Home Work: Mugs and Colors

We've been spending some time over the past few months doing some sprucing up around the SAR homestead. This has been a multifaceted endeavor, entailing everything from evaluating our assortment of drinking glasses and coffee mugs, to adding a couple of new pieces of storage furniture, to rearranging some of our living space.

It started innocently enough: I was in search of a replacement for one of our small Fiestaware plates that had gone missing. My Virgo mind likes order, and it bothered me that we had an odd number of small plates, but an even number of dinner plates and bowls. Also, it just bothered me that I couldn't find the other plate, or determine what had become of it.

We got quite a bit of Fiestaware as wedding gifts; we had chosen cobalt as the color we wanted and put it on our registry. (As an aside, I should point out that I was the one who chose most of the items on our registry, and subsequently was the one who went to the store and walked around with the scanner gun, because the Mrs. just wasn't interested.)

Eventually I clicked my way to the direct-sale website of Homer Laughlin, the company that has manufactured Fiestaware in Newell, West Virginia since 1936 (production ceased in late 1972, but was revived in 1986). I decided that it didn't make sense to order just one small plate, so I added two more dinner plates, which would allow us to stretch our dishwasher cycle a bit.

Before I finalized my order, I looked around the rest of the site. All the mugs that had come with the place settings had long been banished to the top shelf of our cupboard; we never use them, because they are kind of small and almost all our other mugs are around 15 ounces or larger. We'd recently had a conversation about getting rid of them, giving them to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Online I saw a newer, tapered mug design that I was not familiar with, in a 15-ounce size. I eyed the color choices, liking several of them. I added a few to my order.

A day or so later, I found myself thinking about the mugs that were on their way along with the plates. I wanted more colors of them. I found a big home sale going on at JCPenney, and with various discounts was able to order several more for around $9 each. A week or so later, everything had arrived and we had eight Fiestaware mugs in eight different colors: scarlet, slate, lapis, ivory, sage, lemongrass, poppy, and turquoise. I didn't get one in cobalt to match the plates and bowls, because I see the mugs as their own thing, separate and distinct from our dinnerware. I suppose I could still order one, but that would leave us with an odd number...

(Fiestaware is and has always been an American-made product, from a company still in the hands of family descended from its founders. Keep that in mind next time you're thinking about buying dinnerware, either for yourself or as a gift.)

Geography and Convenience

We've been going to Trader Joe's since the store on Memorial Drive opened in... 1999? I'm not exactly sure when it opened, but it was quite a while ago. I even worked there for the better part of a year. There are now 18 stores in Massachusetts (plus two in southern New Hampshire and one in Rhode Island), but we've never managed to get a store closer to where we live. Sometimes we go to the TJ's on route 1 in Saugus, not because it's closer or more convenient but because it's an easier drive from our house, compared to driving through Somerville and Cambridge's always-terrible traffic.

But then a couple of months ago, it was announced that Trader Joe's would be opening a store next year in the Assembly Row complex in Somerville that is roughly two miles from our house. (Our previous residence in Somerville was technically within walking distance of Assembly Square/Row, but it was a bit treacherous to get there.) The newer buildings that were constructed a few years ago were set up for smaller retail and don't have the amount of floor space required for a grocery store, even one like TJ's that's quite a bit smaller than a modern supermarket.

But the older part of the complex, which at one time was a traditional enclosed mall and, long before that, a Ford auto assembly plant (hence the name), is composed of medium-size floor plates and currently occupied by stores like Staples, TJ Maxx/Home Goods, AC Moore, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Christmas Tree Shops. A vacancy came about due to the demise of the Sports Authority chain. I have no idea how Trader Joe's secured the space, but someone must have had someone else on speed dial because it seemed to fall into place pretty quickly after the Sports Authority liquidation and closings were announced.

We've been going to the movies at Assembly Row since the AMC theater opened there, and the popularity of the complex has brought plenty of traffic. It's all right on the surrounding roads, but within the complex itself things can get chaotic. I imagine this will only get worse when the Trader Joe's opens, but I am hoping that Somerville will allow this store to be open until 10 pm like the ones in Brookline and Cambridge (most close at 9). That would give us some flexibility in when we shop and might help us avoid some congestion.

There's also a grocery-related development happening here in Medford. The Wegmans chain, based in Rochester, NY, has been growing quite a bit over the past decade and currently has four stores in MA. They distinguish themselves from competitors by building enormous stores (100,000 square feet is not unusual) with huge prepared-food sections, a response to our culture's desire for greater convenience. Wegmans has agreed to open a store at the site of the Meadow Glen Mall on route 16, about a mile from our house (and closer than the nearest Whole Foods).

The mall was awful, mostly empty with a few tired, sad stores kept afloat by a Kohl's on one end and a Marshalls on the other. (It was used by some seniors for indoor walking, and I don't know where they will go now for their exercise.) The property owners arrived at an interesting solution: the anchor stores have remained and are open while the middle section of the mall building has been demolished, and the Wegmans is going to be built in its place. We have heard that the store will open next year, but the Wegmans website lists it as TBD.

Meanwhile we have made a couple of visits to the closest open store, in Burlington, to sample the offerings. While not life-changing, they were certainly tasty, no more expensive than comparable items one might purchase elsewhere, and the staff were uniformly very pleasant and helpful. (The chocolate-chunk cookies with pecans are worth a repeat visit.)

Again it will be interesting to see how traffic is affected; there is also a proposal for an almost 500-unit apartment complex to be built on land directly across the street from the mall property (ironically, there used to be a Shaw's supermarket there). Neighbors have protested that the housing development would be too dense for the size of the property, and the Wegmans is likely to add significantly to traffic in and out of the area.

The Wegmans was announced first, but the Trader Joe's seems more likely to open first. Either way, upon hearing of the latter the Mrs. responded, "I guess we can never move." That remains to be seen...

Hey, There

A few times over the past couple of weeks, I've wanted to post but felt like I didn't have enough to say to justify it. At the moment I'm almost ready to head off to bed, but a few thoughts are swimming around and I can probably turn them into small bits.

My work continues more or less the same, though my employer has allowed me to shift my hours so that my work day now finishes at 6 pm instead of 7. While I did like having time in the morning to accomplish certain things like paying bills, drinking coffee and eating breakfast, and catching up with my online reading, I much prefer being done earlier and having that time free in the evening. So that's something.

Outlet shopping ain't what it used to be. On Sunday of Memorial Day weekend we visited Freeport, Maine, the home of L.L. Bean. We hadn't been there for a number of years and I kind of bugged the Mrs. into going. Even though we have Bean stores around here now, it's always fun to visit the original, but aside from that it wasn't a very exciting day. I didn't see anything in the stores that interested me much; part of that is just what's available at a given time, part is that outlets serve a different function than they used to; and part is that my tastes and preferences have shifted somewhat, and I also try to think more carefully before making purchases. Truthfully, my shopping urges could have been satisfied at the Kittery outlets, which are an hour closer than Freeport.

The weather cooperated; the day before it was 96 here, but the day we went it barely managed to hit 60. We did stop for dinner at the Portsmouth Brewery, which is always a good idea; they take the food as seriously as they do their beer. And following dinner we made our way over to Annabelle's Ice Cream, which I first visited over 30 years ago. It's still in the same place, and as far as I can tell it hasn't changed at all.

New Hardware

Over the past several months, we've been making some hardware upgrades here at SAR Studios (a wholly owned subsidiary of Chaos Productions Ltd.*), in order to serve you ourselves better. I've been fortunate that I have not had to deal with any significant computer issues, as some of my friends have. But as time passes, even solid equipment can become obsolete.

For most of last year I was hounded by my cable company (whose name rhymes with Bombast) about my cable modem, which was at least a decade old. I was warned repeatedly that my modem had reached "end of life" status. What that meant, exactly, was not clear; it still worked, but there was an ominous suggestion that there would come a time when the company might no longer support it. I had chosen to purchase the modem in order to avoid an indefinite monthly fee, so it was up to me to acquire a replacement.

I'd happened to read an article on The Wirecutter (a useful and highly recommended site) on this very topic, and based on their advice I decided to purchase what was basically a several-generations-newer version of what I had. The going price at the time was around $90, but in September I was able to purchase a refurbished model for $50, which was more in line with what I wanted to spend.

The next step was my wireless router, which I'd had at least as long as the cable modem, or maybe even longer. All the devices we're using on our wireless network are capable of faster speeds than the router could provide, so a couple of months later I found another deal on an Apple AirPort base station (what Apple insists on calling its routers). Replacing a router in an existing home network is a bit further beyond the level of tech stuff than what I'm used to, so I invoked the assistance of my old college friend Dr. Hackenbush, who resides far from here in a land of pickup trucks and guns. Through the miracle of FaceTime he was able to guide me through the process (thanks again, Dr. H!), and I had the network cruising along again in a couple of hours.

That left my computer, an iMac with a 24" screen. It dated to 2008, and it had been my work computer until I left my job in 2012 (don't worry, we were allowed to take them with us as a "parting gift" of sorts). One of the first improvements one can make to an older computer is to add RAM. The iMac had 4 gigabytes of RAM out of a possible 6; why it wasn't built to allow expansion up to 8 is a question only Apple can answer, but it did not seem worth it to add only 2 more gigs.

New iMacs and Mac minis no longer have the option to add RAM after you've purchased the computer; you have to buy what you think you'll need, or risk having programs run more and more slowly years down the road. Of course, Apple charges a premium for this: to double the RAM in a new Mac from 8 gb to 16 adds $200. I found a new, unsold 2013 iMac, the last model with user-upgradeable RAM, that also had the latest, fastest wi-fi standard that my new router supports, along with a faster-spinning hard drive and the larger 27" screen size I wanted. That ended up being my Christmas present to myself. Doubling the RAM and installing it myself was $45 instead of $200.

Next time, I'll tell you about what happens when you move from an older Mac to a newer one, or rather, what's supposed to happen.

(*Those of you who have known me the longest will likely recall the genesis of the Chaos brand; no slight is meant to any other readers, and perhaps I'll go into some details and dig into the "archives" at some point.)

Checks and Layers

Some of you who've been hanging around for a while may remember a few years back my interest in a buffalo-plaid wool shirt that J. Crew was selling under its Wallace & Barnes sub-brand. I thought it was rather overpriced, and even after it went on sale, I could not find my size available. I consoled myself with a vintage Woolrich shirt that I found on eBay, but it never quite satisfied me, because unfortunately I have a problem with being satisfied. (That's something we probably don't need to get into here...)

Eventually the item sold out. Jump to this fall, and it's back (if it's not the exact same item, it's very, very close), and at a slightly lower but still somewhat overly ambitious $148. (I'm not a retailing expert, but J. Crew's aspirational pricing is probably a significant factor in their recent struggles.) For the sake of comparison, the traditional Woolrich buffalo plaid shirt is currently selling for $119, though they have gone and ruined it with that light blue inner collar lining, perhaps to drive customers to the more recent made-in-USA version, which is going for $195.

Or, if all of those are too rich for your blood, you could head over to your local Old Navy (or visit online) for a much more reasonably priced facsimile. At its $50 "regular" price, this is kind of a no-brainer, though it's very easy to get it for less during one of their many sales; I picked up one for half price during their pre-Thanksgiving sale. To be fair and accurate, their version is only 50% wool (the rest is polyester and "other fibers"), so it's going to pill a little more than a shirt with a higher wool content, but you wouldn't wear this next to your skin anyway (layering, right?) so you won't really feel the difference, and the fabric is substantial and heavy so it will provide some decent warmth.

I will say that in person, the red is slightly darker than it looks in the photos, and I find that a bit disappointing, but it's a trifle. I'm not sure how long this will last, but for $25 I'm going to wear the hell out of it.

A Denim Solution

After I wrote about the Levi's stitching thing recently, I was able to return them to a store (I'd ordered them online, which is why I didn't know the stitching color had been changed), where I found that many of the other shades the 505 is offered in have also had their stitching changed.

Disappointed, I returned them without exchanging for another pair. I wasn't sure what I was going to do; I thought I'd start by checking eBay for older pairs that hadn't been worn. But before I had a chance to do that, I happened to go to a Kohl's with the Mrs., who was looking for a piece of luggage small enough to take on planes.

I checked their Levi's too, but then I noticed that right next to them on the same wall were the store's house-brand jeans. The label said "regular fit" and they were clearly meant as an alternative to the 505. I had thought this particular brand was made only in "young men's" styles and washes, so I figured it was worth trying them on.

They fit exactly like 505's, and they're available in the same "dark stonewash" shade (which looks quite a bit lighter in the online image than it is in real life) that I've been buying for five years or so. (I have no interest in elaborately distressed washes or selvedge denim; the basic stuff works just fine for me.) And the best part is they have a "regular" price of $36 and are typically available for $20, which is half the cost of a pair of 505's.

I wasn't looking for these, but I'm glad I found them. I'll have to see how they hold up to wearing and washing; I'll post an update in a few months.

Undone by Stitching

One of the signs of getting older is developing a curmudgeonly disdain for change when it isn't strictly necessary. Part of this comes from the simple fact that by being around long enough, some things are inevitably going to change, and there's a certain percentage of those things that I will inevitably be unhappy about.

Levi's has done it to me again, meddling with something that didn't need changing. Years ago I stopped wearing their jeans because they elongated the stitching on the back pockets and I thought it looked bad. (A side benefit was that I got rid of a bunch of jeans that fit poorly and were unflattering.) Eventually the stitching was changed back to how it had looked previously, and I found that the basic 505 was the right style for me. I've been getting a pair every year or so, adding them to the rotation and getting rid of the oldest pair when it was no longer suitable for wear outside the house.

They haven't changed the fit, and they haven't changed the stitching—well, not the shape of it. But they have changed the color of it, at least on the "dark stonewash" color that I prefer. It wouldn't even be that bad, except that there are now two colors of stitching on this shade of the 505. The familiar brown-gold thread is still present, but on the pocket arcs and in a couple of other areas it's been changed to a lighter color, kind of tan or beige. If it were all that one color it might not bother me so much, but the stitching that holds the pockets to the pants is still the original color, so the lighter color is right next to it and it's impossible not to notice it. It looks terrible.

At this point in my life I'm not interested in again going through the trouble of finding another brand and style of jeans to wear. So now I have to go around to various stores that sell Levi's and see if any of them still happen to have older stock with the one-color stitching, or see if any of the other colors the jeans are offered in are an agreeable substitute.

Economy Brushing

When did toothbrushes get so expensive? I guess I haven't needed to buy one in a while. I get one at the dentist twice a year, and I know I'm supposed to replace it after three months. I think for some reason I got two toothbrushes on my last visit, and maybe I've been using the second one longer than I'm supposed to, but it seems like I haven't purchased a toothbrush in at least a year.

I knew I needed to replace it, so when we went to Target the other night to get some household things I hit the "oral care" aisle. The basic brushes were around $4, and some were $5. There were also multi-brush store-brand packages that I didn't want.

Down near the floor, in a bin instead of hanging on pegs, I found single-pack store-brand brushes. They were kind of unattractive but had soft bristles, which is more important than appearance. They were about $1.50 each, which is what I had in mind. (I have a tendency to lock into what certain things cost 10 or 20 years ago and think it should continue to cost only that much.) They had clear handles with colored accents.

Later at home I went to open the package, and noticed on the back that the brush was made in USA. This is the sort of commodity item that I'd given up expecting to find still made domestically, and it's kind of interesting to me that the least expensive toothbrush is the one made here. I'm quite certain those $4 brushes are made in China.

Dry Feet/Wet Feet

After this crazy and challenging winter we are benefiting from a change in the overall pattern. There have been no significant storms for at least a couple of weeks, and for the past several days temperatures have been on the high side of 40. In fact, today it topped 50. As a result the snow has begun melting in earnest, resulting in puddles everywhere.

As we transition from winter to spring, waterproof footwear is very much necessary. I have a pair of Merrell Moab "trail shoes" which are basically sneakers with rugged outdoor styling. When I bought them about five years ago I decided to get the waterproof version, which turned out to be a good idea. For the past couple of winters I have been wearing them as my dog-walking shoes in all but the coldest conditions, and also sometimes when I'm out shoveling snow, depending on how much snow has fallen; this year I wore my pull-on boots a lot more, since the snow was much deeper.

Many of the storms we got this winter lasted for two or three days, so often after clearing the deep snow I had to shovel again the next day, and I would wear the Merrells. On a couple of occasions I came in from working outside and found that my socks were wet. I didn't think much about it at the time, knowing that snow could have gotten in around my ankles. But then I noticed the same thing after walking through some puddles which weren't deep enough to let water in at the ankles.

Then last week I noticed a tear at the heel of one of the Merrells, where the pull-on strap attaches inside the back. I figured I would have to replace them next winter, so I started looking around online to see what's available. I happened to be browsing the shoe section on the L.L. Bean website and saw that they carry the shoes (I think I bought mine from Zappos). Then I noticed that several reviewers claim that the waterproofing wears off after a while, which was consistent with my experience this winter. Apparently Merrell's version of waterproofing in this instance consists of some sort of treatment for the materials, but it is not permanent.

A look at the shoes on Zappos showed similar complaints from reviewers. I also noticed that Merrell now offers a Gore-Tex version of the shoe. Gore-Tex is a different, and far more effective, method of waterproofing shoes or garments, in which a membrane is bonded to the materials during construction. It's also more expensive, as the process is trademarked, patented, or whatever; companies that want to make shoes or clothing with Gore-Tex have to pay a fee to the company that invented the membrane, and that cost gets passed on to customers in higher retail prices for those items.

The Gore-Tex Moabs are $30 more than the regular "waterproof" version, which is now about $20 higher than what I paid for mine five years ago, so I'd end up spending almost 50% more to get shoes that are really, truly, and (in theory) permanently waterproof. On the other hand, I suppose five years is a decent amount of time for the lesser form of waterproofing to last, and for the Moabs to last in general. I may still end up buying a pair of the Gore-Tex Merrells, since I like them in general and they are available in wide widths, but I will definitely be looking for other options as well.

Blizzard Prep

(Since I won't be going anywhere for a couple of days, I'll have plenty of time and Car Stuff will appear tomorrow.)

So the minor snowstorm we got on Saturday was kind of a distraction. We were all focused on it because the conditions made it unpredictable (snow changed to rain as temperatures increased, then back to snow after dark), and we ended up canceling plans to go to Rhode Island but I think travel would have been fine. Meanwhile, a monster storm was in the process of forming, and is now steaming our way.

The first flakes started falling around 1 pm, and three hours later nothing has accumulated. If we didn't know what was coming we'd probably be inclined to dismiss the reports. We've had a relatively snow-free winter so far; before Saturday's snow we'd had just a few dustings and I was able to clear the sidewalk and driveway with only a push broom. Also, our storms don't typically come this close together.

This one is making people nervous because there's the potential for two feet of snow, or maybe more. Those of us over a certain age have vivid memories of the Blizzard of '78, the one against which all subsequent storms are inevitably measured. We remember being stuck inside for days, waiting for plows to finally clear the streets. That storm caught people by surprise, and some part of us thinks it might happen again, so we have a tendency to get a little nutty before big storms.

Stuff starts to shut down. Stores already have signs that they won't be open Tuesday, which is just common sense. The T won't be running, and citizens are urged to stay home and off the roads, which again is common sense. You can't get stranded if you don't go out in the first place.(Update: the governor has issued a travel ban effective at midnight tonight.)

We'd been food shopping fairly recently so we didn't need much, but a quick trip to the nearby Super Stop & Shop was in order yesterday. We are not foolish enough to venture within a quarter-mile of a Market Basket when a storm is approaching, but the Stop & Shop was still as busy as I had ever seen it in nine years. I managed to find an express line with a relatively short wait. Today it's probably even busier.

I also happened to be in need of beer, which is almost as important during a blizzard as food. This afternoon I made a quick run down to the nearby Big Liquor Store, because the combination of proximity and reasonable prices made the most sense under the circumstances. They were also busy, but not like the supermarket. Beer math once again came into play, with the 18-pack costing only $1 more than the 12-pack (technically $1.30 more with the deposits). I wondered who buys the 12-packs, and the answer is probably "you should have, dummy" because I still had to carry my 18-pack and realized, too late, that it weighs 50% more than a 12-pack.

Cheap Can Be Okay

This is a pretty nice pattern for something from Old Navy, and it was cheap too—marked down to about $15. (I used the "soft flash" setting, and this pic is a pretty accurate representation of the colors, though the red and blue are both a bit darker in person.)

Buying inexpensive clothing is often a gamble. Will the fabric be too thin, or feel cheap? Will the cut be too baggy, or too slim (to save on wholesale costs)? Will the buttons fall off within two weeks? How will the details of construction compare to other clothes I already own?

In this case I was concerned about a couple of things, both of which turned out to be all right. I ordered this online and had not seen it in a store, so I didn't know how accurate the online images' color representation was. More importantly, a lot of the patterned shirts I've seen from Old Navy are not aligned to the center placket and buttonholes. This one is, or I would not have ordered it. It's easy enough to tell from online images.

It's one of those things that I've come to take for granted in clothing construction that isn't universally followed, again for cost reasons. It costs more to create such patterns, and it costs more in terms of fabric used for each garment. The collar is also cut so the pattern is centered, and sometimes you see instances of that not being the case either, like this shirt (also from Old Navy).

I thought this practice had been abandoned by all but the lowest-end manufacturers, but clearly that isn't so. I looked through my other shirts and found only one instance of it, on a short-sleeve summer shirt from Lands' End that I paid about $8 for on clearance maybe five years ago. But the original selling price on that shirt was probably around $40, and at that price I think most shoppers expect center-aligned pattern matching. Back in December I came across a shirt I really liked at Target, but it suffered from this same issue. I could not buy it because I know it would bother me every time I looked at it.

The other issue that concerned me was fit. About 80% of Old Navy's men's shirts are now described as "slim fit." The meaning of this can vary considerably depending on the brand and what other fits are offered. As it happens, I had tried on one of their shirts a few months ago in a store, specifically because I wanted to know how the fit had been changed, and a slim fit XL fits pretty much the same as most of the other shirts I currently have, regardless of what size they are or what fit they purport to have.

What I found interesting is that this XL "slim fit" is a more comfortable overall fit on me than J. Crew's XL "classic fit," which I've been buying and wearing for some time. The cut of the Old Navy shirt is just a bit more accommodating through the body, and the sleeves are just a bit shorter, enough to feel less gangly. (About 15 years ago, when the cut of J. Crew's shirts was a bit more friendly and I could buy them in size L, I used to work with a guy who turned back the cuffs of his J. Crew shirts halfway, because they were too long for his arms, whereas they were fine on mine. At the time I kind of made fun of him a little, but since I've been buying their more recent shirts I better understand what he was going through.)

This one comes out favorably in construction and details too. The fabric is a little thin, but no worse than J. Crew's "lightweight" shirts, and it's very soft. The collar is narrow, but Old Navy is just following the prevailing trend there. It has a back collar button, which is unexpected and appreciated, even if it's not strictly necessary (it's hard to imagine anyone wearing this shirt with a tie, but it could be done, though it would have to be a skinny tie). There's a center back pleat, buttons on the sleeve plackets, the bottom buttonhole is horizontal.

Overall it feels like Old Navy is definitely stepping up its game a little. Perhaps they've seen J. Crew coming downmarket into their territory with their Factory stores and wanted to meet the challenge more directly. Even at its original price of $30 I would have felt like this was a reasonably good deal, and I'm interested to see if they stick with these improvements.

Processing Your Request...

Yesterday I went and poked around in Macy's downtown, something I do only a couple of times a year these days. I figured after Christmas was a good time to go and see what might be on sale.

At one point I wanted to know what the final sale price of an item would come out to, so I went in search of a price scanner. Remember the fuss about those? It was probably close to a decade ago that the state required stores to install them as a means of ensuring consumers had access to accurate price information.

I went in search of a scanner, which seemed to be less common than they once were on the main floor at Macy's. When I found one, it was stuck on the "processing your request..." screen, with no apparent way to escape from it. I walked around the floor some more and found another scanner, which was displaying some sort of error message. There was a box to click "OK" just like on a computer screen, and since I'm now accustomed to touch screens I touched it.

I didn't think the scanners were set up to respond to touch input, but this one did something and eventually displayed what looked very much like a standard Windows operating system desktop, only much smaller and with only three or four icons. None of those appeared to grant access to the magic price-scanning function, so I again moved on.

I found two other scanners displaying their version of the Windows desktop, and never did find a working scanner, so at that point I gave up and left. So much for consumer assistance...

More or Less

I enjoy my tech gadgets, but I'm not usually the person who has to have the thing before everyone else. When I get a new phone, I don't load up on all the extras at the phone store. I prefer to wait and see what my needs are, and maybe I'll happen to read about an interesting product that's being funded through Kickstarter (which is how I ended up with my Elevation Dock).

I've never had a car charger for my iPhone. I don't drive, and most of the time we're in the car, we aren't going more than a few miles from home, and I don't use the phone to stream music or anything like that. But lately I've noticed that using Google Maps in the car, even just to check traffic conditions, puts a heavy drain on the phone's battery, and during our last couple of overnight trips to Rhode Island my battery was below 15% by the time we got home, so I thought it might be a good idea to get a car charger.

I figured the Apple-branded charger would be overpriced and I wasn't wrong, so I started looking at some of the other accessory brands that have been making Apple-compatible products for a while. I looked through some products when I happened to be at a Staples and found that most of the car chargers they were selling were priced at $25 to $30. I didn't want to buy a no-name piece of junk, but I didn't want to spend that much if I could avoid it.

I looked through some websites and noticed that Target was offering free shipping on any order. They had a Belkin charger for $13 but it was sold out online. I could order it to pick up at a store but the one closest to us didn't have them in stock, so I chose the store in Somerville near Union Square since I could get there on my own without too much difficulty.

When I went to the store yesterday I needed to get a couple of other things, and before going to pay I happened to pass the area with iPhone accessories. I was very surprised to see that the item I ordered was priced at $34.99. I'd already paid for mine online and it was being held for me at customer service, but if I'd just decided to go to the store without looking online first, I never would have known about the lower price.

It's surprising that this far into the life of the internet and the maturity of e-commerce this kind of pricing disparity still comes up as often as it does. You should never assume that in-store prices and online prices will match, and you also can't assume that one will consistently be lower than the other.

Black Thursday?

Here it is Halloween, and I'm going to talk about Black Friday. Again. By now you've probably heard that Macy's is planning to open its stores at 6 pm on Thanksgiving, and that yesterday Kohl's announced that their stores will be opening at the same time, and staying open straight through until 10 pm Friday night.

Gee, if that's the case then why close at all? Why not just be open 24/7 all the way through Christmas Eve? Well, there's a Kohl's store in my city, and I just read that the company petitioned the city council for permission to remain open around the clock on up to ten days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (I don't yet know if the city council granted permission.)

I'm here to encourage you to avoid this nonsense. Instead, consider shopping at stores that have enough respect for their employees that they choose to remain closed on Thanksgiving. You may not think spending a holiday with your family is ideal, but thousands of retail workers would like to do so. Nordstrom has been a longstanding adherent to not opening on Thanksgiving, and they are joined by Saks Fifth Avenue, Costco, Marshalls and TJ Maxx, and Dillard's.

I don't expect a reversal of recent Black Friday creep, but you can at least make an effort to support those retailers that are trying to hold the line on this foolishness. At least here in Massachusetts we have things called "blue laws," a vestige of our Puritan founders, that prevent stores from being open on Thanksgiving at all. So that's something.

Last Minute Treats

Forgetting about, and then putting off, buying Halloween candy ended up paying off: almost everything at CVS was $1.88 a bag, and they still had a decent selection.

Ones That Got Away

I have an unfortunate tendency to stumble across items of clothing or footwear that I like that are no longer available in my size. Part of this is the result of not having mainstream tastes, and part is just bad timing.

These Converse sneakers are the latest example. They're part of the long-running Jack Purcell line, which reaches back to the 1930s and is one of the plainest, simplest, most classic and tasteful canvas sneakers you can buy (see also: the Vans Authentic). The "Jack" is not as well-known as its big brother the Chuck Taylor All-Star, but people who know shoes know that All-Stars are notoriously uncomfortable, and their thick rubber soles make them heavy on the feet. So for many people "Chucks" are a phase to be grown out of, and often the next step is a pair of Jack Purcells.

The standard Jack Purcell is made of canvas, but these are different: this model is part of what I suppose someone in Converse's marketing department would call an "elevated" line, rendering their classic styles in nicer materials and special colorways. This shoe is leather, and everything is monochromatic, including the "smile" on the rubber toe cap that is usually navy blue and the brand tag on the heel. These nicer models get a cork footbed, which is great for comfort. Also, Jack Purcells don't usually have gum soles, and I think they look great on this shoe.

The color is called "egret" but I call it off-white or cream; it's also available in "french roast" and navy, both with the off-white trim, but this is by far the best-looking. The standard Jack Purcell is offered in leather in white or black, but it lacks the pizazz of this version. Also, I just think off-white sneakers look better than bright white ones.

For weeks these have been taunting me from Converse's website, available only in men's size 7. Generally I'm glad I don't have small feet, but small sizes tend to sell in smaller numbers and it can be easier to find unusual shoe styles in such sizes. The 11.5 was available for a while, but I know how these fit and they would be too big for me. Recently scattered sizes have begun to reappear in the various colors; I don't think Converse is going to produce another full run of this shoe (which would be ideal), but just as of this morning the size 12 is again available, so I'm not giving up hope yet on finding a pair in my size.

Summer Shoes

In the summer I like wearing simple canvas or leather sneakers, but sometimes one needs other shoes. I like the general look of boat shoes, but one thing I don't like, that almost all of them have, is the white soles. Once in a while you'll see a pair with black or dark brown soles, but ideally I'd prefer something more neutral.

A few years back J. Crew offered these Sperry Top-Siders with three sets of eyelets instead of two (which I also prefer) and tan soles, in a very nice medium brown leather (the color shows more accurately in the picture below).

When they hit the sale section most sizes were gone. I was on a waiting list but my order was eventually canceled; months later they abruptly reappeared in my size and actually shipped after I ordered them (most J. Crew online shoppers are probably familiar with phantom orders). I haven't even worn them all that much, but that's okay because they'll stay nice-looking longer.

Hideous Shoes Unit: Clearance Edition

I was poking through the sale section of the Urban Outfitters website in the hope of finding some interesting Vans when I came across these two offerings. I think it's clear why they are on clearance: because no one would want them.

You could still get a month or two of use out of these Sperry Top-Siders in a back-to-front ombre fade design. These aren't leather but canvas, and they're marked down from $85 to $60.

These Florsheim saddle shoes (it doesn't say so, but they must be from the Duckie Brown collection) are a much more advanced style move, so you'd better have your game in order. No reviews yet? Guess you'll have to be the trailblazer. Originally $335, now only $100—that's 70% off! Only sizes 8 and 9 are left, though. Really?

New Clothing Shouldn't Smell Weird

I just realized I never relayed this weird incident: I've been trying not to buy things, but a couple of months ago I found something I've been after for a long time: a dark gray chambray shirt that's not a work shirt but styled like a casual shirt with a button-down collar and a single pocket. It was at Old Navy and was only $16, so I bought it online, along with another item from Gap.

When the shirt arrived, I immediately noticed it had a weird smell, not necessarily a bad smell, but something you shouldn't smell from a new garment. It was a chemical smell, or possibly petroleum-based; I could never pin it down definitively. The Mrs. said to her it smelled like mildew, but my nose wasn't getting that, and there was no visible evidence to support either conclusion. I ran it through the wash and hung it up to dry. I went downstairs the next day to get it, and the smell was still there, so a couple of days later I washed it again with no change.

I left it hanging in the basement for a while and periodically checked it, but the smell remained. I thought perhaps our scent-free detergent was not strong enough to eradicate the smell, so a couple of weeks later I took a walk to a nearby laundromat and bought a single-load package of Tide from the vending machine. Tide's scent is so strong I figured it could take care of anything. Same process, same result: as the Tide smell faded away, I could tell the original smell was still there, though it did seem like it may have been a little less noticeable.

I had used only about half of the Tide, so I ran more water in the washing machine, added the detergent, and let the shirt soak for several hours before running another wash cycle. When I hung it up all I could smell was Tide. I stayed away from it for a couple of days, but by then the Tide had faded away again, and there was no change in the shirt's smell. I reasoned that it had to be a component of the dye, or some other aspect of the production process.

This was much more effort than I had ever had to make to remove a smell from clothing, and I decided I had done enough. As much as I wanted to keep the shirt, I had no choice but to return it. Curiously, it had disappeared from the Old Navy site around the time my order arrived, so I was unable to return it for an exchange. At the store a clerk checked the inventory and found two in the same size, but in New York state somewhere. It wasn't worth it to me to pursue another one. I think I just wasn't meant to have that particular shirt, and so the search continues...

Monday, 7/14: After I got a comment on this post, I realized that I had left out part of the story. Two people suggested soaking the shirt in a baking soda and water mixture, so after all the washings did not help, I did soak the shirt, but unfortunately that effort did not help either.

Finding the Grind

A few months ago I had to replace my coffee maker, which also necessitated getting a new, separate coffee grinder. It took only a short while to decide which brewer I wanted, but choosing the grinder took a couple of weeks. Often with household products that we use regularly, it takes a couple of months of daily use to fully know how satisfied we are with them, so this seemed like a good time to evaluate the purchases.

It was easy to narrow down which coffee makers to consider since I require one that uses cone filters. These produce better coffee than the more mass-market kind that use basket filters. (Sorry, Mom.) This time around, I also opted for a machine with an insulated stainless steel pot. It keeps the coffee hot enough for a couple of hours, without the need for a heating element in the unit's base. This probably saves a few cents a month in electricity use, but more importantly the coffee tastes better when it's not being "cooked" for two hours after brewing.

I knew I wanted a burr-style grinder, but what I didn't know until I started comparing models is that there are two types of burr grinders. My dearly departed Krups all-in-one unit had the lesser kind, and while my enjoyment of the coffee it made wouldn't have changed had I been aware of this difference earlier, once I did know the idea was stuck in my brain, and I had to get a conical burr grinder this time.

I read a lot of reviews and gradually narrowed down the units I was considering. Anyone who has read online product reviews knows that people are much more likely to post a review if they have something negative to say, and it's also commonly known that many positive reviews are in fact barely disguised shilling paid for by manufacturers, so all reviews have to be weighed accordingly. (It's also possible to spend an absolutely silly amount of money on a coffee grinder; there are units that perform on par with ones intended for commercial use, and they are priced accordingly.)

Complaints about coffee grinders tend to focus on one aspect of their performance, such as "too noisy" or "makes a big mess of ground coffee." These are not necessarily reflective of performance as much as they are of user expectations. Another common one is "does not grind fine enough for espresso." That's a valid concern, but I'm not making espresso so it doesn't matter to me. I was more concerned about things like "broke after two months; replacement unit broke after three months."

Eventually I landed on the line of grinders by Capresso. I was not familiar with the brand when I started, but their products seemed to have far fewer negative reviews and many positive reviews that read as genuine to me. I felt like in this instance it would be worth it to spend a bit more, and since I was using gift money I was inclined to spend more anyway. I was still somewhat disappointed that the model with the stainless-steel housing was about $40 more than an otherwise identical unit with a plastic housing, but I concluded that the machine's inner workings were more important than its "skin." (Some websites confuse these models, since they look very similar.)

The grinder has performed flawlessly since I got it. It is a bit quieter than my previous one, which was not a major concern for me but is still appreciated. It even handles beans that are somewhat oily, which used to cause problems in my old unit. Emptying the remaining grounds from the chute is a bit messy, but I quickly learned that catching them in a plate or bowl is much easier than trying to shake them into the small plastic bin that comes with the unit.