how amazingly far we’ve come with technology. However, sometimes I just want to wring someone’s neck for being lazy or not caring.

I checked Borders for two items: a book by John Eldredge, and a Moleskine notebook. Both inventory reports for the Mission Viejo Borders said that it was “likely in store.” I reserved it online by putting in my name and email address, and the confirmation page told me to wait for an email within two hours to tell me if it was in stock or not. Well, I didn’t want to wait, and figured they would at least have one of the two in stock, so I drove down there.

When I got there, I checked my iPhone for an email, but nothing. I went straight to the Moleskine spinning display and found about 10 of the notebooks that I wanted. I grabbed one, and headed for the other book. I found the last copy on the shelves within about 5 minutes, and headed for the check stand. I checked my email again on the way to find the following email:

We’re sorry to say that the remaining stock of the item you requested has been purchased since our last online availability update. [Edited for relevance.]

The books were in my hands, so clearly the system kinda broke down somewhere. Apparently the website sends an email to the store, which is then taken by an employee to hunt down the request. When they don’t find it, they notify the website that they don’t have it and then you are emailed. When I asked the checkout clerk what might have gone wrong with the system, she said that it probably just got put on the shelves right before I picked it off the shelf. That means that when the employee looked for it, it hadn’t been stocked yet. This doesn’t make any sense because the website said that the book was “likely in store” which would mean that the system had some sort of awareness that the book could possibly be there.

My theory for what happened: Request landed in the hands of one of the lazy, coffee drinking, mohawked, minimum waged employees who wiped his nose with the paper, and then reported back that it wasn’t in stock so that he could go take another smoke break. He probably thought it wouldn’t matter because who would be stupid enough to go to the store when they told you they don’t have what you’re looking for? What he didn’t account for was my impatience… and maybe a little bit of my stupidity.

I guess it bugs me because it could have caused me some inconvenience had I waited and trusted what they said. If they didn’t have it, then I probably would have had to drive to a farther bookstore which would have wasted my gas and time. Or I might have ordered it online which would mean that I have to wait till next week to get it.

I know, I know, I shouldn’t complain because it’s pretty amazing that it’s possible for almost anyone to get their hands on virtually every written word in the world within a week. These huge stores provide vast amounts of learning possibilities and wisdom from millennia ago that would blow the minds exponentially of every reader going back thousands of years. It’s just a shame that forward progress can be halted by one lazy person.

Apparently, this user only follows people who have the name “Alex” or “Casey” with the exception of some famous Twitterers like Kevin Rose and John McCain.

The notification email sent to me said that “Cody Hutchison” was now following my updates. This user, who also goes by “footballguy166″, has what I can only describe as a fetish. He seems to be collecting a certain type of Twitterer, but not based on what they tweet. He’s following 365 people and hasn’t posted a single update, which makes me wonder what the heck is going on. It’s like a train wreck. I can’t NOT look and wonder what’s gonna happen.

Do you have any weird followers or experiences on Twitter?

мебели

01: Intro [01:09]
02: Sugar Will (tease) [01:57]
03: Granny * [05:59]
04: Don’t Drink the Water * [07:34]
05: Corn Bread * [06:00]
06: Grey Street * [05:53]
07: You Never Know * [08:22]
08: Crush * [14:40]
09: #27 * [05:57]
10: Dream Girl * [06:12]
11: Shotgun * [08:04]
12: Eh Hee * [05:18]
13: You Might Die Trying * [08:10]
14: Dancing Nancies * > [10:47]
15: Warehouse * [15:35]
16: Stand Up [For It] *+ [06:18]
17: (Typical Situation) * > [12:37]
18: Everyday * > [08:06]
19: Ants Marching * [07:45]
20: Encore break/intro [09:12]
21: Gravedigger ~ [03:52]
22: Tripping Billies * [08:26]
* Rashawn Ross
+ Joe Lawlor
~ Dave Solo
(song name) indicates a partial song

A short clip of Everyday:
DMB – Everyday

As you can see, it’s not in the greatest shape. The main eye-sore is the paint on the roof and trunk which is oxidizing from being parked outside for the last 9 years. It’s a little dirty in this picture, but when it’s clean, it doesn’t look a whole lot different.

I went to a wedding a while back and I had heard that there would be valet service. Being that I had worked for a while as a valet before college, I decided to wash my car so that the valet guy wouldn’t be too disgusted. I got all the bird crap and dust off of it, and it looked ok. Not anywhere near a new car, but better than it had been. I valeted at the ceremony, and after it was over, the friendly valet retrieved my car. I got in and drove about two blocks from the church when I noticed that the little bus that was taking the wedding party to the reception was parked on the side of the road and all the occupants were mingling around outside of it. As I got closer, I was halted and told that the bus had broken down and would it be alright if I drove some people to the reception. I was more than happy to help out, so I told them I would. The brides mother and grandparents were elected as the first ones to get a “lifeboat” and leave the “sinking ship.” As the mother got into my car, she said, “Don’t you wish you would have washed your car for the wedding!?” I chuckled a little and nodded, but inside I was dying of laughter because I knew that I HAD washed my car, she just couldn’t tell cause it was so beat-up!

About 6 months ago, I went to dinner with some friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time. One of them was bragging a little bit about the new BMW that she had just bought. She explained about the cool features of the interior and how fast and cool it was. The conversation moved on and we eventually finished dinner and left separately. About 5 minutes after I left the parking lot, I got a call from her asking if I had jumper cables in my car. I said, “Yes, is everything ok?” She told me that they couldn’t get the car started and asked if I could come back and give them a jump. I turned around and headed back laughing a little to myself that my piece of junk car was going to save the day.

My point in these stories is not that I got to laugh at others who had a bad day or hard time. Sure, I chuckled at the irony of the situations, but I certainly did not take pleasure in their misfortune. My point is that even though my car isn’t that great looking, fast, or comfortable, it was still able to be used to help others.

Many times in our daily lives we are forced to recognize our shortcomings or the many reasons we don’t fit in with society. We might be unattractive, poor, unfunny, or not athletic. We may feel we have nothing to offer someone else or society in general. This is not the case! We can be of great value to others. All we need to do is allow ourselves to be used when the opportunity arises. Better yet, we can actively look for opportunities to serve others with what we have. We may not have a lot of money, but we can give a lot of encouragement to those who have had a bad day. We may not have nice possessions to loan others, but we can joyfully lend a hand to someone who needs help. We may not be funny or the life of the party, but we can listen to someone vent about their tough week at work.

It reminds me of the story found in John 6:5-13. Jesus was able to use the boy’s seemingly small gifts of five loaves of bread and two fish to feed over 5000 people. If the gifts were not given by the boy, then many would have gone hungry. But the boy offered what he had, and many others benefited from it.

Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who is attractive, rich, funny, and athletic. The same applies to you in that whatever your gifts and talents are, they can be used to benefit others. This life would be so boring and meaningless if all we ever cared or worried about was ourselves. It’s a privilege to be able to help others, and I hope that we all can strive to look for the chances to do so every day.

The iMac being offered was the one with a 20.1″ widescreen, Intel Core Duo 2Ghz, 250GB hard drive, and 512MB RAM. Right now it’s being sold in the Apple store for $1,699.

I realized that the iMac was being offered from the same company that the Mac mini came from, so I decided to see how it would go for me. This gift would require me to complete 18 offers in order to get the iMac. Almost all of the offers required a purchase in order to get credit for completing the offer. Since most of them offered refunds, I calculated that I was going to need to spend around $135 after it was all said and done. Considering that it normaly costs $1,700, I was willing to spend at least $500 and still feel pretty good about the savings.

After completing all the offers on my end, there were 3 of them that didn’t report as completed to the gift site, and their terms stated that I had to wait at least 30 days before I could show proof of purchase and get credit for the offers. I waited the 30 days, and then they manually credited my account to show that I had qualified for the iMac. I filled out a redemption voucher and mailed it in, and 2 weeks later the UPS man dropped this off at my office:

It was delivered to where I work, so I could barely wait till I got home to open it up and get it running. I was so shocked that it actually worked! Not to mention the anticipation was killing me having to wait the 30 days for the credits to go through and to mail in the voucher. Here’s some shots of the unpacking.

Here’s a shot of the initial setup. Since I have a PowerBook, I can automatically transfer all my settings and files to the iMac so that when I sit down to use the iMac for the first time, it’s exactly like my PowerBook.

Here it is all set up and firing away! It’s noticeably faster than my PowerBook, however, it seemed to be a bit more RAM hungry. I quickly ordered an extra gig of RAM so now it has 1.5GB total, and hums along quite nicely. It’s amazing that Apple can fit all of that power and beauty into such an elegantly small package. I mean, if you didn’t already know, that’s the whole computer right there. The screen, the keyboard, and the mouse (optical Mighty Mouse, nonetheless). All of the components of the iMac are fitted into the white casing around the LCD display. (Notice the green box on the right side of the picture is a 512MB iPod shuffle that I also got from a freebie gift site and didn’t have to spend a penny.)

I thought I was gonna have to buy a new desk to fit the huge 20″ screen. I was quite surprised that it fit inside that little opening, but just barely horizontally. It really is a very sharp screen that is very bright and extremely comfortable to look at all day. I find myself having too much space sometimes. Wait. I didn’t just say that. One can never have too much space! The only annoying bit is that the SuperDrive is on the right side of the screen, so I have to rotate it slightly when I need to insert a CD or DVD. It’s really not that bad at all.

Ok, so you’re probably wondering the total amount that I ended up spending to get this wonderful new iMac for “free”. Well, I went over my original estimate by $79.85. The total dollar amount that I spent after all the refunds were issued and returns shipped was $214.85. Some of you might say that amount is well in excess of “free”, but may I point out that it is also $1,615.82 cheaper than I could have paid for it at the Apple store (price includes sales tax). It’s not everyday that one gets 88% off the retail price.

So in conclusion, I would highly recommend that anyone try out these “freebie” sites and bring home some really cool gear. There are tons of them out there offering a wide range of items from phones, to designer handbags, to iPods, to prepaid Visa gift cards. Not all of the companies are as reliable as the one I used, so be sure to do some research on the item you’re contemplating before you begin. Also, keep in mind that it takes several hours of your time and energy to do this. I had to keep checking up on offers to make sure I canceled in time to prevent getting charged for extra shipments. I spent quite a bit of time going over each offer’s terms and conditions to make sure there were no hidden costs or fees that weren’t clearly stated on the website. This alone probably saved me about $300. I kept a text document running and made sure to make note of how much they were charging, when I needed to cancel, and the phone number to call to cancel. I say all of this to make it very clear that I was very meticulous and aware of everything I was getting into, so if you are careless, you might end up spending more than you planned on, or possibly not even qualifying for your gift. Be careful out there. I’m not making any guarantees about your experience.

One last note. I got a call today from my credit card company saying that someone had attempted to use my credit card to make a $500+ purchase on some family reunion website in Utah. Obviously, I have closed the account and won’t ever know for sure if the account number was stolen by one of the offers I did or through some other means, but I felt that it was worth mentioning.