Facie’s Ramblings

I tend to drive downtown (Pittsburgh) during the week only a few times a year, typically to meet a friend or two for lunch and most years to attend a Steelers pep rally. I generally have no reasons to be downtown during the week, and the pricey parking options, traffic, and triangular grid (kind of an oxymoron) peppered with one-way streets give me even more excuses to avoid the area. Two days ago, I headed downtown to pick up tickets I had won from a radio station. That winning phone call came only a couple days after I had won a free pizza from Papa John's for picking heads for the Super Bowl coin toss (something good did happen as a result of the Super Bowl). So I was in a pretty good mood as I headed into the city, a mood made even better as I arrived in about 20 minutes thanks to my waiting until after 10 a.m. I called up a friend who works downtown to get his advice on parking. Typically I park in the First Avenue Garage, which is located near the jail and at the beginnin...

A few months ago I blogged about my 14-month old TV that died unexpectedly. Unexpected because one would think a TV would last at least five years. I, being naive and optimistic, was actually hoping for at least 10 years, because, you know, my last TV is over 15 years old and still works. I am still trying to bring myself to write a complaint letter, but I am hesitant because I know exactly what will happen. Nothing. But this week's dilemma is brought to you by tires and, apparently, PA roads, which are consistently ranked in the bottom five. But first, let me back up. About 2.5 years ago, when my car had about 26,000 miles on it, I had to replace my tires, which I believe were warranted for 60,000 miles. At that time, the guy at Flynn's told me that original tires never last long, and when combined with PA roads, my tires did as well as I could expect. Or something like that. So I painfully bought new tires, which were quite pricey thanks to my car (stupid Saturn Vue). But ...

Well, my brake-car conundrum did not turn out as I had expected. Not surprisingly, the gurgling sound my car was making pretty much stopped after I made the appointment with my mechanic, which is precisely what happened the last time my car was making funny noises . But since I needed an oil change anyway, and my new brakes do squeal, I went ahead with my appointment. According to a guy at my mechanic's, my brakes are fine . He said a "different" material was used on the brakes, and I am probably just not used to the sound. Although I feel good (well, better) knowing that there does not appear to be a problem with my brakes, I don't feel great knowing that I can most likely expect to hear these various sounds again. One would think with the money I spent on my brakes in June, I could expect them to be noise-free. One (i.e., I), however, would be wrong. Worth noting is my mechanic did not charge me to try to figure out what was the wrong this time, although let me ...

Coming on the heels of my last post, I have another customer service issue. Except this appears to be less about customer service and more about my being a woman. Today, I brought my car into Monro for my 8:30 a.m. brake appointment. When I made the appointment yesterday, I explained that my brakes have been squealing for the past couple of months, and more recently, they have felt spongy. Today, J, the store manager (the same guy I spoke with yesterday) again asked me what was happening with my brakes, and I repeated the information. I also added that when I had my car inspected at my "regular" mechanic's back in December, he said that my brakes should be good for a few more months. [As an aside, at that inspection, I told my mechanic if my brakes were "close to failing," he should replace them because I would rather have new brakes through the winter. My mechanic said my brakes still had some tread and replacing them would be like throwing out half a loaf of...

When I moved to the Burgh just over 14 years ago, I had a lot of anxiety about getting from "here" to "there." I found the city, which is triangular, and even some of the suburbs quite confusing. On top of that, a lot of the signs were of little help. Clearly they were put up by either natives who had no need for directions or people with a sick sense of humor who thought it would be funny to put signs in random places, leaving off important roads. At some point, I got over that fear of driving to a new building downtown. I don't recall when it happened, but eventually I just figured most of the city out; and when I had to head to a new place, I just drove around, no longer with a feeling of dread, knowing I would eventually get there. But on Sunday morning, that awful, long-ago feeling returned, thanks to the closure of the outbound Fort Pitt Tunnels. I had to pick my mother up from the airport, so there was no avoiding it. (For some reason, my family think...

Tomorrow, Jordan, my mom, and I will be heading to NC to visit my brother, his wife, and their kids. I am not a fan of being in the car for hours on end, and even less a fan of being the driver, which is what is about to happen. Fortunately, we are breaking our trip up, traveling about five hours tomorrow and stopping at a hotel (with a pool for Jordan) for the evening, before tackling three hours the next day. On the way back, I plan to do it all in a day. We'll see. I know a lot of people love to travel. They like checking out new places or visiting their favorites again and again. Most people appreciate getting away from the everyday stuff. Forgetting about bills for a few days or weeks. Not working (or at least not going into an office). Having someone else make their food and/or clean up. Enjoying the mountains, the woods, the sites, or the beach. Sleeping in and/or staying up late. I totally get those things. But I am a worrier, a homebody, and a frugal person who really li...

I don't have any one big thing weighing on my mind, so here are the handful of thoughts swimming around my head. And by a handful, I mean close to a dozen. A deer probably runs in front of my car three or four times a year, right in suburban Pittsburgh. But for some reason, the instant I see a deer (and in yesterday's case, it looked like a fawn), I immediately think dog. Giant dog, usually. I have no idea why; it is not as if I never see deer. As I was driving down a hill near my house this morning, a PennDot worker must have thought it would be amusing to keep switching the "Stop/Slow" sign back and forth, while three other cars were coming up. What a jag-off. C'mon, how hard is your job that you cannot or will not do it correctly? What if I would have started to drive down the hill as soon as I saw the sign switch to "Slow"?! When I voted yesterday, I showed my driver's license, as I always do. I don't understand why everyone should not ha...

Last night I attended a local crime watch meeting. There was what I considered a decent turnout, probably about 75 people, though less than one of the first meetings, which had close to 200. Crime, for the most part, has gone down in my neck of the woods. Fortunately, the police caught a daytime burglar last year, which resulted in burglaries dropping from an average of about 31 per month to about 11 per month. What is interesting to me is how the burglar was caught. A woman came home to see a guy getting into a car in her driveway. She was fortunately able to provide a good description of the perp and the car to the 911 operator (more fortunately, the perp just wanted to get away and not hurt her). This information enabled the police to locate the car/perp, although the officer in pursuit at first did lose him. Fortunately again, another resident noticed this car speeding away, so he pulled over on the side of the road and flagged down the officer to let him know in which d...

Do you ever ponder what you would do if you won the Powerball or some other lottery? I know some of you dear readers would never buy a ticket, because of the whole throwing money away thing. I, on the other hand, buy a Powerball ticket a few times a year, because you just never know. Remember, I am surprised every year I don't win my church's big raffle. (I bet this will be the year.) I have actually put a lot of thought into what I would do with this found money, if I ever win. If only I put this much energy into expanding my skills or making the world a better place. Anyway, I thought I would list how I might spend that money, as it stands today. Of course the amount of money I win would affect where it goes, but I am assuming I would come away with 500k. Pay off my house and car. I have a 0 percent interest car loan (which, sorry, Dave Ramsey, I bought new), but if I had some extra big Gs around, I would be happy to end those payments. Open up an IRA. Unfortunately, ...

Well, more akin to running like a gentle breeze. Jordan is done with school at 2:30 p.m. The pick-up process involves parents backing into spaces and waiting for the children. Once every car has a child(ren), the teacher on duty dismisses the cars one at a time. There are about 40 to 50 spaces for cars; however, there are always more cars than that. If you don't make the first cut, you have to wait for the entire, one-by-one dismissal process before you get to back into a space. Most parents are not fond of the second wave, so people start arriving before 2 p.m. to ensure a space. Once I arrived at 1:52 and I was the fifth car. Crazy. But I have decided to make good use of my time, thanks to the great weather we have been having. At first, I started walking around the neighborhood for up to 30 minutes. Last week, I decided to try running again, something I had not really done since I ran the Steelers 5k three years ago. The first day went well. I managed to run (and by run, I reall...

Often when Jordan and I are in the car together, she hears me telling people at the bus stop to have a nice day or profusely thanking and blessing the people who let me in their lanes. Jordan typically reminds me that these people can't hear what I am saying since the windows are up and we are driving by. But I tell her I like to say nice things and perhaps these people are feeling my good vibes. As much as I can, I try to let cars turn in front of me, so much so that Jordan will sometimes ask why I did not let a car go. Most of the time it is because traffic is moving, and doing so could cause an accident. But she gets that it is a nice thing to do. And it is such a simple thing to do. The "theme" for Jordan's school this year is kindness. I truly believe if we could all make an effort to be kinder, the world would be a better place. I sometimes wonder what makes people unkind. Are we all too busy in our lives to let a person with a couple of items go ahead of us in ...

That is Suze Orman's mantra, and I like it, even if I do not agree with everything she says. That has been my philosophy over the past few months while unemployed. As I have written many times, I have been blessed to be able to spend this time with my daughter. Sure, I am not so good at disciplining her, something that will come back to bite me in the butt, I am sure. But I like to think just spending the time with her, watching and helping her learn, etc., will outweigh the negative. I have also spent a lot of time with my mom; every two weeks on average, Jordan and I spend a night or two at her house. Brian is happy to have us out of the house, since we have been together pretty much 24/7 since Brian works from home; Jordan gets to swim at my mom's, and we just get to be with her, which is nice. It will be a little sad for me not to drive up there during the week, but we still have weekends. If only the rest of my family lived closer. As for the money part, I, along with many...

Nowadays, it seems as if it is nearly impossible to find good customer service. I wanted to share some recent experiences. Hopefully you have had better luck than I, at least in the automotive area. Jiffy Lube Jiffy Lube is overpriced, but years ago I decided my time was more important than saving something like $10 by going elsewhere. I knew I could take my car in on my Wednesday off, and be out of there in about 15 to 20 minutes. Except in April, I was there about 45 minutes, which is ridiculous for JL during the week. So I filled out a comment card with scathing reviews, answering things like I was very unlikely to come back, that I was highly unsatisfied with the wait time, that the services were overpriced. Almost two months later, even though I included both a phone number and email, no one at JL bothered to contact me. Bye-bye, Jiffy Lube. Giant Eagle Last month, and I called GE to see if a $99 gazebo on display was in stock. The woman said yes, so I told her I would be ri...