and I also had a credit refund that also reduced the balance and with those two things, I thought all was well, but no...in another harassing call, I was advised that a credit refund was not considered a payment and since I had not made a payment during a specific period of time, I had more late fees assessed and that,of course, put me back over the limit, which added even more fees. Last month, one day before the account closing date, the collection guy called again and informed me that unless I made an immediate payment of $150, that I would have another late fee, yada yada. He convinced me to transfer funds from my share account to cover the debt and to avoid additional fees. Weeeelllll, I got my statement on Saturday and the SOB lied. He did transfer money from my share account, which brought my balance back under the limit, but I still was charged $20 for going over the limit-even though it was not over-and another $20 for a late fee, when I was not late. I was livid. So today I called to discuss this with Mr. Collector, and I told him that I felt he misled me just to get a payment. He denied it and our conversation deteriorated into something I am not proud of. He insisted that I now owe $300 by Friday, and told me that I should pay it in person. Bear in mind now that I am not in default, not over the limit and I have paid the equivalent of 6 months payments in the last 3. I am also over 100 miles away from their office. Mr. Bully Collector was unsympathetic and did not believe my 'check in the mail' story, even though it is true. I have been very upset by all of this-it is all rather new to me as I have an excellent credit history and rating until the last few months..My FICO number is always over 800 when I have checked it. I hate crying on the phone, showing weakness to some asshole who obviously had some masochistic power thing going on, but it happened. After I got off, I went outside and did chores, still upset and crying. I tried to distract myself by cleaning and cracking black walnuts...no good...I tried to distract myself by turning the compost...no good either. I kept thinking about the millions of people who get calls like this all the time. Then I felt stupid for crying and allowing the jerk to get to me. Have I had an elitist attitude all these years for those who get calls from debt collectors? Where was my empathy before today? I understand now why people ditch the calls instead of facing the problem head on. I understand why the invention of the answering machine was such a success. It is one thing to get a courtesy type call from a creditor asking if there has been an oversight, but it is a whole other issue to be beaten down by and made to feel like shit by someone who doesn't know or care about you or your situation. His only motive was to make himself look good-he got his payment.
Finally, I stopped crying and stopped feeling sorry for myself, and even though there was nothing financially that I could do, I decided to write the credit union President a letter to make him aware of my thoughts and feelings. I used their mission statement as the theme of the letter. Here's how I started:
My husband and I have been members of the Blank Blank Blank Credit Union, for over 25 years. My father in law was part of the earliest days of the credit union when he worked for the Blank Blank Federal Acronym. Until recently, I had nothing but praise for the credit union. Your mission, "to enhance the lives of the members we serve by helping make their financial goals a reality", was accomplished via several mortgages, personal loans, refinances, and credit card accounts throughout the years.

Of course, after that, I got to the meat of the letter, requested a credit of all the fees and I also asked that the Collector be retrained to look at a customer's entire account and payment history and not be disrespectful. I felt a bit better after I sent it, and time will tell if anything comes of it. It is all I can do.

I hate it when the bullies of the world get an upper hand. I feel such guilt over my previous lack of empathy for others who have to deal with such assholes on a regular basis. My letter, at best will only save me $40, but it is the principle of the matter, and maybe my complaint and experience will save someone else from having a bad day from dealing with Mr. Bully Collector.
In this day and age, I wonder if the President will even care that his employees are bullies. It's all about the bottom line with most companies, and we are all too familiar with the attitudes of bank presidents and CEOs. What happened to the the idea of service and working with a long term, valued customer? I've been with that credit union probably longer than the President has, and I'm almost positive I've been there longer than Mr. Collector.

I'm not religious in a church-going sense, but there is a Judeo-Christian idiom: There but for the grace of God, go I. I'm sure that sentiment is not unique to only one or two religions. It is rather universal, I think, and I have certainly given it a great deal of thought today. I suppose I should thank Mr. Bully Collector for making me think about the suffering of others less fortunate than I. If money grew on trees, everyone would be a gardener.