Bill Roper's Journal

Sometime during our vacation, Julie started complaining that the cable on her headphones was going bad and wanted to know if I could fix it. I was extremely skeptical about this, because fixing a headphone cable is usually a nightmare. On the other hand, replacing an inexpensive pair of headphones is usually a breeze. Just call Amazon.

In fact, if I had ordered these headphones through Amazon, I could maybe find the exact make that I'd ordered for Julie before. This would be good, because Julie hates it when things get changed on her. I looked and found a set of likely looking headphones in my order history and called her over to take a look at them.

Nope. Wrong headphones. Well, heck.

Then she pointed further up on the screen to a set of Bluetooth headphones. "Those are the ones."

"What? Those are Bluetooth headphones. They don't have a cable."

And she brought me the headphones and showed me that -- although the headphones can certainly connect via Bluetooth! -- there is a mini-stereo plug that will accept a cable so you can plug them in.

Oh. That's very different. Never mind.

So I have now ordered a new eight-foot mini-stereo cable for the headphones. It should arrive tomorrow and all will be right with the world.

Meanwhile, the two new hard drives that I plugged into the NAS? The NAS is still valiantly working to incorporate them into the RAID array.

Maybe it will finish tomorrow before the new headphone cable arrives.

But I would not bet on it.

I was reading Erica's post and it reminded me that I had intended to post this story, so...

The handle wrap on K's softball bat is wearing thin in spots and she really wanted the bat rewrapped. I haven't done this before, but I figured it couldn't be too difficult, so I went on Amazon, found more varieties of bat wrap than I would have believed existed, ordered something suitable, and waited for it to make its Tuesday arrival.

The delivery notice showed up on my phone. There was an Amazon package on the porch, but it was for Gretchen, not for me. Huh. I brought Gretchen's package in. I checked my delivery record. Yes, my package was marked as delivered. Well, better report that.

While I'm sending through the non-delivery notice on the phone, I go back to the porch. And I realize that there is an envelope tucked in underneath the thick yew hedge. It is K's bat wrap. And what is that behind it?

With some help from Julie, I retrieved a second Amazon package from deep beneath the yew hedge. The date on the package was 12/22. It had taken substantial water damage from having been outside for nearly six months. I opened it up and there was the guitar tuner that I had bought for Julie for Christmas that I assumed that I must have misplaced among the stack of packages that I'd hauled into the house.

Nope. Under the hedge.

I had a nice support chat with Amazon, where I suggested that this was not a good place to put packages. I have gotten a $5 credit for my trouble.

I guess I need to look under the hedge more often.