Saturday, December 20, 2014

Idle time

If you have been reading my blog diary for any length of time, you know I'm not good at sitting still. Since Mother in-law is in her last couple of weeks, we are spending more time in town than usual. I hit the cabin the other day for one night but otherwise I find myself sitting around a lot.

A lot.

I'm going to the gym every day I'm in town, I'm reading books and I'm scheming and plotting things I want to do in the near future.

It's the holidays and instead of eating all the food vendors drop off at work, or giving into the temptation of baked goods I've been focusing on my working out. I'm not as strong as I was a year ago, but I'm a lot leaner and slowly getting back to the strength I had. Last night I broke the 300 mark on dead lift again, broke the 95 pound dumbbell (in each hand) flat bench mark again and hit a new PR on the incline  hammer strength machine at 270 pounds. It's been a real struggle to keep my mouth closed so I remain lean and yet pick up heavier weights.
When spring rolls around I will really lean out with the mountain hiking and running, for now I'm doing a lot of walks with Rock and more sitting around at the in-laws than I'm used to.

Shopping with Father in-law was an experience, I'm so used to an organized grocery cart that I felt like I had OCD watching him throw in lose vegetable, milk on top of bread, etc. There is a big roast that's done cooking for the family, MIL wants to go see the holiday lights around town tonight. It will be a struggle to get her into the car but it's going to make her very happy. She is very alert and has her mind just there isn't any strength.

I saw this at Safeway, the redistribution of wealth to "needy people" from "needy people". I don't shop at Safeway but the in-laws do. This is one of the reasons I don't shop there.

Rock is bored a little bored too.

We have decided to get a new pickup truck and trade the old one, and one of the Jeeps. So far the dealerships I've emailed haven't responded or haven't bothered to respond how I told them to respond. I did call one place and the salesperson couldn't answer a single question and I actually had to leave a message for a salesperson and it took an hour to get a phone call.
This is an industry we both work in, and while that means we expect a little more we also expect the basics in customer service. 18 hours to get a phone call from a web form inquiry, when you specifically said email only, and the message left was cheesy to top it off. I'm sure it won't work out and we will keep our truck and just sell the Jeep.

6 comments:

  1. Don't talk to a salesman if you want answers about trading in vehicles they usually can't tell you a thing. Or at least that's the way it is for the dealership empire I work for. There are typically only two people at each dealership that can give you any solid answers on trade ins. The sales manager and his or her assistant or backup. Even the general manager won't usually go into that realm unless he happens to wear two hats. About all the regular salesmen can do is ticker on price with whatever they have in stock.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I expect more, that's the problem. Our staff is obviously the exception.

      Delete
  2. Ditto on what Preppy said. The sales manager is the only person with the resources to discuss what you propose. Talking to a salesperson is like trying to dicker over grocery prices with the cashier at the supermarket. Years ago, when I was recruiting stockbrokers for a major financial firm, the sales managers were the only "car salesmen" we'd even speak with.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I expect things to change over the years but at least they continue to make good people/sales people look even better.

      Delete
  3. I hope you can get out of all that for a bit and just get some time alone up at your place.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thinking about heading down after Christmas dinner and spending the weekend.

      Delete