August 2, 2005

The shopping spree continues. We found a cordless phone set that has two handsets and transmits digitally at 5.8 Ghz for only $50. We bought a wireless router so that we can use the laptop anywhere in the condo. We found a TV cart for $50. We found a paper shredder on sale for $30 that Kris really liked because it was cute - I can’t explain this so I won’t even try.

We also spent at least an hour sitting in office chairs at Office Depot. They had a nice selection and there were some cheap (<$50) options. We tried everything to see if we could understand the difference between an expensive chair and a cheap one. I found a medium price chair ($80) that I thought looked cool. Upon further investigation, I decided that it was actually the best design there.

Most chairs use a bottom and back that appear to be a piece of wood with padding and a cover. The bottom is usually attached with screws to the wood base. The backs are attached in numerous ways, but some of them use the arms to attach the back to the bottom. This seems like a design that is destined to fail as the screws work loose over time. Even if they have threaded inserts, it is still a weak design in my mind. We bought the cool looking chairs primarily because they are a full steel frame. All structural components are made of steel and most of it is welded. It is a heavy chair as a result, but the design struck me as durable.

While we checked out, we got to watch the stock person climb to a precarious position to get two of these boxes down. There were several OSHA violations involved in the process. Luckily, he didn’t fall. When they rung up the chairs, they were $10 less than the floor model had been marked. The stock person explained that they were on clearance and that the prices weren’t marked yet.

I assembled the chairs which turned out to be a fairly easy process, only six screws. I was still impressed with the design, but the Chinese manufacturing quality was humorous. Many of the welds looked like I did them. One of the snaps for the padded cover was riveted in the wrong place. I hauled them upstairs and they are really heavy. Kris’ chair was fine, but when I sat in mine, I noticed it was leaning. The lean was clearly in the base as when I spun in the chair, I was always leaning toward the wall. It would be a good way to get motion sickness, spinning on an axis that is just slightly off of vertical.

I took a further look at it in the morning and determined the problem was in the base assembly. There was nothing I could do to fix it, so I took it back to exchange it. The replacement chair was acceptable. Even the snaps were in the right place.

In the midst of all this shopping, we have been working on setting up our home. We set up our computers in one of the small bedrooms. We took the living room furniture for another lap around the living room as we tried to optimize the layout. We ended up back where we started with only a couple of minor tweaks. It looks pretty good. Maybe I can do a photo tour of the condo this week.

We still need a few more items. We need some bar stools for our breakfast bar, but we can’t seem to find any reasonably priced ones that we like. We even tried Wally World (Wal Mart) in spite of our desire to never shop there. At least we confirmed that we still hate it as much as ever.

For us, shopping is about making choices based on value. It seems we are always faced with a wide range of prices for any item. We always spend some time trying to understand the price differences. Then we decide what features we like and how much we are willing to pay for them. We have noticed that frequently, we don’t buy the cheapest version. Of course we rarely buy the expensive version. It seems that the features that you get at the first level of improvement are useful features at reasonable cost adders. At the higher levels, the features become more gimmicky and more pricey.

We had salmon on Saturday night. Kris found a recipe that sounded good to us. We topped it with wine and shallots and baked it. Then we put a sauce of mayonnaise, sour cream, horseradish, lemon juice, and capers on top. It was very good, although there were still some bites that had a strong fish/salmon taste.

We took a walk on Sunday night. We headed north and east on the Campbell Creek Greenbelt. We walked all the way past Old Seward and stopped at International Airport. This is still short of where the bears hang out and we saw no sign of any animals other than dogs. In fact, the greenbelt feels less isolating up that direction with more houses, condos and other buildings visible.

At the far end of our walk, we found Alaska Wildberry Products, a local tourist trap. They advertise that they have the world’s largest chocolate waterfall. Having never seen a chocolate waterfall before, I would say that it could be the world’s only chocolate waterfall which would also make it the smallest. It is a little strange to see liquid chocolate recirculating and drizzling down. We both wondered how often they have to change the chocolate. We walked through their store, looking at the touristy items and enjoying the smells in their candy shop. We didn’t buy anything.

It has been pretty gloomy and cloudy for the last week. It has rained frequently as well. Campbell Creek was not its normal crystal clear. The water was so murky that we didn’t see a single fish. Well, there were a couple of dead ones along the side. I am sure the kings are still in there spawning and the silvers should be working there way up, yet we couldn’t see them. Hopefully it will clear up a little before the silver season opens on our stretch of the creek on Friday.