Free At Last, Free At Last! Great God Almighty, Free At Last!

Yea, verily! I have kicked another one of my corporate overlords to the curb!  Last year, I ushered Wells Fargo to the door after their abysmal customer service, and their ridiculous service charges were bleeding my checking account dry.

An even bigger, more enduring, and ultimately more satisfying battle was with my propane company, Amerigas.  I have been an Amerigas customer for all fifteen years I have been in my home in Virginia.  This was not entirely by my design, since the 500 gallon underground propane tank attached to my home was installed by the home-builder before our arrival.

The way these things go, the tank was owned not by me, but by Amerigas.  It was installed on my property, but Amerigas had sole rights to service the tank.  That meant that Amerigas had an actual monopoly on my propane purchases.

After a while, I started to check the propane prices on the regional and national market.  I kept this information in a spreadsheet and tracked every bill.  I know that petroleum prices in general have been rising, and I have no reasonable complaint about that.  But I noticed that Amerigas was charging me a premium for my propane, usually about $0.40/gal above market price.  Considering I purchase in 500 gallon blocks, this is a sizable chuck of change.  What's more, they would be very helpful in their program to "Amerilock" me in at that exorbitant price, while competitors in town were offering much cheaper propane.

However, I was legally unable to purchase from competitors, because Amerigas owned the tank.  I was stuck with Amerigas!

Seeing this, about five years ago, I asked Amerigas to allow me to purchase my tank.  They initially said, "OK," but because I was a "good customer", they offered to drop my price for propane to below market for the rest of the year, to which I happily agreed.

This little game went on every year for three years.  I would happily call and complain, request to buy my tank, and they would lower my price to below market.  As long as I was paying below market, I figured, "Heck, I'm getting a good deal, so why switch?"

Then a couple years ago, they got nasty.  Amerigas said they were no longer allowing tank purchases, and if I wanted to remove my tank, I would have to pay heavy surcharges to close my account, would have to hire a third-party company to remove the tank myself (to which NO third-party company would agree, because since I don't own the tank, they can't take on the liability of touching an Amerigas tank), and Amerigas would actually charge me to recover the remaining propane in my tank, propane that was bought and paid for by me.  I scoffed; I gnashed my teeth; and I swore, but there was little else I could do but eat the expensive propane costs for another year, continuing on as an Amerigas customer.

Finally, this year, I talked with a neighbor who was successful in his kicking Amerigas to the curb.  I knew it could be done!  Using his advice, I called Amerigas and informed them that I would like to purchase my tank, to which they responded, "We don't do purchases."  To which I responded, "Fine.  Then we will abandon it in place.  I will fill it with sand or you can come and get it, and we will take on a new supplier."  To which they responded, "Oh, well, it looks like we can sell it to you, for a price of $750." (Which is quite reasonable, actually.)  I placed a lock on the tank (so they wouldn't fill it), and marked it as "DO NOT FILL."  The last thing I needed them doing was coming out to fill me up with 500 gallons of expensive propane as I'm trying to be rid of them.

After a couple of weeks, Amerigas finally generated an invoice for the tank, which I promptly paid.  Then I had to wait for my bill of sale to arrive.  It was this document that would allow me to prove ownership of my tank and shop my propane throughout town.  But the bill of sale wouldn't come.  The check had cleared, but no bill of sale.  After two more weeks, I finally called Amerigas and they apologetically said they'd send the bill of sale right away.

Finally, with bill of sale in hand, I owned the tank.  Hooray!!  I can call any propane company for service, and I can shop around for the best prices.  Isn't that how the free market is supposed to work?

I just got off the phone with Valley Energy, and they are offering propane today at $2.659/gal.  This sure beats Amerigas's Amerilock price of $3.49/gal!  So I pre-purchased nearly 1,000 gallons for this coming winter.  For our normal winter usage, this will be a savings of $831 for this year alone!!

SOLD!

First Day of School ... and Sick Day

Today was the first day of school.  Yay!  This is Luke's first year in Middle School, so he was pretty excited.

However, as we set out for the bus stop, no sooner than halfway to the stop, Eddie said he wasn't feeling well (and had the digestive problems to prove it), and ended up not going to school today.

The bus stop was fun... especially when Phil tried to kiss his son, Andrew, goodbye for the day.  That went over real well with Andrew!  And my boys think I'm bad for showing up in a kilt!

In the end, Luke very much enjoyed his first day at Middle School, and was pretty happy with his new teachers.  He was also jazzed to have a number of his old friends in his classes, which could have been an issue since many of his old chums were heading off to different school districts after our county got re-zoned.

For Eddie's part, he spent the day at the distillery doing sketches.  Honestly, based on these sketches, I think his time was pretty well spent too!

Happy Birthday to Me!

We had a pretty nice dinner last night, but the highlight of the evening was my Krazy for Coco cake from Pink Piggy Sweets!  If you live in the area, you have got to try her baked goods!  She even delivers!

Congrats, Eddie!

A Thief in the Distillery

Our first thief was captured on our security camera system. 

And yes, I did finish that sandwich!

Becky and Eddie at Church

One of our friends at church snapped this photo of Eddie and Becky.  Eddie is getting so old and so tall!!

Science Olympiad Gratitude

A few weeks ago, I participated as a presenter in the Mountain View Elementary School Science Olympiad. I had a station titled "Mad Scientist Laboratory" (you have to know how to market to your audience, and mine were 4th and 5th graders!), where I distilled salt water into fresh water using a rather Dr. Frankenstein-looking glass distillation apparatus. The kids loved it, and I got back lots of nice letters from them. The following letter was my favorite, and really summed up the rest.  I especially like the artwork!

Danger in Lake Cornell

Finally, our grand masterpiece from vacation!

Fun at the Bloomer Fun Fair

Last night began the Bloomer Fun Fair, so we headed over to check it out. The whole gang is up here now, Chuck and Adolfo arrived earlier this week. After visiting with Great Grandpa John, Ruth and Steve, we headed over to the fairgrounds.

For his birthday (41, can you believe it?!), Chuck received a very dashing pair of Spock ears, which he insisted on wearing at the fair.  (There were many strange looks... but we're fine with that.)

Eddie is always a sucker for a car show, and picked out a nice little GM hybrid for his "first car."  Apparently, he thought I was buying.

What is a county fair without chickens?  I particularly like this one, the Rick James of chickens.

Luke was awestruck by the rides, so Uncle Chuck ponied up $25 for a sheet of tickets.

The first ride was "The Zipper".  Chuck agreed to ride with Luke, while the rest of us bravely watched from the ground.

As the ride started, Chuck and Luke were all "whoo-hoo-ing" themselves silly and rocking their cage madly.  But then, Luke said, halfway through the ride, Chuck stopped "whoo-hoo-ing" and started to just breath very deeply.  Chuck was silent the rest of the ride.  The Zipper couldn't end soon enough for him at this point.

It's a brave face, but he really wanted to hurl.

The next ride was the UFO.  This time, Becky and Adolfo agreed to be victims for this ride with Luke.

And the after effects of the ride... of course, Luke was fine.  Maybe you can't say the same for the rest of the crew, but I think they had fun!

Adolfo and Chuck finally recovered.  Looking very dapper here.

Our last ride was the Ferris Wheel.  I figured this was one I could handle, so Eddie and I went up the wheel.  We got some nice photos from the top, but Eddie yelled at me every time I tipped the cart over craning to get a photo.

Finally, here is a video that Luke took from the bottom of the Ferris Wheel.

Indian Pipe

Grandpa has tons of these growing in his yard. The Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora) is an interesting plant. It is indeed a plant, not a fungus. It grows not by photosynthesis, but rather, as a parasite feeding on fungi. (Of which there are plenty up here; it's been a very wet summer in Wisconsin.)

Chuck Turns 41

What an OLD man! Not young, like me.

Tubing on the Lake

Fun, fun, fun! Eddie, Luke, Adolfo and I enjoy tubing on the lake while Becky and Grandpa drive the boat.

Kathleen's Photos

We finally figured out how to download Kathleen's photos from her camera, and what a bonanza we got!  These first photos are from October 2009, when she visited us in Virginia for Luke's birthday party.

The rest of these photos are from the visit up here in Wisconsin this week with the boys.