Faulty Wiring

A friend recently relocated his retail business. He was more or less pushed into an empty space in a neighboring facility by his landlord so they could rent his former space to the next door tenanct who wanted to expand. So, they caused him the headaches and expense of moving with no real personal advantages.

Already we hate these landlords, right? As well we should. But it gets worse. When he moved into the new space, he found out that there were all sorts of wiring problems, with the phones in particular. The former tenant had a specialized business with specialized needs and had done some wacky stuff. Since it is all inside the building, the phone company won’t help without a miliion dollar service call that will result in lots of wasted time. Sure, all the panduit raceway that is sure to result will probably be cool and all that, but shouldn’t the responsibility fall on the landlord? After all, they said it was ready to move in. How can they just lay it at the tenant’s feet.

3 wheelers

Here’s another complaint that will make me sound like a total jerk, but, well, what can I do? I’ve never really understood the three wheel strollers. I get the whole baby jogger thing, and I actually did see it happen once. I mean, a mother jogging and pushing a stroller.

Most recently, though, I’ve noticed a lot of, ahem, larger couples with three wheel strollers. Now, at the risk of sounding judgemental, let me put it out there. These people ain’t jogging. No way, no how. So why the pretense? Unless there was a big sale or something, like 25% fewer wheels, 25% lower price, I don’t know why you would opt for the 3 wheel death machine.

Maybe it’s just me.

But at least half of the other times I’ve seen a three wheel stroller, it has been tipped over. Granted, it is usually tipped by overzealous older siblings, but it happens. I mean, it’s basic physics right? It’s a less stable foundation, and when you have bouncy toddlers. Well, it all goes to hell pretty quick.

Size Matters?

Speaking of camping and tents, I’m a smaller tent guy. I mean, not the totally tiny backpack models because I still need to be in the thing with my kids. But a 4 person model with a 9 by 7 footprint or so is totally fine for me. And now, like I mentioned earlier, I have two. I see some families with mega-tents that have “rooms” (separated with a sliver of nylon fabric) and can sleep an entire baseball team with coaching staff. But the fighting and yelling I hear, and all the stress created in setting up such monster tents totally rules it out for me. I mean, if you need power tools and welding equipment to set up your tent I think you might be doing something wrong.

I’d rather just point the doors of my two small tents at each other and call it a day.

Lotsa Camping

Yup. We’re going to be doing lots of camping this summer. We already had a chilly Cub Scouts overnighter in early May, and there are many more to come. The Parent/Cub weekend is coming up. While I was a little hesitant in the beginning, I have come to really enjoy this two night event. And this year will be the first with both boys.

Boy howdy.

Indeed.

I even bought another tent in anticipation. We’re still pretty low-fi, so we have basic 4 person tent models. Maybe when the older one hits Boy Socuts we’ll start looking at the heavy duty gear like Nemo Tents, but for now, the basics will do.