BaLtiMoRe RoLL

WeAtheR FoRecAst

Hm, this doesn't look good. Yes, the wedding is on Saturday. And yes, it is outdoors.

Then again, a few days ago Saturday was looking good. There are a few days left, so maybe the rain will get pushed back even further.

No matter, there will still be dancing and good food and fun. Still, it would be nice if it wasn't pouring...

eBay ScamS

eBay is a fascinating world of scams. I am sure I have only scratched the surface, but you don't have to go deep to find them.

So far I've gotten two questions on my item that address statements that are CLEARLY made in my listing. The first one was asking about this statement: "The price of the item ... must be paid with PayPal in US $ with verified account and confirmed address only." The question was: "Would you accept payment in the form of an International Money Order in US Dollars as I do not use electronic payment methods. Thank you."

Okay, that's an easy one. I responded publically in the questions area, "Unfortunately I cannot accept an International Money Order."

Tonight I got another question. I guess the person was confused about this statement: "This item will ship to your PayPal confirmed address only." The question was, "Hi There; I'm really interested in this camera.Roughly how old is the camera and has it had extensive use or only sporadically.Would u ship the camera as a gift to Canada? Regards Carey"

Right, that sounds legit. This time I didn't respond publically, but wrote back, "For your protection and mine, I can only ship to the address on your credit card bill or Paypal account. The camera was purchased in November 2004 and has been used on a regular basis."

Silly people.

It probably doesn't help that I have almost no buying history on eBay and this is the first time I've ever sold anything. I'm guessing I make a good target. And, in fact, part of me does want to believe the best in these people. I actually had to look up the question about shipping to another address to see whether that was a scam or not, because I couldn't imagine how it would work. (Turns out it's pretty easy, if you're into that kind of thing.) I just need to remember to stick to the rules I put in the listing, no matter how nice someone sounds. I'm guessing that using my own imagination as a criteria to determine whether someone could possibly fraud me isn't even going to come close to all the schemes people have come up with.

WhEn ThE TimE Is RigHt

I have been waiting to sell my camera and buy a dSLR in its place - waiting for a specific moment, either when the planets are perfectly aligned so as to make the sale of my old camera practically pay for the new one, or in such time as I was able to afford the new camera all on its own. Well, affording the new camera is still a good way off. The unforeseeable future, as it were.

But the planets, on the other hand, may be falling into line. My camera has recently been discontinued and Canon has not released an updated version, so it seems to have created some demand. The price that it's selling for on eBay is now consistently a couple hundred higher than it was just a few months ago.

On the other front, the camera I want has a $100 rebate on it through July 15th, making it the cheapest I have seen it.

If I want to do this trade in, now is the time. So I've listed my camera on eBay. I tried to make my camera stand out from the other ones being sold, so in addition to including extra memory and a nice camera bag, I offered a free 8x10 matted print. It's probably silly, but I am hoping it is just intriguing enough to encourage higher bidding. :)

In the meantime, I'm watching all the other sales that are taking place. Just yesterday, I saw one go for $676 and another cap out at $455 and not even reach its reserve. The difference in what was bundled with the camera was pretty minimal, but the listings were drastically different. The one that sold sounded like it was from someone who legitimately had a like-new camera, whereas the other just listed a few lines about the camera's specs and threw up a blurry picture of the camera box or something.

It's fascinating to watch the bid history on these items. I just don't have enough experience with eBay to understand bidding strategy. What is the point of bidding on an item days before the auction ends? Are people trying to increase the cost of the item? Or do they think they're staking their claim on the item and it tells other buyers to back off because it will just turn into a bidding war? Well, I don't really care as long as my item sells. Right now it's up to $200 with 18 people watching it. Is that good for an item with three days left? It seems like most items get some early bids on the first day, a few bids over the next few days, and then there's a rash of bidding at the end.

If, in the end, I don't reach my reserve price, I will be disappointed, but hopefully the demand for my camera will continue to increase and I can try to sell it again in the future. Also, Canon may come out with a third new Digital Rebel in September, so it will be interesting to see what they offer and how it affects sales of the current Digital Rebel...

Of CraYons and CrowNs

Wow, I knew about crayon being pronounced as either "crayon" or "cran", but I never heard "crown" until now. Listen to it!

It's JuSt LikE A SanD Box!

We were bad cat parents again this past week with regard to keeping the litter box clean, and Tako (the runt cat) let us know by threatening to pee on J's leather jacket. He meowed up at me, dug at the coat, and then crouched over it before I realized what he was doing and sprang into action.

So J suggested that we should not use the cover of the litter box anymore so that we will always see whether it needs to be cleaned and we can't overlook it. I really don't like this plan because we're already getting litter everywhere, but I agree that we have to do something to be better about this. At least until we move and settle into a new routine, I think it's best if we get all the reminders we can (visual, scent, whatever).

Well, Tako is thrilled to pieces about his new clean and open litter box. He's so happy, in fact, that he hangs out in there. In the past few hours I've seen him use it as a hiding place from which to launch an attack on Koji, as well as just a place to curl up in and rest. I'm hoping this doesn't become a habit...

Bees and Shoes and a Crisis of Conscience

One day I will blog more frequently. I promise. In the meantime, here is a random photo of a bee.

Canon Digital Rebel 300D, Sigma 55-200, 200mm (320mm equiv),
1/250 sec, F/5.6, ISO-100

(I've still got Chiaroscuro's Digital Rebel and I've literally been taking pictures of anything that moves.)

And for those of you dying for an update on my shoes (I'm sure you've been eagerly waiting to hear the outcome of that fascinating saga), I did finally find some wedding shoes. I debated between these $12.99 white strappy sandals from Payless and these (size 5) $88.95 ivory wedge heels (shown there in bronze, but I got them in an taupe/ivory color that they don't seem to be showing) from Nordstrom. I stood in the Payless shoes for a long time, really thinking about the virtue of $12.99 shoes. $12.99!! But they had very hard soles. And my legs grew tired within the ten minutes I was wearing them. I just couldn't go through with it. So I went back to Nordstrom, prepared to spend more than half the cost of my dress just on shoes. I figured that if I changed my mind I could just return them, but if I decided to keep them then I would have them. Still somewhat tortured over this decision, I went back to Nordstrom's. I told them I wanted the shoes I put on hold, they showed them to me to make sure they were the right ones, rang them up, and said, "that will be $60."

Now in retrospect I feel kind of bad about the decision I made in that moment, which was to say nothing about the $30 difference in cost between what the shoes were marked as and what they were charging me. I just handed over my credit card and paid the $60.

I have been wearing the shoes all day today at home and I have to say, they are very comfortable. I don't think I've ever worn such comfortable dress shoes.

But I am still debating about whether I should have told the sales person that the shoes were really supposed to cost $30 more. Should I go back and tell them? Did I essentially rob them of $30? My broke bank account wants to take a Robin Hood attitude about this, but in my head there is the nagging feeling that it's not up to me to decide that it's ok if they make an error. Then again, it's not like I threw $60 on the counter and ran off with the shoes before they could do anything about it...

And I am tortured about putting this on my blog. What if you all say I should go back to the store? Will I really go back? And what if you say that I shouldn't go back? Will I feel better about it? (And what if you say nothing at all and I have to figure this out on my own?)

Size 5 1/2

My mom is stressing because there are only 25 days until the wedding and she still has to alter my dress, make her own outfit, and sew a wrap for my sister. J is stressing because he is finishing up a draft of his dissertation today (yes, he totally lapped me). And I am stressing because I'm trying to work on my dissertation while simultaneously worrying about wedding stuff and right now the wedding stuff tends to win out (what with the whole only 25 days left bit). Even though a lot is done, there are still things that I need to do. Like if I stopped right now, I would have go barefoot.

And oh, the hassle of shoe shopping. My feet are half a size too small to be considered an "adult" size. Most shoe stores offer sizes 6 and up, and I am a 5 1/2. Even if they carry 5 1/2, it doesn't mean they'll have it for the particular shoe I want. In real life (not wedding shopping) I have to admit that I have simply given up and I shop at Payless. This is because they have a (small) section of size 5 1/2, but they have a second "secret" section of shoes that are the exact same size as 5 1/2, but they call them something else. They call them children's shoes - size 4. (I have no idea why those sizes don't line up with the adult sizes, but they don't.) I have long since gotten over my embarrassment of shopping among 12-year-olds. After all, I'm already in Payless buying cheap plastic shoes. All it means is that I have to step over the toddlers in the aisle around me and pick through the pink plastic shoes and the ones that would be really cute if only they weren't adorned with butterflies. So combine my already difficult task of finding age-appropriate shoes with having to find nice, ivory dress shoes that aren't little torture devices with high spiky heels, and it becomes near impossible.

I finally found some espadrilles in Burlington Coat Factory, but they didn't have my size. (Of course.) Well, if I wanted them in bright, bright blue they had my size. But not if I wanted them in ivory. So I talked to a sales associate who acted like I had asked her to make me a pair of shoes herself by hand. All I wanted was for someone to call around to other stores (or look in their database, but they seemed to imply that they weren't up to this level of technology and communication yet). She told me that she could do it (big sigh), but I would have to pay $5.50 for them to get them shipped to their store. Given that they were only $15 to begin with, I figured an additional $5.50 would be worth it if they could find them. And anyway, I really doubted that she was going to call more than one store before giving up. I suspect that's what happened, because I never heard from her. I've since found the shoes on Amazon, but again no smaller than size 6. So... I have to continue to look for shoes and I can't tell you how much I am done with this. If I had tougher feet, I really think I would just go barefoot. It would be so much easier.

But at the same time, planning a wedding has been fun in lots of ways. On Friday we met with the caterer to taste some food and pick what we want to serve, and wow... we are going to have some good food.

I've also spent a lot of time with my family lately. In fact, it's Tuesday, and I'm still at home! My sister was here this weekend, and J and I aren't planning to leave until tomorrow. (If we didn't have this wedding to plan, I am sure we wouldn't be here right now. But we are here, and it's very nice!)

So really, in the whole scheme of things, shoes are a small, small thing. (Literally.)