First Trip to the Dump

Sorry I was not able to take any pictures. The camera was MIA. Ever since we purchased the trailer, I have been loading it with the debris from the master bath room demo. On Saturday morning the trailer was fully loaded and I was ready to go. But the very first business of order was to get an idea of how my jeep would handle the additional weight. The very very first thing I noticed was my mpg was below 10. I headed over to the local elementary school parking lot and floored the gas pedal. It took a while but I managed to get to 30 mph. Then I slammed on the brakes. It also took a while to stop. But it was nice to have an idea of how long it takes me to accelrate and to stop. Two very very important features of driving. So now I am off to the dump. I have never personally driven to a dump before. I have been to one with my father when I was a kid. The only thing I remember was there was this long line because it was a free dump day for the citizens of our county. And there was some guy just in front of us who could not back up his trailer. It took forever. With that in mind, I was off to the closest dump. I took my time driving slow. I think my max speed was 55mph on the highway. Leaving plenty of space between vehicles 5-7 seconds sometimes. The jeep didn't seem to mind the load. I really wish I had a transmission temp. guage. I arrived at the dump with out incident. The clerk at the dump said that a trailer my size would cost $58 to dump. The ticket said my trailer had 3000lbs in it. I doubt it especially since it wasn't weighed empty. Anyway the clerk said I had two options I could unload it at the customer spot but I would have to lift everything out of the trailer into the dumpster. The second option was to drive into the landfill and just push it out the trailer. I chose option 2! so off we go, up the hill into the landfill. The clerk gave me the directions which seemed really simple. Nevertheless i screwed it up. And ended up by a mine blasting section! Talk about being nervous thankfully they weren't blasting on that day. So I just turned around and got back on the right track. As soon as I hit the gravel road I was really thankful for my 4wd while pulling my load. After asking a number of employees who were all really helpful I managed to get to the actual landfil. And low and behold driving in reverse in a landfill is not as easy as in a parking lot LOL. I didn't take as long as the guy from when I was a kid but It did take me two times to get to where I wanted. While saying I just had to push everything out of the trailer is easy. The Task was longer and more ardous than I originally planned. And then at some point I noticed the side of my trailer was coated in a crismon red. Turns out my hand was bleeding. I have no idea how it was bleeding. I didn't feel anything poke me but I was bleeding. And a lot more than I normally bleed. Glad I got my tetnaus shot. I finished unloading and cleaning out the trailer. And drove to a store to buy some gloves. My finger still hurts to bend. Starting to wonder if I tore something in my joint. Total cost to dump this stuff $200 for the trailer and $58 for the actual dump for a total of $258. While at first that seems really expensive. I know we will use the trailer for more things in the future such as buying furinture, and bathtubs and other stuff. So everything was worth it in the end.

Printer Buying

synopsis: We purchased a laser printer, with an Ethernet port for less than $90. The printer will print about 700 pages and then we purchased an additional toner for $30 that will do another 1200 pages. Long story: Recently we have not been posting much because our son was in the process of dismantling our laptops. As such we purchased a new desktop computer along with a new printer. I decided to do a post about the printer. Because Gloria and I came to the realization that we needed to pay attention to what we used our printer for. Previously we owned an ink jet all in one type printer. Where it can scan, copy, fax, and print in color. It also had built in Wifi. The problem with ink jets is while the cost up front is low if you print say Google maps fairly frequently your ink disappears really fast. At first this wasn't a problem. We didn't think we printed that much. Well to date (Gloria may have to correct me on this one) I think we had to replace our all four (4) of the ink cartridges in our printer about 3 times. At about $20 per cartridge 4 x 20 = $80 for each change $80 x 3 = $240 for all the ink we purchased. It was and is painfully clear we needed a different solution. The first thing we did was ask the question do we have to print in color? The vast majority of our printing black and white is fine. Our next question is do we really need to scan/copy/fax? We don't even own a home telephone so we have never faxed anything. We have used the scan feature when dealing with photos. And we have used the copy feature. But then we realized we can continue to use our existing scanner/copier/fax even if it doesn't have ink. So we don't need those features in our next printer. The final question is do we need it to be a networked computer? Because our son who is currently hitting his terrible twos. We will be down to one desktop. So a network setup isn't necessary. However I wanted it and thats that LOL. So off to the store I go. The particular store we went to only had a handful of laser printers. I was really surprised to find the Brother HL-2270DW for less than $90. From the website "The Brother™ HL-2270DW is a monochrome laser printer that offers an automatic duplex capability for printing two-sided documents with ease, fast printing at up to 27 pages per minute, and built-in wired and wireless networking for sharing with others. It features a stylish, space-saving design that complements virtually any environment. In addition, it offers convenient paper handling via an adjustable, 250-sheet capacity tray‡. To help lower your operating costs, a high-yield replacement toner cartridge‡ is available." I was really really happy to finally have a printer that I don't feel like I am constantly reloading the paper tray. Sometimes I felt like our previous printer only held like 50 pages. The most important feature I like is the wired ethernet port. While Wifi is nice, lately I have come to prefer wired connections. They are faster, and more reliable. One thing I did not like about our printer is that the power cord did not fit snugly into the back of the printer. Thankfully it is just your usual power cord that has been used on desktop computers for as long as I can remember. So I just swapped it out with one I had. Set was a breeze. And I really like the 27 ppm. Gloria called me at work the first time she printed something. She said she hit print and got up to walk away because how long our ink jet normally takes. Before she got a few steps away it was done! I hope to have a long and lasting relationship with this printer. And since it is a wired network printer it is ready for when we expand and buy gloria her personal laptop or tablet.

Bountiful Harvest

We have been tremendously blessed with our garden. We have so many cherry tomatoes that we don't know what to do with them. And then the other day while going to the local hardware store they had a garden magazine. And it turns out that there is a local church that has a free farmers market where they take donations from people to give to those in need! Gloria and I are really happy we found a use for the produce and plan to give our produce away to the farmers market. who knows maybe one day we will organize one in the inner city to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to the inner core of the city.