Random Thoughts And Stuff

Here I go the end of another month and I have to scramble to find something to rant, chat, talk or ramble on about. Not sure where this will take me. Maybe I will delete this before posting it because I found something else to yak about. So yeah I didn't have anything planned. Well that isn't entirely true I do have a few posts planned. A couple have been gathering so much dust they are now buried under several feet of peat moss.

I can't help but wonder if I have used the same post title before. Have I? Don't know. Maybe. It is sort of generic and does mention its randomness.

I guess I can post about this idea that I was going to post on Facebook at one time but decided not to. I live in a pretty typical suburban neighborhood that has it's share of crime but is far from a high risk high crime area. I live in a garden style apartment. You know the kind that has a handful of apartments per floor and the stairwell is exposed to the outside elements. The front "porch" landing area has our building's bank of mailboxes and then the stairs leading up to the units and some stairs leading to the first floor/ground floor apartments. My apartment is along the same side as the mailboxes on the second floor which if I have a large box or package waiting at my front door can be seen from the mailboxes. I am certain that in the last 3 or 4 years I have had 4 or 5 packages or boxes stolen from the front door. When the post office or UPS tracking says your package was delivered and there is nothing by your front door, then yep some low-life scumbag stole your package. You can't blame the person who shipped your order they kept their end of the agreement by shipping the package. You can't blame the delivery service, unless there were specific orders to not leave the package unattended. The only person to blame is the low-life scum bucket that nicked the package. I hope they enjoyed the worthless books, or beat up comics, creased trading cards, or the oversized t-shirt or whatever was in the package. One of the more recent packages stolen from my front door was a book about the Collyer Brothers, Homer and Langley who were among the first recorded Hoarders in the US. I find that almost ironic someone taking a book about hoarders, but it still pissed me off since the book is a little hard to find, not very hard, but difficult to find at a decent low price. But I digress somewhat.

So my thought about my neighborhood is this. In theory I could close the front door to my apartment and leave it unlocked, leave for the day and return without anyone ever attempting to open the door. I could probably leave it unlocked for several days and nobody would ever know. However, I'm sure if I left the door slightly ajar, or completely wide open and was gone for more than a minimum half an hour the chances of someone coming by and being curious about this completely vulnerable apartment would increase and I'd come home to having many items missing. The longer I was gone the more stuff that would be missing. Of course there is also the likelihood that nobody would disturb anything (depending on the day of the week I guess)  but that is less probable. I wouldn't expect anyone to be kind and close the door. I would never test this open door theory.

I also recall a few years back that after a yearly or biannual exterminator visit, I noticed a nice pocket knife was missing from my kitchen that I usually kept in a kitchen drawer but might have left it out on the counter that day. I can't prove it was taken. I don't recall enough details of the make of it to describe it well enough except it was all silver. I don't recall what exterminator service was used during that time or which year it was. Now days my apartment management company uses a different extermination service that comes twice a year at least, and they require that all kitchen and bathroom cabinets are emptied to make spraying easier and that all counters are clear. Plus no dishes in the sink. The time the pocket knife was taken the only prerequisite was that the counters were clear, oh and the no dishes in the sink. This totally empty and clear requirement also puts your apartment in more of a disarray than it normally is. I haven't recovered from the last round of spraying. Heck I never really recovered from moving into the apartment 11 years ago.

Wow this post turned out to be a bit of a bummer. I didn't think it would go to the dark side.

Update: Ebay Oops Sort Of

EBAY Oops Sort Of: An Update

Well I got a bit of a surprise on this almost mistake. A while back try late April last year (2017) I made a bid on Ebay for an autographed Wes Unseld Basketball trading card that was coming from China! I originally had missed that part. When I did notice it upon seeing the "item has been shipped" notice I started to get concerned. What with all the counterfeit cards that come out of Asia, and the various shipping problems people have had with stuff coming from overseas yadda, yadda, yadda I thought I would have to chalk this one off as a loss.

Just as sometime between late September to late December of 2016 when I had two packages that I suspect were snatched from my apartment's front door step. I thought that this would never arrive. Of the two missing packages from 2016 one I know for a fact was actually delivered because I was given a tracking number and after a few days I checked on a Thursday to check on the status of the package and it said the package had been delivered to the unit on that Monday. That one stinks because it was a full Score 1989 Baseball set. The other package was supposed to be 600 Nationals cards from a trade never got a tracking number but it sounded like it was shipped around the time I had shipped out my end of other teams for them. But I digress.

I started the tale of these cards back in April on this my regular blog because I needed to post something that month here for my minimal personal posting quota of one post per month. It so happened that this drama that ended up being non-drama and nothing to worry about was what was going on in my life at that particular moment.

Anyway since this is a card related story it is posted Here on: CaptKirk42's Trading Cards Blog. OK so the story was explained mostly here on my regular blog, but the bigger pictures of the card is on the card blog.

UPS Access Point Locker

Well that was a new experience. On Friday 03 Nov or maybe Saturday 04 Nov I received a letter from Comcast telling me that my current modem would be obsolete in Jan 2018 and they would be sending me an upgraded modem complete with wi-fi router built in. They said "they" would be sending an email soon giving me the shipping and tracking info. Well they didn't send an email but UPS sent me an email on Sunday 05 Nov stating that my package was scheduled for delivery on Monday and that a signature was required. Monday came and went and I had one of those handy "We Missed You while trying to deliver your package to you" notices. The notice was marked with the address of a UPS Access Point Locker for the pickup location. I wasn't quite sure what the deal was. I was thinking it was the same as the pickup/distribution station about 2 or 3 miles from me that I had been to once or twice. I guessed fairly close but not exactly. It was some kind of holding/storage area to pick up my package along the lines of their distribution centers. It is a storage/holding area like a bus station locker. It is all self serve and open 24/7. The photo above is a generic UPS Locker photo looks similar to one I used. Same sort of situation up against a wall with parking nearby.

OK so on Tuesday (07 Nov 2017) during the day I looked up the address and it looked close to where the regular UPS shipping center near me was, but not exactly. Since I had a vague idea where the thing was I planned on picking up my box that night after work. It was a dark very rainy Tuesday night here in Suburban Silver Spring, MD. Technically the UPS Locker is in the Burtonsville area of Silver Spring (very North Silver Spring) near where I live, and the UPS center I had been to is technically in Laurel.

So I go to the UPS center, but of course it is a little farther than what the directions had said, and the center isn't on the street mentioned. So in a nearby parking lot I breakout my portable GPS, Yes my GPS is separate from my 2002 Ford Focus but that is beside the point (and another indication of how often I do upgrades. Its mostly due to the costs of upgrading and the "if it ain't broke" mentality). I enter the address and I'm about a mile maybe less from where I should be. So I do my turn around since I had overshot the thing and while returning I overshoot the other way. It is dark hard to see and I'm not sure where this UPS thing is. I suspect it is near the building with a self storage center. Turns out it is the same address but sort of next door. Anyway I go into a shopping complex area parking lot do some more turnings around. My misdirections included getting a little turned around and being on the wrong side of a street with an island divider in the middle. I am ticked at myself for doing that, again dark night hard to see and I thought the middle island was the side of the street with a side service area. Oops a few honking cars and then wait for traffic to go by to make a safe Ubie (U-turn that is).  Don't know why I started going in that direction anyway. I wait for a long time at a traffic light to turn left, behind a big tractor-trailer truck in the right most left turn lane, which can also go straight.

I then got on the proper road and GPS told me I was at my destination so I made the next available right turn into the parking where some Self Storage unit center that was part of some industrial park thing was, the one I thought was near my destination. It had the proper address but I didn't see the UPS thing. I make my way to the other side of the storage area building and get to an area where there is a gate for storage sheds and on the other side of a small fence I see the UPS Locker. I drive around the other side of the building and get to the UPS Locker and park.

Since it is about 7:30 PM on a dark rainy November evening the Locker is pretty dark. The website said it was open 24/7 didn't look like it. The building it is up against but not associated with was obviously closed and very dark, the only real lighting was the UPS Locker's User interface screen. No employees required total self service with a computer terminal.

The thing was actually very easy to figure out, a bit hard to see in the light of the terminal screen. So first step is to scan the bar-code on your pick-up notice, or enter in the tracking number or some source code on the dang thing, with no light scanning was the only way to do it. It took a few tries to get it to scan. Then you have to insert your valid Government or other valid form of ID (driver's license) into the card slot like a credit card and hope it doesn't eat your card like ATMs sometimes do. After it verified my ID to make sure I was me, it indicated and unlocked the locker my box was in. It asked for signature using finger on the touch screen. My onscreen signature is NEVER the same as my real "pen in hand" signature. It often looks like stick figure drawings. I think it asked for the signature before unlocking the specific unit my box was in. The graphic display shows which locker is "yours" in a diagram of the setup when it unlocks it. Then you open your locker, grab your package and make sure to close the locker. After signing and closing the locker, which I left open and it ordered me to close the locker, it indicates that the transaction is concluded.

I have since hooked up the modem and am using it in normal "wired" mode which due to my ancient Windows XP computer still seems slower than molasses most of the time. I haven't gotten the wi-fi service to start up correctly yet.

Ebay Oops Sort Of

The other day I bid on an auction at Ebay in a knee-jerk reaction. Hunting for a similar item that I had already won an auction on earlier in the day. The items I bid on were autograph cards of basketball player Wes Unseld from the Washington Bullets.

My homie basketball team that changed their name to the Washington Wizards in 1997.

They are cards that are sort of cheap because the autograph is on a clear sticker and then placed on the card. The athlete, celebrity or whoever never even sees the final product with these "on sticker" cards produced by the thousands by the trading card companies. The signer is handed (or sent) a roll, or sheet of the blank stickers that are the size of a small band-aid to sign usually in black or blue sharpie pen (magic marker type ink) I prefer the "on card" autograph cards but those are sometimes harder to find and depending on the product are often more expensive.

Well my mistake was not paying attention to WHERE the card was coming from. The auction plainly shows that the location of the item I was bidding on is in CHINA I think because the item location reads "China, UT, China" I just saw the UT part and thought "Oh its in Utah!" I got overexcited and was trigger happy.

Normally I pay very close attention to where something is located and ALWAYS try to avoid the problem countries in Asia, mostly because of the proliferation of counterfeit  products, especially collectibles coming out of those countries. Particularly China and Japan.

Fortunately the seller ships internationally and the card has now been marked as "shipped". Unfortunately the estimated delivery date ranges from 04 May to 09 June. Hopefully the card will arrive much sooner, but I tend to doubt it. I have had items come from Canada that took a month or more so getting a shipment literally from the slow boat from China in anything more than a month is wishful thinking.

Overall the cost isn't too much it was $1.99 (opening bid) for the card itself plus $4.99 shipping. The other card's opening bid was also $1.99 opening bid and I won it for $4.90 just under my max bid of $5 bucks. That first card is in the US fortunately and its shipping is only $3.25.

Oh well mistakes happen and this time it gave me a subject I could make a semi-quick blog post about. As an after thought it reminds me some of the times when I have ordered a book on Ebay and not noticed, that the copy is marked as previously being a public library copy. With that though sometimes the sellers are not forthcoming in their listings, they just say it is a used copy. However, there are several book sellers that seem to specialize in reselling library copies. I try to stay away from those because of all the markings and stickers left on the books.

Gotta Call Herc! Gotta Call Herc!

In the dining receipt name game I recently got another good one, or at least a new one. If you actually read this post's title then you have the name, but not the spelling I got.

Newton and Toot from "The Mighty Hercules" cartoon (1963-66)

OH let me count the ways my name Kirk has been misheard and spelled, of course there is Curt/Kurt, Kurk, Kirt, then there is Kart, Cark, Cork, Turk, Curck (a fave from a few months back). I've even been called by my brother's name Erik once or twice from people with faulty memories or switched brain wires or just in the know of cool Scandinavian names. Erik (haven't heard Rick) does sound kind of like Kirk and oddly I do have a brother Erik. It is weird when someone who doesn't know him or even know I have a brother calls me Erik. They probably think the other spelling Eric.

I've occasionally been called Keith, Karl, Ken, Kent, or Clark (Klark). Haven't seen those in print though. A classic from years ago from a mailing list by a bank "Kirl"? WT? All I can think is they cut and pasted my name/address from another list dropped the second "k" and moved over my middle initial "L".

Getting these alternate names printed on a receipt or as the address on an envelope is another thing. Sometimes I think about keeping the things, but I think I have already recycled or tossed most of them anyway so the collection would not be complete. It has only been the most recent ones that I have even bothered making a blog post about. I'm not even sure why I've done that.

This new one was the first time I recall getting this misspelling. I think I had heard it before, there are very few that I have not "heard". It is another instant Classic...HERK! My Gawd I"m Hercules! Wow I think I'm honored to get Hercules' nickname. Hehe.

Previous Misspellings:
Cark
Cork
Curck
Curk
Kart
Kurk *Yes I've seen both spellings.
Turk
A long rant with a list
The first posted name rant

Holy Forever Stamp Batman!

A few weeks ago (Thursday January 14) I got a PWE (Plain White Envelope) from a purchase I made for some trading cards. ON my other blogs (CaptKirk42 and Curly W Cards) I have or will blog soon about this purchase with the details of the cards 2 football and 1 baseball. but here I will show a little bit more the envelope that they came in:

Yes that is a BATMAN FOREVER stamp.

Mailinglist Name Misspelling Rant

Or What's In A Name?

OK I can live with the common misspelling of my last name using an "o" instead of an "e". It used to really tick me off, but I've learned to accept it, as I'm sure people with the last name of Smith who spell their last name Smyth. The Scandinavian spelling I use seems to baffle most people, even though Hans Christian Andersen is probably known more world-wide than Pamela Anderson (except to fans of Baywatch and Playboy magazine subscribers). Still most people spell the name Andersen with an "sOn". It's only natural since the surname in most languages and cultures means "the son of Ander (or Anders)".

I can even put up with some of the weird misspellings of my first name but the one that gets my goat, or grinds my gears is "Kirl". ACK! that's right some idiot data entry clerk at some credit card company, probably Citibank about 2 or 3 years ago, maybe even earlier somehow deleted my second "k" and combined my middle initial to my first name. Now there is a mailing list with that name on it. Wait, What? KIRL isn't even a name, it's not even the proper spelling of Curl. It's what you do to your hair, or with a set of weights, or even a very bad misspelling of a young person of the female gender.

I don't know how many times I've received junk mail under that "name". I used to tear them up and recycle them, but now if I want to take the trouble I mark those letters "Return To Sender" mark up the name a little and put a note that says something like "No such person", or "Nobody by that name at this address" and I usually put "Please remove from mailing list". Of course all this returned mail won't even be looked at, and half of it won't even be delivered by the post office. So why should I bother?

OK this made me feel a little better.

Maybe I should try to get a second identity under that name and get a second Social Security number. NO I would probably be arrested for identity theft, or trying to use an alias. Then how the frack do all those criminals steal names so easily, yet the victims spend many years trying to get things fixed and it never gets corrected?

Other misspellings of my name I can recall have been:

Akirk -I think this was another CitiBank special, using the first letter of my last name added to the front of my first name.
Curt - Often people ask me if I spell my name that way, Um NO I'm a Kirk not a Kurt. It is interesting how I haven't heard of a spelling of "Cirk".
Kick - Another Non-Name.
Kurt - Again I've been asked if this it the spelling for my name.

Rick -I know sometimes I've been called that by people who have misheard my name. I don't think I've received any mail under that name. Oddly enough I have sometimes also been called "Erik". I have a brother Erik, but often the people asking have no idea I have a brother with that name.
Turk - This I've just heard from people who have misheard my name. Again another NON-Name. I have never received any mail under it Thank Goodness

Not sure If I've gotten a "Kirt", or even a "Krik", but once several years ago from the magazine Scientific American (or maybe just Science Magazine) the label was addressed "Dr. Kirk Andersen". Somewhere I think I still have that subscription form. I liked that I was tempted to subscribe to the dang thing just because of the title on the label. It wouldn't have been worth it though as the subscription rates for that magazine was pretty expensive. With doctors as subscribers I guess they do gouge their subscribers a bit.

Good thing I don't have a complicated Middle Eastern name, that would get butchered by most English speaking people, both in pronunciation and in spelling. OK Rant over for now.

Ford 2010 Models Mailing

Back in November I think, maybe even as early as Sept or Oct, in the mail I had received a Ford promotional mailing thing for the new upcoming 2010 models cars and trucks.

Oh boy exciting.

I was going to throw it away actually recycle it, but I noticed there were some stickers. Then I realized the entire promo package was stickers so I decided to keep it for a weird collectible type thing. It won't become valuable for any real amount of money. Maybe a few years down the road I will sell it for "Wow Factor".


They start things off with a little "Edge". Each vehicle in the promo has an information sheet, and then on the back are some stickers of that model and some Ford Logos or car parts. I guess they intended to give the adults who were thinking of buying a Ford all the info on the various models and then give their kids something to do while Mommy and Daddy are out buying their new ford.


Then they brag a little about how tough their trucks are and how much they can haul.


Next for those of you who want to help keep the Earth green they have their Hybrid card The Fusion.

Finally they end with their popular economy car Taurus.


Pretty neat, but hopefully I won't be buying a new Ford this year.

I'm trying to make my 2002 Focus stay in focus for another 2 years before I even think about getting a new car. Plus financially I can't afford a new car until probably next year.

Post Office Whoa! 2

OK it happened again within about a week or so of the first time. Part of it is the change of the post office times. I think another part is postal workers getting a little lazy and slowing down.

ON Wednesday, once again I got one of those little cards that lets you know "You have a package" So on Thursday I go to the post office around 9:00 AM I got there a little after so they were already open. First I went directly to the door/window where you normally pick up packages, well no one was there so I knock on the door a couple of times. One of the clerks at one of the main windows says the pick up area is closed you have to wait in the main line. OK so I do that wait my turn for about 10 minutes. Go to the next employee at the counter when it is my turn. Turns out it is the same lady from last week. Should have been a clue.

Anyway the same song and dance. Last time I had remembered wrong what the excuse is. It isn't that it takes them too long to unload the truck from the day before, it is that mail left over from my mail carrier is actually dropped off at another postal station (one without public access I think). So mail that they attempt to deliver and can't is taken to that center first then to my post office. So I have to wait until at least 9:30 before I can claim any packages it looks like, unless I wait till the second day.

So I picked up the package they attempted to drop off Wednesday, today (Friday) at around noon when I leisurely went to pick the package up.

I also dropped off in the regular mail a post card from a company that had badly misspelled my name. I marked the thing "return to sender" along with "No such person, remove from mailing list". I know it will do no good, it probably won't even be returned to the damn company, the post office will probably just toss it. Oh the Misspelling you say? I think it originated with some stupid credit card company, they dropped the last letter of my first name and added my middle initial so now I occasionally get mail for a "Kirl Andersen" How the Frack do you think "Kirl" is a name? It's an exorcise with weights or a Canadian sport not a name.

Post Office Whoa!

OK so yesterday (Wednesday 28 October, 2009). I get one of those little post cards in my mailbox that tells you there is a parcel waiting for you at your local post office. I live in an apartment so any package larger than a small loaf of bread has to be picked up at the post office. Unless I am home when they first try to deliver the package. This is normally not a problem, I go to the post office wait in line and find out what package it was that was too large to fit in my tiny mailbox, and who sent the thing.



Well today at about 8:45 AM I go to pick up the package and two things happen:

1. I see a sign on the door to the post office that says they have changed their hours to Retail Hours 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (previously their hours were 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM). I liked the 8:30 time because I can go to the post office on the way to work without being too damn late. Great so now when I have to pick up a package I either have to wait till Saturday, or get into work even later than late.


2. The guy that was cleaning the floors at the post office noticed I just had a pick up so he said that he could help me, by getting one of the postal clerks to get my package. Well I go to the pick up door/window and wait for one of the postal persons to help me. She checks my ID (which also is the only way to get my address as this particular card didn't have my full address on it) and looks for the package. She doesn't find it telling me it probably hasn't been taken off the truck yet, and mentions that the card should have had a delivery time on it or something to that effect. She says that it should be available at about 9:30 or so. Well I couldn't wait a full half hour as I was already going to be late to work as is. Oh well I'll have to try picking it up tomorrow after 9:00 AM.