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I called the Jo-Ann store that I originally bought the needles from. They were unable/unwilling to help unless I’d come in. I asked about going into the local store and was told they’d be able to help me. Okay, fine.

So, the first thing the woman at the local stores says is ‘why should we fix their problem?’ ….gah!

Then she was all ‘well, let’s see if it’s really on sale.’ …gah, again, as I followed her to the back of the store.

Finally she did a return and then I repurchased them at the corrected price. I should point out that the needles didn’t ring up for the correct price at that store either. The whole procedure was ridiculous.

The cashier’s bad attitude negated my buying the rest of the needles I was interested in. I was so disgusted when I left that I doubt I’ll go back. I thought about just buying them online, then I discovered that the free shipping coupon had expired. So, screw it, I’m done with you Jo-Ann! I’ll just buy what I need with 40-50% off coupons at Michaels, or AC Moore!

I bought two knitting needles tonight at the Jo-Ann’s in Hagerstown. I didn’t really look at the prices, seeing as they were allegedly on sale for 25% off and I was going to get them regardless of the regular price.

Unfortunately one of them didn’t ring up at the sale price and I didn’t notice it until I was already at home, points against me for not paying enough attention. In my defense I was headachy and hungry at the time.

The difference in price isn’t that great, only $2.25. It’s not enough to go back to the store, gas would cost more than that. The thing is, though, if I didn’t want to save the money then I’d not have waited until they were on sale.

I hate this position, where I’m going to be frustrated by a mistake that will cost more to fix than to just live with.

Having earned enough Amazon Rewards points to purchase a Topeak Turbo Morph I’ve been anxiously awaiting the delivery of my fancy new portable bike pump. I got it today and a little bit ago went outside to fasten it to the bike. I removed my old pump’s holder, attached the new one, and then much to my horror discovered that the new pump is just a wee bit too long to actually fit inside the frame. I recall measuring a long time ago to make sure the pump would fit, as the top tube is dramatically sloped on my 19″ frame Hardrock, but apparently didn’t compensate for the mount.

The side mount of my old (and craptacular) pump won’t work as it has two differently sized clips. The old pump does fit very nicely in the new mount though, heh.

I suppose I could use the provided zip ties to position the new mount sideways on the seat tube, but I’m not too thrilled with that proposition. I don’t really want to return the pump either, eventually I’ll get a road-oriented bike that’ll have the space for it. In the interim, if I take my backpack I could put it in there, or in a rack bag whenever I get one of those. Perhaps I just need to order a side mount for the Turbo Morph.

After further examination, even if I wanted to, the pump is too large to mount sideways at either bottle mount position, it interferes with the cranks. Using the zip ties won’t really work for the same reason.

I really wanted this pump to fit inside the frame, instead of alongside it. The Mini Morph would fit, but it lacks the gauge. It’s just one of those bummers and I’m not sure what to do about it.

On Sunday a situation arose that prompted an operating system restoration for the web server. Thankfully the technicians were available for immediate assistance and the restore was completed within about two hours of the request. It then took several more hours to restore all the websites. Monday was almost completely spent troubleshooting random difficulties, but thankfully by Tuesday things started to settle down. There are still a couple little things that need to be worked on, but they’re all fairly low priority. Most are things that I never, apparently, felt the need to backup, oops.

To make the situation a little worse, it had been oppressively warm up until the last couple of days, the very days that I was completely burdened with work. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to get out, do a bike ride, and relax a little.

About a month ago I received the letter from one of my credit card issuing banks that they were going to rate jack me and that there was nothing I could do about it; even if I rejected the terms they’d take effect. They also only provided about a week to before the new rate would take effect.

Interestingly enough the interest rate didn’t change on the next statement.

Today I received a post card reminding me that I could write to find out why they’d do such a thing, but additionally now gave me the option to call to request the letter of excuses. They also extended the deadline into the middle of next month. The best news of all though is that if I would reject the terms now I’d be able to keep my current terms.

The hilarious little post script on that card said “on a completely unrelated topic” and mentioned the Credit CARD Act, providing a link to more information. It’s hilarious because everything they had been doing thus far is in violation of the new law and the relevant portions (advanced notice and opt-out) conveniently just took effect this month. The CCARDA is related to every aspect of that little post card!

I called, of course, and closed the account to reject the terms. The representative asked me if I was aware of the benefits of card membership, I simply informed her that I was aware of the benefits of not paying 25% interest.

I made the decision that having that reserve cash sitting in my checking account doing nothing for me, outside of an emergency, was worse than using it to significantly pay down debt that now has an absurd interest rate. I now half expect that decision to explode in my face, but it has the potential to save me gobs of money by slicing away a decently large chunk of balance subject to the new rate.

The next order of business, concurrent with continuing to pay down the high interest balance to zero, is to put a cushion on my other balance carrying card so that it looks better to them, if it matters, which is difficult to say anyway since as I mentioned, that didn’t seem to matter much this time.

I don’t like the credit rating game at all, especially now that maintaining perfect payment history everywhere and otherwise abiding by the terms everywhere still subjects you to what is essentially a default interest rate at the issuing banks whim.  It appears I have some work to do, apparently I’ve made mistakes without realizing it, and since not playing the silly credit score games is now costing me.