Stickin' It 2 Da Man

01.30.2006

A couple of weeks ago I bemoaned the rising price of stamps and my lack of knowledge beforehand. Like many people, I've got a cache of stamps that are no longer first-class valued. I came across said cache last week, and now I'm doing something I hardly ever have not only not done, but rarely ever thought about.

I'm using the old stamps.

I've got 37¢ stamps. I've got 1¢ stamps. I've even got 33¢ stamps, and I've got no idea how old those things are.

This morning I had 7 parcels to mail out. All bills, because that's really the only thing I stick in the mail these days. Between the different denominations of stamps needed to acheive the now magical number of 39¢ per parcel, I ended up using 33 stamps. Quite a feat, I believe.

After that cleansing of the old stamps, I've still got a couple of 33¢ and about 5 37¢ stamps left. Now I'm going to have to go to the post office and stock up on 1¢ stamps. Or maybe even 2¢ stamps. But if I'm going tot he post office, I might as well buy new 39¢ stamps. That's what usually happens. Then I'm stuck with the old stamps again. Just when I think I've got it figured out, they stick it back to me.

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The Martial Art: Kicking My Butt

01.24.2006

In December I became a green belt. That means a couple of things in reality:

• I've been taking karate for a year
• I'm now "intermediate"
• I can't get away with cheating on my form anymore

I've been trying to go to the intermediate/advanced night class once a week in addition to the 2 lunch time classes I attend. Out of the 3 night classes I've intended to go to, I've made it to 1. I'm going to try and do better and go to tonight's class, but after the afternoon class it's going to take some effort.

Because I'm sore.

Today was "let's kick and punch a whole lot." I try not to complain, it's good exercise, and exercise is why I'm there. I ended up doing 25 kicks per leg of 4 different types of kicks (so 100 kicks per leg total). After that, my thighs and hamstrings could really feel the burn. Lots of burning. Luckily, it was a good burning. This was followed by some punching, which doesn't wear me out as much, except now that I have to pay attention to my I have to bend and twist more. It adds more power, but it helps to wear me out faster.

After a year, I still like karate. I like the physicallness (or is it the physicality?). I like to punch and see somebody half my weight go stumbling back. There are moves I can't do, whether because my body doesn't want to work that way (there's a choke hold from behind that I can't get down low enough on my victim before rolling them backwards onto me without feeling like I'm pulling said victims head off) or I'm just not limber enough yet. But it's still good exercise. More fun than lifting weights or straight aerobics. Plus I get to wrestle every once in a while!

But for now I wish I could stand up without grunting like an old man.

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Old Man Poplin Jr

01.20.2006

Today marks Jerry's 37th birthday. Yes, he's old. Happy birthday, old man!

We also decided today at lunch that after 22 years, our friendship could go no further. There was no pinnacle of friendship left to acheive. So with that, we are now mortal enemies.

Yes, here on the interweb I will strive to tear down the man that has befriended me for over 2 decades. Shouldn't be hard since I've got 22 years worth of dirt on him. So, fear me Old Man Poplin Jr! I am your bane!

But I hope I can still visit and play with the collies.

As an aside, this is the same picture of Jer I used in last years birthday post. Now that we are mortal enemies, the picture seems to fit even more. Bwaaa haaaa haaa!

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Stamp Rant Begone?

01.16.2006

Last week I was bitching and moaning about the stamp price rising, or not so much that it was rising, but that I managed to find out after I had mailed bills with the old postage applied. Well, it's now a week later and I haven't received any mail returned for insufficient postage. Normally I would think this was good, but there is a wrestling game I've been trying to get from California through CafePress for a little over a month now. I contacted their customer support and they were going to send another copy via 2nd day air mail. If they shipped it the day after they said, it should have gotten here Saturday. I know the mail doesn't run today due to MLK day, so now I'm waiting to see what shows up tomorrow.

I'm not holding out a lot of hope since I often (about once a month) find one of my neighbors mail in my mailbox. It's not beyond the realm of reason to think that my packages are getting routed to my neighbors. To be honest, there's no telling where some of them really end up. I mean, if I can get mail that's mine but addressed wrong, is it too much to ask to get it if the address is right?

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Stamp Rant

01.10.2006

First class postal rates jumped from 37 cents to 39 cents yesterday. 2 cents isn't a big deal. Any denomination of money where the primary concern is in pennies isn't that big of a deal these days (gone are the days of scrounging up $6.65 in loose change to order a pizza from Dominos). I have at least $17 in wrapped pennies that have been sitting on shelf for at least 3 years. I don't really care that the postal rates have gone up. My problem is that I didn't know about the rate increase until about 3 hours after I had dropped off 3 bills in the postbox with the measly 37 cent stamps on them.

First of all, the post office did a lousy job letting me, their valued customer, know of the impending rate increase. I haven't been watching the local news for the past umpteen days, so I don't know if they mentioned anything or not. Ditto for natinal news. Evidently, wrestling news websites don't rank postal rates on their radar. If anything, I should have at least gotten mail from the post office saying the rates were changing. If it weren't for going to the post office later yesterday to pick up a parcel and in that visit hearing everybody talk about having to get 2 cent stamps, I still wouldn't know the rates had changed.

When the rates for any other service I take advantage of change, they let me know in my monthly statement - such as my cable company politely telling me their rates were changing in December. They told me, I knew, I was prepared. The post office, they tell me nada.

On top of this, the way they print the stamps doesn't help. Much like when the rates went up last time, the new stamp (the generic one with the flag making me feel all patriotic) doesn't even have the price of the stamp on it. For the first 37 cent stamps, they just had an "F" on them, which everyone should know means 37 cents. I guess the new one has a hidden "G" somewhere (because "G" just has to be equivalent to 39 cents).

Just raise the price a nickel every 5 years and be done with it. For now I'm just waiing for my bills to be returned with the "Insufficient Postage" label stuck on them somewhere, all because I unknowingly tried to stiff the post office 6 cents.

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