Dave Knows: Elko

The human race lost a great man a few days ago.  But as the flesh of the illustrious pitchman decays, a certain kind of worm is produced, which, being nourished by the juices of the dead man, brings forth fur.  Then, when it has acquired strength, it takes up that nest in which are the bones of its parent, and bearing these it passes from the land of Arabia into Elko County, to the city called Ryndon.  And, in open day, flying in the sight of all men, it places them on the altar of the sun, and having done this, hastens forth from the loins of Rose the goat.  I give you:  the freakin adorable baby goat:

We’ll be out to visit on Thursday so we’ll get more pictures!!!

The 2009 Elko Motorcycle Jamboree is under way!  I reported on this event last year and this year looks like it will be even better!  The concert Friday night (tonight) is LA Guns, Great White, and Molly Hatchet.  Saturday’s concert is a couple of tribute bands, Zeperella(Led Zeppelin) and Hell’s Belles (AC/DC).  I plan on taking the boys down on Saturday night for those bands, I’m not really interested in tonight’s entertainment.

More information and a full list of events at the Elko Motorcycle Jamboree website:

http://www.elkomotorcyclejamboree.com/

See you there!

The 2009 Elko Mining Expo is this week!  Pretty much every hotel room in town is occupied, and restaurants should be full every night (don’t try to go to The Star this week).  The wife works for a local mining supplier in town so she’s a busy little bee getting everything ready.  The Elko Convention and Visitors Authority has more information on their website:  http://www.elkocva.com/miningexpo.shtml  and of course the Elko Daily Free Press reported that 376 booths have been sold!  BREAKING NEWS: 380 booths!

Most of the week is full of industry technical sessions and other boring stuff, but Friday, June 12th is the big day for the public.  There’s free peanuts and popcorn, and the kids get to climb on some cool mining equipment.  Last year we came home with a huge bag of pens, magnets, water bottles, all kinds of doo-dads.  Should be a lot of fun.

Those crack reporters at the Elko Daily Free Press reported on saturday that the gas pumps at the Smith’s grocery store on Mountain City Highway were shut down for some ‘mysterious” reason on Saturday.

Patrons looking to fill up their vehicles at Smith’s Food and Drug gas center were greeted this afternoon by yellow caution tape around all of the pumps.

Flying J gasoline tanker trucks were lined up Friday evening at Smith’s.

A Smith’s store representative acknowledged a problem, but he said official word on what happened has to come from corporate headquarters.

A Flying J employee at Smith’s also said information has to come from Flying J corporate headquarters. Flying J provides the fuel for Smith’s.

 Word on the street is that some diesel fuel was placed in a regular gasoline tank.  Oops!  I guess about 30 cars got fouled up before they discovered the problem.  I feel sorry for those guys.

Our beloved cat, Boxer, is missing!  We haven’t seen him since Saturday morning (5/23).  He’s been gone before for more than a day or two, but we’re starting to get worried.  If anyone has seen him, let us know! 

I take back all the bad things I said about him!

I’m sooooooo tired.  Got home from work about 5:00pm yesterday, headed straight to the Elko Little League baseball fields.  We had snack bar duty so we were there until 9:30, flipping burgers, frying fries, cheesing nachos.  Despite the long hours and the backache I get a kick out of my time at the snack bar.    It’s mentally therapeutic for me for some reason.  I guess it’s due to years of “brainy” work, so now I can enjoy and appreciate a (relatively) mindless job (no offense to the burger-flippers out there).  I could definitely see myself running a greasy-spoon type restaurant in my later years.  I think it would be a lot of fun.  Maybe I’ll call it “Steve’s Diner.”  That has a nice ring to it.  The wife and kids can work there for free, Cooper and Ollie can be the mascots, I think I have this all figured out.  Now to get started on that whole “become independently wealthy” thing…

 Or do they? 

I’ve posted before about my troubles with those Swedish bastards at Ikea.  My brother’s dislike for Ikea is well-documented.  And yet on our most recent visit to Salt Lake City, we decided to go back.  It’s a bit like a dog returning to eat his own vomit.  Ikea=Dog Vomit.  Remember that.

We wanted to buy a new dresser for our bedroom.  We decided on the black Hemnes dresser, which, at $299, is one of the more expensive ones at Ikea (it’s made with real wood!).  We made the purchase and headed back to Elko, about 250 miles away. 

I procrastinated on assembling the dresser for about a week, then finally decided to tackle the job.  I opened the boxes and laid out all the parts.  One piece, about 6 feet long, had gouges and scrapes along one side of it:

Obviously done at the factory, and very noticeable.  I figured if it was on the back or the bottom of the dresser it wouldn’t really matter though.  I got to step 2 and realized this part would be near the top of the dresser, facing the front, which sucks.  Those of you who have put Ikea furniture together know that you can’t usually swap parts or turn them around; you’re stuck.  I was a little upset, but I figured a quick call to Ikea “customer service” would get me a new part shipped out pronto!  Boy, was I wrong…

I checked the Ikea website and found a customer support phone number.  Upon calling it, though, all it did was direct me to a different number for the specific store I had made the purchase from: Draper, UT.  So I called the Draper store directly.  I had the pleasure of talking to “Katrina”.  I explained my situation and she said I would have to return the item to the store.  The 200-pound, already-taken-out-of-the-boxes, 50-different-pieces-spread-about-my-bedroom, 250-miles-from-the-store, item.  I told her that returning the item to the store was not easy to do, and that I would prefer to have the part shipped to me.  This is when she gave me the biggest lie I’ve heard in a LONG time.  Ikea can’t ship items over 36-inches!  Really?  So I can’t go on their website and order the exact same dresser, all 200-pounds of it, and have it shipped directly to my house?  She explained that the website orders come from a different department/warehouse/division/whatever and that the individual stores can’t ship anything over 36-inches.  Must be a Utah thing, I guess when people buy skis or snowboards, they have to cut them in half to fit them into these mythical 36-inch boxes that FedEx and UPS are restricted to.  I offered to PAY for the part and the shipping, she said No.  I was about to say that I was going to drive back to Draper with something that’s about 36-inches long (no, not my penis) and tell her what she can do with her dresser, but I decided that probably wasn’t the best course of action.   Years ago I did some phone support, and I know that once the customer starts making threats it was all over.  I kept my cool but I was pretty much speechless.  The wife suggested asking for a supervisor, but I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO.  The front-line customer service folks should be able to provide basic customer service, don’t you think?  So I hung up on the bitch.

To the internet!  I searched for “Ikea sucks” on the google, and found a veritable plethora of blogs, forums, and other sites devoted to the topic. Boy, those dirty Swedes sure know how to piss people off!  I read through quite a few stories of people getting screwed until I ran into this blog post: http://loopcycle.blogspot.com/2008/05/ikea-sucks.html   He had links to some email addresses for some higher-ups at Ikea North America.  I fired off a carefully-worded email to those two, along with one to their regular customer service email address.  I received an auto-response from that one, but a couple days later heard from a real person.  I had to restate my entire problem again, giving them all my information (probably so they can perma-ban me from the store, since I’m a troublemaker).  They called me last week to verify.  Guess what arrived at my house yesterday?  This:

I couldn’t freakin’ believe it!  They actually CAN ship items over 36-inches!!! Who woulda thunk it?  So I opened the package and the piece looks good, no dents or scratches, I’ll re-assemble the dresser this weekend. 

So I guess the moral of the story is:  Ikea still sucks, but not quite as much as I originally thought.  They really need to get their customer-service act together, though.  Our last two visits have ended in sadness, I don’t know if we’ll ever go back.  I’m gonna miss those meatballs.

The in-laws let us chick-sit yesterday.  27 little pecking fuzzballs.  Aren’t they adorable? 

In that last picture it looks like Bart does not approve of the sweet ‘fro.

I didn’t even know you could ship live animals through the US Postal Service.  Pretty cool.

Cooper and Ollie celebrated their first birthday a while back so I thought I would provide a little update on all of the family pets, including the newest addition.  First, the king of the castle, Cooper!

• Nicknames:   Coop, Cooper Dog, Coop Doggie Dogg, Cooper Coop, Cooper Dooper, Coop Coop, Cooper Poop, Coopert, Coopertino, Coopernicus, Coopersaurus Rex, Cooper Doo, Coopie. Coop DeVille
• Likes:   playing fetch with the blue ball, squeaky elephant, squeaky ice cream guy, “Mr Moo” the squeaky cow, or just plain tennis balls. Wrestling with Ollie.  Barking at strangers.  Visiting the grandparents’ ranch.  Any kind of food.  Ice cubes. Squeezing his big butt into the blue recliner. Farting.  Cat Food
• Dislikes:   Strangers.  “Dirty Santa” the homeless guy.  The doorbell.  Kids running in the house.

Next is Ollie!

Nicknames:   Ollie Dog, Ollie Burger, Ollie Pop, Ollie the Wonder Dog, Ollie the Border Collie.

• Likes:   Chasing Cooper.  Sleeping in his “cave”.  Chewing on his feet.  Chasing Marty and Boxer.  Visiting the grandparents’ ranch.  Playing with the big rope.  Any meat-flavored treats.  Fresh chicken. Cat Food.
• Dislikes:   Being crated.  Getting yelled at.  Taking a bath.  Crunchy treats, especially if they don’t taste like meat.

On to the felines.  First up is Boxer:

• Nicknames: Boxy, Boxy-box, Furry Bastard. 
• Likes: Tuna juice.  Canned chicken juice.  Canned cat food gravy.  Sitting on the clean towels.  Going for walks.  The basement.  Sleeping with the older boy.  Using the neighbor’s fence as a scratching post (sorry!).  Sleeping in the sink
• Dislikes: Cooper.  Ollie.  Marty.  Candles.  Haircuts

Marty:

• Nicknames: Marty Mart, Marty Cat.  Smart-Mart.  Mart-Fart.  Martykins.  Marty the Party Cat.  Barty. Marty Havarti
• Likes:  Slobbering all over you.  Sitting on mom’s chest.  Defending his territory.  Going for walks. Sleeping in the red Ikea chair.  Pencils.  Rolling in the dirt.  Soft cat food.  Cantelope.  Skittles.  Tuna juice, chicken Juice, dog food
• Dislikes:  Not many

And the latest member of the clan:   Virdi!

• Nicknames:   Verdie the Dirty Birdie.  Squawking Bastard
• Likes:   music, TV, Guitar Hero.
• Dislikes:  Marty, Boxer, Cooper, Ollie. 

I swear if we get any more pets I’m going to go insane.

Final game of the season tonight.  Home court advantage for the first round is on the line.  A win, we’re in, a loss and we might have to go on the road to Houston or San Antonio.

I’ll be at home wearing my Lamarcus Aldridge jersey, rootin’ the boys on from a crazy spring snowstorm in Elko, Nevada (about a foot!!)

I’ll keep an eye out for you in the crowd, Dave!!!!