Saturday, August 8, 2009

Saturday, August 8, 2009
This morning was cool and overcast and I expected a thunderstorm, as had been predicted by NWS, but it is now 4:30 PM and I haven’t had a drop of rain.
Shortly after getting up this morning, I was hit with an allergy attack and have felt crummy all day. It isn’t the nose faucet like in the past, but it is definitely allergies. I feel lousy and so haven’t even tried to work outside, and haven’t done much inside either.
My usually computer work and checking on some online things have taken up the day. I had received a recall notice on the motor home, saying that the welds on the propane tank may fail and could cause a possible fire (they didn’t have the guts to say “Explosion”) and I should have an authorized service dealer inspect it. So, I looked up the closest dealer with a service department, which is in Great Falls, and sent an email to schedule an appointment. I haven’t received a reply yet, so it may be Monday before anyone checks the email inbox and replies.
Another time-consuming task was writing a letter of response to my senator, Max Baucus. His email newsletter arrived today and he has taken the obvious party (Demo) line in an attempt to sell Obamacare to his constituents. I just had to send him my two-cents worth in a carefully crafted letter.
Inbetween playing with Zack and Zoey (she is still acting goofy), I have been following and bidding on a new digital camera. I found a site that is fairly new to America (Swoopo), that lets you purchase bids and then participate in an online auction. The camera is a new Nikon D90 12.3 MP DSLR Camera with 18-105mm Kit, which normally sells for $1,139.00. They have auctioned off dozens of them, and some have gone for as little as $7.96. It is easy to get caught up in the auction, so you have to have a strategy. I have been following them for several weeks now and think I have the hang of how to increase my chances of winning. This particular camera is up to $25.58, with each bid adding 2-cents to total. Each bid costs the bidder 60-cents, so you could easily end up paying several hundred dollars with the cost of the bids and then the cost of the item, but they always sell for less than the suggested retail price.
The site has a ton of different items you can bid on and you can select items to follow and then watch and see how it goes without spending any money. Aside from adding to the total, sometimes 2-cents per bid, sometimes 6-cents, your bid adds time to the clock. Once the clock reaches zero, whoever had the last bid wins the item.
They have a BidButler that you can set up so you don’t have to watch the item all of the time, and then you can go about doing other things, like play with a dog, which I am going to do right now. Okay, I’m back now. Zack has been worn out and fed, along with Zoey who really likes her canned salmon, and I am relaxing before my shower and dinner. The camera is now up to $29.78 and there are 40 seconds left on the clock. Keep your fingers crossed for me.