Okay, I am back- actually I never left, I was just covered up with work, a lot of it self-imposed. But I finally made it through to the weekend, and then poor Andy had to work ten hours today. So I have been cathcing up on chores and such- grocery shopping, cleaning bird cages, you know, the usual.

This past week was very interesting. You may recall from one of my previous posts that I was busily compiling a giant book of information to prove a point. I had been consulted by a team of people that far outranked me for my knowledge on a particular issue. The group was already proceeding towards developing a process based on recommendations from some "subject matter experts" on the partcular process -which is federally mandated- in question. Shortly after I started working with the team, I noticed that the approach that the team was taking was seriously flawed and did not even come close to satisfying the regulations. Apparently the subject matter experts, who are degreed individuals specializing in this subject had misinterpreted the standards. To satisfy the requirements, we were going to have to do a massive amount of work, way more than was originally planned. I knew that this news was not going to be well received.

I mentioned this and sent some documentation to the leader of the smaller team I was working with, and it didn't sink in. He was not getting it because the "experts" had told him the approach he was taking was fine. He couldn't see the forest for the trees. I knew I had to do something before the team got too far along.

I managed to get a meeting set up with the superior a few levels above the subject matter experts on Friday. I had all of my documentation ready and I started describing what I knew to be true. He listened to my opening bit, that I thought we were doing things wrong, and then told me that the people in charge are highly qualified to interpret the standards and that they specialize in that sprecific process and are known as the experts. Still, I went on and I showed him a few documents to support what I was saying and showed some real life examples. Almost instantly he saw what I was talking about and agreed with me. Now the entire process is going to have to be rethought, but at least it will be right.

Now I just have to wonder about whether or not there will be any backlash from the experts that I kind of showed up. But I can't worry too much about that because I know I did the right thing. The fact that someone finally listened and agreed is a good feeling.

So that is what has taken up so much of my time and energy this week. That and the fact that Andy has been working really long hours every day this week so it leaves a lot more chores for me to take care of at home. Hopefully things will settle back down a little now. I am really looking forward to having the fourth of July off.

Okay, I swear, I am not a total slacker, I have not dropped of the face of the earth, and I don't think I have been kidnapped by gypsies- the jury is still out on that one. I am still here, just as always, but just busier than all hell this week, both at home and at work. So, therefore I blog slack. I know, I know, I need to get my priorities straight and realize that blogging is way more important than things like work, hygiene, taking care of my furry, feathered, and shelled kids, sleep, sustenance, and such, but I haven't manged to get there just yet.

I am hoping to be able to cathch up with life here in the near future, and then I can go back to my carefree days of reading blogs regularly and trying to make somewhat intelligible comments. I might even be able to post something that someone might want to read. Wouldn't that be nice? So, I am sorry that i suck so bad, but rest assured that I am alive and well and missing blogging and catching up on all of your lives as well.

Tonight we went to a meeting of the dog training club that holds the classes Denny and Ramona went through. They have the meetings quarterly, and after you have completed the basic class, you are eligible to join the club. We were sponsored by two current members so we were allowed to join, and that will save us a lot in training costs as we can train all year for a flat fee instead of having to pay by the class. Louie and Annabel are scheduled to start class next Monday, and then Ramona will move on to her first real class after puppy kindergarten in a couple of weeks.

It is interesting, because the club members have all different motivation for dog training. There are some people that are really into competition and winning titles, and there are some that are into the agility and flyball and the more fun things. For us, we just want to spend time with the dogs, socialize them and maybe have them come to us when we call them or sit when we ask them to once in a while. The classes are really for them, not us.

So anyway, I am exhausted as we were out until after eight and we got up around 3:30 or so this morning. Work has been super busy and I have got to get to bed. *yawn*

I am an overpreparer. You might say I am a geek or a nerd, but whenever there is any issue in question that I am involved in, I gather tons of documentation, evidence, and whatnot, organize it all to a disturbing level and study it until I could defend my position with my eyes closed. This is just the researcher aspect of me, it is bornin and I can't help it. I have a need to know.

Through several different issues I have worked recently, both personal and professional, I have discovered that my large notebooks seem to intimidate people. Generally I will take all of my documentation related to the particular subject at hand and put it in one big binder. I use nice sheet protectors, highlight the pertinent info and put tabs on the very important stuff so I can flip to it quickly. I like to have all of my documentation handy like that for easy reference when questions come up.

Recently I have noticed another benefit to my 'big books' of information. They scare the hell out of people on the other side of my arguement or issue. They look at my book and wonder what the hell I could possibly have in there and if it is something that is going to make them look dumb. Usually the answer is yes, it is something that is going to make them look stupid.

Sometime I should test my book theory and just fill it with blank pages to see if it has the same effect. But of course my over preparer personality would freak out if I had anything less than 846 pages of crap supporting my position, so that will probably never happen. Oh well. Feel sorry for those who argue against me. They'll need it.

Well, I am way behind on all things internet, but I am catching up. I finally replied to all of my recent comments, and I need to catch up on all of your blogs where I have slacked. I still need to research my options as far as moving my blog to a different blogging software. What a pain.

Life has been pretty busy lately, and it looks like it will stay busy for a while to come. I am going in to work at five in the morning tomorrow, as in I have to be there at five, so I will be getting up at 3:30. Andy is going to be working ten hour days this entire week, so he will be starting work at six each morning. I have a big meeting to present a bunch of stuff I have been researching at work tomorrow, and then after work I have a conference call scheduled with our attorney to discuss strategy before we take our property issue to the board of County Commisioners for the final time.

So now I am just trying to get all caught up on everything for the week ahead. I did a lot of household chores this weekend, but I also spent a large amount of time cooling off in the pool. The pool is damn nice this time of year. I coated myself well in sunscreen and overall it worked well, but I did experience some failures in a few places. My knees are sunburned, despite the fact that I paid extra attention to them when applying sunscreen. Go figure.

Ramona has decided that she is a water dog. She just loves to wade and splash and play in the shallow beach area of the pool, even more so than Louie. She will even lay down in the water and just relax in it. She's a riot, that one.

Speaking of dogs, I have decided that I am going to try grooming them myself again. I used to do it years ago, and I didn't do a very good job, but I had very crummy clippers and tools then. I can get all the tools I need- high quality ones- for about what it would cost to have all of the dogs groomed once. Then everything after that would be a savings. It costs almost $200 everytime they need to be groomed, so I think it would be a smart thing for me to get proficient at. If we ever get the new house built it will be even better because we are planning to build an elevated dog wash, a sort of modified shower type thing, right into the mud room and we could have our grooming table back there.

I have to order my dog clippers now and get all of my notes and documentation together for the presentation tomorrow. I am such a nerd when it comes to that sort of thing. Okay, I am probably a nerd when it comes to lots of things, but there is nothing I can do about it, so I just roll with it. I hope you all had a great weekend, and Melanie, I hope your horrendous sunburn is a little better.

This morning, the spammers were hitting my blog so hard that they crashed the hosts server. My site was disabled temporarily by my host until they could disable the scripts that were allowing this to happen. I got no warning, and all of a sudden my site was gone. I didn't know how to fix what they wanted me to fix and since my site was suspended I couldn't have made the changes anyway. They disabled the scripts for me, but I have no idea if that will cause anything on this site to not work properly. They suggested that I move my site over to something more stable, like WordPress. Like I have any idea how to do that! Melanie, help! Ever moved anything over from Movable Type? I have 800 posts and 3600 comments, tons of photos and all of that nonsense, so I think it would be quite a chore. Why do the damn spammers have to ruin everything?

Well, I have been working hard almost all day today, both at work and at home, and now it is almost time for me to go to bed, so this will be quick. Melanie from Plaid Toaster and I had a lovely long chat tonight- it seemed short, but after I got off the phone, I realized that we talked all the way through an entire thunderstorm from beginning to end- it was clear out when she called and we talked through getting cut off from lightning when our power went out. When I got off the phone the rain had stopped and it was clearing up again. Can you believe that, Mel? We also talked through an entire load of laundry that was washed and dried. I think that means we are both a little talkative. He he.

Speaking of talking, I have been listening more carefully to myself when I talk because I think I might have a tendency to oversay certain phrases such as "you know" and "oh yeah." Charley, my feathered kid, helps me with that kind of thing because if I say something a lot, he picks it up and starts sayingit back to me. When you have a large green bird mocking you by repeating back the things that you say all the time but don't realize- in a perfect imitation of your own voice- you know it is time to revise your speech patterns! Gah!

I find it so aggravating when people are ticked off at me because they think I made them look bad when I went to them first and gave them every opportunity to rectify the situation before taking it further. After I have given someone several chances to do their job and they ignore me, why is it my fault if they look crappy to another party? The way I look at it, I am not making them look bad- they are making themselves appear in a negative light.

I wrote a very nice and respectful email to a certain individual at work and copied it to the other people that were involved in the situatation and had participated in meetings on the topic but I know I asked a very unpopular question that he does not have the answer to. I have not heard a peep since then- Friday morning when I sent the email- so I am starting to wonder what the deal is.

Anyway, I'll probably end up being the bad guy on this, even though I shouldn't be, but whatever. I know it must be my fault that his person chose not to do their job. Do you ever find yourself in a pickle for trying to do thhe right thing when it happens to be unpopular?

You will probably think I am a total weirdo, and you might be right, but today I conducted a "taste test" for the dogs with some new dog foods. I have been wanting to get them eating something more holistic and healthier than the food they were on and I consulted the site found here which ranks most of the commercially available dog foods on the market. They are ranked on the quality of the ingredients included, and are ranked on a scale from one star to six stars for the best. I had done some additional research and narrowed the selection down to a few brands I wanted to try.

This afternoon I went to a fancy store that has all kinds of holistic dog foods and asked for samples. All of the samples were of very high quality foods, but I wanted to see what the dogs preferred. I made up identical bowls of Fromm Chicken a la Veg, Solid Gold Hund-N-Flocken, Wellness Fish and Sweet Potato Formula, Innova Evo Red Meat, and Innova Evo Chicken. I placed all of the bowls side-by-side in the little dog pen we have where we normally feed the little diabetic Cody so we are sure of how much he eats. I figured it would be a good idea to use the pen so that each dog could have a chance to pick which food he or she liked best. I put them in the pen one at a time and had them sniff each food before they dug in. And it was a happy occaision for all- everyone really enjoyed the taste test.

The results were that the top two foods were the Fromm and the Innova Evo Chicken, so then I did a tie breaker, and the Innova won. Both of the black dogs preferred the Fromm, but liked the Innova also. I think they all would have probably chosen any of these foods over the food they currently get, which is supposedly a high quality food sold by many veterinarians, but is rated only one star. And from what I have read it is a good idea to rotate their food anyway, so I will probably put them on the Fromm and some of the others eventually. But I am getting them the Innova to start. Spoiled little brats they are, huh?

We had a wonderful weekend day today. The pool was finally the perfect temperature for swimming, so we got to spend some quality time in the pool. Louie was absolutely ecstatic. If you haven't been a reader here for a while, Louie is one of our dogs that just loves water, at least to wade in. We could hardly keep him out of the pool when it was warm out- there is a beach type entry in the shallow end- so he would just run in anytime he wanted and run back in the house through the dog door splashing water everywhere. Last year we had a pool safety fence installed to keep the dogs safe since our little Cody is nearly blind now due to cataracts from his diabetes. Poor Lou hasn't been able to get in the water for months now. He made up for it today.

Little Ramona didn't know what to think of the pool. She has seen it and been around it ever since she has been here, but always on the other side of the safety fence. She was afraid to come over at first. After a while she finally came over to see what we were doing. She even dipped her toes in at the beach area and eventually we had her walking into the water, wading up to her chest. She had a good time and didn't get scared at all. I wanted to introduce her slowly so that she doesn't develop a fear of water. We'll wait until she is very comfortable before we work on her swimming skills. All the dogs need to work on their swimming skills now that it is warm enough again.

And speaking of new experiences, Holly, our recently adopted cockatoo, had some new adventures with us this weekend as well. I don't know if you are aware of this, but cockatoos are notoriously "dusty." When you pet her, your fingers get covered with a white dusty substance that she produces and she has been getting dirtier and dirtier. Holly was okay with me and Andy petting her- she loves that- but she hadn't let us pick her up much at all. Finally this weekend, I worked with her quite a bit and got her comfortable being held and walking around with her. I really wanted to give her a bath because she was soooo dusty, but she would freak out if I tried to put her down on the perch in the bathtub. My aunt, her previous owner, used to take her in the shower with her. After we went swimming today, I decided to try that. I brought her in the shower, and she was a bit scared, but overall she did pretty well. She spent a lot of the time standing on top of my head- just try to picture that, me with a giant bird on top of my head, ha!- but I figured it could be worse. With her up there she had a good grip on my hair, I could put her under the shower spray to get her clean, and there was no body part of mine up there that she could bite if she got agitated. So, while she wasn't too thrilled about the whole shower thing, but she did get pretty clean and wasn't terribly distressed about it. I know she has to feel much better now.

So that is about it for us this weekend. We made a brief appearance at a small party, did lots of household chores, and got to enjoy ourselves a little. Now it is back to work for the week. Ugh. How was your weekend?

So our shower door upstairs has been sticking quite a lot lately, and Andy finally decided that it was time for him to take it apart and fix it. The shower doors have been in place for about four or five years. Andy found them on clearance at Lowes for only about a third of the regular price and they have been great up until about two weeks ago. When he took them apart, he found that one of the little wheels that the doors ride on had come apart and all of the bearings had come out.

I went to this great local hardware store that was established in 1885 to find replacements for the shower door wheels. The place is unbelievable, they carry over 64,000 different items, and will order anything you could possibly need. Every time I go there looking for something I see more different parts of the store, which is un-air conditioned and built almost like a small complex of buildings. This time a nice little old man led me through a different building that I had never seen before up to the second floor which was like an attic with fans blowing air through the place. We passed umpteen thousand little bins of assorted hardware and finally got to the section with different obscure door hardware, where we found, of course the very wheels I needed.

Andy decided to take the opportunity to take the whole frame for the shower doors out completely and re-caulk everything. What a mess. So we have had to use the downstairs bathroom to shower since yesterday. Andy took one shower in that bathroom and immediately went out to buy a new shower head for it. I could have told him that the one we had was horrible, but until he tried it for himself it wouldn't have made that kind of impact. That bathroom is the one we use to bathe dogs, and the shower head has to be one of those kind that has a hose and detaches. Thenew one he got works soooo much better; I put it through its paces by washing two dogs already.

We also use that tub to wash Charley, the parrot. He has a perch that sits down in the bottom of the tub and we take the shower head down low and spray the water up so that it rains down on him, which he loves. When we tried to give him a bath with the new shower head, he wasn't having any of it. The old shower head was white, the new one is chrome, and he didn't like it one bit. He took off flying when the shower head came near him.

Finally, I was able to show him that it was just water, just like the old shower head he liked so much, and then he was fine. You would have thought I was trying to spray him with acid, or something. Birds. So very strange.

Well the union that represents a portion of the workers at my company decided to go on strike yesterday. There are many rules that govern how the whole thing is to be handled. All of the workers in our company are forced to enter and exit the Center using the same two gates rather than the four that are normally allowed. This has to do with the fact that other contractors must be provided with entrances free of picketers, but yet everyone in our company must go through picket lines, even though most of us are not even eligible to be represented by the union. The whole thing really has nothing to do with people in my position at all.

The whole strike thing is a very unfortunate one. Lucky for me, the normal route I take to and from work is one of the approved routes, because some people must drive way out of their way to get to work now through the gates that have picket lines. And there are some shenanigans. I think that sometimes a few of the picketers forget that we are their friends and co-workers, we are not the enemy. People in positions like mine could not even decide to go on strike with the union people to support them if we wanted to- if we didn't show up for work, we would be fired. This morning there were vehicles driven by picketers that were blocking both lanes of traffic right in front of me, going about five miles per hour. They would just drive up and down the street to impede us getting to work. I don't really see the point of it. There was one instance where two vehicles that were riding in the two lanes sid-by-side and blocking traffic suddenly slammed on the brakes when people behind them trying to get to work were traveling at or slightly above the speed limit of 55 mph. Drivers had to swerve and nearly run off the road to aviod collisions. That is just insanity. That was this morning, by this afternoon the cops were there monitoring and everyone was on their best behavior.

I feel bad for the picketers. They are in a terrible uncertain position during the strike, and are not getting paid. They have families to support. Picketing has to be absolutely miserable as well. The heat is intense this time of year, and the mosquitoes are unbearable. Still I wish that all of them would realize that the people they are often directing their anger at are not the ones that are to blame for this situation. The majority of them know this, but there are a few very militant ones that seem to think everyone on the Center is their enemy, and when they get wound up, some of the others get caught up in the fervor and emotion of the moment and do things they wouldn't normally do. I hope the situation is resolved soon to everyone's satisfaction.

Here is a little video from Ramona's last night of class showing one of the exercises we worked on. This is the "recall with distractions." She goes down at one end and I am at the other and I call her to me. I am the one in the green striped shirt. There are toys and treats scattered along the path that she has to run right by and one of the instructors is over to the side calling her name to distract her as well. When she gets to me I have her sit and then give her a treat. As you might be able to see in the video, I don't even have to tell her to sit, I just motion upward with my hand and she sits. She did a great job on this.

One thing we tried for the first time tonight was what they called the "emergency sit." This is when the dog is at a distance from you and you tell them to sit. They are supposed to sit right where they are, but most dogs' natural inclination is to come toward you and then sit. On the very first try Ramona sat from a distance, just like she was supposed to. I had never practiced this with her before, but I think I know why she did so well at it. At home when I get the treats out all the dogs gather round and sit, and lots of times Ramona is at the back of the pack but she sits anyway and I reach way out to give her a treat. So she is used to sitting from a little bit of a distance. Here is a little video of her doing her "puppy push-ups" or the four basic commands they teach in class- sit, down, stand, and rollover. We are told to mix up the order of the commands so that they do not know what to expect. The little yorkie that runs over in the vidoe is Ramona's friend, Noah. He was the first dog she made friends with at class, and that took several weeks. Now she warms up to other dogs almost instantly and wants to play. She is such a good little girl!

Ramona makes me look really good at class, like I am such a great dog trainer, but it is really that she is just such a smart, eager to please pup. At the end of class she graduated and got a certificate and a big round of applause. She is ready to move on and will be starting the basic obedience classes in mid to late July. Yay Ramona!

I am a little behind on my blogging but I have got to run to take Ramona to her last puppy class- she is graduating tonight! More later.

So, if you haven't been following the saga of us trying to build a house on the property we bought almost a year and a half ago, it will be coming to a head here pretty soon, probably in early July. That seems far away, but time seems to flow at warp speed anymore, so I am sure it will be here before I can blink. I talked to my mom on the phone yesterday and she asked if I was nervous or worried about the outcome of it all, and truly I could say that I am not. I feel like the entire situation is out of our hands now and we are just basically spectators for this final stretch.

The full story can be found at www.tortoisehollow.com, but the condensed version is that we are in the last stages of fighting to be able to build a house on our property before we must give up and go to court to legally force the county to pay us the full market value of our land plus all of our expenses in trying to develop it and legal fees for regulating it to the point that it has become worthless. This is not something that happens very often, but it is our last resort.

So really, we have high hopes that the curent administrative waiver we are working on will be approved, but we must also plan for all scenarios. Andy and I discussed what would happen if we are not allowed to build. We decided we would go to court to get our money back and we would start over in looking for a new place. We even think we would still want to build. Does that make us gluttons for punishment? Maybe so.

It is about to be official; Ramona is going to be our adopted child as soon as I send in the paperwork. The funny little girl that I affectionately refer to as "Twerp" has been with us since the beginning of April, and has adjusted well to life in our crazy household. Just this past week at her puppy class, the teacher told me that she is ready to graduate, so this coming Wednesday night will be her last, she will move on to better things. I am going to put her into the basic dog obedience class that Denny went through, which is on Saturday mornings, so that she will continue to progress and not backslide into fearfullness. She needs it right now, even though she is fairly advanced compared to many of the other puppies.

The puppy class is ongoing, new puppies join the group nearly every week, and they graduate whenever the instructors feel they are ready. It is funny, when we went to class two weeks ago, there was a new puppy, a Boston terrier, who was a bit of a handful and was all over the place. I could see that her owners were frustrated with her already. Ramona was doing so much better at that time, but I was still surprised when one of the owners of the Boston referred to her as a "showoff" when they came back this week. He meant it as a compliment, that she was so well behaved. It is truly amazing that she went from basket case to showoff in only eight weeks worth of classes. If only that guy could have seen her at the beginning! The instructors wish they had video of her through the process so that they could show the rest of the club members- they call her the "success story" of the class. Thank God I brought her there to go through the program, even though I didn't realize quite how badly she needed it!

Well we did it, and for the first time in a while I wasn't right there in the midst of the action. Since Andy is on first shift now, and didn't have to be there to support the launch, and there is massive traffic like you wouldn't believe today for the launch-it has been backed up for hours- we just watched from the backyard. Our backyard is about twenty miles farther away than the spot where I usually watch and take photos from, so all I have to offer is this one small, sucky picture, but it is at least genuine. You can always look back at my "space stuff" category archives if you want to see decent launch photos.

So hooray for a safe launch and happy Friday everyone!

I haven't even mentioned the fact that we are scheduled to launch Atlantis here in a few minutes, weather and such permitting. Will be back with the lowdown.

At work there are lots of rules; there is pretty much a rule for every single thing we do. I mean there is probably a documented procedure somewhere that tells us how to blow our noses, even. It is a rule-based way of doing things and to some people, okay, actually most people, that can be very frustrating. The opposing side of that would be a logical way of doing things. In a perfect wolrd, the rules of operations would have been based on the logical way to proceed, but unfortunately that is not the case most of the time.

I myself am a rules type person, but in contrast to that I am very logical. So my response when I see that the rules are stupid and pointless is that I try to change the rules. I think that is why I feel that I am always fighting for some type of cause. Most people would probably just ignore the rules and press onward, but to me it is a big deal if I have to violate rules or procedures and I am forced to set about to change them instead. What about you? Do you care about rules or just blatantly violate in the name of sanity and reason?

The company I work for is a contractor for NASA and employs people that perform all kinds of different jobs. Some of the positions fall into a category where they are considered "represented" meaning their contract is negotiated by a union. My job does not even fall into this classification, known as "bargaining unit" and we are not eligible for the union. Of those that work bargaining unit jobs, the employees do not have to join the union, it is an option and if they join they pay dues weekly. So it turns out that less than 10% of the people that work for our company are union members.

This past weekend the union voted to strike over the new contract they were offered, which surprises me because many people have said it is the best one they have ever been offered. Still, the strike is imminent, and is set for Sunday at one minute after midnight. They are on the "cooling off" period right now. It is all very strange. Those of us that are non-union had to have our badges sealed in these funky pouches and when we come to work Monday, if the strike is still on, we have to use certain routes to access the center or risk termination of employment.

I hope that something gets worked out soon, as I have heard that things have gotten ugly during strikes in the past. Back the last time this happened picketers would sometimes throw things at cars as they drove past or would try to block traffic going in to work. I hope they do not feel the need to do that this time. I understand that they have the right to strike and picket, but I hope that they realize that we are not scabs, we are just people in non-represented job classifications and we have to go to work or we don't eat.

Any eBayers out there? I think most of us have tried either buying or selling on eBay at one point or another. I always turn to eBay for harder to find items and lots of times it is a great solution. Just in the last couple of days I have come up on an interesting situation on there and I wanted to see what you think.

I couldn't find any more jeans of a particular brand and cut that I love in my size. I decided to look on eBay and I found a pair of them brand new with tags. The description just said that they were new with tags and showed a photo and they looked just like the opnes I have that I love, so I bid. I ended up being the only bidder and won the auction for only $3.99 and the shipping was $8.99. The shipping was alittle on the high side, but I generally look at the combined total to determine if the item is a good deal anyway, and these were still a good deal with the inflated shipping.

The jeans arrived quickly in a flat rate envelope, and looked good. It was only when I went to try them on that I discovered a problem. The main "button" or stud that fastens the jeans at the waist was not there. I would have just gone into my sewing kit and found one of these stud type buttons and hammered it in place, but the stud that had been on these jeans must have caught on something and was ripped out of them leaving a good sized hole where it should have been.

I emailed the seller to let her know what had happened. Here is what I wrote: "Hi, I received the jeans in the mail today. When I tried them on I noticed that the main stud type button, the one that keeps the pants on, was not there. Normally I would have just found one in my sewing kit and hammered it in place and moved on, but there is a hole in the denim where the stud used to be that is
so large that it cannot be fixed. The hole is big enough to stick your pinky through. I am sure that you did not notice this problem as I didn't see it either until I tried the jeans on and could not button them. Please let me know how you would like to work this out; I am a very agreeable eBayer."

I got back a response asking for photos of the defect which is fine, and I provided them, but she also wanted to just refund the $3.99 and not the inflated shipping charge. If I were to take it to the level of a PayPal dispute I would still only get the $3.99 anyway because they don't get you the refunds on the shipping amount, inflated or not. I wasn't terribly satisfied with that arrangement so I decided to see what I could negotiate. I wrote back: "Unfortunately if you only refund the purchase price without shipping, I have essentially spent $9 and have nothing to show for it. It seems kind of crummy that I have to take a loss on these when all all I did was bid on and promptly pay for a pair of jeans that were supposed to be new with tags, not damaged. I understand that you did not notice this defect, but since it is a feature that is an absolutley essential one to a pair of jeans, don't you feel that the burden of inspecting them should fall on the seller rather than the buyer? I am trying to be as reasonable as I can but I also do not feel as though I should be coming away from this transaction disappointed and out money, even though it is not a large amount."

So what do you think is going to happen? And what would you have done? Was there a better way to handle things than what I did? What would you have done?

UPDATE: The seller replied to my last email like this "Jen, It was kind of hard to see in the photos, but I will take your word for it. I do not know what you want me to do, if I refund the shipping then I am out money for shipping it, ebay fees and paypal fees. I TOTALLY understand that it was a misunderstanding and something that was overlooked on my part. I too was mislead when I had listed them, believing that they were brand new with no defects. The most I could give back would be the $3.99 you paid and $4.00 for the shipping costs. If this sounds good to you please let me know and I will refund your money as soon as I get the ok. I am very sorry again!"

It isn't a perfect deal for me, but better than before. I wrote back, "I have attached two more photos so that you can see for yourself. I was trying to include more of the jeans in the first set of pics I sent so that you could see that they were the ones you sent. These are close ups. While I would like to get back all of the money I have spent, I feel that the offer of refunding $4.00 of the shipping plus the purchase price is something I can live with and it is more fair as we are sharing the loss more proportionately. In that case I could feel okay about leaving good feedback for you if you will do so for me." She refunded me $8.00 today and so I am only out about five bucks now, and I don't have to send the jeans back, though I don't think they can be fixed-the hole is too large. But at least my feedback rating will not suffer. It just wasn't worth it to press any further and make a big deal over a few bucks, so I gave in. Such is life.

Although we probably should have done something more productive today, I got the idea that we should go to the zoo this morning. Andy and I have a memebership to our local zoo and can go for no extra charge any time we like. We have been so busy lately that we haven't been in quite a while.

One of the things we saw today was a fantastic sand sculpture showcasing some of the animals that are found at the zoo. I wish I could sculpt sand like this. How cool!

This evening Andy and I went to a two hour long bird class. There is a large bird supply store here locally, one of the biggest in the state, and one of the owners has many years of experience with birds and likes to share it. We all brought our own folding chairs and sat while she demonstrated some interesting things with her cockatoo of twenty years and talked to us about all kinds of things like toys, nutrition, screaming and so on. Her cockatoo was a complete ham and the star of the show. She had the greatest trick where she would spread her wings out and up in a vee shape and say "Ta-da!" on command. So cute. A few people brought their birds with them to the class too and there are lots of birds in the store- some for sale and some there for boarding- so it was fun to walk around to see them all and listen to them talk and whistle and sing.

There were probaly about twenty people at the class and at one point we went around and everyone said what kind of birds they had. There were a few that were even crazier than Andy and me; they had more than two large parrots. They probably didn't also have six dogs though, but that is beside the point. I love doing things like attending this class. Something completely different and lots of fun for an animal lover liike me.