"Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult." - Charlotte Whitton

They think they're going to pick it up??

I'm totally exhausted and my body hurts all over. I spent eight hours swinging a pick ax and tossing the worthless ground up into the wheelbarrow for emptying onto the pile that now holds at least two square yards.
I did have to take a break to make a Home Depot run. One of the fist-size rocks I hit split the wood handle of the pick ax so I had to get another. This one with a fiberglass handle.
Another two or three hours of work should have the hole finished. I may have to make some minor adjustments to its dimensions but the end of this stage is in sight.

I got a haircut yesterday at the tonsorial equivalent of Quick Lube. I honestly don't know the name of the place. It's one of the haircut chains and I go there for a quick and easy haircut. Given my hair and the head on which it sits anything beyond the minimum is throwing good money after bad. Which is why I never know what to say when they ask, "How do you want it cut today?" A: Shorter. At the end they ask, "How does that look?" A: Shorter. Hey, it's not like their going to turn me into Chris Collinsworth, and I've long since decided not to worry, or barely care about my haircut.
But I did notice that sometime during the last month the price has gone from $14 to $16. That surprised this (cheap) Scot. I may have to go back to the self-administered buzz cut.
I know I'm supposed to tip. I know that because the line on the debit card receipt under the new, higher amount and just above the signature line says, "tip." But I don't know what an appropriate tip is for a basic haircut. Help here?

How long should it take before Jack's output changes as a result of the new input? It hasn't happened yet, three meals later.

In an effort to save money - and pay for those expensive haircuts - we're thinking about dumping our land line. My mother-in-law and politicians are the only people who ever call us on it. We have bundling with Cox, which provides our phone, cable TV and internet for $127 per month. We can't get internet through Qwest or other options because they aren't out here in the far NW valley, so we have to stick with Cox for that, which by itself would cost us $47 per month. If we drop the land line and switch to DirectTV - one level up from the most basic service (gotta have Speed TV) - we'd save something like $32 a month AND get more (sports) channels.
I say "something like" because talking to a DirectTV rep was like getting hustled by a carney. In fact, at one point in the conversation I stopped him and said, "I'm getting the feeling I'm being played." I think it had something to do with the phrase, "This is a great deal for you, Kreg" which he repeated every third sentence.
I had been to their web site and knew what I wanted and what it should cost. But his rapid fire spiel seemed to include additional charges each month for...I'm not sure what. It went by too quickly to understand. When I told him I had the information I was looking for (I didn't but I could see this going on WAY too long) he asked if I'd hold for about 15 seconds. Thirty seconds later another voice comes on and he introduces himself as a supervisor. He then starts in with the same script the first guy was working off of.
I hung up on him.

Seriously? Is this they way you guys want to run your business? I'm going to give this one more try and then I'll drop DirectTV from consideration. If getting in goes like this what will customer service be like? And what will my bill be?

But I'm not calling back tonight. I so tired I'd end up agreeing to whatever they were pushing because, "This is a great deal for you, Kreg."