My So Called Life

My eBay Experience

/ Shane / 4 Comments

Recently we have been trying to de-clutter our house as much as possible. Most things we’re saving in a pile to take to the enormous annual family rummage sale. However, there were a few things that seemed a little more valuable than what we were likely to get at the rummage sale.

The first of these things was our Keurig B-30 single cup coffee maker. We liked it (you can read all about it here), but we actually liked it a little too much. The problem is that we turned into degenerate coffee addicts, and we needed something that could make more coffee at a time. We progressed past needing a single cup at a time.

This particular coffee maker retails for $100, and we were also including another adapter that retails for an additional $13.50, so this was a decently expensive setup and we thought we could get some money out of it. We looked around on eBay and saw that most of the similar things were going for about $50, with at least $10 for shipping, so we were assuming we could get at least that, especially if we were including the extra adapter. However, we decided if we got at least $30 for it, we would be happy, so we set the bid at $20 and did the listing.

Sara's Beautiful Photography

Now the first thing I noticed was that everybody and their mother immediately contacted me saying, “Oh hey, you’re getting rid of that? I’ll take it!” Well, if I wanted to give away this expensive device for free, I would have just said, “Who wants this?” instead of paying to list it in eBay! Or at least tried to sell it for $0.50 at the rummage sale. I wanted money folks, I wasn’t in it for the charity!

So we put our listing up on eBay and watched it closely for a few days. Absolutely nothing. A few views and that was it, no bids.

I think part of it was just that nobody likes to bid on an auction that has a lot of time left to go on it. So conceivably the bids would pick up as time went on. The other problem is that we created a totally new account for this, with no eBay history. I think people are distrustful of this, because they think I’m a scammer or something. Now everybody had to start with no history at some point, but I have a feeling that auctions by people with little or no history probably go for less money, due to this suspicion.

So we weren’t getting much action, but I felt like we would eventually. However, our first bid finally came in…from our friend Dabu!

She was the lone bidder at $20 for a few days, until we just decided to sell it to her if she wanted it. She was, after all, the only person who actually put their money where their mouth was.

Me: “If you still want it, we’ll give it to you for $30.”
Dabu: “I’ll give you $40!”

In other words, Dabu is about the worst haggler in the history of the world.

We found a way to take down the listing, so we’re only out the minimal cost of listing it in the first place. So we didn’t exactly have the full eBay experience (we don’t have to ship it or deal with the feedback system, two of the main components), but overall I would say it was fairly positive. It was easy to set up, and seemed to be working okay. I don’t know for sure if we would have gotten any bids if Dabu hadn’t bid on it, but I think we probably would have. However, I think it might not have gone for as much as some of the other ones did.

So overall, generally positive, and we might try selling some more stuff in the future!

5 ways I “won” today

/ Shane / 4 Comments
  1. I maximized my leftover removal potential by combining the leftover chili with the leftover taco meat into one giant bowl of awesome.
  2. I sold something I didn’t need anymore instead of throwing it in the trash. I make money and I don’t generate trash — double win!
  3. I laid the foundation for a ridiculously epic event next month, which shall be known as “Halbach Baconfest”.
  4. I mastered the copy machine at work. I took 15 single sided, color pages and turned them into 10 copies of double-sided, color pages, which were already stapled for me.
  5. I live in a world where copy machines can staple pages. Hello, welcome to the future! Why waste 10 seconds doing a job myself, when I can pay thousands of dollars for an overly elaborate machine to do it! If that’s not a win, I don’t know what is.

R.I.P. Backstory Cafe

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Well, unfortunately, my favorite coffee shop the Backstory Cafe is out of business.

From their website:

BACKSTORY CAFE IS NOW CLOSED FOR BUSINESS.

Backstory would like to thank all our valued staff and customers for your support over the years.

Several factors contributed to the decision to close the cafe including a serious financial blow in the spring of 2010. In short, a variety of resources required to run the cafe have been depleted.

While the many people involved over the years were growing a business, we were also engaging in what is best described as a “hopeful human endeavor”. So although the cafe is now closed, hope remains that this quiet corner of Woodlawn will be home to a new initiative when the time is right.

Peace-Backstory Cafe.

I don’t know exactly when they closed, but I think it must have been a while ago. I saw when they took their sign at the corner down, but I thought maybe it was due to the ongoing construction there. I never in a million years would have thought they were going out of business. It always seemed busy in there. I guess the above paragraph sort of implies that there were financial circumstances that weren’t necessarily related to the actual profitability of the cafe itself.

I feel very sad that it is gone, but on the other hand, we never went there. It probably closed months ago, and I didn’t even notice. So in a way, I guess it was kind of my fault that they’re gone, and I can’t really complain. It’s kind of strange but, even though we never went, it was comforting knowing it was there. It was the only thing close to our place, and having a coffee shop in the neighborhood made it seem…more like a real neighborhood somehow. I know we still have Robust, but I liked Backstory better, and it was closer.

Oh well, I guess that’s what happens when you don’t vote with your wallet. Another victim of my cheapness! 😦

It just got personal

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Sara overheard an immunologist at work talking about the link between pollution (specifically diesel particulate emissions) and allergies. This would partially explain why allergies are on the rise in the developed world, and specifically in cities and along highways. After a little research of my own, it seems that these types of pollutants stimulate our Immunoglobulin E (IgE) production, which in turn causes us to have a quicker biological response to allergens (an allergen “memory”). You can read more here.

So between this and the increase of allergies due to global warming, I am positively doomed.

I have to say, this makes me feel better about my work. Reducing dependence on foreign oil is a worthy crusade to begin with, but it’s sort of esoteric for me personally. Until now! Now it suddenly has a direct impact on my life.

In fact, I didn’t have allergies at all until I went to college. Since then, my allergies have been worse every year. And now, dealing with the kids’ eczema, which is essentially a hyper-sensitivity to allergens, I have to wonder if this has all somehow been caused by our polluting lifestyle. I always assumed it was just sort of destined, genetic-wise, but maybe that’s not true.

In any event, how about you get your pollution out of my nose?

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Not too long ago, Evie and I were looking for another chapter book to read before bed, and we fortunately ended up with Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.

We first became fans of Grace Lin as an illustrator (“Round is a Mooncake“, “Red is a Dragon“, “The Seven Chinese Sisters“). However, it turns out her sister lives in our neighborhood, and we had the opportunity to meet her. “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon” had just been released, and received a Newberry Honor, and we just happened to be looking for a new book. It was kismet.

Evie and I both loved “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon”. It was a total change of pace from “Little House on the Prairie”. I had heard it described as “the Chinese Wizard of Oz”, and I have to say the description was pretty accurate. The story boils down to a young girl taking a journey to a wise man, meeting friends and having adventures along the way, only to discover she already had what she wanted.

Grace Lin talked about how she wanted to write an American take on Chinese story, and I think she really succeeded. The stories felt very authentically Asian, even though they involved things that probably would never really be in an authentic Asian folklore (independent young girls for starters). That’s probably why it was such a fantastic change of pace, and just what we were looking for.

Anyway, Evie predictably liked a story that involved a young girl and a dragon. She still talks about it now, even though we’ve read a few books since. I would definitely recommend it for kids, especially girls.

As a side note, in our house, we now call mini-wheats “Minli-wheats”.