Solo

I dropped Ali off at the airport yesterday for her nearly week long visit up to PA.  My first night alone was uneventful.  I tried to get a bit of a head start on my weekend work by knocking out some laundry last night.  Tonight I am hoping to mow the grass as long as the weather cooperates.

I think I may do the grocery shopping at the Catholic Town (Ave Maria) Publix this week.  The store is always empty and the food should have a high blessing content.

I just realized last night that I was watching the 1983 V series in the wrong order.  I watched the two part mini-series first.  Then I recently completed the 19 episode season and I was keeping V: the Final Battle for last.  It seemed like that was the logical sequence.  Well it isn’t.

When I started watching the 19 episode season I noticed there seemed to be a break in the time line from what I saw in the first two episodes.  Well last night I realized that break is filled in by V the Final Battle.

It’s a bit anti-climatic to be watching this out of chronological order but I will watch it all the same, I’m this close to seeing it all I might as well finish the book. Thank goodness it only ran for one season.

So the well in the gulf is supposedly plugged after an excruciatingly long cluster f of misstep after misstep.  I also saw a headline yesterday that said that 75% of the oil that leaked into the water is gone from the combination of dispersants, burns, skimming and the natural processes in the water that break down oil.  How exactly do they determine that?

I always am skeptical when big shiny numbers are thrown out there based on what has to be fuzzy math at best.  How can they tell what is under the surface of the water?  I don’t think they can.  I think that number is more spin control than anything, an effort to lessen the perceived damage this mess has caused.

When we were over at the neighbor’s house she told me about how she has been selling all sorts of stuff on Amazon.  I hadn’t realized that individuals could EASILY sell on Amazon.  When she described the sales model to me I liked it.

Instead of the Ebay format, Amazon uses something similar to what Half.com does.  They don’t hammer you with as many fees as Ebay does.  In fact you don’t pay anything to list items, Amazon takes a cut only if it sells.  Their percentage seems reasonable.

With Ebay if I was to list something I would pay a listing fee, then if it sells I pay another percentage fee based on the selling price and then I get banged again when Paypal takes a cut on the back end.  With Amazon two levels of those fees are eliminated.

I am definitely going to give it a try.  Amazon at this point reaches millions of potential buyers.  I know it is always one of the places I look for stuff.

As I was looking up info about selling on Amazon I also saw they have a trade in program.  Basically if you don’t feel like waiting for someone to buy your stuff you can send it to Amazon and they will give you Amazon credit in return.  Now of course you won’t get top dollar this way but the convenience factor may equal that out in some situations.

If you have a bunch of stuff to sell you may want to give Ebay the hand and throw them up on Amazon instead.  My neighbor has had GREAT success selling stuff there.