Sears Good, Sears, Better, Sears Best

Sears is known for offering merchandise in a variety of grades-- typically good, better, and best.

The system was Good, Better, Best. Here's how it worked. Let's say that you wanted to buy a circular saw. You would go to the tools section of the catalog and look at the pictures and descriptions of Craftsman circular saws. You might discover, for example, that the Good saw boasted a 7" diameter blade and used a 2 1/2 horsepower motor for $29.99. The Better saw may have used 7" or 8" blades powered by a 3 1/2 horsepower motor - plus it had a spring-loaded safety guard for $39.99. Finally, the Best saw had 7" or 8" interchangeable blades, a 5 hp motor, the spring loaded guard and a built-in leveling system for straighter cuts for $49.99, for example. -- From DigIt Sales Blog

When it came to appliances, good was usually cheap goods-- a washer with a small tub and weak motor, a refrigerator with metal shelves, a stove with no window in the oven door. The better products usually were more robust, sharing mechanical components with products positioned as best, but with fewer bells and whistles. The better stove, for example, might have the same frame and heating elements as the best stove, but lack time delay baking capability and chrome-plated oven racks.

My mentor and friend Floyd Dennis always urged consumers to go with Sears Better. Best, the premium products, have more features and thus more things to go wrong. Better ultimately gave better service than best, and for less money.

I've always heeded Floyd's advice. Consequently, here's the control panel on the washer I left in Georgia when I sold my house.

A knob to the left offered three water levels: low, medium, and high.

Here's the control panel from our new washer:

No, wait, that's one of the control panels from a Boeing 747 jetliner. Here are the controls for our washer:

The dryer panel is similarly complex.

The knob to the left isn't so bad. It has what, nine positions which can be easily selected by turning. I have no idea why I need an allergy or bedding or sanitize setting, or just what they do, but yeah, I can see a use for heavy duty, quick wash, permanent press, and delicates. And normal, which is what I almost always use.

The panel to the right is where I take issue with the washer. Check it out.

I don't really need an Eco Warm setting (whatever that is) or a delayed end. And what do I need steam for? And yeah, there's a sound button, probably because the damn thing plays Mozart. I'm not kidding. This is Jersey. Why not Springsteen? Hmmm... do you think there might be Four Seasons and Springsteen selections as well as for old Wolfgang Amadeus?

It just seems like a lot of stuff that can break and too much to have to bother with when you just want to dry your socks. Thank goodness Heather bought 10 year warranties on both the washer and dryer.

p.s. Can someone explain to me why there's a smiley face with a hat icon?

p.p.s. In all seriousness, Heather lost her washer and dryer when her basement flooded in Hurricane Irene. There was no reason to replace them because she could have easily lost the replacements. Consequently she spent three years taking her dirty laundry to laundromats. So God bless her. When we were shopping for the washer and dryer I urged her to get whatever she wanted. She did, and I'm more than happy to have more settings than I can figure out.

Washer Blues: Part the Third

So yeah, Heather broke the dryer.

Not deliberately, you understand. Or so she says.

It seems she removed the filter and ran a load without it in place.

And so of course her knee-highs got sucked down this hole into the machinery.

The results were predictable.

See the horizontal strip that's halfway visible between the tub and the front of the dryer? It's hinged and, when opened (which can happen when clothes fall into it and perhaps by suction when the machine is running), it leads to this rotor.

The dryer worked afterward, but made a terrible noise.

"Repair division, how may I help you!"

"Dryer 911!"

"Can you be more specific?"

"Not without incriminating the person I love the most in the world."

So, the repair guy came out and pulled nylon knee-highs from the rotor. "Wonder how those got in there?" I said. Two days later the dryer was making noises again. This time he replaced the rotor and left the old (and probably perfectly fine) rotor with us.

So the washer and dryer are fine for now, but I have to schedule another visit because the control panel on the dryer isn't attached properly after the repair and because the idiots who brought the washer and dryer to the house damaged one of the feet on the washer, making it impossible to level it.

Washer Blues: Part the Second

Before Heather and I could figure out what was going on with the washer, her parents Phil and Linda and my sister Tanya respectively drove and flew in for our wedding. We were married and then my sister and I took off to Connecticut, where I was scheduled to deliver a keynote at a conference, and Heather and her mom and dad turned their attention to what was really important-- the washer.

They leveled the beast, and leveled it again, and leveled it again. No dice. It still shook like a rabid dog. Thinking that perhaps the floor needed bracing, they purchased a 3/4" sheet of plywood and screwed it to the floor. No dice. At the end of a fruitless day they retired to lick their wounds.

When I was back at the house I watched Linda and Phil spend another half-day trying to get the washer to work-- with no luck. I was sitting nearby trying to stay out of the action because, darn, they were so serious and I didn't want to be in the line of fire, but finally I thought, "I wonder if the idiots who delivered the appliances took out the restraining bolts?"

I ventured as much, and we immediately looked behind the washer. There were three big bolts, but they had clips on them to hold wires, so maybe they weren't the restraining bolts-- but then again, maybe they were.

Within seconds Linda and I were Goggling Samsung washer restraining bolts. Finally I found an image and yes, those were the restraining bolts. Phil removed them and we started the washer and, happily, it no longer shook.

When Heather got home from work and we told her the washer was working she was delighted, and remained so until she broke the dryer.

No-- she didn't!

Yes, she did.

Washer Blues: Part the First

Oh dear! I see I forgot to finish the sage of our new washer and dryer! How remiss of me!

So-- several thousand dollars later we had the necessary electrical and plumbing connections to finally hook up the fancy washer and dryer which stood idle for three or four months while we continued to take our clothing to the laundromat.

Seriously-- if you don't live around here, laundromats are as scarce as hens' teeth! Back in Atlanta there's one on just about every corner-- here there's maybe one in every town. And they're expensive.

But back to the long-neglected saga of our washer and dryer.

With the necessary connections in place and the washer and dryer hooked up, I put a load of dirty clothing in the washer and turned it on-- a process that was rather mystifying because of the many options and selections. I found a setting that sounded reasonable, added soap, and hoped for the best..

Things went well until the tub began to spin. Within seconds the stacked washer and dryer were bucking and heaving around the floor like a three-year-old gelding that had been hit with electric spurs. I managed to turn the machine off before the hoses were yanked out.

When Heather got home from work I gave her the bad news. Of course she had to try it herself. Surprise! The same thing happened.

We did out best to level the stack-- which wasn't easy, considering the clowns who had brought it in had broken one of the leveling feet. More bucking.

Back to the laundromat.

Noooooooo!

Washer and Dryer

I left a perfectly good washer and dryer (above) when I sold my house in Georgia.

There's a story, of course. There always is.

Heather lost her old but serviceable washer and dryer in 2011's Hurricane Irene. She was living in Sloatsburg, NY in an apartment just above the Ramapo River. All of Sloatsburg flooded and there was eight feet of water in the basement, which played hell with her appliances.

She phoned me on the day of the hurricane to tell me water was in the foyer of the building. It was one four-inch step away from flooding her apartment.

I told her to get her cats and laptop and toothbrush and get the hell out and call me when she was safe. She did. I didn't realize it, but anticipating flooding, she had parked her car on the other side of highway 17. To get to it she waded across four lanes with six inches of rushing water. Was that safe? No it wasn't, but she made it.

Whenever she was able to get a cell signal I served as her OnStar girl, guiding her toward her friends' house in Washingtonville. Roads were closed and closing all around her, but after four hours she managed to find an open road and reach her destination and a well-deserved warm night's sleep.

The water didn't get into the apartment, but everything in the basement was a loss. Her washer and dryer were hauled away and discarded, and she elected not to get replacements. So began the era of the laundromat.

Back in Georgia there's a laundromat on every corner, but they're rather rare in the Hudson Valley and northern New Jersey. For several years she haunted them-- or rather I should say visited them, for she went only when she had absolutely no clean clothes. On the frequent occasions when I was visiting I would go with her and pretend to not know how to fold clothes.

Scratch that. I really don't know how to fold clothes. Or just let me say that I consider them folded, but Heather doesn't. Most people wouldn't. I consider it a problem in topology.

When we bought our house in Ringwood I volunteered to bring my washer and dryer, but after suffering through more than three years without, Heather wanted high-efficiency machines. Who was I do deny a woman who had suffered for so long?

In the new house the hookups for the washer and dryer were in the basement. It's a nice basement, so far as basements go, but the stairs were more ladder than anything else, and even when we had them rebuilt they remained narrow-- I'm talking two feet wide. Width is limited by the log construction, which dates to 1940.

Neither of us wanted to lug clothes up and down narrow steps, so we looked for alternatives. Would it be possible, we wondered, to relocate the washer and dryer to the kitchen area?

Yes, it would.

Heather selected a Samsung washer and a Samsung dryer and had them delivered and stacked. Throughout the horrible winter we continued to visit the laundromat, but when the snow was finally gone we contracted with the two Daves to run plumbing and electric wires to our new appliances.

The two Daves are Dave Harvey (Plumbing) and Dave Burton (Electricity). Both of them did a great job. They worked fast and their charges were reasonable.

We knew Dave Harvey because his wife works with Heather; we got Dave Burton's name from Mark Fanella, whose name we got through Dave Harvey. It's all about connections.

We had Mark back later to replace the sheetrock which had to be removed for the wiring and plumbing.

We've had no problems with the double Daves' work, but we did hit a hiccup when we tried to use the washer and dryer. Film at eleven.

My Peculiar Habit

In full disclosure, I must confess to having never had a problem with liquor-- until, perhaps, now.

There was no alcoholism in my family. My father would drink an occasional beer on weekends, but I saw him tipsy only once, when I was seven or eight years old. My mother gave him hell.

No one else in the family drank. I remember a quart of blackberry brandy that set on a shelf low in a kitchen cabinet. It stayed there for at least 15 years and the level of brandy in the bottle never changed.

I take an occasional drink, but I've been drunk only once, when I was in my early twenties. That was quite enough. I will drink a beer or a snifter of liquor or a shot of whiskey when I remember to, which isn't all that often. In short, I don't have a problem with consumption of alcohol. My problem, it seems, is collecting alcohol.

For the past three or so years I've been buying a bottle or two of liquor whenever I get paid. Since I get paid twice a month, you might guess I've accumulated quite a collection. You would be right.

It started when I decided it would be nice to have a few bottles to serve guests-- perhaps a bottle each of rum, whiskey, vodka, and tequila and a few mixers. I bought a cocktail shaker and proceeded to buy one of each.

There was only one problem-- I didn't stop.

So now I have, let's see, 65 bottles of assorted liquor. I can't believe it. I have eleven brands of bourbon, thee Canadian, two Irish, and five scotch whiskys, five types of rum, six nut liqueurs, and fruit liqueurs in lemon, orange, currant, raspberry, blackberry, pear, peach, plum, apple, and cherry (three different cherries!). I have vodka, tequila, ouzo,cognac, schnapps, aquavit (nasty stuff, that), absinthe, and a healthy assortment of bitters and flavorings.

Many bottles have intact seals; most of those I have opened were only for a smell and a taste. I've yet to empty or even half-empty a bottle, even of my favorites (crème de cassis and crème de mûre and amaretto). Some bottles may never be opened.

In pursuit of my collection I've learned a lot about liquor. I know the various types and the ways they are made. I know the difference between whisky and whiskey, a single malt and a blend, a pot still and a column still, what a peated scotch tastes like, what makes a bourbon a bourbon, why Tennessee whiskeys can't be called bourbon, and which countries are famous for what (Slovakian plum brandy, anyone?). When I go to the liquor store these days I almost always know more than the resident expert.

As hobbies go it's an innocent one, if expensive. I must admit to feeling as if I'm sitting on top of a powder box, though. What if a horde of near-alcoholic distant relations or acquaintances or a congregaton of neighbors converge on the house and I feel obliged to offer them a drink? It would be one hell of a drunk. Ringwood would be talking about it for decades.

Getting Legal

My then 18-year-old Miata in 2012 above Fontana Lake, NC

Changing my papers to reflect residence in New Jersey wasn't difficult. I spent a couple of hours at the DOT office in Oakland and left with a new license and tags for my car and two motorcycles. The difficulty came later, when I took my 1996 Miata for inspection.

I took my car to the private inspection station at the LukOil station in Wanaque-- or was it Haskell? I'm never sure where one town starts and other ends. To my surprise the car failed.

The reason wasn't out of bounds emissions but rather lack of communication with my car's computer. The man in charge told me the car had been disconnected from the battery.

The car had not in fact been disconnected from the battery, but my battery was five years old and due for replacement, so I ordered a replacement and installed it-- and new plugs and plug wires, since it had been a couple of years since I changed them. I drove the car around as the garage had suggested and took it back for reinspection-- same problem.

I drove to another private inspection station and got the same result. They suggested I have the computer rebooted by the dealer, so I did something I have never ever done in my life-- I took my car to a dealership. I told the service manager at Ramsey Mazda I wanted the computer rebooted and a explanation why oxygen, catalytic converter, and exhaust gas recirculation vale sensors were showing as offline.

The dealer kept my car over the long Memorial Day weekend and called me on Tuesday to tell me it was ready to be picked up. I had my sweetie drop me off on Wednesday morning. The clerk at the service desk told me the Miata needed oxygen sensors and a catalytic converter, to the tune of $1300.

Yeah, right. I paid only $2300 for the car.

I wasn't about to pay until someone explained what was going on with the computer, but the service manager was off and the person in charge was reluctant to let me speak with the mechanic. Initially I decided to sit in the waiting room until Heather got off work but I soon said the hell with that and kept pestering people until I got the name of the owner of the dealership. I called and left a message on his machine, and wouldn't you know it, within 15 minutes I was chatting with the mechanic while a nervous assistant service manager fidgeted and sweated.

I left satisfied with the mechanic's explanation-- the car needed at least one of the oxygen sensors replaced and the O2 sensor wouldn't report until it did-- and until the O2 sensors were functioning the sensors down the line (oxygen sensor heater, catalytic converter, EGR) would also show as incomplete.

In other words, the service manager had lied to me. It was entirely possible my car needed a new catalytic converter, but that couldn't be determined until the oxygen sensors were replaced.

I paid and left. When I got home I went online and ordered two Bosch oxygen sensors. The forward sensor was less than $35. I could have gotten a generic rear sensor for the same price, but opted to pay a little over $100 for a sensor that wouldn't require splicing wires.

Two days later the sensors arrived at the house. I called Community Auto Repair in Wanaque and scheduled repair for the next morning. They installed the new sensors while I waited.

Surprisingly, the car ran better with the new sensors. Definitely, one of them had been bad.

I put the car through a drive cycle. If you don't know what a drive cycle is, it's a series of maneuvers that will force the computer to do all its checks and turn the sensors on. It consists of things like revving the engine to 2300-2700 rpm for 20 seconds and 4300-4700 rpm for twenty seconds, driving for three minutes at 50-55 mph,  driving 13 minutes at speeds between 15 and 35 mph, and driving at exactly 25 mph for three minutes. That's not exactly easy on high speed roads, so I took the car down Long Meadow Road and annoyed a lot of van drivers bringing volunteer workers to the Jehovah's Witnesses world headquarters complex being built just a mile or so from Sterling Mine Road.

After the drive cycle the O2 sensors reported ready. How did I know that? I had ordered a code reader from Amazon. It was easy to plug it in and check the status of my car's computer. The O2 warmers and catalytic converter sensors also read ready, but unfortunately the EGR was still offline.

I had no idea what an EGR was, so I read up on it when I got home. The valve could be cleaned, but since my car has 135k miles I thought it might be a good idea to order a new one at a price just above $100. Then I said the hell with it and ordered a new catalytic converter, which also cost just a little more than $100.

When the parts arrived I had Community Auto Repair install them and put the car through a drive cycle. When the sensors all showed ready status I took the car back to the LukOil, turned it off, and read the codes so I would be positive the car was ready for testing.

To my surprise, the car again failed, and for the same reason-- plugging the official code reader in had cleared the computer.

That meant another couple of damn drive cycles to get the computer to update-- and it meant going back to the drawing board.

I called the DOT and was told to take my car to a licensed emission repair facility. If the computer was unreadable there they could do some paperwork and I could apply for an exemption. I figured that meant my car would get a tailpipe probe, but that didn't worry me. The check engine light was off and the car had no codes and the sensors were all online. And so I took my car to the Sunoco station on Franklin Avenue in Mahwah and told them my woes. The very nice man who worked on my car did a capture of the computer readings to verify everything was as it should be, then said "Hold your breath" and did the official inspection. To my surprise, and his, the computer retained its settings and my Miata passed inspection. I now have a huge ugly New Jersey inspection sticker on the inside of the lower driver's side windshield of my car.

I gave the inspection guy two cinnamon sugar cake donuts from Antie El's Market in Sloatsburg.

How it Started

Sweethearts in the virtual World Second Life.

Before this year my life was spent in warmer climes. I lived at various times in North Carolina, Arizona,Tennessee, Georgia, and, for four years, Orleans, France. It snowed in all those places, but not much, and when it did the snow didn't stick around for more than a few days. Winters had plenty of mild shirtsleeve days (some places more than others), and Novembers and Marches were pleasant.

I had heard plenty about the weather in the Northeast, and I wanted none of it. I didn't think any force on earth could move me above the Mason-Dixon line. I especially wanted to avoid New Jersey. Somehow the state just rubbed me the wrong way.I was never sure just why. The draconian gun laws? Definitely. The pollution? That was certainly part of it. The Mafia? Ditto. The political corruption? That too. Chris Christie? The icing on the don't move to Jersey cake.

And yet here I am.

It all began in 2006 when I met my now spouse when I was exploring the virtual world Second Life. For those who don't know what Second Life is, imagine the real world crammed onto your computer screen with all the opportunities to socialize, make money, build things, fall in love, and make a nuisance of yourself. Only you can fly. And teleport. That's Second Life.

I had had no intention of falling in love when I came to Second Life, but I did. And yes, with an avatar. The emotions were real enough. We met in SL in November 2006 and in Philadelphia (the real Philadelphia) in March 2007.  Before long I was spending all my vacation days in Rockland County NY.

My partner was Exuberance. That's her avatar's name. Her real name is Heather. My avatar's name is Cheyenne. My real name is Dallas (one city name is as good as another). We had ongoing wonderful adventures in Second Life and in real life we got to know one another more intimately.

In 2009 I had the opportunity of retiring from my job of 20 years, and I took it. I spent the next four months with Heather in Sloatsburg, and after that was back and forth for a month-and-a-half at the time.

I had hoped I could talk Heather into moving to Atlanta, where I had a sweet little (paid for) cottage on a lake in Atlanta. As she rocketed up the career ladder at her job I realized that with me retired my nefarious made little sense, and we started looking for a house to buy.

Houses were more expensive then, and in our price range there were only disasters-- homes with black mold, homes that were falling down, homes that had been gutted, homes with no parking space, and one memorable house on top of a hill that broke Heather's car when we tried to get to it.

We were looking further and further up the Hudson Valley (which would have meant a hella long daily commute for Heather) and at parts of New Jersey where I really didn't want to live. In the meantime we were visiting the New Jersey Botanical Gardens and thinking how nice it would be to live in Ringwood, in the Skylands less than ten miles from Heather's place of employment.

Finally, we found our house.

We went through the usual real estate paperwork hell and we moved Heather into the house in November. I drove back to Atlanta and sold my house to the first couple who looked at it. I didn't even get to the hire a real estate agent place; I just told people I would be selling and word of mouth did it well.

I left Georgia at noon on January 27th with the top down and sandals on my feet. I arrived in Ringwood at 9 pm on the 28th; it was six degrees and the wind was howling. The top of my car was up, of course,and I had stopped in Pennsylvania to put on closed-toed shoes, but I nonetheless nearly froze to death just unpacking my car. I had arrived just in time for the worst winter in years.

So now I've been in NJ for almost five months and am belatedly turning my attention to this neglected blog. I had hoped to document things as they happened, but I've given up on that and will just fly by the seat of my pants from now on. I'll post about my experiences as a person new to New Jersey and will talk from time to time about grits, which I miss. The Ringwood Luncheonette would be perfect if it only served them.

Oh-- we took time off amidst the confusion of new home ownership to get married. We were wed on April 23rd.

A Ladder to the Basement

  

Every old house has its flaws, and our house is no exception.

Show above is a top view of the new stair to our basement.

Here's a three-quarter view from the bottom:

Winter at Ringwood State Park

The fog started in Sloatsburg...

... and stayed with us as we followed Sterling Mine Road into Ringwood.

 We decided to take a cruise through Ringwood State Park.

Shopping Cart Traffic Jam

A few days after my arrival in New Jersey Heather and I made a run to Home Depot to pick up several hundred pounds of salt. I was taken by this pile-up of carts.

Six Damn Degrees

I understand this is probably not the best way to launch this blog, but really! Six degrees on March 6?

I will be forever thankful I stopped in Pennsylvania and changed my sandals for closed-toed shoes.

That's because when I arrived in Ringwood it was six damn degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was howling. I nearly froze to death just unloading my car.

Hello, New Jersey style!

That was January 30th. It's now the end of the first week of March. It's eight in the morning and it's the same six degrees and it won't go above freezing today. In Atlanta, where I wore open-toed shoes and short-sleeved tops all year long, the high will be a sweltering fifty degrees.

I understand it's been the worst winter in living memory, but WTF, New Jersey? This is the welcome you have for me?

I did not know what an ice dam was before I got here. Now I know. There's a half-ton of ice frozen atop our gutters, threatening to come down on our heads and oh yes, flood the house when it finally starts to melt.

I had never had my hands on a snow shovel. When it snowed in Atlanta, which it does on occasion, I would just wait until noon and the roads and my driveway would be clear. In New Jersey I have become intimately acquainted with that implement of destruction, and with the ice scraper I carried in my cars for twenty-five years and never used. I have learned to wear gloves, and a hat that covers my ears, and even scarves, which I have never worn in my life.

It's not that I'm complaining. Really, I'm not... Oh, wait! Yes I am. I am complaining! Do people really endure this every winter? Must I go through this again next winter, and the winter after that?

Spring will be here in two short weeks. I know today will be the last day of really cold weather-- but damn you, jet stream!

Why the Title?

With the exception of four years in France and two in Arizona (both when I was a child), I have always lived in the American South. On January 30th, 2015, I moved to Ringwood, New Jersey. This blog chronicles my adventures and feelings about my relocation to the Northeast.

Grits are a staple in the South and always played a role in my breakfasts. Every restaurant serves them. They're difficult to find in restaurants and diners the northeast, and even more difficult to find in a form that's possible to eat. And so I have named this blog No Grits for You!

If you ever saw the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld you'll know where the title came from.