Photo of the day...

Photo of the day...  This is the town of Sakrisoy, in the Lofoten Islands of Norway.  The photographer is Pawel Klarecki.  I'd sure love to see this in person!

Video of the day...

Video of the day...  Via my pistol-packing, hysterically laughing mama – who isn't sure it's safe for her to take credit for referring this to me :)

Excellent customer service alert!

Excellent customer service alert!  Last year we bought two products from Enclume for the fireplace in our house: a fireplace tool set and a log rack.  Both were beautifully made, sturdy, and attractive.  Furthermore, they were well-packed and easy to assemble.  So when the time came a month or so ago to buy accessories for my new office's wood stove, I bought the same two again.  This time, however, the fireplace tools were missing one of the six very special decorative button-head screws that hold it all together.

One stupid screw.  This would be a great test of customer service.

I called their number, easily found on documentation that came with the product.  A very pleasant woman picked up on the second ring.  Not “Press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish...” or “Press 1 for new orders, 2 for payments...”.  Nope.  A real person, and nice to boot.  She asked what I needed – and proceeded right then and there to work with me to identify the right part and take my shipping information.  She assured me that the part would go out in that day's mail (that was Monday).  Well, yesterday the part showed up as promised.  The right part.

Awesome customer service, Enclume!  Thank you, from a happy customer...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  I'm sitting in my “new” office, contemplating the enormity of the remaining work to do here :)  I'm going to do a bit of unpacking first, just so I can function in my office – the shredder needs to be plugged in, some paperwork needs to be found, etc.  That's the easy stuff.  Probably the next thing I'm going to do is to mount all the acoustic panels that are now just sitting on the floor, yet making my office sound great (I've got Aretha Franklin cranking with Respect right now).  Sometimes it sucks to think mathematically: I have a total of 14 panels to mount, each with four Z-clips, each of them with four screws – and I can't help but figure that that means 112 careful measurements, 112 holes, 112 plastic inserts, and 224 screws to drive.  Yikes!

One thing that's going to take me a while to get used to is walking outside to go to my office.  For over two years now, going to the office has meant a short walk upstairs.  Now it means getting my shoes on, walking 150' or so outside, and then up a long flight of stairs (the second floor is 14' above ground level) to my office.  It felt pretty weird making that walk this morning.  Debbie's having mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, she's got me and my mess out of the house.  On the other hand, now she can't just holler at me when she needs something :) 

First thing I did this morning was to refill the bird feeders.  Yesterday afternoon I watched a woodpecker open the suet feeder (which was nearly empty) and dump the remaining contents on the ground.  Between the woodpecker and the magpies, that remainder didn't last long :)  I filled that this morning with my patented mixture of lard and peanut butter; the woodpecker will be back soon.  Every other feeder was also empty, or nearly so.  The birds were hungry yesterday :)  I suspect many bird parents are feeding many bird babies...

And now I stagger off to work...